Soviet-Bloc Aid Bolsters Indian Neutralism

...His visit was said to have a dual purpose...

...Rumanian drillers, Czech foundrymen, Polish craftsmen, technicians from the highly developed East German industry have all been pressed into service to give the impression that Communist aid to India is bigger and better than it actually is...

...They have made most detailed studies of Indian conditions and Indian planning with the result that they were always first on the scene with offers every time a major project looked as if it were getting off the drawing boards...

...And then, to say thank you for everything, Indian President Rajendra Prasad went on a state visit accompanied by the country's Labor Minister, as Minister-in-waiting...

...India cannot help but notice that while its exports—vital in the drive to earn foreign exchange—to West Europe are falling and trade imbalance is growing—especially since the formation of the European Common Market—those to the Iron Curtain world are rapidly rising...

...Despite great Soviet effort and through no fault of its builders...

...Moreover, they decided to show that they were good mixers, better than other Europeans, that they could rough it better, settle down in new conditions better and merge better with their fellow Indian workers...

...It was intended to convey a friendly warning to the Kremlin leaders about their Peking colleagues' activities, which if further stepped-up along India's northern borders this summer may push India completely into the Western alliance...

...All this cannot be lost on Moscow and indications are that it is not...

...And it is partly to cover up this weakness that the tempo of aid is being stepped up and diversified...

...The purpose for which this equipment may have to be used is all too obvious, but Khrushchev himself, nothing daunted, has offered to sell India a high-altitude Russian helicopter to keep India's military outposts in the high Himalayas well supplied...

...The visit's second purpose was to say a particularly warm thank you for the manner in which Russia has been implementing its aid programs here...

...Most Communist countries are ready to negotiate in Indian rupees—which also greatly favors India—and use their rupee earnings to make their purchases in this country...

...To look at Russia's practical achievements in this part of the world, therefore, is to be impressed, despite oneself...

...Soviet technicians and drills are already at work at new strikes in western India...

...The chief and only fly in the Russian ointment, however, is China...

...He then was followed by the Indian Finance Minister, the country's leading anti-Communist leader, Morarji Desai, who did have further discussions on the credits extended by Russia to further India's third Five Year Plan projects...

...The Indian President went to Moscow at a time when India's relations with the United Kingdom and the United States were never better, when Nehru has established new contacts with President de Gaulle and when Bonn is moving, slowly but surely, to gear up its aid to underdeveloped countries, particularly India...

...More than 400 factories in Moscow, Leningrad, Sverdlovsk, Kharkov and Dnepropetrovsk turned out the design and machinery which, then, and without a hitch on the Russian side, was transported to India in 150 ships...

...Some undoubtedly do, but at the first breath of suspicion, such a howl usually goes up that Indian Communists are finding this type of external assistance embarrassing rather than useful...

...The savings in foreign exchange, thus, is considerable and Government officials claim far outweighs the dangerous possibility that part of those earnings may be used for other than strictly commercial purposes...

...In this context and through the President, the country thinks primarily of the million-ton steel mill at Bhilai (central India) for which the Soviet Union has extended a 500-million ruble credit, repayable in easy annual installments over a number of years and with the extraordinarily low interest rate of 2.5 per cent...

...The Russians, openly competing with their West German and British rivals, who refused to accept the challenge, decided to get ahead and stay ahead both in the construction program and in production...

...The offer was personally conveyed, a few months ago, by Khrushchev's right-hand atomic scientist, V. S. Emel-yanov, and in return India's top physicist and secretary of its AEC, Homi J. Bhabha, last month led an important delegation to Moscow...

...To express its satisfaction in concrete terms, the Soviet Union has made a blanket offer to the Indian Atomic Energy Commission of aid in setting up an atomic reactor— without strings—and in exploration and exploitation of atomic minerals and training Indian personnel...

...The visit also coincided not only with a new low ebb in the fortunes of Communism in India, but also with a new and widespread disruption and disunity in the leadership of the Indian Communist party...

...Bhilai's foundations, therefore, are not as solid as Moscow hoped they would be...

...In another sphere, too, the Russians have proved unusually shrewd...

...The size of the fly was indicated in June by the decision of the Indian President to accept a long-standing invitation to visit Moscow at a time when, as Commander-in-Chief of India's armed forces, he had an important hand in the hurried purchase of much military equipment from the West...

...In all this, also, they have succeeded better than the foreign nationals of other aid-givers...

...Even here, the Russians are not entirely without resources...

...No other country has matched this offer (West Germany and the UK also are building two million-ton steel plants for the Indian Government) . Nor, as far as Indians can see, have they been able to match the earnestness of the Russian endeavor, the zeal with which 700 Russian technicians have been working in extremes of temperature, or the friendliness with which their families have settled down beside the families of Indian technicians and workers...

...Whatever else Russia may be able to do, it is finding it more and more difficult—in Southeast Asia— to get over the fact that the biggest real and potential threat to the peace of this continent comes, not from a Western "Imperialism," but from an Eastern "peoples' state...

...The fact that their contribution to the second Five Year Plan and to the third is so much smaller than that of the Western countries is solely because the West still makes so many things better than the Russians can and India, despite good will, low interest and zeal, wants only the best...

...But the air of studied impartiality this and other gestures indicate does not hide Soviet perturbation at deteriorating New Delhi-Peking relations...

...As a result, today, the Communist world, barring China, is doing more trade with India than ever before...

...They have succeeded...

...India is happy over Russia's continued neutrality in the border dispute with China, and Russia, if Indian diplomatic observers in the Soviet capital are to be believed, is more than content that New Delhi manages to cling to the last shreds of its neutralist policy despite continued public-opinion pressure on the Nehru Government...

...Bhilai, today, by all standards, is a magnificent achievement and the Russians, realizing what a good investment it has been, have now promised to help expand Bhilai's output from a million to 2.5 million tons by the end of the third Indian plan in 1965-66...

...Indians constantly are on the alert against Soviet and satellite counterpart funds trickling into the coffers of the Indian Communist party...

...Moscow will also import, at cut rates, several thousand barrels of petroleum products this year in order to help India "break the distribution monopoly of foreign oil interests...

...If Khrushchev, in 1956, thought to earn the good will of Government and people through a single spectacular project, he has more than succeeded...

...Communist assistance is being stepped up and diversified By Sharokh Sabavala Soviet-Bloc Aid Bolsters Indian Neutralism New Delhi MOSCOW THIS SUMMER has more Indian VIPs than ever before and as Sino-Indian relations steadily deteriorate, so both India and Russia appear to be making a systematic effort to strengthen their mutual ties...

...In the oil sector, while Russia and Rumania are already building two new oil refineries for the Indian Government, a sum of 277 million rubles has been allocated out of a 1500-million ruble credit extended last September for furthering Indo-Soviet oil exploration...

...The Indian Oil Minister has also gone to Moscow to further all this collaboration...