In less than a fortnight the British attitude towards India’s struggle against China’s massive premeditated and unprovoked aggression has undergone a remarkable change. Two weeks ago the British government was by and large neutral even though on India’s side. Now short of declaring war on China, there is very little that it would be unwilling to do to help India in this hour of her need. Mr. Nehru can virtually fix the terms on which he wants this assistance. The choice is his from outright grant of arms to a lend-lease programme.
What is even more heartening is the measure of popular support to the government in this policy of unqualified assistance to India to meet the Chinese peril. The Labour party is at least as anxious to rush arms to India as the government. It was the Labour shadow Foreign Secretary, Mr. Harold Wilson, who suggested last Wednesday that Britain should offer India arms on lend-lease basis. India could return them once she had done with them, he said. The Lord Privy Seal, Mr. Edward Heath, responded immediately by making it clear that India had only to be agreeable to accept the offer and it would be made. A lend-lease programme would not compromise India’s neutrality. A large scale purchase of arms will, it is common view here, cripple India’s economy which in turn would weaken her defence efforts by promoting chances for internal disruption.
Volunteers
These facts speak for themselves. What may not be so well known in India is the fact that ordinary people in this country feel concerned over her security. India House has been receiving offers of service in our armed forces from British citizens. I am told that a large number of ex-pilots and ex-army officers are ready to volunteer for service in India.
Only a confirmed cynic can interpret this expression of goodwill and support for India here in terms of the cold war. In fact, on that issue there persists a considerable measure-of confusion. There is no question that in spite of misunderstandings particularly in the past few years, there has existed and survived here a vast reservoir of goodwill for India. The reasons are manifold. India’s herculean efforts to fight poverty without sacrificing democratic institutions have won the admiration of even the worst critics. Past connections and her membership of the Commonwealth have played an equally important role in sustaining goodwill for India. “Poor darlings” – this phrase used by General Gracey, formerly of the Indian Army, to describe us will be remembered here a long time.
Mr. Macmillan put Indo-British relations in correct perspective when he said last Tuesday: “We have not always agreed but we have always had a deep respect for each other’s point of view. If, carrying as we do the heavy burden of defence, we are often impatient with what is called neutralism or non-alignment, we must realise how deeply based in Indian philosophy are some of these concepts”.
Not all the commentators here have shown the same breadth of vision. Some of them have obviously found it difficult to resist the temptation of indulging in the “we-told-you-so” attitude. The Economist last week warned against such an attitude. The warning was not heeded by everyone. On Thursday, The Guardian noted that “journalists and politicians in Britain and elsewhere have made the most of their opportunity to tell Mr. Nehru ‘we told you so’. They have naturally taken as their text his own admission that India has been ‘out of touch with reality in the modern world and lived in an artificial atmosphere of our own creation’”.
Theories
In a sense these critics are justified, but from a larger viewpoint, in a strictly limited sense. They did not say that communism was aggressive and expansionist. They also supported the establishment of SEATO and CENTO to contain communist expansion in our part of the world. But that was many years ago and since then they have been busy expanding theories of conflict of interests and approach between Moscow and Peking. They have not abandoned these theories. That would not matter much if the British and other western governments did not accept the view that the communist world was no longer a monolith directed from one headquarter. As far as I have been able to discover, no expert in Whitehall believes that China is acting in concert with the Soviet Union in undertaking the present massive invasion of India.
The history of Sino-Soviet differences goes back at least to the 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist party in February 1956 when Mr. Khrushchev made his famous denunciation of Stalin. Since then, Moscow and Peking have been at odds with each other over issues ranging from the interpretation of Leninism to Soviet assistance to newly independent countries, particularly India. Most western, including British, experts repeatedly said that the Soviet Union was interested in stopping the expansion of Chinese power in South and South-East Asia and they explained the Soviet Union’s “reasonable attitude” to the solution of the Laotian problem in that light. Surely then, neutral India must have occupied a significant place in Russian calculations?
Officials and commentators here, as in India, have rested content with the observation that this assessment has proved wrong, for the time being in any case. Russia has not only endorsed the Chinese position regarding the nature of the frontier dispute with India by calling the McMahon Line illegal, but withdrawn its offer to sell to India one squadron of MIG-21s. It is also unlikely that the British Communist party would have openly lined itself behind the Chinese without the connivance if not approval of at least an important faction in Soviet leadership. There is no satisfactory explanation here of this shift in Soviet policy. Whitehall is as baffled as the commentators. Mr. Walter Lippmann has, however, drawn drastic conclusions.
According to Mr. Lippmann, Cuba and the Sino-Indian conflict are related, though not in the same sense in which Mr. Macmillan has been seeing them. Whether by coincidence or calculation, communism was on the move in a big way last week, Mr. Macmillan said last Tuesday. Mr. Lippmann says: “In Cuba, the Soviet Union has had to abandon an effort to extend its power in the Americas; in the Sino-Indian conflict it is confronted with a distinct and dramatic loss of influence in the heart of Asia.”
The key sentences in his article are: “The Chinese have compelled the Russians to recognise that Peking, and not Moscow any longer, is dominant in Asia.” “It is a peril not only to the political influence of Moscow, but also to the vital interests of Russia from the Urals to the Pacific.” Finally, “there is some ground for thinking that we may be nearer than we thought possible or likely a fortnight ago to the day when Russia will recognise that she is primarily a European power and that her security and the protection of her vital interests must be sought in the West.”
This assessment clearly assumes a major shift in favour of China in the struggle for supremacy inside the communist world. This necessitates an explanation why and how this shift in power relations between Moscow and Peking has taken place. No explanation is available so far. The Kremlinologists as well as the Sinologists have yet to speak. In Whitehall, meanwhile, there has been speculation on pressures under which Mr. Khrushchev might have made the gamble in Cuba. The speculation, if valid, has clear bearings on the Sino-Soviet relations.
Pressures
Speaking from a prepared brief in the House of Commons, the Lord Privy Seal, Mr. Edward Heath, said on Wednesday: “What were the pressures operating on Mr. Khrushchev when he took the decision to build the missile bases? Is there still a group operating which was opposed to the concept of peaceful co-existence which Mr. Khrushchev has so frequently and so forcefully put forward? Is there perhaps a remnant of the anti-party group, or a Stalinist group, or a group among the leaders of the armed forces who brought pressure to bear in order that the venture should be carried out? That we cannot tell”.
That there may be some substance in this speculation cannot be ruled out. China is supporting Dr. Castro in his intransigence. In Moscow, Pravda has shown peculiar reluctance to provide authoritative commentary on the Cuban developments which has been interpreted by Mr. Victor Zorza of The Guardian to mean that the leadership has failed to agree on what the line should be. Mr. Mikoyan, Mr. Khrushchev’s trusted lieutenant, has flown to Cuba to persuade Dr. Castro to allow the fulfilment of the Soviet Premier’s commitments to President Kennedy.
We have to wait for these developments to crystallise further before we draw any firm conclusions. For the time being, it might be some satisfaction to know that we are not alone in being confounded by the events of the last fortnight or so. Only, like the West, we should not have ignored our defences while we speculated hopefully on the prospects of peaceful co-existence. There was nothing very wrong in trying to take advantage of Sino-Soviet differences. Only that could not be our sole defence against the Chinese hordes.
The Times of India, 3 November 1962