Jawaharlal Nehru’s idealistic follies to blame for NSG failure

Activists of the Hindu Sena burn Chinese-made goods and posters carrying the photograph of Chinese President Xi Jinping during a protest accusing China of blocking India’s entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group. (Photo: AP)

India’s chances of getting into the Nuclear Suppliers Group have been dashed at the moment. However, during the hurly-burly of India’s efforts to get into the elite club, former foreign secretary Maharaja Krishna Rasgotra dropped a bombshell that in 1960s, then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru declined the offer made by the US President John F. Kennedy to extend all help and support to India to detonate a nuclear device much before China did it in 1964. He rued that had Nehru accepted the offer, it would have averted the war with China in 1962 and with Pakistan in 1965, and India would have the distinction of being the first Asian country to have tested a nuclear device, and would not have had to make desperate attempts to join the NSG now.

Though it is well-nigh impossible to vouch for the credibility of Rasgotra’s claim, and Nehruvites dismiss it as another dirty shenanigan to discredit Nehru by his bêtes noires, the claim cannot be dismissed keeping in view Nehru’s penchant for projecting himself as a pacifist. Rasgotra’s claim is in turn based on the claim of Ashok Parthasarthi, former scientific adviser to Indira Gandhi.

According to Parthasarthi, he saw a hand-written letter of Kennedy addressed to Nehru making such an offer with his father G. Parthasarthi who was adviser to Indira Gandhi and also served Nehru. He was close to Nehru because of his father N. Gopalaswami Ayyangar, a member of the Constituent Assembly and minister in Nehru’s first Cabinet. Ashok Parthasarthi claims that the letter he accessed as part of a committee to bring out a centenary volume on his father and has accused Rasgotra of lifting it from there. However, he also adds that it was misplaced while shifting the house. This is a very ludicrous pretext as no one would keep such an important letter so carelessly to be misplaced. Further, why did Ashok Parthasarthi did not break this news himself earlier Anyone would like to break such a news and hog limelight. So, glitches in the claim are quite glaring. Still, the possibility of it being true cannot be ruled either as Nehru committed many blunders in the past.

One of his biggest blunders was to take the Kashmir issue to the Security Council of the United Nations. And still bigger blunder was to refer the matter under Chapter VI of the UN Charter which deals with disputes, thus conceding it to be disputed area. If at all the matter was to be taken to the UNSC, it should have been done under Chapter VII which deals with aggression. Nehru was bamboozled into referring the issue to the UNSC by governor-general Mountbatten though Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was not in favour of even a limited reference to the UN which he called “Dis-United Nations”.

Nehru realised his mistake and confessed it at a meeting called by Mountbatten on February 25, 1948, “That it had been an act of faith by the Government of India, at a time when the situation was rapidly deteriorating to make their reference to the Security Council in the first place. If this faith was now proved to be misplaced, the consequence would have to be borne by those who had made the reference.” Sardar Patel, who happened to be present at the meeting, said without pulling punches that Pandit Nehru, in particular, had reposed great faith in the UN, but the Security Council had been meddling in power politics to such an extent that very little of that faith had been left uneroded. He took a swipe at Mountbatten that it was the governor-general who had persuaded the government to refer the matter to the UN. Mountbatten was numbed.

It is also said that Nehru declined a permanent seat for India in the Security Council. The rumour was so thick and fast that Nehru denied it in the Lok Sabha on September 27, 1955, in reply to a short notice question by J.N. Parekh whether India had refused a seat informally offered to her in the Security Council. Nehru replied, “There has been no offer, formal or informal, of this kind. Some vague references have appeared in the press about it, which have no foundation in fact. The composition of the Security Council is prescribed by the UN Charter, according to which certain specified nations have permanent seats. No change or addition can be made to this without an amendment of the Charter. There is, therefore, no question of a seat being offered and India declining it. Our declared policy is to support the admission of all nations qualified for UN membership.”

However, despite this categorical denial, former officials of the ministry of external affairs have told this author that there are official notes in this regard which speak of an offer of the membership of the Security Council. But Nehru felt that China was the legitimate claimant to replace People’s Republic of China (Formosa) led by Chiang Kai-shek. Though China was a member of the UN Charter as PRC, it could not get the membership of the UN after the Charter was implemented as Chiang Kai-shek was driven out to Formosa (now Taiwan) and the PRC continued to represent China in the UN, and consequently the Security Council. The mainland China, which had become communist, was not allowed entry into the UN by the United States. China became its member only in 1971.

The question arises, after all why did Nehru do it. The only plausible answer is that he wanted to stride like a colossus on the world horizon as a messiah of peace. It is on record that he was of the view that India’s standing in the world depended on China’s cooperation. That he was a dreamer who lived in a romantic world is evident from the Chinese attack when India was caught napping. Whether it was a streak of idealism or an insuperable ambition to be the world leader even in the face of humiliating defeat at the hands of China, he continued to talk about world government based on the UN. He made such a speech even in September 1963. He visualised the UN as the embryo of the world government.

However, there are some contradictions in his policy and action. It is inscrutable why did he, a pacifist, prefer to send the Army to Kashmir in October 1947 and fight with Pakistan. Sending the Army to stop Pakistan from marching ahead may be acceptable but India kept fighting there for three months before referring the matter to the UNSC. Not only that, even in 1961, he dispatched the Army to Goa for its liberation which was internationally criticised. Again, if he refused to join the Security Council thinking that it indulged in power game, why did he allow India to become non-permanent member of the UNSC thrice during his tenure Maybe India is paying for the follies of an idealist Prime Minister who was more interested in self-projection.

The writer is a senior TV journalist, columnist and author