India's Foreign Relations, 1947-2007

Jayanta Kumar Ray

• Publisher: Routledge India
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136197147
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politica e relazioni internazionali
• Subtopic: Relazioni internazionali

This book analyses India's relations with its neighbours (China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka) and other world powers (USA, UK, and Russia) over a span of 60 years. It traces the roots of independent India's foreign policy from the Partition and its fallout, its nascent years under Nehru, and non-alignment to the influence of economic liberalization and globalization. The volume delves into the underlying reasons of persistent problems confronting India's foreign policy-makers, as well as foreign-policy interface with defence and domestic policies.

This book will be indispensable to students, scholars and teachers of South Asian studies, international relations, political science, and modern Indian history.

1

Introduction

Perhaps the most crucial question facing the author of this book is this: how much were the major practitioners of Indian foreign relations wedded to ethics and/or realism? A related question is, who they were around 1947.

It is advisable to start with attempting an answer to the second question. The most influential Indian leaders were: M.K. Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabhbhai Patel. As to Pakistani leaders, there was only one: M.A. Jinnah. The two most prominent British personalities—towering far above all these Indian and Pakistani leaders—were Louis and Edwina Mountbatten. This list obviously reflects an emphasis on the Partition of 1947, which demands an explanation.

The explanation is also obvious. Some of the most important and persistent problems of post-1947 foreign relations of India (even in 2007, the last year broadly covered by this book) can be traced to Partition. These problems lie in the domains of foreign-defence policy interface, and domestic-foreign policy interface. These, again, can be telescoped into problems emerging from what, for lack of a better phrase, can be depicted as Pakistan-sponsored international Islamic or Jihadi terrorism. This phenomenon of extraordinary force and complexity appeared in an embryonic form as early as 1947, and, as of 2007 or 2009, has not ceased to grow.¹ This has signalled a collapse of the scenario presumably constructed by the Indian leaders (mentioned above) who conceived and operationalised Partition in the ways they actually did around 1947. In this is latent, the ethical and realistic propensities of these leaders, who, after the lapse of 60 years, may be notionally confronted with an alternative scenario animated by a greater degree of ethics and realism. It is essential for this purpose to examine whether the main Indian architects of Partition seriously pondered the cataclysmic consequences—short term and long term—of Partition. The short-term and fully visible consequence was the massacre of around two million persons, and the displacement or forced migration of about 18 million persons. No national/international court has ever been set up to fix responsibilities for (at least) the murders, and award punishments to the guilty.²

As to the long-term consequences of Partition, these included forced conversions, involuntary migration, etc. (easily observable in East Bengal/East Pakistan/Bangladesh even in 2007). But the most important cataclysmic and nearly irreversible consequence has been the perpetuation and consolidation of communal (Hindu-Muslim) antagonisms mutating into Jihadi terrorism. Jihadi terrorism was recognised rather late—in the wake of several wars and decades of arms races between India and Pakistan, destroying the very rationale of Partition. For, if there was any justification of Partition, it was that Partition was the only way out of a civil war.³ In both quantitative and qualitative terms, human suffering caused by a civil war (whatever the duration) would have been incomparably less than what has been caused—and what will continue to be caused—by wars and Jihadi terrorism.⁴

In order to appreciate the impact of Partition on India’s foreign relations, one has to look before and after 1947, and review the actions and thought processes of the chief Indian architects of Partition. This may bring to the fore an alternative scenario of actions and thoughts which, if adopted, could have averted Partition, and minimised (though not eliminated) the resultant human suffering.

It is advisable to begin with M.K. Gandhi, and scrutinise his thoughts and actions. Undoubtedly, Gandhi was an indefatigable advocate of Hindu-Muslim unity. But some of his decisions and actions tended to disrupt rather than develop this unity. One can go back to the Khilafat Movement launched by Gandhi after the First World War.⁵ It fanned Muslim separatism. Moreover, it aggravated the antagonism between Hindus and Muslims because, in the course of the Khilafat Movement, the agitators suffered from goal displacement, and, instead of treating the British as the main adversary, they fought and killed a large number of Hindus.⁶ Gandhi was so embarrassed by this development that he deliberately underestimated the number of Hindus slain by Muslim agitators.

Evidently, Gandhi did not think of, or foresee, the consequences of the Khilafat agitation. Similarly, he failed to comprehend the consequences of rejecting the Government of India Act of 1935. With a few amendments, this Act remained in the Constitution of free India for three years after 1947. Gandhi rejected the 1935 Act without even reading it, something he confessed to as late as 1944. Mountbatten is correct—at least once—when he observes that the 1935 Act, if accepted, could have averted Partition. In addition, post-1947 India’s foreign relations might have escaped some very agonising episodes. (Nehru too proved himself to be devoid of both ethics and realism when he described the 1935 Act as a ‘charter of slavery’.)⁷

The next question is this. Was Gandhi unaware—as he was in the case of his decision on the Khilafat agitation—of how his dictate to the provincial governments (run by the Congress Party) to resign in 1939 contributed to separatism and Partition? Obviously, M.A. Jinnah could deftly utilise the power vacuum created by the Congress Party’s political abstinence, and spread the message of Muslim separatism throughout India.⁸ How is it that, while taking momentous decisions, Gandhi would not calculate the consequences?⁹

Moreover, Gandhi’s directive on the resignation of Congress ministers in eight provinces suffered from a host of anomalies and/or inconsistencies. On 3 September 1939, Britain declared war on Germany. The same day, Lord Linlithgow, India’s then viceroy, declared India to be a belligerent country. He further promulgated an ordinance to deal sternly with domestic disturbances during the war. On 11 September 1939, he also postponed, until the end of the war, the introduction of the federal constitution in accordance with the 1935 Act. Meanwhile, on 6 September 1939, Gandhi met Viceroy Linlithgow and issued an important statement to the press. The statement underlined India’s duty to cooperate with Britain in a moment of danger, even though differences over India’s independence persisted.¹⁰ This was quite consistent with Gandhi’s views, expressed in the meetings of the Congress Working Committee (CWC), which took place in September 1938, at the outbreak of the Munich crisis in Europe. At that time, Subhas Chandra Bose was the Congress president, and he despaired of the fact ‘that Gandhi regarded a struggle with Britain in the near future as outside the domain of possibility’. In fact, Subhas even attributed this estimate to ‘Gandhi’s old age’.¹¹ In October 1939, Congress ministers in eight provinces resigned, in refusal to cooperate with Britain in the prosecution of the war. A movement of passive resistance against British rulers for expediting India’s independence, as advocated by Subhas, would have been consistent with the Congress decision to withdraw from provincial governments. But Nehru and Gandhi took a different line. On 20 May 1940, Nehru said, ‘Launching a civil disobedience campaign at a time when Britain is engaged in a life and death struggle would be an act derogatory to India’s honour’. Similarly, Gandhi said, ‘We do not seek our independence out of Britain’s ruin. That is not the way of nonviolence’.¹²

Such inconsistency in the approach of Gandhi (or Nehru) persisted. In June 1940, when France succumbed to the German invasion, Subhas had a lengthy discussion with Gandhi. Subhas appealed to Gandhi asking him to lead a passive resistance movement against the British Indian rulers. However, Gandhi simply repeated his earlier view that ‘the country was not prepared for a fight and any attempt to precipitate it, would do more harm than good to India.’¹³ This tale of inconsistency in Gandhi (and the Congress) probably reached an inglorious climax on 14 July 1942, when the CWC adopted a Quit India resolution, which proclaimed an immediate end to British rule in India. The cleavage between Gandhi and the Congress was confirmed (if at all any confirmation was needed) with Gandhi looking upon this Wardha resolution as a call for an ‘open rebellion’, whereas the resolution clearly stated that if the appeal of the CWC was not heeded, ‘the Congress would then reluctantly be compelled to utilise, under the inevitable leadership of Gandhi, “all the non-violent strength it has gathered since 1920, when it adopted non-violence as part of its policy for the vindication of its political rights and liberty”’.¹⁴ The contradiction pervading the thoughts and actions of Gandhi and the Congress became all the more glaring with statements such as the following:

Expressions in the resolution itself, such as, that the Congress has no desire whatever “to embarrass Great Britain or the Allied Powers in their prosecution of the war”, or “jeopardize the defensive capacity of the Allied Powers”, or that the Congress would be agreeable to the stationing of the armed forces of the allies in India for defensive purposes if India was free, clearly show that the idea of the desirability of an understanding with Britain and the possibility for realizing this desired understanding was still in the minds of some Congress leaders.¹⁵

On 4 August 1942, the CWC passed a final draft resolution, which, according to the Manchester Guardian, adopted ‘a more constructive approach’ than the Wardha resolution of 14 July, because it assured that Free India would ‘throw all her great resources’ on Britain’s side in the war.¹⁶ On 8 August 1942, the All India Congress Committee (AICC) passed this resolution in Bombay, and ‘Gandhi, in a stirring ninety minute speech, gave expression to his determination to fight to the finish even if he stood alone against the whole world’.¹⁷

The British refused to interpret this as a language of non-violence. They arrested top-ranking leaders like Gandhi and Nehru and kept them in jail for several years during the Second World War. Once again, M.A. Jinnah took advantage of this situation and successfully promoted the idea of Partition.¹⁸ Gandhi and his followers could be accused of lack of foresight and vision. Top-ranking Congress leaders were at least physically safe inside prison. However, many ordinary Indians, unprepared and leaderless, lost their lives and destroyed their careers by joining the Quit India campaign. Moreover, it was impossible for Gandhi to answer why he had reversed his earlier stand: (i) that the Indian people were not prepared for any large-scale passive resistance against British rulers; and, (ii) that India should not try to obtain independence at the expense of Britain’s destruction in a war, more so because by 1942 the war situation had become all the more precarious, especially with the fall of Singapore to the Japanese on 15 February 1942. While Gandhi did not bother about such contradictions, as also the inordinate facilities granted to Jinnah, ordinary mortals might raise the question of whether Gandhi was devoid of common sense and/or devoted to the British design of partitioning India.¹⁹

On a number of critical occasions in his career, Gandhi decided to fast unto death for the fulfilment of political objectives. The prevention of India’s Partition was certainly a supreme objective. Before the 1946 provincial elections, therefore, Gandhi assured voters that Partition could only take place over his dead body. His assurance moved not only Hindus but also Muslims, so that, d...