Nehru, China and Sikkim

Political events preceding the 1962 Sino-Indian war and the demands at the home that followed.......

A grim crisis closed in on Sikkim as a renascent China began adopting a menacing posture regarding the vast tracts of land across the Himalayas. The Communist regime in the People’s Republic not only rejected the McMahon Line — demarcated long back by the British — as the border involving Chinese and Indian territory but started eyeing neighbouring kingdoms like Sikkim, Bhutan and Nepal.

 The situation was somewhat normal until 1954 when the Chinese government officially published a map that showed Sikkim and other areas being within its territory. It was not as though the move was unexpected for several Indian leaders, including Sardar Ballavbhai Patel, Acharya Kripalani and others kept warning the country of such moves from Communist China long before India faced the real threat. It is interesting to look back on how Jawaharlal Nehru, being the most powerful personality in the Indian political hierarchy, viewed the Chinese phenomenon. People in general hold him responsible for India’s humiliation following the Chinese incursion in October 1962. “Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai”, supposedly coined by Nehru, became a lethal instrument to pour scorn on his persona. But did Nehru really believe in the practical efficacy involved in the much-hyped coinage that turned almost synonymous with the make-believe rhetoric identified with Nehruvian pontification?

The conventional theory is that China’s sudden aggression came as a bolt from the blue for the idealistic Nehru and the aftermath of the incursion delivered such a lethal blow to his sensitive mind that he died of the shock two years later. But is this true? Admittedly, the Chinese betrayal shocked him out of his characteristic self-confidence and hastened his death. But should we suppose that Nehru’s towering intellect failed to visualise the menace that many of his contemporaries easily grasped long before the theoretical menace became real? Such supposition might amount to a gross underestimation of the farsightedness and intelligence of a man who is still respected as an intellectual stalwart, apart from being the “philosopher” Prime Minister of India.

A new revelation has come to the fore, which, if we suppose it is true, might transform our long-held perception of the matter. We know, from a diary by G Parthasarathi, India’s Ambassador to China in the 1950s, that Nehru’s wooly-eyed view of that country had undergone a through transformation long before it intruded into India. The diary, published by the diplomat’s son, Ashoke Parthasarathi, created a flutter on expected lines in political and intellectual circles in India and abroad. If its contents are true — there has been little from any quarter whatsoever — Nehru called China “arrogant, devious, hypocritical and thoroughly unreliable” some time in 1958 and asked the diplomat to be wary of China as also former defence minister Krishna Menon, “whose view of China was clouded because of his ideological leaning towards Communism”.

Nehru is supposed to have ridiculed the “Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai” coinage and advised Parthasarathi against setting store by the platitudinous rhetoric inherent in the much-touted “Pancha-sheel” or five conditions of peaceful co-existence. “Pancha-sheel” was conceived at Nehru’s instance to keep ties involving the two regional giants normal following the Chinese invasion into Tibet. It stressed the need for respecting the culture of countries in the region. The publication of the diary shocked many and a demand was made for an impartial probe into the sequence of events leading to the 1962 disaster. The demand is justified for nobody has any doubt that the 1962 drubbing so bruised the psyche of newly independent India that its confidence as an ascending nation was demolished for many decades. 

It is doubtful whether the nation has left the nightmare behind to wake up to a new dawn. The nervous vacillation displayed by the Indian leadership when the situation warrants that it stare China in the eye keeps casting serious doubts over whether the 1962 drubbing has become a thing of the past. One might rightly wonder why Nehru kept conniving with Krishna Menon till the disaster had befallen India on the ground when he had been aware all along of the defence minister’s worthlessness in reference to protecting the nation’s interests vis-à-vis China’s menacing posturing involving the sensitive border. 

Herein, perhaps, is hidden the riddle of Nehru’s personality. True, he admired China. But that was the China of yore when it kept looking towards India as the repository of knowledge. Nehru was a votary of Buddhism, as he identified his peculiar agnostic conviction with the basic tenets of Buddhism that repudiated the intricate metaphysical complexity inherent in the highest theologies of Hinduism. China was moulded by Buddhism, which it then adapted to its peculiar pragmatic character. It retained what was in tune with its temperament and rejected the rest. China also has a pre-Buddhist past that is equally glorious. Nehru, like his intellectual mentor, Rabindranath Tagore, spoke volumes of the China that kept trudging along snowy deserts in quest for the truth about life and existence.

But it is impossible to believe that, being a champion of democracy, Nehru was happy with the ascendance of a totalitarian regime just across India’s border whose intention was, as Sri Aurobindo wrote long back, an invasion and imposition, by penetration or even by overwhelming military force, of an unwanted ideology of a militant mass of Communism whose push might easily prove irresistible. This was more so as the roots of democracy were too nascent in poverty-stricken India for the appeal of totalitarian Communism under the redoubtable Mao Zedong when it was paraded as the panacea for all ills — economic, political and social.

So why did Nehru go out of his way to patronise a renascent China in the global hierarchy, ignoring warnings by his supposedly more sagacious colleagues like Sardar Patel. His demeanor vis-à-vis China seems all the more quixotic in view of the fact that the Communist leadership in China had never solicited his support to introduce it at international forums. Indeed, Nehru’s pro-China posturing caused much amusement.  Though it may sound derogatory, keeping in view the exalted place he still enjoys in the national as well as international perspective, it must be admitted that the posturing was a part of his diplomacy or, to be more straight forward, his cunning. It would be natural to lay the blame on him, for he single-handedly shaped India’s foreign policy, ignoring the views of others within the government and the party.

The fulcrum on which Nehru’s foreign policy was founded was exemplified in his own words — the right approach to defence is to avoid having unfriendly relations with other countries; or, to word it differently, war today is, and ought to be, out of question. Viewed against this backdrop, it seems his principal objective was to keep the Communist regime in good humour as far as possible so as to defang it of its expansionist penchant. Nehru was aware of the shaky ground on which India’s frontier with China remained founded. The McMahon Line, drawn up by the British to demarcate the borders involving China, Tibet and India, was hazy, to say the least. It could not have stood the test of impartial scrutiny. For China did not approve it; rather, it rejected it way back in 1914, the year Sir Henry McMahon conceptualised the plan following a meeting in Simla. Ivan Chen, commissioner for Tibet and plenipotentiary of China, did not sign it.

The grouse on China’s part remained trained on the participation of Tibet as an independent entity at the conference. For China kept stressing Tibet’s status as its vassal state. Tibet, having participated at the tripartite conference as an independent country, caused Chinese recalcitrance from the beginning.

   The McMahon-envisaged borders could not stand up to legal scrutiny on another count. It was null and void from the very beginning on account of the 1907 Anglo-Russian treaty, which stipulated that none of the two countries would do anything in reference to Tibet while keeping China at bay. The treaty was, however, annulled with mutual consent in 1921.

Nehru knew far back that the new regime in China would stress on the disputed nature of the borders and once the matter came to the fore at the instance of China the entire stretch of the borders involving China, Tibet and India would become a bone of contention between the two emerging Asian giants. It was also easy to visualise China invading Tibet to take it under direct control and, once Tibet was gobbled up, to demand a re-demarcation of the entire stretch of the borders, rejecting the baggage of the past. The position of Sikkim, apart from the region known as Aksai Chin in Jammu and Kashmir and also some parts of the North East Frontier Agency now known as Arunachal Pradesh (China called some parts of Nefa South Tibet), was also uncertain, keeping in view China’s long-held claims on these places as parts of Tibet and, therefore, its own.

It is well known that the British rather forced an enfeebled China, grappling with internal distemper in 1890, to acquiesce to their proposal to accept Sikkim as a de facto protectorate of the British-Indian dispensation. China kept demurring since, repeatedly reinforcing its claims on the kingdom. Nehru was intelligent enough to smell a rat, with the position of the government of India remaining shaky and bereft of inherent strength to withstand pressure from China. Placed thus in a tight corner regarding the shaky border, Nehru was forced to be placatory, though he had no sympathy for the totalitarian regime in China. The Chinese leadership were no fools either. They were well aware of India’s weakness and the real intention behind Nehru’s facade of support for the Communist regime.

Nehru is known to have boasted once of his role in introducing China at the international hierarchy. Stung by the typical Nehruvian verbosity, the Chinese leadership said they did not need any support from the leader of a third-rate country like India. Former Chinese President Liao Shao Chi was on record as having said that his country, being a great power, would have to punish India just once. The intention was not just to show India its place in the regional diplomatic theatre but also to cut Nehru’s “gigantic ego” to size. The Indian predicament vis-à-vis China’s belligerent posturing might explain why Nehru kept conniving with Krishna Menon, though being fully aware of the latter’s ideological affinity with the Communist gospel that China became a champion of. He did not want to ruffle feathers in the Chinese echelons further, given the sensitiveness involved in the situation.

It was thus far more strategic cunning or diplomatic astuteness rather than what is generally supposed to be Nehru’s large-heartedness. However, all is not cunning or hypocritical diplomacy. There is another aspect behind the “Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai” syndrome and this is what is related to the general Indian temperament. It is the tendency to remain frozen in rhetorical bombast when it comes to asserting the Indian position in the moving international trajectory. India tends to show greatness as it craves a global role. But it demands respect for its greatness while tending to ignore the necessity of building up the groundwork for buttressing such claims by way of defence or other related preparedness.

---------------------------------------------------------

Published in The Statesman (Indian Newspaper)

Date: 18th Feb. 2011

By Romit Bagchi