Three guilty men of India-China war are
Mao, Menon, and Nehru - the dominant discourse in India imbues the trio with
various shades of red - and tends to filter the 1962 war debate through the
anti-communist prism - conveniently ignoring the role that the Indian
conservatives and socialists played in making the war inevitable. Both the
rightists and the centrists within and outside the Congress party were the
first generation of Indian cold warriors, who were as paranoid about communism as McCarthy was in
America. Much before India had become a republic – one of the tallest leaders
of Indian politics, Sardar Patel wrote to Nehru on 07 November 1950 - spelling
out his concerns about communist China, “Chinese ambitions in this respect not
only cover the Himalayan slopes on our side but also include important parts of
Assam. They have their ambitions in Burma also…While our Western and
North-Western threat to security is still as prominent as before, a new threat
has developed from the North and North-East. Thus for the first time after
centuries, India’s defence has to concentrate on two fronts simultaneously.”
In hindsight, one could say that Patel was
a visionary. However, one wonders as to what were the main drivers of Patel’s
belief in Chinese imperialist intentions. Unlike Nehru and Menon, Patel was a
conservative, closer to Vivekanand’s nationalist point of view. It is therefore
difficult to understand Patel’s reliance on
British maps and geopolitical threat analysis to shape his territorial
perception on India-China territorial dispute. The Indian independence was in
its infancy, no rational actor at that juncture would have considered opening
up a second front, then why was Patel so keen about it in 1950. The answer is
simple - it was communism and not China that posed a threat. A dispassionate look at Patel’s statement
would reveal that the seeds of India- China war had been sown immediately after
Mao drove out Chiang Kai-shek from mainland China in 1948. Lt Gen Nathu Singh
Thakur (one of the senior most Indian military officers at the time of
independence) on 24 October 1950 wrote to Army Headquarters, “Communist China’s
complete success over the Kumintang… their declared policy towards liberation
of Tibet… clearly indicate the writing on the wall. The Communist menace is
gradually spreading towards the borders of India.” This was also the time when
communist led Telangana rebellion against feudal lords and Nizam of Hyderabad
was at its peak.
The entry of Tibet factor into Sino-India
equation and the formation of a strong lobby within India that took up cudgels
on behalf of the Tibetans and the CIA involvement in using the Indian territory
at Mcleodgunj in Himachal Pradesh to build alternative power structures for
control of Tibet is now well documented. The Americans could easily garner
support within India for their cause to contain China because prior to leaving
India the British had ensured that the Indian elite class had enough
anti-communists with its fold. Rajagopalachari the first Indian Governor
General of India, on taking over as the Chief Minister of Madras in 1952 openly
declared, “I am here to save my country from the traps and dangers of the
communist party. That is my policy from A to Z. I am placing my cards on the
table. I am your enemy number one and may I say you are my enemy number one.
This is my policy.”
The early Indian strategic thought and
security considerations were embedded in the international political economy
than the classical geopolitics that considers geography to be the main
determinant of the inter-state conflict. The main plank on which the foundation
of future India-China conflict was erected was the fear generated by the
arrival of communism in Asia and the prospects of ensuing red revolution in
India. Many of the Indian political elite and also the British-bred Indian
military leaders were determined to build fences to prevent the communist
onslaught from halting India’s capitalist growth path. The problem was that
both Pandit Nehru and Krishna Menon did not want to fall prey to the
anti-communist paranoia gripping the elite in the 1950s. Driven by the realities
of leading an infant state, Nehru felt that the best bulwark against communism
was cooperation and not confrontation with China. The overarching presence of
Nehru on India’s foreign policy till of course, 1957 ensured that the Indian
elite kept their China related fears to themselves. An article in the Time on the 1962 war says, “Even the Chinese
conquest of Tibet in 1951 had rung no alarm bells in New Delhi—and therein lie
the real beginnings of the present war.”
To the West disappearance of fear from the
Indian minds and the growing Hindi-Chini Bhai
Bhai chants
did not portend well. The two most populous countries could not be allowed to
form a third pole on the global stage. The prospects of the two most
progressive nations combining was equally unpalatable to the Soviet Union that
could not see its position of preeminence among the left oriented nations
coming under any stress. While the Soviet Union betrayed their communist
friends in China, the Americans played a similar game in India to ensure that
the two Asian nations remain distant from each other. America sacrificed India
to gain China’s friendship. The Soviets too allowed China to flow into the US
fold because they knew that ideological constraints would naturally limit the
scope of Sino-US relations. Therefore, despite Nehru’s non-alignment - much
like rest of the world - Asia too was divided between the two competing blocks.
This tacit understanding between the two super powers may have been reached
primarily because the Russians were confident of the ideological purity of the
Chinese leadership and the Americans too were confident about the Indian
leadership barring of course, Krishna Menon to keep communism at bay.
Krishna Menon was a rising star in Indian
politics – his growing mass appeal both within and outside the country was
causing consternation in Washington. Menon’s unflinching faith in Non-Aligned
Movement - his deep understanding of the ongoing imperial mechanizations in the
post-colonial era had made his opponents brand him as ‘crypto communist’. Menon
was steering a dangerous course. For a leader of a newly independent, cash
strapped nation with miniscule military muscle - to openly take on - a diehard
anti-communist like John Foster Dulles, the US secretary of state - was asking
for direct access into the CIA’s hit list. He could have been easily eliminated
but that could have led to the surge in strength of the forces that the USA
wanted to curtail. Therefore, Menon was given the proverbial ‘long rope to
hang’. The crushing defeat in a war with communist China not only nipped Menon
in the bud but also ensured that in Indian perception the communists became
traitors. Perhaps, it is the realization of this objective that made YB Chavan
see victory in defeat, when he said “The first casualties of the unashamed
aggression of the Chinese on India are Marxism and Leninism.” Chavan was
correct because the Chinese war decimated not only Nehru but also politically
eliminated Krishna Menon who was considered more dangerous than Nehru to the
continuation of capitalism in India.
All the President’s men
American confidence was based on the fact
that they had die-hard anti-communists in key positions in India. Vinod Mehta’s
book, Lucknow
Boy: A Memoir -
takes us back to early 1980’s when a bizarre controversy erupted and the
presence of a “CIA mole became headline news in India. While his/her presence
was never in doubt—that cabinet decisions taken in 1971 were being leaked to
the Americans was conceded in official quarters—the identity of the spy
remained a mystery, (Mr (Seymour) Hersh, the American investigative journalist)
in his book (The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House) claimed to
solve it. He identified the spy, courtesy his unnamed sources in the White
House and CIA, as Morarji Desai.” Along with Morarji Desai another name
connected to the CIA conspiracy is YB Chavan, who became the defence minister replacing
Krishna Menon in 1962. Much like Desai, Chavan too had been the Chief Minister
of Bombay, the business capital of India, and as the Time 1962 article put it, “Though a socialist
and a one time disciple of Nehru, Chavan is cast in a different mold.”
While Morarji’s dubious role as a mole has
become folklore, but what has largely gone unnoticed is his performance as the
finance minster from 1958 leading up to the 1962 war with China – ignoring the
crucial role that finance ministry played in delaying the proposals for defence
modernization put forth by the ministry of defence then under the leadership of
Krishna Menon. Before the arrival of Morarji in the finance ministry, Menon had
ensured that “the allocations to defense rose from Rs. 2,130 million in
1956-1957 (1.8% of the GNP) to Rs. 2,800 million in 1957-1958 (2.4% of the
GNP)” (IDSA
Journal 1972).
The defence allocations began plumetting after 1957 is something that needs to
be studied in greater detail.
Morarji’s closeness to Washington and the
related events during that period also throw light on the role that America
played in fomenting the 1962 conflict. The gross neglect of these linkages in
the study of 1962 war has led to history being subverted and blame for the 1962
defeat laid squarely on the shoulders of one the most intelligent strategist of
independent India- VK Krishna Menon. Menon and Morarji were both a part of the
Nehru’s cabinet that was announced on 17 April 1957. While Krishna Menon had
bagged the Defence portfolio, Morarji Desai had got Commerce and Industry
ministry – and T.T. Krishnamachari was the Finance minister.
1957, was an important year in India’s
post independence history. The year had begun well with Krishna Menon valiantly
defending India’s stand on the Kashmir issue at the United Nations – his seven
hours and forty eight minutes long speech - where he articulated India’s right
under the International Law of self defence to throw out Pakistani infiltrators
from Kashmir - won him friends and admirers both within and outside the
country. He had won a landslide electoral victory from North Bombay in the
general elections. Commenting on the popularity of Krishna Menon during the
1957 election campaign, The Hindu reported, “Huge crowds surged forward,
blocking the streets, while Menon was drowned by the surrounding uproar, his
umbrella knocked away by the ceaseless bombardment of flowers and
bouquets.”
The Congress had won the elections with 60
million votes; the communists were the runners up bagging 12 million votes –
replacing the Praja Socialist Party as the second largest political group in
Parliament. The political outfit of the Sangh Parivar had yet to register itself as a serious
political contender. The rise of communist clout in Indian politics – Krishna
Menon’s surging popularity - his leftist leanings coupled with his
anti-Americanism was causing concern in domestic as well as international
capitalist circles. After having lost China to Mao, the West could not afford
to lose India to Communism. The 1957 communist victory in Kerala Assembly
elections was difficult to digest for all those who had envisioned a future for
India based on free market economy. This was also the time when the tensions
between the central bank (The Reserve Bank of India) and the government had
begun to surface. The open spat between the then RBI governor, B. Rama Rau and
the then finance minister T.T. Krishnamachari over the issue of degree of
autonomy that the RBI could enjoy in independent India.
Towards the fag end of 1956, Sir CD
Deshmukh, India’s finance minister since 1950 resigned from Nehru’s cabinet,
ostensibly on the question of Nehru’s disagreement over Bombay’s right to be a
part of a separate Marathi-speaking State of Maharashtra. Till the time
Deshmukh was leading the department of finance and Sir Benegal Rama Rau was the
governor of RBI things were smooth. Both the financial luminaries had belonged
to the same school of thought and had read the same text books to reach the
commanding heights in their profession. Both had been appointed as CIE
(Companion of the order of the Indian Empire). Deshmukh, an ICS officer had
been with the RBI since 1939 as its liaison officer to the Government, then as
the Bank’s Secretary, Deputy Governor (1941–43), and Governor (1943–50). Deshmukh
was also India’s representative at the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference that led
to the formation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and International
Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD). Sir Benegal Rama Rau was a
thoroughbred British bureaucrat - his most prestigious appointment was as
Financial Adviser to the infamous Simons Commission (1928–1930). He was also Deputy High Commissioner for
India in London (1934–1938), High Commissioner for India in South Africa
(1938–1941) - Ambassador to Japan from 1947 to 1948, and to the United States
for one year prior to taking over as the Governor. With the Deshmukh – Rao
combination at the helm of independent India’s economy and monetary policies,
the British and their American friends had ensured that India would not change
tack towards communism and would follow the policy prescriptions from the
Bretton Wood twins.
Till the time the economic front was well
secured the Americans were happy with Nehru and gave him the space to indulge
in his fantasies of being a being a leader of the third world and non-aligned
movement. This smug satisfaction and the confidence that India will continue to
maintain the course despite the obvious Russian tilt was based on the western
orientation of key leaders in India. A telegram by the US embassy in India
dated November 25, 1955 to their state department reiterates the point,
“Embassy’s preliminary evaluation of effect of Bulganin, Khrushchev visit on
India and on US security is that it will represent a gain for Russians despite
determination of Indian leaders to keep India independent and despite Indian
leaders basic orientation toward Western Democracies.”
However, America’s problem was Menon who
as the defence minister, was attempting to carve a people’s army from the ‘Raj’
military handed over to him. He started Sainik schools to make the officer
cadre more inclusive. He could not stand the likes of Field Marshal Cariappa
and General K.S. Thimayya whom he saw representing a particular class and
interest group rather than the nation. It is perhaps these ideological
differences that were at the root of Thimayya’s resignation in 1959 rather than
any disagreement over promotion of senior army officers. As Srinath Raghavan
posits, “the archival evidence now available shows that the reasons for the
resignation ran deeper. Just a few weeks before the affair, Indian and Chinese
forces had clashed along the eastern frontiers. To counter the growing threat
from China, Thimayya wanted the political leadership to consider seriously the
proposal mooted by President Ayub Khan for joint defence arrangements between
India and Pakistan.” This was an idea that came straight from Washington and
was designed to use both India and Pakistan to launch a war on China. Field Marshal
Cariappa’s sympathies became obvious when he joined the Swatantra Party and
came out on the streets urging India to go out and take on China.
1957 was also the year when India’s second
five year plan was jeopardized by paucity of funds. According to the now
released CIA reports from that period,
Nehru was the weakest at this juncture and was more inclined toward the US
because he was desperate for US aid.
However, Krishna Menon was least
affected by the money crunch in the country and continued to follow his
anti-American agenda. Washington was palpably worried, as Menon’s political
boat began gathering wind, the Americans knew, it was time to pull back. By
now, it appears that Nehru too was beginning to understand the game. The
process of purging began with easing of CD Deshmukh and replacing him with T.T.
Krishnamachari (TTK). Krishnamachari ensured that Benegal Rama Rau too was
removed from the RBI.
But perhaps, both Nehru and Menon were
unaware of the powers that the American central bank and its cohorts were
capable of exerting. Soon after Rama Rao’s exit a Calcutta-based Marwari
businessman named Haridas Mundhra’s dubious share transactions with the Life
Insurance Corporation (LIC) amounting to Rs. 1.25 crores were revealed by the
media. Feorze Gandhi, Nehru’s son-in-law added fuel to the fire by disclosing
the confidential correspondence between
the then Finance Minister T.T. Krishnamachari and his principal finance
secretary, and raised a question in Parliament on the sale of ‘fraudulent’
shares to LIC. The second big corruption scandal of independent India that was
christened ‘Mundhra scandal’ ended with the scalp of TT Krishnamachari, who was
replaced as finance minister by Moraji Desai. If Seymour Hersh’s disclosures
about Morarji’s CIA connections are to be believed and if one is to assume that
Morarji had been inclined towards his American mentors since as early as 1950s,
then one can safely infer that America had been successful in ensuring that
they continued to mentor the Indian economy by removing one of the close
confidants of Nehru in the Cabinet in 1957. Krishnamachari’s outster from the
cabinet was followed by removal of the EMS Namoodripad’s communist government
in Kerala in 1959. This was also the year when Dalai Lama was brought on horseback
and made to settle down in India and a pressure group including C
Rajagopalachari, Minoo Massani, N G Ranga, VP Menon, KM Munshi, Homi Baba and a
few other prominent erstwhile socialists, free market proponents, Princes and Maharaja’s
had come to form a new political outfit called the Swatantra party. Apart form
opposing the Congress party’s 1959 Nagpur resolution that proposed joint
cooperative farming and ceiling on land holdings, the party led by Rajaji was a
staunch opponent of China’s Tibet policy. Many members of this party were
openly accused of being CIA agents by Congressmen. Whether they were paid by
CIA or not, the fact is that their sympathies clearly tilted in the direction
of America and its policies. Khasa Suba
Rau, the well known editor of Swatantra party mouth piece was clearly of the
opinion that India was ready to follow America, and even Nehru may give up his
policy of neutrality, if only the US could persuade the Europeans to give up
the colonies in Afro-Asian countries.
Despite the
victories that the USA had been able to acheive in India, Nehru’s closest
confidant, Krishna Menon was still giving sleepless nights to US policy makers.
In December 1961, Menon once again thwarted Western designs by making sure that
the Portuguese were driven out of Goa. This enhanced his reputation further
making him a natural successor to Nehru. This was neither good news for free
market followers in India nor for American foreign policy. The arrival of 1962
general elections and Krishna Menon’s resounding victory against Acharya JB
Kripalani from North Bombay constituency had convinced Nehru’s detractors that
Krishna Menon had to be nipped in the bud. These elections were hyped up as a
clash between “socialism and reaction” by the left and according to Kripalani
as the fight between “Gandhism and Marxism”. The Times of India, Indian
Express and all other mainstream newspapers
launched a scathing attack on Menon. The elections had acquired international
dimensions with the Time
magazine putting Menon on its cover page,
openly declaring that “America have an important stake in this outside
elections”. The Time article that derided India’s “Dhoti
Democracy”, “played up India’s appeasement on China issue.” Menon’s victory sounded
the death knell for right wing politics in New Delhi. Exactly eight months
after the election, India -China war broke out and as Norman D Palmer an
American journalist who covered the 1962 North Bombay elections says, “What his
critics in India and United States had failed to accomplish, his Chinese
“friends” brought about with amazing suddeness.” And the rest, as they say is
history.
