Shortly after writing these words, Nehru was jailed by the British. While in prison for the next three years, he composed The Discovery of India, a brilliant and idiosyncratic work that mixes autobiography with history, and cultural analysis with political prophecy. One important strand in the book relates to relations between the two great Asiatic civilizations. Nehru speaks of the exchange of ideas and artefacts carried on down the centuries by pilgrims, mystics, scholars, travellers and diplomats. ‘During the thousand years and more of intercourse between India and China,’ he writes, ‘each country learnt something from the other, not only in the regions of thought and philosophy, but also in the arts and sciences of life. Probably China was more influenced by India than India by China, which is a pity, for India could well have received, with profit to herself, some of the sound commonsense of the Chinese, and with aid checked her own extravagant fancies.’
In The Discovery of India, Nehru again compares China favourably with Japan. China’s struggle for national dignity attracted ‘much sympathy’ in India, in contrast to ‘a certain antipathy’ for Japan. The Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek had visited India during the War; he, and his attractive and forceful wife, met Nehru and were impressed by him. The viceroy, Lord Linlithgow, commented cattily that Madame Chiang had ‘a kittenish weakness for Nehru’s eyelashes’. The Indian returned the affection, albeit in political rather than personal terms. The presence of the Generalissimo and his wife, thought Nehru, ‘and their manifest sympathy for India’s freedom, helped to bring India out of her national shell and increased her awareness of the international issues at stake. The bonds that tied India and China grew stronger, and so did the desire to line up with China and other nations against the common adversary’ (namely, fascism and imperialism).
Writing at the conclusion of the Second World War, Nehru could clearly see the decline of Great Britain, and the emergence of the United States and Soviet Russia as the two major powers. This bipolar world would, in time, become a multipolar world. Nehru thought that ‘China and India are potentially capable of joining that group. Each of them is compact and homogeneous and full of natural wealth, man-power and human skill and capacity … No other country, taken singly, apart from these four, is actually or potentially in such a position … It is possible of course,’ wrote Nehru presciently, ‘that large federations of groups of nations may emerge in Europe or elsewhere and form huge multinational States.’
In his pre-1947 writings, Nehru saw China through the lens of a progressive anti-imperialist, from which perspective India and China were akin and alike, simultaneously fighting western control as well as feudal remnants in their own society. Chiang and company, like Nehru and company, were at once freedom fighters, national unifiers and social modernizers. It stood to reason that, when finally free of foreign domination, the two neighbours would be friends and partners.
III
I turn now to Jawaharlal Nehru’s attitude to China during the years (1947 to 1964) he served as India’s prime minister and foreign minister. The bridge between these two periods, pre-and-post Indian Independence, is provided by the Asian Relations Conference, held in New Delhi in March–April 1947. In his speech to the conference, Nehru called China ‘that great country to which Asia owes so much and from which so much is expected’. The conference itself he characterized as ‘an expression of that deeper urge of the mind and spirit of Asia which has persisted in spite of the isolationism which grew up during the years of European domination. As that domination goes, the walls that surrounded us fall down and we look at one another again and meet as old friends long parted.’
The Chinese delegation to this conference represented Chiang Kai-shek’s Guomindang party; there was also a separate delegation from Tibet. Two years later the Communists came to power in Beijing. The Indian ambassador, K.M. Panikkar, was greatly impressed by the new rulers of China. He compared Mao Zedong to his own boss, Nehru, writing that ‘both are men of action with dreamy, idealistic temperaments’, both ‘humanists in the broadest sense of the term’.
One does not know what Nehru made of this comparison. But an Indian who had a more realistic view of Mao and his comrades was the home minister, Vallabhbhai Patel. When China invaded Tibet in October 1950, Patel wrote to Nehru that ‘communism is no shield against imperialism and … the Communists are as good or as bad imperialists as any other. Chinese ambitions in this respect not only cover the Himalayan slopes on our side but also include important parts of Assam … Chinese irredentism and Communist imperialism are different from the expansionism or imperialism of the Western Powers. The former has a cloak of ideology which makes it ten times more dangerous. In the guise of ideological expansion lies concealed racial, national or historical claims.’
The prime minister, however, continued to give the Chinese the benefit of doubt. Speaking in the Indian Parliament in December 1950, he said: ‘Some Hon. Members seem to think that I should issue an ultimatum to China, that I should warn them not to do this or that or that I should send them a letter saying that it is foolish to follow the doctrine of communism. I do not see how it is going to help anybody if I act in this way.’
Through the first half of the 1950s, Nehru continued to see China as a kindred soul. Like India, it had embarked on an ambitious and autonomous programme of economic and social development, albeit under Communist auspices. Once more these civilizations could interact with and learn from each other. As Nehru wrote to his chief ministers in June 1952: ‘[A] variety of circumstances pull India and China towards each other, in spite of differences of forms of government. This is the long pull of geography and history and, if I may add, of the future.’ Later the same year, after a visit to India’s north-east, Nehru insisted that there was not ‘the slightest reason to expect any aggression on our north-eastern frontier. A little clear thinking will show that it is a frightfully difficult task for any army to cross Tibet and the Himalayas and invade India. Tibet is one of the most difficult and inhospitable of countries. An army may possibly cross it, but the problem of logistics and feeding it becomes increasingly difficult. The climate is itself an enemy of any large-scale movement. Apart from this, there was no particular reason why China should think of aggression in this direction.’ Nehru even thought ‘there is a definite feeling of friendliness towards India in China’.
In June 1954, Zhou Enlai visited New Delhi. In a letter to his chief ministers written immediately afterwards, Nehru reported that the Chinese prime minister ‘was particularly anxious, of course, for the friendship and cooperation of India … His talk was wholly different from the normal approach of the average Communist, which is full of certain slogans and cliches. He hardly mentioned communism or the Soviet Union or European politics.’ Nehru then reported his own talk: ‘I spoke to him at some length about our peaceful struggle for independence under Gandhiji’s leadership and how this had conditioned us. Our policies had developed from that struggle and we proposed to follow them.’
Nehru made a return visit to China in October 1954. His reception there is described in a diary maintained by his security officer, K.F. Rustamji. In Beijing, a million people lined the roads to greet and cheer Nehru and Zhou as they drove in an open car from the airport to the city. ‘All along the route,’ observed Rustamji, ‘not a single police in uniform was visible.’ Then Nehru visited Canton, Dairen, Nanking, and ‘at each place the cheers became louder, the clapping more vigorous. At each place we felt that nothing could be better than the reception given there. Then we moved on and found that there was something better—Shanghai. There the airport was a mass of people waving gladioli flowers—there were so many flowers that they seemed to change the colour of the airport.’
This reception must certainly have flattered Nehru. But it seems also to have convinced him of the depth of popular support for the regime (with not a policeman in sight), and of the desire for friendship with India. As he wrote to his closest friend, Edwina Mountbatten, ‘I had a welcome in China, such as I ha
ve in the big cities of India, and that is saying something … The welcome given to me was official and popular … One million took part on the day of arrival in Peking. It was not the numbers but their obvious enthusiasm. There appeared to be something emotional to it.’
In a letter to his chief ministers, Nehru likewise insisted that ‘this welcome represented something more than political exigency. It was almost an emotional upheaval representing the basic urges of the people for friendship with India.’ He had ‘no doubt at all that the Government and people of China desire peace and want to concentrate on building up their country during the next decade or so’.
IV
Towards the end of 1956, Zhou Enlai visited India again. The Dalai Lama was also in his party. The Tibetan leader briefly escaped his Chinese minders, and told Nehru that conditions were so harsh in his country that he wished to flee to India. Nehru advised him to return. In 1958, the Indian prime minister asked to visit Tibet, but was refused permission. Now the first seeds of doubt, or at least confusion, were planted in his mind. Perhaps the Chinese were not as straightforward, or indeed as progressive, as he had supposed.
In July 1958, a map was printed in Beijing which showed large parts of India as Chinese territory. It was also revealed that the Chinese had built a road linking Xinjiang to Tibet, which passed through an uninhabited, and scarcely visited, stretch of the Indian district of Ladakh. There were protests from New Delhi, whereupon Zhou Enlai wrote back saying that the McMahon Line, marking the border between India and China, was a legacy of British imperialism and hence not ‘legal’. The Chinese leader suggested that both sides retain control of the territory they currently occupied, pending a final settlement.
Meanwhile, a revolt broke out in Tibet. It was put down, and in March 1959 the Dalai Lama fled into India. That he was given refuge, and that Indian political parties rushed to his defence, enraged the Chinese. The war of words escalated. That autumn there were sporadic clashes between Indian and Chinese troops on the border. In October 1959, Nehru wrote to his chief ministers that ‘this tension that has arisen between India and China is, of course, of great concern to us. That does not mean that we should get alarmed in the present or fear any serious consequences. I do not think any such development is likely in the foreseeable future. But the basic fact remains that India and China have fallen out and, even though relative peace may continue at the frontier, it is some kind of an armed peace, and the future appears to be one of continuing tension.’
‘Behind all this frontier trouble,’ Nehru continued,
There appears to me to be a basic problem of a strong and united Chinese State, expansive and pushing out in various directions and full of pride in its growing strength. In Chinese history, this kind of thing has happened on several occasions. Communism as such is only an added element; the real reason should be found to lie deeper in history and in national characteristic[s]. But it is true that never before have these two great countries, India and China, come face to face in some kind of a conflict. By virtue of their very size and their actual or potential strength, there is danger in this situation, not danger in the present, but rather in the future. That danger may be minimized by other developments and by the world moving gradually towards peace. But the danger will still remain, partly because of the tremendous rate of increase of the population of the Chinese State. Apart from population, there has been and is a certain homogeneity among the Chinese people which probably we lack. I have no doubt, however, that in the face of danger there will be much greater cohesion in India than we have at present. Perhaps, that may be one of the good effects of this new and unfortunate development.
By now, Nehru appeared to have come around, at least in part, to the point of view articulated by Vallabhbhai Patel in 1950. The Chinese state was more nationalist than Communist. Still, he felt that there was no chance of a full-fledged war between the two countries. To protect India’s interests, Nehru now sanctioned a policy of ‘forward posts’, whereby detachments were camped in areas along the border claimed by both sides. This was a pre-emptive measure, designed to deter the Chinese from advancing beyond the McMahon Line.
In 1960, Zhou Enlai came to New Delhi in an attempt to find a settlement. India’s case was stronger in the western sector, where Chinese interests were greater. Here lay the access road linking the two troublesome provinces of Tibet and Xinjiang, a road that passed through territory claimed by India. On the other hand, in the eastern sector, where Chinese claims were more robust, their strategic interests were minimal.
Zhou offered a quid pro quo. The Chinese would not challenge Indian control of the eastern sector, so long as the Indians in turn winked at their incursions in the west. It was a practical, and in terms of realpolitik, a reasonable proposal. Nehru himself was open to considering it favourably. But by this time knowledge of the road in Ladakh had become public, and there was an outcry in Parliament and the press. The border clashes and the flight of the Dalai Lama had further inflamed public opinion. Opposition politicians accused Nehru of betraying the national interest by talking to the Chinese. Not an inch of Indian territory, they said, could or should be ceded to the Chinese. In the prevailing climate, Nehru chose not to pursue the idea of a settlement.
V
In July 1962, there were clashes between Indian and Chinese troops in the western sector, followed, in September, by clashes in the east. In the third week of October, the Chinese launched a major military strike. In the west, the Indians resisted stoutly, but in the east they were overwhelmed. The Chinese swept through the Brahmaputra Valley, coming as far as the Assam town of Tezpur. The great city of Calcutta was in their sights. However, on the 22nd of November, the Chinese announced a unilateral ceasefire, and withdrew from the areas they had occupied.
Why did the Chinese act when they did? One school of historians argues that they were reacting to Nehru’s provocative ‘forward posts’ policy. Another school argues that the military adventure was to distract the attention of the Chinese people from domestic events, such as the failure of the Great Leap Forward. This had led to increasing criticism of Mao within the Chinese Communist Party, to deflect and answer which the plan to invade India was sanctioned.
This dispute, between those who see India as the instigator and those who see China as the aggressor, dominates the literature to this day. A third explanation for the war was offered by Jawaharlal Nehru himself, in a fascinating, forgotten letter written to his chief ministers on 22nd December 1962. Here, Nehru admitted the army was not prepared for a full-fledged war. The political leadership had erred in not building roads up to the border to carry supplies and ammunitions. On the other side, the invasion of Tibet and the Korean War had primed the Chinese for battle. Then he asked the question—why did the Chinese attack when and in the manner they did? The answer, he argued, had to do not so much with the border dispute as with their larger desire to keep the Cold War going.
Between Russia and the United States, said Nehru, lay a large number of countries which, though weak in conventional military terms, had become symbols ‘of peaceful co-existence and their policy of non-alignment to military blocs has gradually been appreciated more and more even by the big blocs. Both the United States of America and the Soviet Union have appreciated this policy of non-alignment and peaceful co-existence, even though they cannot adopt it for themselves because of their fear of each other … While some individuals in either group of countries may think and behave like war-mongers, the fact is that most countries or nearly all, including the leaders of the two blocs, do not want a war and would welcome some peaceful arrangement. The hunger for disarmament is itself witness of this urge.’
In Nehru’s view, to this ‘desire for peace and co-existence there is one major exception, and that is China … It believes in the inevitability of war and, therefore, does not want the tensions in the world to lessen. It dislikes non-alignment and it would much rather have a clear polarization of the different countries in the world. It is
not afraid even of a nuclear war because as it is often said, they can afford to lose a few hundred million people and yet have enough numbers left.’
China, claimed Nehru, was upset with ‘Russia’s softening down, in its opinion, in revolutionary ardour and its thinking of peace and peaceful co-existence …’ In recent years, this difference in opinion had led Russia to withdraw economic support to China. To make matters worse, Russia had even offered technical aid to India. Nehru wrote that
It was possible for China to fall into line with Russian thinking and present policy, and thus perhaps get more aid. But they are too proud to do this and trained too much in the old revolutionary tradition to accept defeat in this matter. What else then could they do? The other course was to heighten tensions in the world and to make non-alignment and peaceful co-existence more and more difficult to maintain … India was said to be the chief non-aligned country in the world, and a country which constantly preached the virtues of peaceful co-existence. If India could be humiliated and defeated and perhaps even driven into the other camp of the Western Powers, that would be the end of non-alignment for other countries also, and Russia’s policy would have been broken down. The cold war would be at its fiercest and Russia would be compelled then to help China to a much greater degree and to withdraw help from the nations that did not side with it completely in the cold war.