With some exceptions Indian representatives who come here speak in two voices. If the subject of discussion is Kashmir they assert quite unhesitatingly that the West, particularly the British Government, has always been prejudiced against us. If the subject is economic and military assistance they go to great lengths in hiding their sense of disappointment which they unavoidably often experience. Some of them react testily if someone has the temerity to ask whether they are exploring the possibilities of similar assistance elsewhere.
This divided attitude is not wholly the product of the Chinese aggression last year though admittedly it has been aggravated by the belated discovery that the dragon breathing fire down our necks was not indulging in some innocent pranks. The plain fact is that many of India’s representatives coming to this part of the world or resident here have for years treated the policy of non-alignment as little more than a matter of form which they have had to observe to please the Prime Minister in New Delhi. In the wake of the Chinese attack even this pretence was dropped. No wonder most commentators and even governments in the West have regarded non-alignment as a personal idiosyncrasy of that “complex character” known as Jawaharlal Nehru.
Hostility
Those of the Indian representatives who in the past paid more than lip service to the policy of non-alignment on the other hand behaved as if it was synonymous with hostility to the West. To them Kashmir alone seemed to matter. Consciously or unconsciously Mr Krishna Menon and some of the officials who found that imitating him was a profitable proposition helped to create here the impression that anyone who believed in the policy of non-alignment was a leftist. These Indian spokesmen also assumed the role of being the guardians of world peace. This irked because of the suggestion, often implicit and sometimes quite explicitly stated, that the West was belligerent and the Soviet bloc peace-loving.
Western commentators and even officials are not to blame if they conveniently divided the Indian leaders into two categories, the rightists and the leftists, the former being friendly and the latter hostile with no one to hold the balance. Naturally when Mr Menon was compelled to resign and Mr Nehru’s authority considerably shaken because of military failures it was assumed that the policy of non-alignment was dead. All that remained to be done was to give it a quiet and decent burial. There is genuine surprise that the “corpse” is beginning to stir back to life even if slowly under the pressure of independent public opinion.
The failure of the West either to understand or accept the true rationale of the policy of non-alignment can easily be explained. To some extent it has just been a question of chronology. The Soviet Government under the leadership of Mr Khrushchev was quicker to accept the policy of non-alignment than any western government. It was, therefore, automatically assumed here that non-aligned governments were the dupes and even instruments of Soviet expansionism. The fact that communism had not made any significant headway in any non-aligned country was altogether and all too easily covered up by the passionate feeling that the lapse of overt western political and military influence would mean power vacuum which the Soviet Union would fill. On this question at least the natural instinct for domination though clothed in the garb of paternalism had the better of rational understanding of the new situation.
Rationale
Our own failure to appreciate the true rationale of our own policy is the more disturbing part of the story. We fail to grasp what discerning foreign observers grasped some time ago that the policy of non-alignment was a natural corollary to the achievement of independence. It was an assertion of the right of equality on behalf of, if not by, the people of India. The cold war had not even broken out into the open when this policy was first enunciated. After Mr Khrushchev’s visit to India and the Soviet offer of economic assistance it was vulgarised to an unbelievable extent. It was made to appear as if the policy was designed solely with the purpose of seeking aid from both blocs. Soviet aid was the result not the basis of the policy and so were the Soviet vetoes on Kashmir in the Security Council.
There are many reasons for this failure on our part, one of the most important being the self-cultivated and much trumpeted illusion that we share the cultural heritage of the West. It is pitiable that some of us should base this claim on such a tenuous basis as the fact of having been educated in England or brought up by an English nanny. Equally important is the failure of communication between Mr Nehru who formulated and evolved the policy of non-alignment and those he chose to represent him abroad.
In the wake of the Chinese invasion it was difficult to find an Indian diplomat in these parts who was not convinced that the policy of non-alignment has been an unmitigated failure and the earlier it was discarded the better. Apparently the connection between the Sino-Soviet rift and their relations with India had altogether escaped them. That was not all. Some of them were not even dimly aware of any connection between New Delhi’s policy in the border states of Nepal, Bhutan and Sikkim and the extension of effective administration for the first time in history up to McMahon Line on the one hand and the China policy on the other. Some of them were not even aware that since 1951 the Dalai Lama’s treasures were in Sikkim and he took them back in 1959.
From the extremely pro-western attitude of “we now know who are our true friends” they quickly moved to the other extreme of petulance when they discovered to their discomfiture that along with military aid came the pressure to settle the Kashmir issue more or less on Pakistan’s terms which in plain words was an invitation to India to destroy secularism and attract chaos. The arrival of a Chinese trade delegation was regarded as typical of the perfidious Albion. As if unaware of the narrow limits within which Anglo-Chinese trade could develop in view of China’s acute shortage of foreign exchange, approaches were made to the British Government not to sell to China Britannia planes which no one else wanted. The Indian High Commission here, apparently for no fault of its own, was even unable to contradict erroneous reports that appeared in both British and American papers that India had offered to divide the Kashmir valley.
Extremes
It is only too obvious that we should stop fluctuating between the extremes of pro-westernism and anti-westernism. From what one observes here a stable and dignified attitude is to a large extent dependent on a proper definition of the policy of non-alignment, for one thing, it should be taken out of the context of the problem of peace. It is nearly a decade since India was able to play a meaningful role first in Korea and then in Indo-China as far as peace is concerned. Now both America and Russia have decided to deal directly with one another and even nations like Britain are irrelevant in the role of peace-makers. As one commentator noted in the telegraph last Sunday, Britain’s presence at the current nuclear test ban talks in Moscow was the result of Lord Rutherford’s work at the Cavendish Laboratory in the ’thirties and that at the very top there was space only for President Kennedy and Mr Khrushchev. The role of intermediaries between the super powers is about played out. India should stay non-aligned not because it serves the cause of peace but because it serves her own interests.
On the Kashmir issue it is plainly ungenerous to accuse the West of prejudice against India and of siding with Pakistan not only because of the military alliances but also because of their belief that she was in the right. This is the view of outsiders who are not involved in the grim reality of Indian politics. The same is true of those who have espoused the cause of the Nagas. If our policy did not fluctuate between two extremes the West would neither find it possible to convince itself that India was amenable to pressure nor that she was being intransigent. And if we do not sit in judgment over others on questions of war and peace we might find the West showing better appreciation of our stand.
The Times of India, 27 July 1963