New Phase in U.S.-India Relations
SABAVALA, SHAROKH
Ike's greatest feat was to draw the two nations closer New Phase In US-India Relations By Sharokh Sabavala NEW DELHI IF PRESIDENT Eisenhower and his party appeared stunned by the weight and...
...It was as if the vast throngs were animated by a single purpose— to impress on the distinguished visitor the fact that it was they primarily who represented India, that this India was delighted to welcome him, that this India looked upon his country as a true and tried friend...
...is going lo increase its stake in India substantially during the next five years...
...And the situation is likely to get worse before it gets better, as Chinese replies to Indian protest notes indicate...
...Not only Delhi, but a good part of India pouring into Delhi for the event, rose in welcome in a manner which was as magnificent as it was frightening...
...That it has made up its mind to harass India, to create economic confusion here by forcing up defense expenditures, to keep India's armed forces on the hop along 2,500 miles of unguarded frontier is quite obvious...
...Not only did he tell his gigantic audiences what they wanted to hear, but he also managed to put across what he wanted them to hear without disturbing the fund of good will for his country that was being further built up...
...The President will, of course, have to sell Congress on the plan, but this is only one indication that the U.S...
...He never put a wrong foot forward, although the experiences he encountered must have been overwhelmingly new and different...
...that pursues no program of expansion in commerce or politics or power of any sort at another people's expense...
...Traffic and protocol arrangements started breaking down several hours before the visit began...
...The price is the maintenance of freedom and the democratic way of life...
...What was needed to give vent to these emotions was an occasion...
...No one, that is, but hundreds of thousands of representatives of SHAROKH SABAVALA...
...will stand...
...The President's speech on the occasion of the civic reception has made India's Communist party very angry, for though it was a clear exposition of American policy and intent, nothing was said which could be misconstrued as a violation of non-alignment or an abuse of hospitality...
...The Government in no way interfered, although throughout the four days in protocol-loving, hidebound and red-tape-encrusted Delhi, the top hierarchy was jostled, buffeted, bruised, knocked about, stalled, ignored and otherwise treated like everyone else...
...For one thing, according to some Cabinet members, American sincerity and Indian belief in that sincerity as demonstrated by the crowds has made a considerable impression on the Prime Minister...
...Technical Cooperation Mission is understood to have put before the President and to have briefed him thoroughly on a new aid plan, which is described as "revolutionary...
...But what happened was quite different from fond expectations...
...NEW LEADER correspondent in India, also writes for the Christian Science Monitor...
...It was unprecedented, but as is being discovered, not totally unexpected by those who always have held that beneath the surface of misunderstanding—largely the creation of Government spokesmen—the Indian people haye always had warm regard, affection and admiration for the U.S...
...The U.S...
...At the same time, he made it clear with the statement that "you and we never have to boast that ours is the only way" that the U.S...
...Thus for the first time, Indians heard and accepted the fact that the U.S...
...Ike's greatest feat was to draw the two nations closer New Phase In US-India Relations By Sharokh Sabavala NEW DELHI IF PRESIDENT Eisenhower and his party appeared stunned by the weight and dimensions of the welcome they received in this country, the Government of India was rendered even more speechless with amazement...
...He did not say so bluntly, but he quoted Mahatma Gandhi to a million people massed to present him with a civic citation, and no one was in doubt as to what America expected from India...
...The interpretations placed on the President's address to the Indian Parliament are significant...
...None of this actually has been spelled out, but the way the situation has developed has made this unnecessary...
...and that at one stage of his journey Nehru suddenly had to fly from Delhi to Calcutta to pull him up short...
...India, for its part, will endeavor to get closer to Pakistan, despite the continuing stumbling-block of Kashmir, plan more realistically than hitherto so that foreign aid is utilized to the hilt, abandon dogma and doctrine for those policies which really help step up food and industrial production, and do everything possible to support President Eisenhower in his quest for more settled global conditions...
...While India accepts Soviet neutrality in the Sino-India dispute at face value, there no longer is any inclination to indulge in wishful thinking and hope that Moscow will or can do anything to hold Peking back, once the latter has made up its mind...
...In a country deeply disturbed about U.S...
...This last was taken as an assurance in the context of India's involvement with China...
...The police were engulfed...
...has the right not only to arm itself for defense, but to do so in concert with like-minded nations...
...Arrangements for the visit had taken into account the magnificent reception which Delhi gave to Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and his predecessor, Nikolai Bulganin, in the winter of 1955, and Government leaders here hoped that in December 1959 there would be something approximating a repetition...
...For another, the insincerity of Communism is equally evident now...
...that seeks no control of another nation's government"—Hungary and Tibet, his audience murmured...
...every state in the Union, of every caste, creed and community in this vast subcontinent...
...And having taken it as such, the question which followed was: "What price will we in India have to pay...
...So much, then, for the intangibles of the visit, which are not really as intangible as they appear...
...On the other hand, il was recalled by Indians on this occasion, that Khrushchev frequently abused hospitality by making violent attacks on the U.S...
...This realization, which now permeates every stratum of society, is perhaps the greatest single achievement of the Presidential visit...
...will continue to endorse and to some extent underwrite India's development plans...
...Freedom, added President Eisenhower, is even more valuable than peace...
...In the days that have followed Eisenhower's departure, the truth of this description became even more obvious as analysts and statisticians got down to trying to explain the "why" of the people's unprecedented demonstration...
...military aid to Pakistan, this represented something of a triumph...
...The visit has also left the impression here that President Eisenhower personally will attempt to convince U.S...
...The operative part of the speech read as follows: "1 come here representing a nation that wants not an acre of another nation's land"—the oblique reference to the Communist empire, and China in particular, was duly noted...
...Cabinet ministers...
...What was needed was clear indication that the Government of India would not stand between the people and their feelings...
...does not expect India to abandon its policies, that it does not expect peace to be pursued only through a system of military alliances...
...The occasion arrived...
...I come here as a friend of India speaking for 180 million friends of India...
...The result was an explosion—in its way as impressive as the first mushroom cloud over Hiroshima—which leaves no one in any doubt about what India thinks of America...
...Prime Minister, Vice President and President, Heads of Mission and 30,000 invited guests making their way to the airport were scattered to the four winds, and but for the fact that the President's jet touched down nearly an hour later than expected, there would have been no one to meet him as he set foot in India...
...If the Indian Government was quick to pick up its cue, so was President Eisenhower...
...On this, too, the President made himself clear...
...What happened in these first hours was repeated throughout the four-day visit...
...investors that India really is a safe and worthwhile country (this presupposes, naturally, that India has assured him in advance that it will seek to make the climate for investment as equitable as possible) ; and that in the event of a major conflict involving India with Communist aggression, there is no question on whose side the U.S...
...India, therefore, in its own interest, must draw closer to the United States...
...Coming down to hard facts, the visit's aftermath shows that, by and large, the U.S...
...And to show how great it was, the Vice Chancellor of Delhi University, in Prime Minister Nehru's hearing and while presenting an honorary degree to the President, in his citation actually called the North Atlantic Treaty Organization a bulwark of democracy...
...As an Indian observer, hanging on for dear life to the branches of a tree where he had to remain precariously perched for four hours, put it: "On the night of December 9, in Connaught Circus"—New Delhi's center, where the Eisenhower motorcade was held up for nearly an hour —"a new pact was signed between the people of India and the President of the United States, a pact which required no Prime Minister to give it shape, no Parliament to provide approval and ratification...
Vol. 43 • January 1960 • No. 1
