HOW NEHRU’S MYOPIC VISION DAMAGED INDIA.

One such was the non acceptance to go nuclear in 1961 and before that on 1950 not accepting US offer to unseat China as permanent member of UNSC and put India instead.

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REFUSING TO TAKE SEAT AS PERMANENT MEMBER OF UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL

Mrs Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, Nehru’s sister, was posted as India’s ambassador to the USA. In late August 1950, she wrote to her brother informing him that US is gearing up to unseat China and place India in the place.

NEHRU’S letter said,

“In your letter you mention that the State Department is trying to unseat China as a Permanent Member of the Security Council and to put India in her place. So far as we are concerned, we are not going to countenance it. That would be bad from every point of view. It would be a clear affront to China and it would mean some kind of a break between us and China. I suppose the state department would not like that, but we have no intention of following that course. We shall go on pressing for China’s admission in the UN and the Security Council…. India, because of many factors, is certainly entitled to a permanent seat in the Security Council. But we are not going in at the cost of China.”

History proved how wrong he was!! Nehru’s generosity to China in 1950 could not avert the Sino-Indian war twelve years later.

FLOUNDERING THE OPPORTUNITY OF GOING NUCLEAR IN 1961.

As per Former foreign secretary ‘Maharajkrishna Rasgotra’ United States did offer to help India detonate a nuclear weapon in 1961. (A Life in Diplomacy)

American intelligence learnt in early 1960s that China may test Nuclear weapons by 1963 (China tested its first nuclear weapons in 1964). Then US President John F Kennedy (who had a great respect for Indian democracy) thought that a democracy should become the first national to detonate nuclear weapon in Asia. And there was no better candidate than India.

US President sent a letter, written in his own hand, to Nehru offering help to India to conduct a nuclear test, accompanied with technical notes from the chairman of the US Atomic Energy Commission setting out the assistance his organization would provide to Indian nuclear scientists to detonate an American device from a top of a tower in the Rajasthan desert. Nehru showed the letter to only two persons – diplomat G Parthasarathi and scientist Homi Jahangir Bhabha. Bhabha (known as father of Indian Nuclear Program) wanted to immediately accept the American offer. But sadly, Kennedy’s well-meaning offer of a lifetime was turned down by the idealist Nehru who was opposed to nuclear weapons.

It is irony that his own daughter did a symbolic nuclear test 13 years after the offer was rejected and the same Nehru allegedly wrote a letter to Kennedy in 1962 asking for American military help when Indian forces were losing the war to China.

FLOUNDERING THE OPPORTUNITY OF GOING NUCLEAR IN 1961.

Let us go to an imaginary world where India became nuclear power in 1961; China would not have attacked India in 1962 and India would not have lost land to China in that war. General Ayub Khan of Pakistan would not have dared to attack India in 1965 to capture Kashmir. India might have been economically where China is today. Pakistan would not have gone nuclear.

NEHRUVIAN VISION FOR INDIA.

He was optimistic for the future of international Marxism per se: He wrote, “Russia apart, the theory and philosophy of Marxism lightened up many a dark corner of my mind. History came to have a new meaning for me.” He was the creator of such terms as “neutralism”, “Third World”, and “non-alignment”.

Just imagine if the first PM of India had been intellectually homegrown, inspired more by Gita than ‘Das Capital’, the fate of subcontinent & the world would have been different.

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Khalid Umar

Khalid Umar is a Human Rights lawyer & activist in the UK. He believes that Islamic practices needs reformation for peace in the world. He believes in absolute & universal freedom of speech.