India After Independence: 1947-2000 (28 page)

The path of economic development that India chose, based on planning and a leading role for the public sector in industrialization, especially in heavy industry, brought her closer to the USSR. While the western powers, especially the US, hesitated to help, the Soviets readily came forward with assistance in the building of the Bhilai steel plant in 1956. Then followed the British in Durgapur and the Germans in Rourkela. The US was again approached for the Bokaro plant, but when it continued to remain coy, the Soviets stepped in again. In later years they played a critical role in oil exploration as well. In 1973-74, it was estimated that ‘30 per cent of India’s steel, 35 per cent of our oil, 20 per cent of our electrical power, 65 per cent of heavy electrical equipment and 85 per cent of our heavy machine-making machines are produced in projects set up with Soviet aid’.
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When relations between India and China began to deteriorate from
1959 with the Dalai Lama seeking refuge in India and military clashes on the Sino-Indian border, the USSR did not automatically side with its Communist brother, but remained neutral, which itself was a great achievement at that time. Nehru was well aware of the significance of the Soviet stance, and he moved closer to USSR. The Chinese also date the beginning of their differences with the Soviet Union to the same episode. In the same year, India and the Soviet Union signed their first agreement for military supplies and in 1960 India received ‘supply dropping aircraft, helicopters and engineering equipment for the Border Roads Development Board which was to construct roads in the areas disputed by China.’
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In mid-1962, an agreement permitting India to manufacture MiG aircraft was concluded, this being the first time the Soviets had let a non-Communist country manufacture sophisticated military equipment which even the Chinese had not been licensed to do.

The Chinese attack on India in October 1962 found the USSR again maintaining neutrality, at least partly because it occurred when the Cuban missile crisis was at its peak. Later, in December 1962, Suslov, the important Soviet leader, at the meeting of the Supreme Soviet, unambiguously declared that China was responsible for the war.

Unlike the western powers who failed to deliver on promises of military supplies in the wake of the Indo-China war, the Soviets in 1963 signed more agreements for sale of arms and supplied interceptors and helicopters, tanks, mobile radar sets, surface-to-air missiles, submarines, missile boats and patrol ships. They helped India develop manufacturing facilities for MiG aeroplanes and to build a naval dockyard. It was this independent manufacturing base that helped India to win the 1971 war. Importantly, unlike the US, they neither stationed personnel to supervise use of equipment, nor laid down difficult conditions for deployment of equipment.

The Soviet Union too gained from this link. India was an important entry-point to the Afro-Asian world of newly-independent countries who did not want to become US satellites and were open to Soviet friendship. This helped the USSR in the Cold War as well. The Soviets had, like India, a long border with China and many unresolved boundary disputes. Friendship with India kept China in check and this suited the Soviets. Indian non-alignment tilted the balance away from the West and this too was a help. Surrounded by US-inspired pacts and military bases, the USSR could do with a few friends, and therefore the relationship was one of equality. Besides, for all its faults, Marxism is anti-racist, anti-imperialist and pro-poor, and this precluded any adoption of a patronizing attitude by the Soviets, something which the Americans often tended to slip into; much to Indian annoyance. Indo-Soviet friendship thus emerged as one of the most critical elements of Indian foreign policy.

India’s relations with her neighbours were of central concern to her and
fortunately, till 1962, apart from Pakistan, she was on good terms with all her neighbours. With Nepal, she signed a Treaty of Peace and Friendship in 1950, which gave Nepal unrestricted access for commercial transit through India, and secured Nepal’s total sovereignty while making both countries responsible for each other’s security. With Burma, too, the problem of Indian settlers and a long uncharted border were settled amicably. The issue of Tamil settlers in Sri Lanka was not as easy of solution, and tensions remained, but it did not flare up in this period, and otherwise amicable ties were maintained. With Pakistan, however, and in later years with China, serious problems were faced, and the relations with them are discussed at length below.

Nehru and the Congress leaders had agreed reluctantly to the Partition of India as the solution to an intractable problem and also in the hope that this would end the hostility. But, in fact, the acrimony was only transferred to the international sphere. Communal riots and transfers of population on an unprecedented scale had in any case led to strained relations but the Pakistani invasion of Kashmir in October 1947, just two months after independence, unleashed a chain of cause and effect whose latest act was played out only recently in Kargil. As described earlier in chapter 7, Kashmir’s accession to India was a troubled one. When the British left, most of the Indian states ruled indirectly by the British but nominally by Indian princes joined up with either India or Pakistan and the very real danger of Balkanization, almost encouraged by the British, was averted. However, a few states, some of whose rulers, encouraged by British officers and Pakistan, entertained grandiose but unreal ambitions of independence, held out for some time. Among these were Hyderabad, Junagadh, and Kashmir. Hyderabad and Junagadh had little real choice as they were surrounded by Indian territory. But Kashmir had a border with Pakistan, a majority Muslim population, a Hindu ruler, and a radical popular movement for democracy led by Sheikh Abdullah and the National Conference which was very friendly with Nehru and the Congress—enough potent ingredients for whipping up a recipe for trouble. The Maharaja asked for a standstill agreement for one year to make up his mind. Pakistan formally accepted his request and though India was yet to reply its stand had always been that the people’s wishes should be ascertained by an election and therefore it was quite willing to wait and accept the verdict of the elections. However, clearly worried that the popular verdict in Kashmir was not likely to go in its favour, Pakistan decided to jump the gun and sent in so-called tribesmen from the Frontier province, aided by regular armed forces, to invade Kashmir. The Maharaja appealed to India for help but India could only send in her armies if Kashmir acceded to India. The Maharaja signed the Instrument of Accession, the only legal requirement, as had hundreds of other rulers,
and Kashmir became a part of India. Indian troops reached Srinagar just in time to save the capital city from failing into the hands of the invaders. India pushed back the Pakistani ‘volunteers’, and also put in a complaint with the UN against Pakistani aggression. There, instead of getting justice, India learnt her first lesson in Cold War politics. Encouraged by the British who continued to nurture a resentment of the Congress and India and a fondness for the Muslim League and Pakistan, and also for strategic reasons of wanting Pakistan as a frontline state against the USSR, the US also lined up behind Pakistan. The Soviet Union had not yet made up its mind whether India was any longer ‘a running dog of British imperialism’ and so it gave no support. Nevertheless, India dutifully accepted the UN resolution asking for a ceasefire, even though the military situation was to her advantage. Nehru was much criticized later for going to the UN and for offering to hold a plebiscite. But neither criticism holds, as Pakistan could have gone to the UN if India had not, and the UN could have asked for the holding of a plebiscite. India has also been often misunderstood on its later refusal to hold a plebiscite, because it is not widely known that the UN resolution of August 1948 laid down two preconditions for holding a plebiscite. One, that Pakistan should withdraw its forces from the state of Jammu and Kashmir and two, that the authority of the Srinagar administration should be restored over the whole state. These conditions were never met and in the meantime Kashmir went on to hold elections for its Constituent Assembly, which voted for accession to India. The Indian government now took the stand that the Constituent Assembly’s vote was a sufficient substitute for plebiscite. Kashmir later participated in the Indian general elections as well as held its own state elections, thus rendering irrelevant the debate over plebiscite. In any case, India had never accepted the two-nation theory that all Muslims naturally owed allegiance to the Muslim League and all Muslim majority areas belonged to Pakistan and on that basis Kashmir should go to Pakistan—a Pakistani argument that often appealed to western observers unfamiliar with the history of the Indian national movement.

There was a brief period in 1953-54 when it seemed the Kashmir issue may be resolved. On Mohammed Ali Bogra becoming prime minister in 1953, following cordial visits between him and Nehru, a joint communique was issued on 20 August 1953, stating that Nehru had agreed to hold a plebiscite in Kashmir. But the brief flame of hope was snuffed out by the exigiencies of Cold War politics. The US had decided after Korea that Indian non-alignment was immoral and it should give military aid to Pakistan. In the UN Security Council, while India wanted as Plebiscite Administrator someone from a small neighbouring country, the name that was proposed was of a senior US Service Officer, Admiral Nimitz. The last chance of a compromise disappeared.

The Kashmir issue continued to be used to needle India in the UN, especially as Pakistan became more and more integrated into the US-fed western alliance system via membership of CENTO, SEATO, the Baghdad Pact and a military pact with the US in 1954. India had clearly refused
to play the US game and Pakistan was more than willing. (Before independence too the Muslim League had happily played the British game; its child, Pakistan, now did US bidding. The Congress continued its anti-imperialist tradition.) In this situation, to get a solution on Kashmir would need a miracle. Only when the Soviet Union began to understand the value of Indian non-alignment and openly supported India on Kashmir could India heave a sigh of relief. From 1956 onwards, the Soviet Union used its veto powers in the UN Security Council to thwart all resolutions on Kashmir unacceptable to India.

India could, with Soviet support, ward off the international pressure on the Kashmir issue through the mid- and late fifties and early sixties. But the Chinese attack in 1962 which forced her to turn to the West for help, made it very difficult for her to withstand US and British pressure. From 1962 Pakistan also began to line up with the Chinese, thus threatening to engulf India in a pincer movement, which almost came true in 1971 but didn’t, to the great disappointment of the US. In the mid-sixties, for a short while, the USSR also explored the possibility of moving a little closer to Pakistan (the Tashkent initiative by Kosygin to end the Indo-Pak war of 1965 was part of that) but fortunately for India, and not without Indian encouragement, the USSR realized that Pakistan was too deeply integrated into the western system to be of use to it.

The rancour that characterized Indo-Pak relations was a source of great sadness to Nehru and Indians in general. A common history, geography, culture, and goal of improving the condition of their poverty-stricken people should have brought about cooperation between the two countries. Nehru tried his best to remove all other irritants in the relationship, and showed great generosity on the division of pre-Partition assets, compensation to refugees and division of Indus basin waters. He even visited Pakistan in 1953. There is a little known story about a large sum of money that India was to give Pakistan as part of the Partition settlement. When Pakistan invaded Kashmir, the Indian government held up the transfer. Gandhiji came to know of it and immediately had it sent to Pakistan, brushing aside the objections of Nehru and Patel that they were only withholding it for the time being so that it was not used for the purposes of war. At the same time, Gandhiji fully supported the Indian armed defence of Kashmir.

It is sometimes said that Pakistani foreign policy is better than ours. It may help to remember the comment of K.P.S. Menon:
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The net result of Pakistan’s diplomacy, however, was that Ayub Khan lost his job, Yahya Khan lost his freedom and Pakistan lost half its territory.

India adopted a policy of friendship towards China from the very beginning. The Congress had been sympathetic to China’s struggle against
imperialism and had sent a medical mission to China in the thirties as well as given a call for boycott of Japanese goods in protest against Japanese occupation of China. India was the first to recognize the new People’s Republic of China on 1 January 1950. Nehru had great hopes that the two countries with their common experience of suffering at the hands of colonial powers and common problems of poverty and underdevelopment would join hands to give Asia its due place in the world. Nehru pressed for representation for Communist China in the UN Security Council, did not support the US position in the Korean war, and tried his best to bring about a settlement in Korea. In 1950, when China occupied Tibet, India was unhappy that it had not been taken into confidence, but did not question China’s rights over Tibet since at many times in Chinese history Tibet had been subjugated by China. In 1954, India and China signed a treaty in which India recognized China’s rights over Tibet and the two countries agreed to be governed in their mutual relations by the principles of Panch Sheel. Differences over border delineation were discussed at this time but China maintained that it had not yet studied the old Kuomintang maps and these could be sorted out later.

Relations continued to be close and Nehru went to great lengths to project China and Chou En-lai at the Bandung Conference. In 1959, however, there was a big revolt in Tibet and the Dalai Lama fled Tibet along with thousands of refugees. He was given asylum in India but not allowed to set up a government-in-exile and dissuaded from carrying on political activities. Nevertheless, the Chinese were unhappy. Soon after, in October 1959, Chinese opened fire on an Indian patrol near the Kongka Pass in Ladakh, killing five Indian policemen and capturing a dozen others. Letters were exchanged between the two governments, but a common ground did not emerge. Then, Chou En-lai was invited for talks to Delhi in April 1960, but not much headway could be made and it was decided to let officials sort out the details first.