Nehru’s Foreign Policy

Nehru’s Foreign Policy

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Jawaharlal Nehru, independent India’s first Prime Minister and External Affairs Minister for seventeen years, is widely considered the principal architect of India’s foreign policy — a policy built around the twin pillars of non-alignment and Panchsheel, and tested by crises ranging from the Suez Crisis and the Korean War to the Sino-Indian War of 1962. For UPSC History Optional aspirants, Nehru’s foreign policy is essential both for its ideological framework — India’s Commonwealth membership, the Bandung Conference, and the founding of the Non-Aligned Movement — and for the specific bilateral episodes that tested it, including the Indus Waters Treaty, the Kashmir dispute, the Liaquat–Nehru and Nehru-Noon agreements with Pakistan, India’s evolving relationships with China and the USSR, and the 1961 invasion of Goa. This article traces Nehru’s foreign policy from its ideological foundations through each of its major episodes, before presenting a structured model answer examining its main features and limitations.

Overview and Guiding Principles

• Jawaharlal Nehru is considered the architect of modern India; apart from his careful handling of India’s tumultuous domestic situation in the years immediately after Independence, Nehru’s major contribution lies in the field of foreign policy.
  • He kept foreign affairs under his strict control for seventeen years, and made all the major foreign policy decisions himself, merely taking consultation from his advisers and aides.
  • Constructing the conceptual framework of foreign policy, Nehru assumed for himself the role of the sole arbiter of Indian foreign policy; his policies were characterised by an ideological perspective encompassing Panchsheel, non-alignment, and opposition to colonialism and racism.
• In formulating foreign policy, Nehru considered not only other states’ foreign policies but also the trends in contemporary world politics — domestic and foreign policy increasingly influenced each other, highlighting the need for a leader to integrate the two.
  • He wanted India to have an identity without overt commitment to either power bloc — the USA and the Soviet Union — and, as India’s foreign minister, determined India’s international profile to a great degree in the post-independence years.
• Nehru’s foreign policy, like his economic policies, has been subject to much controversy and debate; however, taken in the context of India’s newly found status as a democratic republic, his foreign affairs policies seem extremely apt.
  • Nehru led newly independent India from 1947 to 1964; both the United States and the Soviet Union competed to make India an ally throughout the Cold War.
  • Socialism can be said to be one of the greatest international influences on Nehru, but Gandhi’s ideals of Satyagraha also influenced him to a great degree — though he committed himself to neither point of view in framing his foreign policy.
• Nehru’s foreign policy was characterised by two major ideological aspects:
  • first, he wanted India to have an identity independent of any overt commitment to either power bloc — a policy that ultimately led to the founding of the Non-Alignment Movement (NAM);
  • secondly, he had an unshaken faith in goodwill and honesty in international affairs — a faith terribly shaken by the Chinese attack of 1962, which openly disobeyed all the clauses of the Panchsheel, or five-point agreement, of 1954 between New Delhi and Peking.
  • This breach of faith was a major psychological shock for Nehru, and was partially the reason for his death.
• He was proud of being an Asian, and wanted Asian nations to be the primary determinants of their own political fate, not always guided by Western forces.
  • Early in 1947, at India’s initiative, the Asian Relations Conference at Delhi was convened, where the principles of independent India’s foreign policy were proclaimed; it was attended by representatives of 29 countries, and helped strengthen the solidarity of all Asian countries.

The Commonwealth of Nations

• Nehru maintained good relations with the British Empire.
  • Under the London Declaration, India agreed that, when it became a republic in January 1950, it would join the Commonwealth of Nations and accept the British monarch as a “symbol of the free association of its independent member nations and as such the Head of the Commonwealth”; the other nations of the Commonwealth recognised India’s continuing membership.
• Nehru was subject to much criticism back home for the support he extended to the Commonwealth, particularly after the British government’s complication of the independence issue in the post-World War II years, which led to the unwanted Partition.
  • However, Nehru — always a believer in peaceful alliances and the resolution of international affairs through discussion — went on with his ideals.
• Nehru said: “I wanted the world to see that India does not lack faith in herself, and that India is prepared to co-operate even with those with whom she had been fighting in the past; provided the basis of co-operation today is honourable, that it is a free basis, a basis which would lead to the good not only of ourselves, but of the world also. That is to say, we would not deny that co-operation simply because in the past we have had a fight, and thus carry on the trail of our past ‘karma’ along with us. We have to wash out the past with all its evil.”
• On 16 May 1949, during the Constituent Assembly Debates on the framing of a republican constitution, Nehru declared: “We join the Commonwealth obviously because we think it is beneficial to us and to certain causes in the world that we wish to advance… At the same time, it is made perfectly clear that each country is completely free to go its own way… Otherwise, apart from breaking the evil parts of the association, it is better to keep a co-operative association going which may do good in this world rather than break it.”

The London Declaration

• The London Declaration was issued by the 1949 Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Conference on the issue of India’s continued membership in the Commonwealth of Nations after its transition to a republican constitution; it was made in London on 28 April 1949, and marked the birth of the modern Commonwealth.
  • The declaration had two main provisions: it allowed the Commonwealth to admit and retain members that were not Dominions — including both republics and indigenous monarchies — and it changed the name of the organisation from the British Commonwealth to the Commonwealth of Nations, reflecting this change.

The Bandung Conference (Afro-Asian Conference), 1955

• The Bandung Conference was a meeting of Asian and African states — organised by Indonesia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, India, and Pakistan — held 18–24 April 1955 in Bandung, Indonesia; 29 countries, representing more than half the world’s population, sent delegates.
  • Its agenda comprised economic and cultural cooperation, respect for human rights and self-determination, and the promotion of world peace and cooperation.
• The conference reflected the five sponsors’ dissatisfaction with: a reluctance by Western powers to consult them on decisions affecting Asia; tension between the People’s Republic of China and the United States; the desire to lay firmer foundations for China’s peaceful relations with themselves and the West; opposition to colonialism, especially French influence in North Africa; and Indonesia’s desire to promote its case in the dispute with the Netherlands over western New Guinea.
  • Major debate centred on whether Soviet policies in eastern Europe and Central Asia should be censured alongside Western colonialism; a consensus was reached condemning “colonialism in all of its manifestations,” implicitly censuring the Soviet Union as well as the West.
• Nehru participated in Bandung and popularised the policy of non-alignment there.
  • A 10-point “declaration on the promotion of world peace and cooperation,” incorporating the principles of the UN charter and Nehru’s Five Principles (“mutual respect” for territorial integrity and sovereignty, non-aggression, non-interference in internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and “peaceful coexistence”), was adopted unanimously.

The Non-Alignment Movement

• The greatest success of Nehru’s non-committal international politics was the formation of the Non-Alignment Movement (NAM); Nehru found allies in Tito, Nasser, Soekarno, U Nu, and Nkrumah at a later stage in forming this alliance.
  • Nehru was a champion of pacifism and a strong supporter of the United Nations; he pioneered non-alignment and co-founded NAM, a movement of nations professing neutrality between the rival blocs led by the US and the USSR.
  • Non-alignment was a technique to maintain world peace such that each nation could pursue its own interest without disturbing others; the policy was also in tune with the domestic requirements of democracy and socialism.
• A major economic factor behind non-alignment was India’s economic backwardness: foreign aid was an important component of developing India’s economy, and was welcomed from all quarters — the USSR, UK, USA, Germany, and Japan — presupposing non-alignment, since India was tied to both East and West for economic development.
  • Nehru sought to guide India clear of any form of violence and militarism, believing that a newly decolonised nation must invest its economic and logistic resources towards development, not defence and armament.
  • Just as his economic policies were non-committal towards any ideological position, Nehru wanted a healthy pragmatism in his conduct of India’s foreign affairs; he understood that overt commitment to either of the two major power blocs to emerge after World War II would not serve India’s path, and so wanted to tread a third path — not necessarily a “middle” path.
• This dogged non-commitment was not initially viewed sympathetically by the superpowers of either East or West; it was frequently termed a kind of international opportunism, and accused of “neutralism” — a stance reckoned to be dangerous and equally immoral in international politics.
  • However, the increasing popularity of NAM among Asian and African countries, and Nehru’s growing stature as a statesman, changed these views; India benefited by securing rebuilding grants from member countries of either bloc.
  • The importance of the movement was soon felt, initially leading to considerable international pressure from both parts of the globe; Nehru proceeded with his mission undaunted, and it was soon found that NAM was not merely a passive platform of neutral, inactive nations.
• NAM had clear objectives, including the gradual decolonisation of the world, and a strong statement that member countries were not party to the escalating tensions of the Cold War.
  • The favoured process of decolonisation adopted by NAM member countries was one of discussion and peaceful agreement; on many occasions, NAM met with success, often under Nehru’s leadership.
  • After Nehru’s successful mediation in the Korean War and the Congo problem, ending long and violent struggles, his status as a commendable statesman reached new heights, and his theory of ideological non-commitment was appreciated widely.
• Recognising the People’s Republic of China soon after its founding (while most of the Western bloc continued relations with the Republic of China, i.e. Taiwan), Nehru argued for its inclusion in the United Nations and refused to brand the Chinese as aggressors in their conflict with Korea.
  • He sought to establish warm relations with China in 1950, hoping to act as an intermediary bridging the communist states and the Western bloc.

The Suez Crisis, 1956

• In 1956, Nehru criticised the joint invasion of the Suez Canal by the British, French, and Israelis; his role, both as Indian Prime Minister and a leader of NAM, was significant — he tried to be even-handed between the two sides while vigorously denouncing the invasion.
  • Nehru had a powerful ally in US President Dwight Eisenhower, who, though relatively silent publicly, used America’s clout in the IMF to make Britain and France back down; the episode greatly raised the prestige of Nehru and India among third-world nations.
  • During the crisis, Nehru’s right-hand man, Menon, attempted to persuade a recalcitrant Gamal Nasser to compromise with the West, and helped move Western powers towards an awareness that Nasser might prove willing to compromise.
• The USA had hoped to court Nehru after its intervention in favour of Nasser during the crisis; however, Cold War suspicions and American distrust of Nehruvian socialism cooled Indo-US relations, with the US suspecting Nehru of tacitly supporting the Soviet Union.
  • Nehru maintained good relations with Britain even after the Suez Crisis, and later accepted the arbitration of the UK and World Bank in signing the Indus Waters Treaty in 1960 with Pakistani ruler Ayub Khan, to resolve long-standing disputes about sharing the resources of the major rivers of the Punjab region.

The Indus Waters Treaty, 1960

• At the partition of British India in 1947, the international boundary between India and West Pakistan cut the irrigation system of the Bari Doab and the Sutlej Valley Project — originally designed as one scheme — into two parts, with the headworks falling to India while the canals ran through Pakistan; this led to a disruption in Pakistan’s water supply.
  • The resulting dispute, which continued for some years, was resolved through World Bank mediation by a treaty between Pakistan and India (1960), known as the Indus Waters Treaty.
• The treaty, brokered by the World Bank, was signed in Karachi on 19 September 1960 by Jawaharlal Nehru and Pakistani President Ayub Khan; it arose from Pakistani fears that, since the source rivers of the Indus basin lay in India, this could potentially create droughts and famines in Pakistan, especially in times of war.
  • Under the agreement, the flow of the three western rivers of the Indus basin — the Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab (except a small quantity used in Jammu and Kashmir) — is assigned to Pakistan, while the flow of the three eastern rivers — the Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej — is reserved exclusively for India.
• Since the treaty’s ratification in 1960, India and Pakistan have not engaged in any water wars; disagreements have instead been settled through the legal procedures provided for within its framework, and the treaty is considered one of the most successful water-sharing endeavours in the world.

Policy on Palestine and Israel

• India did not subscribe to the Partition Plan for Palestine of 1947, and voted against Israel’s admission to the United Nations in 1949; India also did not recognise Israel as a nation until 1950.
  • Nehru and Gandhi were both pro-Palestine, opposing the creation of Israel as Nehru was against the creation of countries based on religion.
• In an editorial in the Harijan, a widely circulated Indian weekly, on 11 November 1938, Gandhi declared: “My sympathies are with the Jews… but my sympathy does not blind me to the requirements of justice. The cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me… Why should they not, like other peoples of the earth, make that country their home where they are born and where they earn their livelihood? Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home.”
• Although India did not subscribe to the 1947 Partition Plan and voted against Israel’s UN admission in 1949, it did recognise Israel as a nation in 1950.
  • In a 1954 statement, Nehru said he would not “be a party to a resolution which stated that the creation of Israel was a violation of international law.”
• In contrast to the official Indian standpoint, which had wide support in the country, various Hindu nationalist organisations supported the creation of Israel: Vinayak Damodar Savarkar supported Israel’s creation, viewed it as “joyous,” and condemned India’s vote at the UN against Israel.
  • India established official relations with Israel in 1991, although informal ties had long existed previously, involving figures such as Moshe Dayan, who visited India secretly during Morarji Desai’s tenure.

India’s Role in the Korean War

• Nehru feared that the Korean War would lead to a Third World War, with atomic bombs potentially used (the Soviet Union having also developed “the bomb”), which might drag India into the conflict; as China was India’s neighbour, he was also concerned about spillover effects.
  • India tried to pacify all sides by mediating between the parties; The New York Times declared that the struggle for Asia “could be won or lost in the mind of one man — Jawaharlal Nehru.”
• India condemned North Korea as an aggressor when the war started, supporting Security Council Resolutions 82 and 83, but did not support Resolution 84 for military assistance to South Korea; as a non-aligned country, India hesitated to make a military commitment against North Korea.
  • Rather than sending armed forces at the UN’s request, India sent a medical unit to Korea as a humanitarian gesture — India’s medical services are still fondly remembered in Korea by both sides.
• India chaired the 9-member UN Commission that monitored elections in undivided Korea in 1947; after the war, India again played an important role, chairing the Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission on the Korean peninsula, which handled prisoners of war from both sides and interviewed them to determine which wished to return home.
  • India dispatched a 6,000-strong Indian Custodial Force to Korea.
• At the end of the war, India gained little and received criticism from all sides; relations with the US deteriorated (for not siding with it), and the US began giving military aid to Pakistan.
  • On the other hand, the war elevated Nehru’s prestige to great heights, solidifying his image as a leading world statesman; for the rest of his life, no major global discussion occurred without his involvement.

Not a Pure Pacifist: Nehru and Defence

• Nehru, while a pacifist, was not blind to India’s political and geo-strategic reality in 1947. While laying the foundation stone of the National Defence Academy in 1949, he stated: “We, who for generations had talked about and attempted in everything a peaceful way and practised non-violence, should now be, in a sense, glorifying our army, navy and air force… There was no greater prince of peace and apostle of non-violence than Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of the Nation, whom we have lost, but yet, he said it was better to take the sword than to surrender, fail or run away. We cannot live carefree assuming that we are safe… We have to be prepared with all modern defence methods and a well-equipped army, navy and air force.”
• Nehru envisioned developing nuclear weapons, and established the Atomic Energy Commission of India (AEC) in 1948.
  • He entrusted nuclear physicist Dr. Homi J. Bhabha with complete authority over all nuclear-related affairs and programmes, answerable only to Nehru himself; Indian nuclear policy was set by an unwritten personal understanding between the two.
  • Nehru famously said to Bhabha: “Professor Bhabha, take care of Physics, leave international relations to me.”
• From the outset in 1948, Nehru had high ambitions to develop this programme to stand against the industrialised states, aiming to establish an Indian nuclear weapons capability as part of India’s regional superiority over other South Asian states, particularly Pakistan.
  • He also told Bhabha: “We must have the capability. We should first prove ourselves and then talk of Gandhi, non-violence and a world without nuclear weapons.”
• At the same time, he commissioned the first study of the human effects of nuclear explosions, and campaigned ceaselessly for the abolition of what he called “these frightful engines of destruction.”
  • He also had pragmatic reasons for promoting de-nuclearisation, fearing that a nuclear arms race would lead to over-militarisation unaffordable for developing countries such as India.

The Kashmir Issue

• Kashmir was a perpetual problem: Nehru failed to reach any successful negotiation regarding Kashmir with Pakistan, and tried to force negotiation with the Pakistani government through the United Nations.
  • Nehru had promised, in 1948, to hold a plebiscite in Kashmir under UN auspices; however, as Pakistan failed to withdraw its troops in accordance with the UN resolution, and as Nehru grew increasingly wary of the UN, he declined to hold the plebiscite in 1953.
• His policies on Kashmir, and the integration of the state into India, were frequently defended before the United Nations by his aide Krishna Menon, a brilliant diplomat known in India for his passionate speeches.
  • In 1957, Menon delivered an unprecedented eight-hour speech defending India’s stand on Kashmir — to date, the longest speech ever delivered in the UN Security Council.
• Nehru ordered the arrest of the Kashmiri politician Sheikh Abdullah in 1953, whom he had previously supported but now suspected of harbouring separatist ambitions; Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad replaced him.
  • On 8 April 1964, the State Government dropped all charges in the so-called “Kashmir Conspiracy Case“; Sheikh Abdullah was released, returned to Srinagar, and was reconciled with Nehru.
  • Nehru requested Sheikh Abdullah to act as a bridge between India and Pakistan and persuade President Ayub to come to New Delhi for talks on a final solution to the Kashmir problem — paving the way for Abdullah’s visit to Pakistan to help broker a solution. However, Nehru’s sudden death in 1964 stopped the process.

The Kashmir Conspiracy Case

• The Kashmir Conspiracy Case was a legal case filed by the Government of Kashmir and the Investigations Department of the Government of India, by which Sheikh Abdullah and others were arrested and jailed.
  • Abdullah, along with Mirza Afzal Beg and 22 others, was accused of conspiracy against the state for allegedly espousing the cause of an independent Kashmir.
  • The case was framed in 1958, the trial began in 1959, and it was withdrawn in 1964.

The Liaquat–Nehru Pact (Delhi Pact), 1950

• At the time of independence, many communal riots broke out across India and Pakistan, gravely affecting the status of minorities in both nations; even after migration, almost half the Muslims in the subcontinent remained in India, along with a sizeable number of Hindus in Pakistan.
  • The peoples and governments of both countries looked upon these minorities as suspects, unable to assure their countrymen of their loyalty; this problem escalated until it seemed India and Pakistan were about to fight their second war within the first three years of independence. The Delhi Pact was signed to resolve this.
• The Delhi Pact was a bilateral treaty between India and Pakistan, under which refugees were allowed to return unmolested to dispose of their property, abducted women and looted property were to be returned, forced conversions were unrecognised, and minority rights were confirmed.
  • The treaty was signed in New Delhi by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Pakistani Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan on 8 April 1950, the outcome of six days of talks seeking to guarantee minority rights in both countries after Partition and avert another war.
• This pact provided a “bill of rights” for the minorities of India and Pakistan, aiming to: alleviate the fears of religious minorities on both sides; promote communal peace; and create an atmosphere in which the two countries could resolve their other differences.
  • Minority commissions were set up in both countries.

The Nehru-Noon Agreement, 1958

• After Partition, in view of problems arising from boundary demarcation and enclaves, India and Pakistan felt it necessary to reach an agreement; Prime Ministers Jawaharlal Nehru and Feroze Khan Noon arrived at an agreement in 1958, known as the Nehru-Noon Agreement.
  • The surveyors of India and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) began delineating the international boundary from day one, trying to follow the lines and description drawn up by Sir Cyril Radcliffe, but soon faced irreconcilable differences; the Bagge Awards (26 January 1950) brought with them a host of political and legal imponderables.
• Nehru and Firoze Khan Noon concluded the first Boundary Agreement in 1958 (10 September 1958); in the eastern theatre, the Agreement sought to:
  • resolve differences impeding boundary demarcation in different sectors, including the problem of Union No. 12 of Southern Berubari, which was part of India according to the Radcliffe line but belonged to Pakistan according to his written description (the mostly Hindu population of the Union opposed the territory going to Pakistan);
  • it was agreed to divide the Union roughly into two halves, with the southern half (along with two enclaves) going to Pakistan and the northern half remaining with India;
  • resolve the problem of the so-called enclaves — 113 Indian enclaves inside East Pakistan and 53 East Pakistan enclaves inside India — with the Agreement deciding to merge the enclaves with the country within which they fell; and
  • exchange territories as a consequence of boundary demarcation, transferring territories found to be wrongfully held (under adverse possession) to the country to which they rightfully belonged.
• However, the Nehru-Noon Agreement’s provisions on the mutual exchange of enclaves and the transfer of southern South Berubari Union No. 12 to East Pakistan could not be implemented, owing to litigation filed by Indians claiming that the entire Berubari union was Indian territory at the time the Indian Constitution came into force, and that the enclaves belonging to Cochbehar state were also part of India — meaning neither could be ceded to a foreign country.
  • The case eventually reached the Supreme Court of India, which ruled that the Constitution had to be amended to exclude the southern half of South Berubari Union No. 12 and the Indian enclaves inside East Pakistan, in order to give effect to the exchange stipulated in the Agreement. The Constitution was accordingly amended in 1960 (the 9th Amendment); however, the stipulated exchanges did not take place.

The China Crisis and the Sino-Indian War of 1962

• In 1954, Nehru signed with China the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence — known in India as Panchsheel — a set of principles to govern relations between the two states:
  • mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty;
  • mutual non-aggression;
  • mutual non-interference in each other’s internal affairs;
  • equality and cooperation for mutual benefit; and
  • peaceful coexistence.
  • These were enunciated in the preamble to the “Agreement on Trade and Intercourse between the Tibet Region of China and India,” signed at Peking on 29 April 1954; by April 1955, Burma, China, Laos, Nepal, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, Yugoslavia, and Cambodia had accepted the Panchsheel.
• However, China started patrolling parts of the Indian border from 1955 onward; Delhi began negotiations to resolve the problem peacefully.
  • India, under Nehru, wanted to address one issue at a time, while the Chinese government, under Chou En-lai, wanted to treat the border issue in its entirety at once — a gross violation of the five-point agreement.
  • China’s denial of arbitration by the International Court of Justice complicated the problem, and Nehru’s decision to grant political asylum to the 14th Dalai Lama worsened the situation.
• From 1959, in a process that accelerated in 1961, Nehru adopted the “Forward Policy” of setting up military outposts in disputed areas of the Sino-Indian border, including 43 outposts in territory not previously controlled by India.
  • China attacked some of these outposts, and amidst rising tensions, launched a full-scale invasion in 1962 — a rude shock, not only to Nehru but to the entire international community, catching the unprepared and unequipped Indian military off guard.
• Both the USA and the Soviet Union extended only token help; the Soviets were preoccupied with the Cuban crisis, though after it subsided, President Khrushchev did extend some help — American help, meanwhile, was minimal compared to the massive military aid extended to Pakistan in 1954.
  • India lost the war, and China withdrew to pre-war lines in the eastern zone at Tawang, but retained Aksai Chin (which had been within British India and was handed over to India after independence). Pakistan later ceded some portion of Kashmir near Siachen, under its control since 1948, to China by a 1963 agreement.
• During the conflict, Nehru wrote two desperate letters to US President John F. Kennedy, requesting 12 squadrons of fighter jets and a modern radar system.
  • These jets were seen as necessary to strengthen Indian air power so that air-to-air combat could be safely initiated (bombing troops on the ground was seen as unwise, for fear of Chinese retaliation); Nehru also asked that the aircraft be manned by American pilots until Indian airmen were trained to replace them.
  • These requests were rejected by the Kennedy administration (occupied for most of the war with the Cuban Missile Crisis), leading to a cooling of Indo-US relations.
• When Washington finally turned its attention to India, it honoured the ambassador’s pledge, loading 60 US planes with automatic weapons, heavy mortars, and land mines; twelve C-130 Hercules transports, with US crews and maintenance teams, flew Indian troops and equipment to the battle zone. Britain, Canada, and Australia also helped.
  • Because the Soviets were engaged in their own high-stakes gamble in Cuba, the USSR did not discourage the Chinese, despite Khrushchev’s close relationship with Nehru; at the same time, defeating India would answer the question Kennedy had raised in a 1959 Senate speech about which country — democratic India or communist China — was poised to win the race for great power status in Asia.
  • Americans played a decisive role in forestalling a Pakistani attack on India: Kennedy’s message to Ayub Khan, reinforced by a similar message from Prime Minister Macmillan, made clear that the US and UK would view a Pakistani move against India as hostile and inconsistent with the SEATO and CENTO treaties.
• Nehru stood firm in his faith in the five-point principle, and China withdrew under growing international pressure, fearing isolation and global antagonism; Nehru would continue to maintain his commitment to the non-aligned movement, despite calls from some to settle on one permanent ally.
• The Chinese invasion had far-reaching effects on India’s foreign policy, forcing Nehru to change his stance on international affairs.
  • He realised that unmitigated goodwill was not necessarily the way the business of foreign affairs was conducted, and his dreams were more or less shattered; it was also a great eye-opener, showing India the importance of strengthening its own military strength rather than depending overtly on peaceful negotiation.
  • The invasion was a shock to Nehru, almost shaking his idealistic foundations to their very base; escalating domestic problems added to the mental and physical stress on him.
• Nehru was widely criticised for his government’s insufficient attention to defence; in response, he sacked defence minister Krishna Menon and took several steps to strengthen defence.
  • The war’s aftermath saw sweeping changes in the Indian military to prepare for similar conflicts, and placed pressure on Nehru, seen as responsible for failing to anticipate the Chinese attack.
  • Indians in general became highly sceptical of China and its military; many viewed the war as a betrayal of India’s attempts to establish long-standing peace with China, and began to question Nehru’s use of the term “Hindi-Chini bhai-bhai.”
  • The war also ended Nehru’s earlier hopes that India and China would form a strong Asian axis to counteract the influence of the Cold War bloc superpowers.
• Toward the end of the war, India increased its support for Tibetan refugees and revolutionaries, some of whom had settled in India while fighting the same common enemy; Nehru ordered the raising of an elite Indian-trained “Tibetan Armed Force” of Tibetan refugees, which served with distinction in the future wars against Pakistan in 1965 and 1971.

Nehru’s Other Foreign Policies

Invasion of Portuguese India (Goa, 1961)

• Nehru’s foreign policy suffered through increasing Chinese assertiveness over border disputes. After years of failed negotiations, Nehru authorised the Indian Army to invade Portuguese-controlled Goa, Daman, and Diu in 1961.
  • The Invasion of Portuguese India was an action by the Indian Armed Forces that ended Portuguese rule in its exclaves in India in 1961; the armed action, codenamed Operation Vijay, involved air, sea, and land strikes over more than 36 hours, and was a decisive victory resulting in the incorporation of Goa, Daman, and Diu into the Republic of India.
• The brief conflict drew a mixture of worldwide praise and condemnation: in India, the action was seen as the liberation of historically Indian territory, while Portugal viewed it as an aggression against its national soil and citizens.
  • The operation increased Nehru’s popularity in India, though he was criticised by the communist opposition for the use of military force; that same use of force earned him goodwill among right-wing groups.

International Cooperation

• Regional cooperation was another principle of India’s foreign policy that Nehru envisaged for promoting peace among nations; he wanted to maintain good relations with Pakistan, China, Nepal, and others, to foster lasting peace, and to expand this friendship and cooperation with as many countries as possible.
  • Nehru had firm faith in the UNO and the Commonwealth of Nations, as these organisations enabled nations to arrive at solutions; he wanted to do away with racialism and colonialism.
• Nehru wanted to pursue a foreign policy advantageous to the country, based on peace and aimed at establishing friendly relations with other countries for India’s benefit.
  • As he put it: “Whatever policy you may lay down, the art of conducting foreign affairs of a country lies in finding out what is most advantageous to the country. We may talk about international goodwill and mean what we say. But in the ultimate analysis, a government functions for the good of the country it governs and no government dare do anything, which in the short or long run is manifestly to the disadvantage of that country.” — Nehru, in the Constituent Assembly, December 1947.

Indo-Soviet Relations under Nehru

• After World War II, as Russia and the West both tried to influence newly independent nations, Moscow found itself at a handicap: unlike Western countries, which had been colonising the world for over three centuries and were thus well-acquainted with far-flung corners of the planet, Russian leaders and diplomats had very little experience dealing with foreign nationalities.
  • The Soviet Union established diplomatic relations with India even before the British departure in 1947; Nehru made his sister, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, India’s first ambassador to Moscow in April 1947.
• Joseph Stalin and his supporters never quite understood India: Stalin, who called India’s independence a “political farce,” considered Nehru an agent of American imperialism, while Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov considered him a British intelligence agent.
  • India was one of the first major countries the Russians courted; but if Russia was “an enigma wrapped in a riddle” to the West, India was equally mysterious to the Russians. In his memoirs, Nikita Khrushchev writes: “Our knowledge of India was not only superficial but downright primitive.”
• The Russians, who had smashed German forces after a titanic struggle, could not understand Nehru’s policy of non-violence: “We regarded the policies Nehru was pursuing as something close to pacifism. The teachings of Gandhi about non-resistance to evil and his other statements along the same lines, in the spirit of Leo Tolstoy, were not attractive to us,” Khrushchev writes. “We valued Gandhi’s nobility of spirit, but we didn’t understand him. In today’s world, we felt, it was impossible to win freedom by such methods.”
  • Khrushchev also writes: “The British were cunning. Realising that a violent rebellion by India’s armed forces and revolutionaries was coming, the British agreed to retreat from India, dumping all credit on Gandhi and his non-violence. The British retreat sort of legitimised the theory of non-violence, and Nehru’s policies found takers in many developing countries.”
• However, an official Russian visit to India did not materialise until 1955 — eight years after independence — for several reasons:
  • the first was Joseph Stalin: Khrushchev writes that “Stalin paid no special attention to India, a disregard that was undeserved… The first time Stalin began to pay close attention to India was after it won its independence”;
  • the second was Nehru himself, who at the time preferred to deal with other newly independent nations such as China, Indonesia, Egypt, and Myanmar;
  • thirdly, Russian observers concluded that India had chosen the capitalist path of development — “there was nothing to indicate socialist construction in that country. And we felt repelled by that,” Khrushchev writes.
  • Russian leaders also distrusted Nehru for being seen as “palling around with the British”: “We couldn’t understand why he took such a patient and tolerant attitude toward the British, who had formerly enslaved his country. British officers continued to serve in the Indian army, and British officials still held posts here and there in India. That put us on our guard,” Khrushchev writes.
• On the positive side, the Indian people enjoyed special respect in the USSR, having formerly been oppressed by colonialists and now achieved liberation; the move towards closer relations was nonetheless drawn out.
  • Finally, in June 1955, Nehru, accompanied by his daughter Indira Gandhi, made an official visit to Russia. As Khrushchev writes: “We wanted him to see the best things and to have a favourable impression of our Soviet land. We wanted him to see how, guided by Marxist-Leninist theory, we had put that theory into practice.”
  • Nehru travelled around and saw a significant part of the USSR, including Central Asia; “my impression was that he had a high regard for our achievements,” Khrushchev writes.
• Khrushchev nonetheless observed: “Nehru, with his confused mind, couldn’t decide whether it was capitalism or socialism was better, or whether ties with the United States or Soviet Russia were good for India.”
  • Nehru had not budged from his mixed-economy theory: “As a result our former attitude toward Nehru did not fundamentally change,” writes Khrushchev. “As before, we viewed him with great respect and valued him highly, but in our view he was a man with a particular frame of mind, a particular culture, and particular views, and essentially that was correct.”
  • Khrushchev concluded that “the path Nehru chose for the betterment of his country was a very long and slow one, and no one knew where it would lead,” adding: “We wanted India to develop heavy industry and raise the living standards of its people, but not by the methods and policies that Nehru was proclaiming, because such goals were not achievable that way, and the people of India would be doomed for many years to an impoverished existence.”
• A note of disappointment is detectable in Khrushchev’s tone: “Outwardly our official talks with Nehru went smoothly. He praised Soviet achievements, but not once did he say anything to the effect that our experience might to some extent be transferable to Indian conditions, and he gave us reason to think that this was not what he wanted. For our part, we didn’t want to be imposing our view of the world on him.”
  • Nehru later invited an official delegation from Russia to visit India; the stage was set for new beginnings.

Examine the Main Features of Nehru’s Foreign Policy (Model Answer)

Question: Examine the main features of the foreign policy of Jawaharlal Nehru.

• Nehru is called the architect of India’s foreign policy; its evolution began even before independence, when he headed the foreign department of the Indian National Congress, formed in 1928. It was largely due to Nehru’s efforts that, from the mid-1920s, the Congress party began taking an interest in international affairs.
  • He kept a watchful eye on, and actively participated in, international events — for example, participating in the International Congress against Imperialism and Colonial Oppression at Brussels (1927), supporting liberation movements worldwide, and expressing appreciation for Soviet experiments. The experiences he gained during this period shaped his worldview.
• After independence, he retained the foreign ministry himself, shaping India’s foreign policy and building the basic foundation on which it was to be built for years after him; his policy was necessarily conditioned by India’s needs, and derived also from a long history, fitting into the framework of India’s own thought and tradition.

The main features of his foreign policy were:

• It followed the principle of non-alignment, i.e., not aligning with any group during the Cold War — a vision of independence, to act, pursue policies, and maintain status independently, thus representing national interests.
  • It was neither isolation nor neutrality, but rather an active response to prevailing international relations and affairs, representing a new alternative in international relations — that of international peace and cooperation.
  • It was a more pragmatic than ideological approach: according to Nehru, non-alignment represented the shared interest of newly emerged nations, a vision shaped by long-term colonial domination and the Cold War situation.
• He was among the pioneers of the Non-Alignment Movement (NAM), which took concrete shape with its first conference held in 1961 in Belgrade.
• Panchsheel for peaceful coexistence: the policy of non-alignment was based on the five principles of Panchsheel, enumerating international conduct, first envisaged and formulated in 1954. These principles were:
  • mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty;
  • non-aggression;
  • non-interference in each other’s military affairs;
  • equality and mutual benefit; and
  • peaceful coexistence.
  • By April 1955, Burma, China, Laos, Nepal, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, Yugoslavia, and Cambodia had accepted the Panchsheel.
• Nehru raised his voice against imperialism and colonialism; many conferences were organised to voice support for the liberation of nations, including:
  • the Asian Relations Conference, 1947, New Delhi, and the Asian National Conference, 1949, New Delhi;
  • the Asian National Conference, 1954, Colombo;
  • the Afro-Asian Conference, Bandung, Indonesia, 1955; and
  • the 1st Summit of NAM, Belgrade, 1961.
  • India similarly supported independence movements in Southeast Asia and around the world; Nehru also criticised the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 and demanded its withdrawal, and voiced opposition to the Korean War.
• Nehru pursued a policy of friendship with every country, whether of the American bloc (capitalist system) or the Soviet bloc (communist system), with a declared policy of showing no preference for one over the other.
  • India’s adoption of a democratic system of government did not, however, draw it closer to Western countries with similar systems, nor did it distance India from the communist countries.
• India supported the struggle for human rights, and voiced opposition to apartheid and racism.
  • Gandhi had fought against apartheid in South Africa around the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; India first raised this issue at the United Nations in 1946.
• Nehru recognised the useful role of international organisations such as the UNO and the Commonwealth of Nations, as he always believed in peaceful alliances and the resolution of international affairs through discussion.

Commitment to the UN:

• India volunteered peacekeeping forces and subscribed to UN principles — for example, during the Korean War — and took the Kashmir issue to the UN.
• India decided to stay in the Commonwealth: under the London Declaration (1948), India agreed that, when it became a republic in January 1950, it would join the Commonwealth of Nations.
  • This decision was also in consonance with Gandhi’s insistence that the quarrel of Indians was with English rule, not Englishmen, and that “enmity against Englishmen or Europeans must be wholly forgotten.”

Relations with the superpowers:

• Nehru tried to maintain friendly relations with both the USA and the USSR, without aligning with either ideologically; India benefited by receiving help from both sides.
  • The US funded community development programmes and provided food support; the USSR also provided food aid to India, supported India on the Kashmir issue, and supported the construction of heavy industries, such as at Bhilai and Bokaro.

Relations with neighbours:

• Nehru always strove for friendly relations with India’s neighbours.
  • With Pakistan, relations were always strained, mainly over borders, the distribution of river waters, and the question of Kashmir; the Indus Water Treaty was signed with Pakistan in 1960 with the good offices of the World Bank, and is considered the most successful water treaty in the world. Pakistan’s decision to join a military alliance also contributed to the strained relationship.
  • India signed treaties of friendship with both Nepal and Bhutan, and assisted in their development.
  • With Sri Lanka, the only irritant was the problem of people of Indian origin: soon after independence, Sri Lanka disowned people of Indian origin, rendering large numbers of them stateless; the Indian government permitted such Indian citizens to come to India if they wished, and those who came were given Indian citizenship.
  • Relations with Myanmar were also peaceful, with issues related to the border and Indian settlers resolved through discussion.
  • With China, India always showed keenness to develop friendly relations, despite China’s military action in Tibet; India supported China’s entry into the United Nations, and in 1954 concluded a treaty with China regarding Tibet, recognising Tibet as a region of China. Both countries showed determination to conduct their relations on the basis of Panchsheel; China supported India on the issue of Goa, and also supplied India with food grains. Later, however, hostilities broke out over border issues, and war followed in 1962.

Nehru as international mediator:

• During the Korean War, he mediated between the two sides; India also played a helpful role in resolving the problem of the repatriation of Korean prisoners of war.
  • Again, in 1954, an Indian emissary played the role of mediator between Indonesia and France.

Policy on Palestine and Israel: India did not subscribe to the 1947 Partition Plan for Palestine, and voted against Israel’s admission to the United Nations in 1949; India also did not recognise Israel as a nation until 1950. Nehru and Gandhi were both pro-Palestine, opposing the creation of Israel, as Nehru was against the creation of countries based on religion.

Limitations of his foreign policy:

• Defeat in the Sino-Indian War of 1962 led to criticism of his earlier policies, such as supporting China for a UNSC seat.
• The Kashmir issue was also left unresolved; many criticised his decision to take the matter to the United Nations, and overall relations with Pakistan did not improve.
• Following the non-alignment principle sometimes worked unfavourably for both sides — for example, during the Korean War.
• Overall, Nehru’s foreign policy was based on enlightened self-interest, and, despite some limitations, he formulated a foreign policy that helped India maintain its independence and be treated respectfully by almost all nations.