Jawaharlal Nehru's Approach To China: Happy To Acquiesce?

Lines on a map separate not only the geographical and political jurisdiction of countries on either side, but are also symbols of their sovereignty. Unlike in the past, borders today are more precise and nations take them seriously. Well defined, mutually agreed borders are important for good relations among nations. They come into being as a result of agreement between the stakeholders by adjustment of rival claims, interests and ambitions at points where they adjoin. A simple understanding of it would have saved India all the humiliation that it had to suffer in 1962.

India’s borders, as bequeathed by the British either in the Northeast or in the west, were not scientifically marked. The McMahon Line in the Northeast resulting from the Simla Convention of 1914 was not recognised by China and was also not scientifically marked after surveys. The Western border between Ladakh and Aksai Chin was marked “undefined” in the Survey of India maps inherited in 1947. Even the first couple of reprints after Independence continued to show the boundary as undefined.

The British did not occupy the Tawang area, which the McMahon Line had put in India after signing the Simla Agreement and allowed it to remain under Tibetan occupation until India occupied it in April 1951 against Tibetan protests. India ignored the fact that not only the British, but India itself had conveyed to Tibet that the McMahon Line would be adjusted in its favour in the Tawang area. After India’s occupation, it was given the name North East Frontier Agency (NEFA), the present-day Arunachal Pradesh.

Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had, in November 1950, declared in Parliament: “Our maps show that the McMahon Line is our boundary and that is our boundary—map or no map.” About the Ladakh-Aksai Chin border, he said, “It is chiefly defined by long usage and custom.” In the Survey of India maps, which India inherited in 1947, this border was shown as “undefined”. Later, in 1954, Nehru had instructed that the old maps be replaced with new maps showing the border defined, which would not be open for discussion. In the new maps, Aksai Chin was included in India, not being aware that it had been under Chinese control since 1950. After including it in India in the map, it was neither occupied nor was any check-post set up to announce India’s ownership. Even when China had constructed a road there, India had remained unaware. In any case, since it was an international border, consultations with the other stakeholders should have been mandatory. China, despite having occupied it, remained open to discussions. Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai had proposed to India to conduct new surveys as the bilateral borders had never been surveyed in a scientific manner in the past. Unfortunately, Nehru did not accept this suggestion and another opportunity to settle the dispute was allowed to slip. If only he had followed his own advice, which he liberally gave to Burmese Prime Minister U Nu to negotiate his country’s borders with China and not adopt a rigid position, he would have saved himself the ignominy of 1962.

Since the exchange of notes was not leading to any positive results, Enlai had suggested discussions between the two prime ministers, to which Nehru agreed reluctantly. It resulted in a six-day discussion in New Delhi, where Enlai offered a solution to resolve the issue. His suggestion was that while China would accept India’s claim to NEFA, India should reciprocally accept China’s claim to Aksai Chin. This was a reasonable suggestion, but Nehru did not accept it and the discussions ended in failure.

Since efforts for a settlement through discussions did not yield any result, it could be presumed that China finally decided on a military solution and started preparing for it. Unfortunately, it was Nehru who provided China an excuse to launch its attack. While leaving for Colombo on October 12, 1962, he had told journalists at Palam Airport that he had ordered the army to throw the Chinese out. The result was disastrous, as we all know now.

As the attack began, Indian official media made it look like a perfidious act of China and a stab in Nehru’s back. The gullible public, which had been fed on the staple of the slogan “Hindi-Chini Bhai-Bhai”, and kept ignorant of their differences not only on the borders but otherwise also, fell easy prey to the official line, and since then we continue to be a prisoner of this past narrative.

The Chinese Premier’s suggestion for a demilitarised zone and the setting up of check-posts at agreed points on the border was not accepted by Nehru, and the situation has continued to remain vague. Since the standoff of 2020, both India and China continue to flog the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in their discourse, but there is none either on the ground or on a map or even on any piece of paper.

Today, we are fighting for the restoration of the status quo that existed prior to the 2020 clash. We seem to have acquiesced to the Chinese occupation of the whole of Aksai Chin, about which Nehru had said that not a blade of grass grows there.

A pertinent question to ask is whether China indeed was a bhai or at least a friend as it was made out to be. A closer scrutiny of events of the 1950s would give the answer in a big “NO”.

To begin with, Nehru was viewed by China as the lackey of the west, representing their imperial interests. In 1950, while occupying Tibet, China bluntly warned India to keep its hands off Tibet since it was its own internal affair. As China invaded Tibet, Tibet’s request for the Dalai Lama’s asylum was accepted, but later, in the face of China’s warning against it, Lhasa was hinted that he better stay back to offer leadership to his people. In 1952, India got the wrong end of the Chinese stick for its resolution at the UN General Assembly on the repatriation of Korean prisoners of war. China had described Nehru’s resolution as the “parent of all evils”. Nehru felt insulted but kept quiet.

In Tibet, as China made the functioning of the Indian Mission and its trade agencies almost impossible, Nehru believed that entering into a new agreement would ensure their smooth functioning. On the contrary, after the new agreement, their harassment only increased. While negotiating the Sino-Indian Agreement in 1954, China was more sensitive towards Pakistan’s case on Kashmir than India’s. It dragged its feet on every single issue until India yielded to its diktats to clinch the agreement after the Indian delegation stayed for four long months in Beijing. And then it was hailed as a “very important event”. The Panchsheel principles were Chinese adumbration, but India almost adopted them as its own.

He tenaciously pleaded for a new China replacing Kuomintang (the party that ruled China from the late 1920s to 1949) at the UN Security Council (UNSC) even when China neither acknowledged nor appreciated his efforts. Ironically, the same China today opposes a seat for India in the enlarged and reformed UNSC.

Committed to peace, Nehru assumed that it was India’s responsibility to ensure world peace, as he declared in Parliament that the success or failure of India’s foreign policy should not be judged in the narrow sense of “our own petty success or failure” but whether it “involves the success or failure of the whole world”.

Nehru did have certain constraints which were daunting and did not allow him enough elbow room to react aggressively to China. But it was not anybody’s case then or later that an aggressive approach was desirable. It only required policy calibration to meet the Chinese challenge, but he did not see any of the Chinese actions as a challenge. He did calibrate his policy, but it looked more like acquiescence to China’s aggressive approach rather than adjustment. His approach to China was based on his concept of Asian solidarity, for which he sacrificed India’s core interests even when China was not reciprocating.

How can the impasse be resolved? There is a need to look at the whole issue de novo right from 1950 to resolve the issue by give and take. There is, however, a big question mark whether today an aggressive China, which considers itself a superpower, is ready for it!

(Views expressed are personal)

A S Bhasin is a retired director, historical division of the Ministry Of External Affairs, and author of Nehru, Tibet And China

(This appeared in the print as 'Happy To Acquiesce?')