A Tryst with Destiny IIIB

Nehru’s Foreign Policy Legacy

Rohan Rajesh

Thomas, that was a real nice declaration
Welcome to the present, we’re running a real nation
— Hamilton

For those in power, one’s values are often put aside for the strategic interests of the nation. As we saw in the last article, Nehru had to reconcile the nonviolent legacy of the Indian Independence Movement with the messy process of Indian integration, decolonization, and the Cold War. Nehru handled many of these issues with a deft touch. Nehru and his Home Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel were instrumental in integrating the princely states and the other remaining colonial territories by applying both diplomacy and military force where necessary. However, Nehru’s idealism and his calls for Asian unity and non-alignment spectacularly failed when it came to defending India’s northern Himalayan border. In this article, the last of the series, I will describe the process that led to Nehru’s greatest failure – the infamous 1962 war with China.

The Root Cause of Most Conflicts – British Maps

India’s troubled relations with China stem from, as usual, British mapmaking. When the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir agreed to British suzerainty, British mapmakers determined that it was necessary to delineate the boundaries of all of its possessions. One of the maps produced by the British included 15,000 square miles of remote, barren territory between the Karakorum Mountains and the Kunlun Mountains within the borders of Jammu and Kashmir – Aksai Chin. The Qing Empire (which controlled China, Tibet, and Xinjiang at the time) was not concerned about the map since the territory was so remote and there were significant issues in China proper. 

When the Qing Empire collapsed in 1912, Tibet gained de facto independence. British officials met with representatives of Tibet and the Republic of China to delineate the border – the Simla Convention. This time, Britain included around 30,000 square miles of territory in the eastern Himalayas within its province of Assam, later known as the Northeast Frontier Agency (NEFA). The Republic of China never agreed to the Simla Convention, but Tibet did. For forty years, the border did not pose an issue to Sino-Indian relations because China simply did not have a border with India during this time. That changed when the People’s Republic of China (PRC) annexed Tibet in 1951, making the two countries neighbors for the first time since 1912.

Sino-Indian Relations – the Early Years

At first, relations seemed to be sailing smoothly. India was one of the first non-communist countries to recognize the PRC, which was established when the communists won the Chinese Civil War in 1949. In an agreement signed in 1954, both countries agreed to respect each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. It was also in this controversial agreement that Tibet was referred to as the “Tibet Region of China” for the first time. Phrases like Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai (“Indians and Chinese are brothers” in Hindi) represented the zeitgeist of the time. Despite these loft pronouncements, the border issue proved a thorn in Sino-Indian relations. Letters between Nehru and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai show the immense difficulty in resolving the border issue. India was outraged by the Chinese building of a road in Aksai Chin (which at the time belonged to India) to connect Tibet and Xinjiang. China viewed the inclusions of Aksai Chin and the NEFA (known today in India as the state of Arunachal Pradesh and in China as “South Tibet”) as legacies of European imperialism.

Before the border issue could be solved, relations began to truly sour in 1959 when the Dalai Lama fled to India after a popular uprising in Tibet against Chinese rule was crushed. India granted political asylum to the Dalai Lama, much to the chagrin of the Chinese who viewed him as the product of “fugitive upper-class reactionaries”, “American imperialists”, and the “Chiang Kai-shek clique.” Many Indians (including prominent politicians and social workers) were furious with China’s control of Tibet, viewing it as an act of imperialism on a friendly neighbor with whom India has had millennia-old ties. The frustration with the border situation led to anti-China protests in Bombay, which culminated in the desecration of Chairman Mao’s portrait. China viewed the protests in India as an insult to the People’s Republic even though the Indian government tried to explain, in vain, that the government could not interfere with the free speech of Indian citizens.

Matters were not aided by the fact that Nehru relied heavily on his Defense Minister V.K. Krishna Menon. He was mentioned in the last article as the UN representative who controversially voted to abstain on a resolution condemning the Soviet invasion of Hungary. He was also unpopular within the Ministry of Defense and clashed frequently with his popular chief of staff, General K. S. Thimayya. Thimayya argued for the deployment of troops to the Chinese border and for the upgrading of the military’s guns by purchasing Belgian FN4 automatic rifles (at the time, Indian troops were using the .303 Enfield rifle from the First World War). Menon shot down Thimayya’s proposals, claiming that India’s greatest threat was Pakistan and that he “was not going to have NATO arms in the country.” When Menon promoted a Lieutenant-General (B. M. Kaul) over twelve senior officers for the post of Army Chief of Staff, Thimayya tendered his resignation. The resignation was met with outrage across the country, with many in the non-communist press arguing for Menon’s resignation instead. Nehru managed to persuade Thimayya to withdraw his resignation. But when the Chinese road was revealed to the Indian Parliament, the MPs were outraged with many calling for Menon’s head. Nehru stubbornly refused to fire him.

Indians across the country (and within Nehru’s own party) were growing frustrated with China’s actions in Aksai Chin and Nehru’s “overscrupulous regard for Chinese susceptibilities and comparative indifference towards the anger and dismay with which the Indian people have reacted.” At the time India’s military was much weaker than China’s, which had amassed significant Soviet weaponry, aircraft, and equipment. Indian leaders, for so long focused on war with Pakistan, were ill-prepared for mountain warfare as Thimayya, now retired, pointed out in a 1962 symposium on defense policy, saying he could not even “as a soldier envisage India taking on China in an open conflict on its own.” It was in 1962 that Thimayya’s prophecy was realized.

The 1962 Sino-India War

Clashes between Indian and Chinese troops escalated into a full-blown conflict. The Chinese troops, prepared for mountain warfare with Tibetan rebels and supplied by a better road network, easily overran the ill-equipped Indian troops in Aksai Chin and the NEFA. Menon was finally forced to resign. A weary Nehru requested British and American assistance. President Kennedy was eager to help but was preoccupied with the Cuban Missile Crisis. Nonetheless, America sent transport planes with arms and ammunition. The British, French, and Canadians also provided support. Around this time, likely due to fears of Western intervention, China, then poised to enter further into Indian territory in the Northeast, declared a unilateral ceasefire. Chinese troops withdrew from the NEFA but kept Aksai Chin.

The Aftermath

Several thousand Indian soldiers were dead or injured. Menon was sacked and Kaul prematurely retired. Nehru was devastated and his image had taken a beating. His party lost key by-elections in 1963. Opposition leaders introduced a vote of no-confidence against Nehru. This was easily defeated by the Indian National Congress’s majority, but significant criticism was leveled at the Prime Minister for four days. A physically and emotionally weakened Nehru died in 1964.

In the wake of India’s humiliating defeat, the Americans saw an opportunity. President Kennedy and his ambassador to India, Kenneth Galbraith, wanted to forge closer ties with India since America had given assistance while the Soviets had sat on the sidelines, and Nehru was now receptive to American overtures and was charmed by First Lady Jackie Kennedy. However, the goodwill would not last. After Kennedy and Nehru, successive Indian and American leaders failed to ensure better relations. India would eventually side with the Soviets (who fell out with the Chinese in 1969, leading to a serious border conflict), particularly under the rule of the populist and socialist Indira Gandhi (Nehru’s daughter). India-US relations would reach their nadir in 1971 during the Third Indo-Pakistan War. You can read why in this article.  

In Nehru’s final years, he attempted peace with Pakistan but the initiative died with Nehru. The Second Indo-Pakistan War would break out again over Kashmir in 1965. This time, India was better prepared. The failures of 1962 led to a significant change in India’s defense strategy. Pakistan was also now openly allied with China (the enemy of an enemy is a friend, after all), so India had to prepare for a two-front war. Nehru’s successor, Lal Bahadur Shastri, deftly managed the conflict, and it is conceivable that India could have annexed Pakistan had it not been for an intelligence failure that led the Indians to declare a draw. 

Nehru’s failures leading up to 1962 essentially taught successive Indian leaders what not to do. Successive Indian governments have invested significantly in weapons and infrastructure along the border with China. Indian leaders also aligned with the Soviet Union who provided weapons and political support. At the same time, Indian leaders erased idealism from its foreign policy with the main exception being that India continues to advocate against colonialism, most recently in its opposition to UK sovereignty over the Chagos Islands. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, India has made a definitive shift towards the United States and the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (an informal strategic partnership between the US, India, Japan, and Australia), all of whom are concerned about Chinese activities in the Indo-Pacific. India became a nuclear-weapons state in 1996 to match China’s existing nuclear weapons capabilities. India has also diversified its weapons portfolio to add purchases from the United States, France, and Israel to its mostly Russian repertoire, while also developing indigenous weapons capabilities, such as the recent Anti-Satellite Test, a capability thitherto only possessed by the US, Russia, and China.

Conclusion

With that, we have reached the end of the series. While Nehru was vital to the development of India’s democracy, his record on economic and foreign policy issues is mixed. The above quote from Hamilton illustrates the difficulty of incorporating morality in foreign policy, particularly when none of your neighbors have it. As the maxim goes, if you want peace, prepare for war.

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