Bhikhu Parekh and Shashi Tharoor are right in their critique of Nehru’s foreign policy due to which India is bleeding white in Kashmir and suffering in Tibet
Seminar chairman Shashi Tharoor commented that Parekh’s was a lucid summary of the way in which Indian foreign policy drew from our civilisational heritage. Both commended the manner in which Gandhi-Nehru enhanced India’s standing in the world but Parekh said, Nehru “gave us the negative reputation for conducting foreign policy as a sort of moralistic overtones to other people’s behaviour.”
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| Shashi Tharoor had allegedly said that Nehru’s policies presented India in the light of moral self-righteousness |
Reacting to media reports, the minister explained that his remarks on Nehru’s foreign policy being something like a “moralistic running commentary” were made in the context that some nations had viewed it in such a light.
In reality, Nehru’s foreign policy at operational level was quite chequered. He succeeded in making non-alignment a movement and initially carried many Afro-Asian nations with India. He steered India clear of the pressures of the two power blocks and thus insulated it from Cold War politics. But his policy was slanted towards Soviet Union that invited negative reaction in some countries for the ‘moralistic overtone’ of his statements and postures. They were not consistent either. Nehru was the first statesman to rightly condemn the tripartite Suez aggression in 1956 but he remained silent on Soviet aggression in Chechoslovakia in 1968.
The pricking of ‘Panchsheel’ by its co-signatory China, was a telling blow to his foreign policy. He committed blunder on Tibet as well Kashmir (ceasefire by the UN following Nehru going to the world body before Kashmir could be cleared of the Pak-sponsored aggression in 1948).
Chinese aggression of India in 1962 wiped out the arrogance of Nehru-Krishna Menon combine. The so-called non-aligned members remained silent spectators. Non-aligned champions like Egypt, Indonesia and Yugoslavia remained mum when Pakistan committed aggression in Chhamb (Jammu) and Sir Creek (Kutch) in 1965.
India’s foreign policy was not fortified by credible defence and diplomacy. Despite decreasing relevance of non-aligned policy, India did not come up with a conceptual breakthrough in foreign policy.
Nehru’s hubris first manifested when as prime minister he transferred Kashmir division from minister for states Sardar Patel to civil servant Gopalkrishnan, creating the impression that J&K was not an internal/state affair, and gave away Tibet to China without informing the Cabinet, or safeguarding the rights that colonial British enjoyed there.
His hometown booster of annexing Goa (1962) made India hear the moral sermons of the West that he used to give them. Mid-1950s were the years of international display of the peace angel’s ego, sometimes disguised as India’s cosmic worldview, till China pricked it. Nehru admitted, “We’re living in an illusory world of our own creation.”
Nehru failed to forge a judicious blend between India’s values of peaceful co-existence with careful pursuit of its vital national interests. He failed to entice neighbours like Nepal, Ceylon and Burma whom China could cultivate. His alter-ego Menon boasted that his lectures in the UN could win what military might would not — let India lose Aksai chin, and strategic border! Nehru’s eloquent lectures on Panchsheel and non-alignment make volumes, but fail in articulating the need for and meaning of India’s primacy in comity of nations while China-Pakistan forged a formidable front. His experience of Colonial Britain and socialist ideology inclined him towards communist nations, but alienated the rest.
Yet, the Congress gets habitually irritated if Parekh and Tharoor refer to his deficiencies even with empathy. Congress still guards its “tryst with destiny” (read “tryst with dynasty”!)
Foreign policy is a continuing process that adjusts to changing realignment of international forces. The reality is that Kashmir bleeds India white. Referring to Nehru’s Tibet gift to China, Patel wrote to Acharya Kripalani, “Jawaharlal royega.” It is not Nehru’s political successors but Tibet and India who weep. The moral and the prudence are, in reality, closely interconnected.
