Follow Us
M Rajivlochan
A Country that is unsure of its geography would be unable to defend it and would find it impossible to survive. Some of this is visible in this book. It will shake up Indians for their lack of interest in details of foreign policy and their implicit faith in their leaders to do good for the country. Anyone wishing to know how and why the early leaders of independent India actively refused to define or protect the interests of the country would find good information in this book.
Nehru kept the foreign ministry (1946-1964) portfolio with himself. Renunciation of Indian interests informed his foreign policy. “One restrains oneself”, Nehru told the Rajya Sabha on August 30, 1959, when China began to occupy Indian territory in Ladakh, “it does not make very much difference physically to China or India whether a couple of miles in the high mountains belong to them or to us.” On September 10, he would complain, once again in the Rajya Sabha, that it was “not quite straight or fair” of the Chinese to redraw borders unilaterally. The Chinese have a “low estimate” of India’s friendship, he would moan.
A number of Indian soldiers were captured by China, a few were killed, with little fear that India would use the military air-field at Shushol (Chushul) at Leh to defend its territory and people. The subsequent humiliation of India at the hands of China is well known, when Nehru’s foreign policy, now marked by infantile rage, pushed ill-prepared Indian soldiers into a war in 1962. What is not well known is that this wasn’t the first such instance of a foreign policy marked by a curious mix of self-abnegation and infantile rage. This was merely the first time when the consequent disaster was so much in your face that it could not be ignored.
The present book tells us of previous occasions when Nehru actively renounced Indian interests, rejected the hands that beseeched integration with India. It tells us the story of how India lost its north-western frontier, the story of how leaders from the territory of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, now in Pakistan, made efforts to be part of independent India. And how the Nehruvian policy of renouncing Indian interests, pushed them into subjugation by Pakistan. The leaders of Pakistan, even then, in 1947, were unambiguously promising Islamism as the hoped-for future for their country.
Pakhtunistan, much like rest of India in the early 20th century, did not have much of a presence of modern government. It was not Islamic either. The government, in so far as it was visible, was focused on crushing the people militarily. India itself, after Independence, hoped to change, create a more civil government which was responsive to the interests of the people. The leaders who dominated Pakhtunkhwa, such as Ghazi Mirzali Khan, better known as the Fakir of Ipi, preferred to oppose Pakistan. The prospect of being part of the great transformation that India represented was attractive to these leaders and the political and economic elite of Pakhtunistan. Indians are mostly familiar with the name of Bacha Khan in this regard. Nehru spurned them. Had this book pursued the story of the Pakhtun leaders a little forward in time, it would have discovered that when their lands were abandoned by Nehru to Pakistan, many of them, such as the Fakir of Ipi, fought pitched battles for many years to be free of Pakistan.
Nehru preferred to give greater value to people like lawyer Abdul Qayyum Khan, who had left the Congress and joined the Muslim League in 1946, and become an advocate for a separate nation for Muslims. Abdul Qayyum Khan, who used to be the Deputy Leader of the Congress Party in the Central Assembly, contested the election in February 1946 on a Muslim League ticket from Peshawar, and won. In this election, out of the 50 seats in the North-West Frontier Province, the Congress won 24, the Muslim League 11, the Nationalist Muslims 2 and the Akalis 1. The tolerance of Nehru towards those advocating the cause of a separate nation for Muslims, would spur him to also ignore the desire of the Baloch leaders to integrate with India. Even in the case of Kashmir, Nehru would prevaricate; allow ifs and buts to mark the integration of Kashmir with India.