Since the treaty with the Soviet Union is an accomplished fact, it is pointless to debate whether India should have gone in for it or not. Instead, the discussion should more fruitfully centre on how best New Delhi can turn the pact to its advantage.
One point is fairly obvious. If the Government of India was earlier deterred from extending all-out support to the Mukti Bahini by fear of war with Pakistan, acting in collaboration with China, it can now go ahead without any such apprehension. Peking and Islamabad will not provoke an armed conflict with this country if it assists the freedom fighters in East Bengal in a big way.
It is possible that the Soviet Union itself will advise India to act with restraint. But New Delhi can easily ignore such advice because the Russians cannot deny that the presence of over eight million refugees places an intolerable strain on this country’s social, economic and political structure and that there is not the slightest possibility of a negotiated settlement between the military regime in Islamabad and the elected representatives of the people of Bangla Desh.
Another point is not equally obvious. While New Delhi need not throw away an opportunity, if it occurs, of normalising relations with Peking, it need not bend over backwards to do so. Indeed if India is patient, it may well discover that in the changed situation it will be possible for it to deal with China on the basis of genuine equality and self-respect for the first time.
No Equality
This proposition is open to misinterpretation. But a dispassionate examination of facts will show that New Delhi has never in the past been in a position to deal with Peking on a footing of equality. Even in the early ’fifties when China was having difficulties with its Soviet ally on the one hand and with the United States on the other, it did not take the initiative to befriend India. It was New Delhi which wooed Peking and that, too, on the basis of the latter’s own terms. It was asked first to acquiesce in China’s occupation of Tibet and then to recognise its sovereignty over that land before it even acknowledged that New Delhi was friendly towards it.
There was virtually no quid pro quo on the part of Peking in return for New Delhi’s recognition of its claims over Tibet and Formosa. Mr. Chou En-lai, it is true, told Mr. Nehru in 1954 that China accepted India’s special relations with Nepal, Bhutan and Sikkim. But he not only refused to recognise Indian claims to Kashmir but also soon took steps to undermine its influence in Nepal. He also started courting Pakistan soon after the Bandung conference in February 1955. He assured it that he appreciated the reasons behind its adherence to the West-sponsored defence alliances and that there was no conflict of interest between it and his country.
The reasons for India’s acquiescence in this one-sided friendship are not far to seek. Mr. Nehru was pre-occupied with the threat of US hegemony, specially after its decision to arm Pakistan became known towards the end of 1953. He was aware that the very existence of Pakistan loaded the dice heavily against India in its dealings not only with China but almost the entire world. But there was nothing he could do about it once Washington openly rejected his plea that it should not upset the power balance in the sub-continent.
The situation has been transformed by the complete alienation of the East Bengali people from their West Pakistani rulers and the distinct possibility that their freedom struggle will succeed in the none too distant future. In plain terms, this means that in the new framework New Delhi should think of normalising its relations with Peking on an altogether different footing.
Fantastic
It is fantastic that a country which has absorbed Sinkiang and Tibet and lays claim to Outer Mongolia and vast stretches of Soviet territory just because these areas were once ruled from Peiping, often by non-Han emperors, should accuse India of chauvinism and expansionism simply because it wants to ensure that the people of East Bengal are not subjected to the worst form of tyranny and exploitation. Apparently the Chinese fear that a dramatic change, favourable to India, will have occurred in the power balance in the sub-continent once an independent Bangla Desh comes into existence.
It can be argued that Peking would have been more willing to adjust itself to the new reality in the sub-continent if New Delhi had not gone in for a formal treaty with Moscow and thereby raised the spectre of an Indo-Soviet conspiracy. Mr. Chou En- lai’s somewhat ambivalent promise of support to General Yahya Khan and refusal to condemn the Awami League and the Mukti Bahini in clear terms can be cited as evidence to show that he was reappraising his country’s policy towards India. The pact must increase rather than diminish the compulsion for him to do so.
The Chinese have been at pains to emphasise two points since the late ’fifties when their relations with both the Soviet Union and India began to deteriorate and a new understanding between Moscow and New Delhi began to grow. First, the defence of Sinkiang and Tibet are inextricably inter-linked. Secondly, Russia is determined to push them out of Sinkiang and India has not given up its “designs” on Tibet.
It does not necessarily follow that they would wish to take on both countries. In the late ’fifties and early ’sixties they brought enormous pressure to bear on Moscow to compel it to end its assistance to New Delhi in an obvious bid to prevent the rise of what they regarded even then as an Indo-Soviet front against them. That they had also a larger objective – prevention of a Russia-American detente – in view does not mean that the disruption of Indo-Soviet friendship did not figure fairly high on their list of priorities. Even a casual perusal of their propaganda material of that period should clinch the issue.
Since they are no longer operating within the framework of the world communist movement and cannot any longer hope to influence Soviet policy on the strength of ideological affinity, it is at least logical that they should try first to ensure that India does not agree to a widening of the scope of the treaty with Russia and in course of time to befriend this country. They cannot but be haunted by the fear that if Soviet power comes to be established in the Indian Ocean and the Himalayas, India may reopen the question of Tibet.
The Chinese clearly feel as insecure in Tibet as in Sinkiang. Otherwise, the newly elected chief of the Tibetan Communist Party, Mr. Jen Jung, would not have found it necessary to say “We (as instructed by Chairman Mao Tse-tung) must foster the concept of constant preparedness, step up the work of building the frontier politically, heighten our vigilance against all the conspiratorial activities of imperialism, social imperialism and Indian expansionism” and to add that Tibet was still threatened by Russia, India and the “Dalai- Panchen traitorous clique.”
It is also not without some significance that the Chinese should have abandoned their decision to put it on record that they regard the Bangla Desh issue to be product of an Indo-Soviet plot against Pakistan (this has been disclosed by Mr. James Reston, of The New York Times in his chat with correspondents in Hong Kong on his way back home from China) and that they advised Mr. Reston not to publish what Mr. Chou En-lai said to him on this question in a five-hour long interview. One possible interpretation is that they have found discretion the better part of valour because they wish to keep their options open.
Except for a brief period in the wake of the Chinese aggression in 1962, the Government and people of India have had the good sense not to accept the US view that Peking is hell-bent on territorial expansion and that it constitutes the greatest threat to international peace, stability and order. They need not now endorse the Soviet propaganda line that the present Chinese regime is a variant of fascism. But India has not only the right but, in the new context, also the ability to insist that China accept and respect its primacy in the sub-continent. Since there can be no genuine understanding and friendship between the two countries except on this basis, it is only proper that New Delhi should spell it out. This incidentally is true about the United States as well, irrespective of the extent of the economic aid it gives to this country.
Indian diplomacy has generally been escapist in its approach because New Delhi has invariably been reluctant, if not totally unwilling, to state what its national interests are and bargain with other countries on that basis. In fact, it has continued to indulge in platitudes like peace, friendship, anti-imperialism, coexistence and so on. This has proved unproductive in the past and can prove disastrous in future. In the case of China, there is no reason at all why India should resort to vague platitudes. Its policy-makers can learn much from Chairman Mao Tse-tung and Mr. Chou En-lai. They did not compromise their national interests when they were Russia’s allies and they are not willing to do so now when they are keen on rapprochement with the United States.
The Times of India 1 September 1971