The Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s public and undisguised reference to China’s expansionism in his address to Indian troops last week, on July 3 in Ladakh was so obvious that the Chinese lost no time in rejecting the allegation. As proof of China’s nonexpansionism, their spokesman, denying the charge, said that China had signed boundary agreements with all but two of its neighbours; in a Tweet, the spokesperson said: “#China has demarcated boundary with 12 of its 14 neighboring countries through peaceful negotiations, turning land borders into bonds of friendly cooperation.”
Down memory lane
Mr. Modi’s deliberate and no doubt wellthoughtout speech does raise a question in one’s mind. Did he realise China’s expansionism only after what has happened in eastern Ladakh in recent weeks? Or, has he had such thoughts about China all along and decided to give expression to them only now? One can expect that Mr. Modi must have had the measure of China’s President Xi Jinping during his many meetings with him over the years.
Nehru, China and Kashmir
Jawaharlal Nehru, on the other hand, had convinced himself that China will not attack India. His Defence Minister, V.K. Krishna Menon, likely played a big part in inclining Nehru towards this conviction. Regrettably, none of his advisers cautioned him against this miscalculation; most of them had no experience in foreign relations. Nehru was not guided by any ideological considerations. Yes, he dreamt of India, and him, playing a big role on the world stage and believed that China could be a partner in that endeavour. Even the present government sees India acting as “Vishwaguru”. Whatever his reasons, there is no doubt that his China policy was hugely faulty. It would be healthy for all of us admirers of Nehru — a rapidly dwindling tribe — including the Indian National Congress party, to acknowledge this. But Nehru did not commit any Himalayan blunder in Kashmir. When a ceasefire was called for in January 1949, it was not because he was pacifist by nature or that he trusted the United Nations or any other country to label Pakistan as aggressor and persuade it to vacate the aggression. By that time, he had seen enough of British duplicity and America’s leaving the lead on the Kashmir issue to the British. The reality on the ground was that the Indian Army was in no position to run over the whole of Jammu and Kashmir at that time. This has been definitively and conclusively brought out by respected scholars as well as in the official history of the war published by the Defence Ministry several years later, after thorough research and interviews with all the relevant players, including seniormost Indian military officers, at the time.
Handling Pakistan
Mrs. Gandhi has been similarly accused of being naive and too trusting when she allowed Pakistan’s 90,000 prisoners of war (POWs) to return to their country without getting anything in return. Nobody is mentioning what she could have asked as quid pro quo. Should she have asked Pakistan to vacate all the territory it had occupied in Jammu and Kashmir? And for how long should she have kept the POWs in our country, until Pakistan returned our territory? Again, at Simla, nobody could state with conviction if she really believed that Pakistan’s Zulfikar Ali Bhutto would live up to his commitment, oral as it was, to transform the ceasefire line into an international border. And if Bhutto did give such promise — which Pakistan denies — and implemented it, would the Indian Parliament have accepted it? Today’s ruling party wants to reclaim (by what means has not been clarified) even Aksai Chin from China. It is nobody’s idea that India should give up its claims to Pakistan Occupied Kashmir or Aksai Chin; the question is only about reiterating the claims publicly and in a charged atmosphere. As they say, all foreign policy is essentially domestic policy and this is true of all governments everywhere and at all times.
0 Comments