Never has the world taken India so seriously. The fact is that India has arrived on the world stage. And for once, it is in the international press for all the right reasons. From being presented as a poverty-stricken country and as a land of snake charmers, the world media today, sees India, as a rising global giant. No more is India hyphenated with Pakistan; rather, it is seen as giving China a stiff challenge in its quest for Asian dominance. The BBC and CNN both held “Rising India” weeks early this year to celebrate the “rise” of India.
The truth is out. India is being courted like never before and how! The last 2-3 years have seen a packed diplomatic calendar for New Delhi with leaders of virtually every important country making a stop in the capital. As for the number of strategic partnerships India has sealed, you’d have to check up with the MEA, because the rate at which these partnerships are being sealed would even put the stock exchange to shame.
Often, while celebrating India’s elevated status among the comity of nations, we tend to focus only on the successes without analysing the failures. In the foreign policy domain, some defining moments include the 1954 Panchsheel agreement, the 1962 China debacle, the 1971 Bangladesh war that led to the dismemberment of Pakistan, the signing of the Indo-Soviet Treaty of Peace and Friendship the same year, the 1998 nuclear tests, the Kargil war in 1999 and most recently the Indo-US nuclear tango that seeks to end India’s nuclear apartheid. These will go in the annals of India’s diplomatic history as path breaking, possibly with major ramifications for India and the world. These are events that grabbed the headlines and are of common knowledge because of the importance attributed to them by the media and the political pundits alike.
But there are other events too, which though, did not grab the same amount of attention, are of possibly higher importance. One of these events is an incident that transpired at the Bandung Conference held in Indonesia in 1955. Prime Minister Nehru after finishing his speech sought to “introduce” his Chinese counterpart Chou En-Lai to the august gathering of leaders. This “innocent” act of Nehru, who was already a world statesman, infuriated the Chinese leadership and possibly sowed the seeds of a future rivalry between the two Asian giants.
In 1953, the United States made a sensational offer to India – it offered India a permanent seat on the UN Security Council by replacing the Republic of China (Taiwan). Shockingly, not only did Nehru reject this offer, but he pressed the United States to give the coveted seat to Mainland China. Today, at a time when India is spending a lot of diplomatic and financial effort to gain a permanent seat on the Council, one wonders if it was a prudent decision. Even if it does succeed, it is likely that it would have to forfeit the “right to veto” enjoyed by the existing five permanent members. History will probably be unkind to India’s idealistic Prime Minister for this monumental blunder that was one among the many he committed. Developments in international geopolitics are not only about what happened, but also about what could have happened. The Japanese would probably term it as “hara-kiri”. After all, which other leader would deny his country an opportunity to have an important stake in the emerging world order and instead agree to play “second-fiddle” to an expansionist neighbour that too in the name of “Asian solidarity”? Saying that Nehru was “naïve” would be an understatement.
A number of analysts have argued that it was India’s idealistic posturing at the international fora that earned it a leverage that few Third World countries could dream of. In saying so, they are partly right. At the height of the Korean War between 1950 and 1953, India was appointed as the Chairperson of the UN Non-Repatriation Committee on Korea. However India’s non-alignment credentials came under scathing criticism from the West, particularly the US and the UK when, in 1956, it chose to remain silent over the Soviet invasion of Hungary. This, particularly after the Indian condemnation of the Israeli attack on Egypt, following the nationalisation of the Suez Canal by Abdul Naseer, galled the western democracies. The duplicity over the contrasting Indian positions forced the US Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles to brand India as a “satellite state” of the Soviet Union. This deafening silence over an act of aggression by the USSR was a defining moment in India’s conduct of foreign policy because it was the beginning of the distinct “Pro-Soviet slant” in its foreign policy. Also, it was one of those rare moments, where realpolitik won over idealism and morality.
Sometimes, these defining events would not have taken place had it not been for the people behind them. India’s foreign policy in those years was largely personality-driven and had the stamp of Jawaharlal Nehru, who as India’s PM and External Affairs Minister, charted the country’s course in the choppy international waters. It would be safe to say that Nehru had by far the largest imprint on Indian diplomacy in the first decade after independence. As a popular adage goes, “Behind every successful man, there is a woman involved.” Similarly, in politics and governance, it would be true to say that “behind every leader’s success (or failure), there is an adviser involved.”
V.K.Krishna Menon was not only Nehru’s close aide but also a close friend. In effect he was Nehru’s right hand man. Menon was independent India’s first high commissioner to the UK (1947-52) and he followed it up with a stint at the UN as India’s Permanent Representative (1952-57). In 1957, Nehru named him as the Union Minister for Defence. He remains one of the most controversial men in modern Indian history. As defence minister, he was held responsible for the drubbing in the short war against China. That war sealed the political fate of a remarkable man who remains as demonised in death as in life.
A defence minister who failed to ensure the country’s defence preparedness at the time of war being called “a remarkable man”? Yes. Who else would have the distinction of having made the longest speech at the United Nations, defending his country’s national interests? Krishna Menon, as India’s envoy to the UN, made a historic 8-hour speech to the Security Council over the Kashmir issue on the 23rd of January 1957. Lambasting the “partisan” approach of some of the permanent members, especially, Britain, he said:
“It was the Government of India that came here in the first instance. The Government of India came here (to the Security Council) on 1 January 1948. It is not usual for a Government of average ability and intelligence, as mine is, to come before the Security Council and to invite its attention to the wrongs it has done. In this particular case, it has done nothing wrong, and in any case the matter is clear in itself.”
In a special edition of India Today on “100 people who shaped India” in the year 2000, Prof. Suhash Chakravarty, author of V.K.Krishna Menon and the Indian League writes, “It was amazing to watch how Menon could go on developing the subtleties of his brief for hours without consulting notes. He could be charming and conciliatory but if required he could move on to a prolonged vituperation against imperial hubris and great-power chauvinism and then switch over to an erudite philosophical and legalistic discourse.”
Adds Chakravarty, “Enthusiastically disliked by western diplomats in the UN for his perspicacity and comprehension, his mastery of diplomatic nuances and his commitment to the cause of the Third World, Menon was dubbed as "Mephistopheles in a Saville row suit", "the devil's incarnate", "the bad fairy of the UN", the "old snake charmer" and also as a diabolical combination of all "three witches of Macbeth". At times, western public opinion concluded that a divergence of opinion persisted between a suave and good-humoured Nehru and a destructive Menon.”
However, there was a total convergence of opinion between the two on one issue: China. Both men saw the need to engage China in the best possible manner and in doing so, promote Asian solidarity. This engagement led to appeasement, and soon India started playing the role of the “blinded” lover, except for the fact that this “love” was never reciprocated. Instead, Chinese leaders especially Mao and Chou were irked by this talk of Hindi-Chini bhai bhai and sought to end Nehru’s dream of an Asia with two “equal” stakeholders. And that’s how we come to what is, in my opinion the most defining moment in the chequered diplomatic history of our nation: the Sino-Indian war of 1962.
A lot has been written and said about the events leading up to the war; China’s annexation of Tibet, India granting refuge to the Dalai Lama, Chinese claims over Aksai Chin and NEFA, so on and so forth. But was this dispute as much about “territory” as about Mao’s attempt to demolish Nehru’s international stature?
The lesson of that crushing defeat, in a war masterminded by Mao Zedong continues to reverberate in New Delhi and reflects in its present day dealings with the People’s Republic of China.
In an excellent article titled, “How Mao cut India to size”, noted strategic analyst Brahma Chellaney writes, “The war was Mao's attempt to demolish India as an alternative democratic model and geopolitical rival to communist China by heaping humiliation on it when it was militarily incapable and least expected to be attacked. That aggression changed the fortunes of the two Asian giants. India, respected then as a model pluralistic state in the developing world, never fully recovered from that invasion and is still searching for a role in international affairs commensurate with its size.”
He goes on to add, “India has not yet realised that to be recognised as an important international power, it has to start behaving and acting like one. So far, it has displayed the pretence of being a great power without having the stomach and spine to be one. In contrast, China, a backward state wracked by economic calamities in 1962, has gone on to successfully assert itself as a major global power through a display of indomitable spirit and political single-mindedness. It has found a cost-effective way to take on India through proxy threats mounted via Pakistan and, to a much lesser extent, Myanmar. Quite the opposite of the international view before the 1962 debacle, few recognise India today as a strategic peer to China. While India remains prone to seduction by praise, China practises realistic, goal-oriented statecraft. Even a bigger difference is that while India desires to be loved and seeks external affirmation of its policies, China insists on no less than respect.”
One has to take a look at recent events to see how Indian diplomats and the media alike indulge in self-adulation. During the July 2005 visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Washington, much was made of the fact that this was only the third time during Mr.Bush’s presidency that a foreign leader was being given a ceremonial reception at the Rose Gardens accompanied by a state dinner and the honour to address the US Congress. For the Indian media and many of the members of India’s diplomatic corps, this signified the “emergence of the country at the global arena.”
One hopes that we shed our obsession with pomp and pageantry, as also stiff diplomatic protocols, and instead focus on substance. As a truly emerging power, India will have to shoulder the responsibilities that come with this power. As a line from Spiderman goes, “With great power comes great responsibility.” And that holds true for India as well. It will have to stop being a “free-rider” in the international community, and will soon have to make stark choices. While making these choices, it will have to shed its “victimitis” syndrome.
On a personal note, this article was an attempt by me to analyse some cataclysmic moments vis-à-vis India’s conduct of its external relations. The Indian public remains woefully ignorant of foreign affairs, and there’s an urgent need for a debate on matters of national security, be it the Indo-US nuclear deal, Indo-Pak negotiations over Siachen and over the larger Kashmir issue as well as, on India’s stand on international issues such as Palestine, Iran, nuclear disarmament etc. The public must be educated on such matters and must be a part of the policy-making process even if it’s at the consensus-building level.
Lastly, we need to take a close look at our failures, the biggest of which was the 1962 China war. Successive Indian governments, irrespective of party affiliations have done their best to conceal the contents of the “Henderson Brooks” report which is a detailed report analysing the causes of India’s defeat. The report is said to be openly critical of the Indian political and military structure of the time, as well as of the execution of operations. It is high time that the Indian government declassifies this report. It is the people’s right to know the reason behind the crippling defeat inflicted by China on us. That would go a long way in healing the scars of Mao’s India war that for decades tormented the Indian psyche.
