Asian Premiers Meet
BHARGAVA, G. S.
ASIAN PREMIERS MEET At Colombo, the Prime Ministers of Burma, Ceylon, India, Indonesia and Pakistan failed to evolve a common policy toward the cold war and the Indo-China struggle By G. S....
...Therefore, he often went out of his way to toe the Communist line...
...The postwar years have seen a steady decline in these countries' trade with Europe and America, and a perceptible improvement in commercial relations with one another...
...Sir John Kolclnwahi...
...Nehru, at whose insistence V. K. Krishna Menon's notion of bracketing Communism with "anti-Communism" was accepted, does not look upon the Soviet and Western camps as rigid, water-tight systems, mutually exclusive and incapable of "peaceful coexistence...
...It moved millions to action and still casts a magic spell over the starving and half-naked Asian masses...
...Burma's ruling Socialist party whole-heartedly endorsed, at the Asian Socialist Conference in 1952...
...It would, therefore, have been profitable for the Asian Prime Ministers to think along these lines...
...This aspect of the question the Colombo Conference did not even consider, much less try to tackle...
...In order to demonstrate a community of outlook among the countries represented, it became necessary to seek the simplest common denominator from among the divergent opinions which prevailed...
...Thus, it tended to counter Nehru's concept of the Indo-Chinese struggle as essentially nationalistic...
...The lonely furrow India was plowing became clear when the Indian delegation declared that Communism was an ideology and no more, and that any expression of a positive opinion on it was tantamount to taking sides in the cold war...
...a general election is due early next year...
...The Indian Prime Minister was, on both occasions, describing Communism as an international conspiracy against democracy...
...The Socialists feel that the elimination of colonialism would make the Indo-Chinese issue a simpler one: Communism vs...
...But the conference refused to countenance any move for collective security in the region...
...Indonesia's Ali Sastroamidjojo urged discussion of the continued colonial hold on Asian territories...
...The real significance of Krishna Menon's characterization of Communism and "anti-Communism" as identical evils was this: It thwarted the attempts of Pakistan and Ceylon to forge the necessary sanctions against further Communist expansion in Asia...
...No measures were considered necessary to eliminate factors which have made aggression possible in the past or provide scope for it in the future...
...Even if India decided to shoulder the burden, it is doubtful how much moral and material support it would receive from the others...
...Thus, France, the Associated States and the Vietminh should sit down at a table and arrive at a procedure for the rapid transfer of power...
...Summing up, the conference achieved neither unanimity of opinion nor closer regional relations...
...Burma and Indonesia as a first step toward blocking aggression in the area...
...The final conference resolution contained Nehru's plea for an immediate cease-fire, accommodated the Pakistani and Ceylonese views on Communist expansionism, and attempted to allay Burma's hesitancy about a cease-fire by pleading the case for Indo-Chinese independence...
...Thus, its reiteration of faith in democracy amounted to no more than lip-service...
...Ceylon's Prime Minister...
...His was an omnibus-type resolution, naming no particular colonial power...
...Pakistan's Mohammed Ali offered a resolution on the threat of Communist expansionism lo the growth of democratic institutions in Asia...
...This was a general statement...
...That left India in the questionable company of Indonesia, whose Prime Minister was present at Colombo primarily to gain temporary political advantage at home...
...suggested a mutual-defense bloc of India...
...The Indian Socialists have suggested that the stress should be on transfer of power from Paris to the people of Indo-China, whether represented by Bao Dai or by Ho Chi Minh...
...Surely the Indian Prime Minister would not show the same complacency toward the Communists in India that he advocated toward international Communism...
...For this reason, Nehru does not believe in developing a "third force" strong enough to resist the pressure of both...
...freedom...
...Earlier, during an election campaign in the South Indian state of Travancore-Cochin, he called the Communist red flag the emblem of Russia...
...the hydrogen bomb, Communism and "anti-Communism," colonialism and similar topics...
...By bracketing Communism with "anti-Communism," Nehru was suggesting that politics in Asia is being governed by a kind of Third Newtonian Law-all actions producing reactions-and that both Communists and "anti-Communists" are culprits in this respect...
...In 1948...
...If it was meant to console the five countries that, though they were not invited to Geneva, their opinions also counted, such psychological satisfaction was doubtless achieved...
...In this, the declaration only betrayed the extent to which Nehru lent his own schizophrenic character to the conference...
...It could be taken to refer to Dutch claims to New Guinea (with which Indonesia was primarily concerned), to the French attitude toward the Vietnamese demand for self-government, to the French refusal to transfer control of tiny French possessions on Indian soil to New Delhi without a formal referendum, and to Portugal's bid to retain its Indian settlements of Goa...
...Even Burma differed with this view...
...Burma knew, better than any other country represented at the conference, what Communism was and how it disturbed the peaceful progress of a nation...
...He feels that, if China is not "provoked" but allowed to have its way in Tibet and given UN recognition, the non-Communist countries of Asia have nothing to fear...
...a proposal for closer economic cooperation among like-minded Asian countries and exchange of information on their respective development programs...
...Ceylon, the host country, brought forward no proposals of its own...
...Efforts to direct Asian solidarity into democratic channels have generally misfired...
...The resolution was a mixture of op-posites, a conglomeration of pious platitudes, and far from a workable plan of action...
...Instead, it made a futile plea for accord among the Big Five on non-intervention in Indo-China and prevention of further hostilities...
...While India and Indonesia stressed the colonial aspect of the Indo-China conflict, Pakistan and Ceylon tended to emphasize the Communist threat to overrun Asian countries...
...Nevertheless, the Burmese proposal was shelved at the conference...
...Once he was outside of India, however, Nehru found it no more than an ideology...
...It should be emphasized that this was not a "third force" line on In-do-China...
...It revealed a tendency to assume- Nehru's by and large-that peace on earth would be assured once the big powers promised to behave themselves...
...Beyond that, the conference was all platitudes and polemic...
...The resolution reduced the Communist threat to something more academic than real, on a par with another "evil," anti-Communism, and so there was no question of taking steps against it...
...Then there was the resolution warning Communists and "anti-Communists" against interference in the affairs of the Asian countries...
...It was against this background that the Prime Ministers of five South Asian countries-Burma, Ceylon, India, Indonesia and Pakistan-met here in the last week of April...
...Diu and Daman...
...U Nu, who has first-hand experience of Communist insurrectionary tactics, spoke of the necessity of preventing the creation of even a temporary power vacuum in Indo-China...
...earlier, he had proposed a standstill on the manufacture and use of nuclear weapons...
...it failed to forge closer economic and other links among the various nations: it put Communism on a par with what was called anti-Communism...
...But it clearly implied disapproval of Peking's intervention in the Korean War and its assistance to the Victiuiuh in Indo-China...
...It did not concede the practical difficulties in the way of enforcing a cease-fire as long as the conflict was a part of the worldwide cold war...
...On the ground that the Burmese proposal was sketchy, its consideration was shelved...
...Attention was focused on Indo-China...
...At the very outset, the conference discarded the first course of action...
...In this connection, charitable critics have set great store by the Prime Ministers' reaffirmation of their faith in democratic institutions...
...Burma suggested .1 kind of enlarged Colombo Plan for the countries of the region, envisaging not merely technical assistance but also economic cooperation and coordinated planning...
...Nehru's proposal, generally accepted at Colombo, specified no such immediate power-transfer plan...
...Much was made of this declaration in India by reading a neutralist meaning into it...
...And here lav the snag...
...The conference stand on Indo-China, as it finally emerged, was a hodgepodge which reflected all three viewpoints...
...Further, none of the nations at the conference volunteered to assume responsibility for enforcing the proposed cease-fire...
...But essentially this is misleading...
...its pious Prime Minister, U Nu...
...Some sort of payments union for the area would encourage trade and save currencies...
...Burma, which generally goes along with India on non-alignment in Big Power conflicts, could not agree with Nehru on this...
...No modus operandi for the multiple objectives in Indo-China was described...
...He declared that more practical guarantees than a cease-fire were needed to prevent the Vietminh (with Chinese assistance) from building up its striking power under cover of a truce and ultimately taking over all of Indo-China...
...The talks were "informal," with no fixed agenda...
...The tragedy is that first the militarists and then the Communists have been exploiting this feeling to the detriment of democracy and freedom...
...Burma's approach to Asian problems has long been rcalislie and practical...
...ASIAN PREMIERS MEET At Colombo, the Prime Ministers of Burma, Ceylon, India, Indonesia and Pakistan failed to evolve a common policy toward the cold war and the Indo-China struggle By G. S. Bhargava COLOMBO THE SECOND WORLD WAR saw the birth of the Asian idea-a consciousness that the different Asian countries were one in poverty, in backwardness, in being drawers of water and hewers of wood, suppliers of raw material and cannon fodder for the metropolitan countries of Europe and America...
...India's Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru put forward a six-point proposal for an immediate cease-fire in Indo-China and peaceful settlement of the conflict there...
...Their purpose, in a broad sense, was lo speak the Asian mind on some of the burning problems affecting Asia today...
...But it accepted joint authorship of the Pakistan resolution on Communism and completely endorsed Nehru's In-do-China peace plan (though with an entirely different interpretation from that of the Indian Prime Minister ). Two approaches were possible for the Prime Ministers meeting here: (1) to devise ways and means (the Burmese plan was one of them) of clothmg the Asian idea with economic and material content, or (2) to seek to speak with one voice on some of the burning political problems facing the region as a whole...
...viewed in the light of recent developments in Korea and Indo-China...
...look tho initiative in calling the conference...
...No other Prime Minister at Colombo seemed to agree with Nehru, except Sastroamidjojo of Indonesia-whose reasons for projecting the Communist line at the conference will be described presently...
...No effort was made to define "anti-Communism," or to clarify whether it meant American efforts to stem Soviet influence, the anti-Cominformism of Belgrade, or the resistance of the independent Socialist movement the world over...
...No effort was needed to help the victims of aggression, present or prospective...
...Economic trends in this part of \sia since the war favored the Burmese plan...
...The emotional content of this Asian resurgence was, no doubt, inherited from the Japanese, for even those who were not taken in by Tojo's "Co-prosperity Sphere" could not help reacting favorably to the concept of Asian solidarity...
...Sastroamidjojo's coalition in Indonesia is dependent on Communist support for its precarious existence...
...Addressing a public meeting in Bombay a few weeks before the Colombo discussions, he reprovingly referred to the fact that Malenkov and Mao Tsetung were honorary members of the Politburo of the Indonesian Communist party...
...In the same way, the pronouncement on the hydrogen bomb was more an expression of sentiment than a practical blueprint for prevention of a thermonuclear holocaust...
...His foreign policy, therefore, consists in attempting to bridge the gulf between the two blocs...
...While a standstill on manufacture of the H-bomb is desirable, the real problem is how to achieve it in the face of Soviet opposition to UN inspection of its atomic facilities...
...Each of the invited Prime Ministers suggested one or more topics for consideration, thus creating what might be called a tentative agenda for the conference...
Vol. 37 • June 1954 • No. 23
