Re-evaluating the First United States—Pakistan Alliance

stuka:

``Also, it is wrong to say the Congress policy was the same as Nehru policy. Within Congress, Rajaji and Patel advocated more pragmatic politics.``

I agree about the pramatism of the two but am not aware if they contributed to the development of the Foreign policy.

Dost Mittar, Stuka,

Congress policy was approved by both the working and the central committee.(or similar bodies) Raja ji or Patel may have opposed it in various committees but once this policy was adopted, it was congress`s policy and Nehru was just following the party policy, which may have reflected his own leanings too.

Implying that Nehru bypassed the congress is not right considering that mostly Nehru worked on consensus.

There was no opposition to the non aligned policy in India also at that time so Nehru was representing Indian thinking on non alignement and on relations with the US.

IIRC, Gandhi`s/Congress`s opposition to WWII was that the Viceroy (Linlithgow?) declared war on Germany w/out consulting any Indian. Gandhi thought that peaceful non-violent resistance would shame the Japanese into leaving India eventually. If you fast long enough, your body eventually consumes the brain for nourishment.

fuzair # 19

:)

HP:

The consensus in Congress was often a sham. I recently read somewhere that 19 of the 20 congress councils (DPCC`s) voted in favour of making Patel the Prime Minister of India in the interim cabinet, but Gandhi overruled them in favour of Nehru. For all it`s worth, it was perhaps a right decision as Patel would have been completely unacceptable to India`s Muslims.

Thanks to all of you who have commented and read my article. I should mention at the outset that this was a pretty long article--about 35 pages and so some of it had been truncated. However, as I am planning to publish the longer version soon, I would be extremely grateful if some constructive criticism is provided so that I can make it better and more comprehensive.

That said, let me delve a bit into the Nehru debate. I should acknowledge that even though I am a Pakistani I have always had deep respect for Nehru. However, the more I read about him the more it declines..though in my opinion he is still one of the best leaders India ever had and a great leader of the NAM in very important times. I think that his US trip was not really that crucial as some have made it out to be. Yes it allowed Pakistan to develop a close relationship with the US and soured India-US relations, but then India had a lot to gain from the USSR. If one compares the Pak-US and India-USSR friendship, across the board the Soviet Union was a good a faithful friend of India. THis was never the case with the US relationship with Pakistan. When the USSR was helping India industrialise and develop its economy, the US was only allowing Pakistan to import goods, so as to increase Pakistan`s long term dependency on the US market. The results of both these factors can be seen now in the boom in India and the poor economic base in Pakistan.

cheers,
Yaqoob