NEHRU: AMERICA'S BEST FRIEND IN ASIA
Jack, Homer A.
NEHRU: America's Best Friend in Asia By HOMER A. JACK IN THE Office Memo column of the February issue of The Progressive the Editors quoted letters from abroad hinting at the incalculable damage...
...In December, 1954, Nehru said that the Indian Communists are "anti-India, anti-people, anti-progress, dazzled by Russia and China, but ignorant of India . . .pledged to a policy of creating mental and physical conflicts...
...India, the birthplace of Gandhi, is a violent land and some son of India may yet kill him...
...It is true, too, that despite Nehru's years in prison for political crimes (nine times for a total of nine years), thousands of Indians are in jail today because of political crimes (and because tight British sedition rules are still on the Indian law books...
...There are other criticisms...
...They call it a policy of non-alignment...
...I have become a queer mixture of the East and the West—out of place everywhere, at home nowhere," he has said...
...on 32 occasions and abstained or voted against on 34 occasions...
...Nehru is an outspoken socialist...
...When the United States was a young country, it needed time to grow and become a stable nation...
...Much of the American press has followed suit in oversimplifying India and the man who leads it...
...Gandhi is rightly honored as the Father of his country, and Nehru is rightly considered his closest associate in wresting India—non-violently— from Great Britain's colonial grasp...
...Nehru is a complex personality...
...Much of Asia is now free, but memories and vestiges of colonialism die hard...
...Communism was poised to take advantage of the vacuum created throughout Asia after World War II...
...Harold Stassen in 1951 called Nehru "a great man...
...The Bandung Conference was the culmination of Nehru's efforts to enable Asia to speak forcefully and articulately to the world...
...In a brief span last summer he was welcomed in Moscow and Rome—a considerable ideological distance...
...One—He was one of the prime architects of India's independence...
...a great, learned, and widely beloved man . . . There is no doubt that Nehru's desire for peace is deep and sincere...
...Nehru is an outspoken "neutralist...
...In New Delhi he bluntly told Bulganin and Khrushchev: "We are in no camp and no military alliance...
...Friendship dissolves fear, he is convinced, and "the basic threat today in the world is fear...
...The full story has yet to be written...
...Nehru is not Gandhian enough to believe in a policy of abandoning his nation's armed forces...
...He is an agnostic who became prime minister of a country of swamis, fakirs, and sacred cattle...
...India has sided consistently with Soviet Russia and against the United States...
...India today is in much the same position...
...Surely this represents the highest aims of our own policies...
...Nehru certainly helped break the deadlock...
...Usually he keeps his temper well in check (except in traffic jams), and he has not made a dictatorship of India...
...VI Perhaps America and the world will never know how valuable Nehru is until he has gone...
...He has refused to involve India in the Bagdad Pact, or the "Northern Tier" alliance with Turkey, Iraq, and Pakistan, or in the SEATO alliance...
...But to understand Nehru—and much of Asia today—one must understand neutralism or the dimensions of what Nehru once called "dynamic non-involvement...
...Americans don't like to be told of their shortcomings, especially by a prime minister whose own country is "obviously centuries behind" theirs in technical know-how and industrial productivity...
...Almost two centuries ago America wanted desperately to prevent any "entangling alliances...
...But in India, even Time has been obliged to admit, "when it comes to fighting Communists inside his native India, Nehru seldom sits on the fence...
...To Asians, however, the choices seem both different and more complex...
...They indulge in a cult of disruption...
...This anonymous critic of Nehru turned out to be none other than Nehru—writing about himself...
...on the Korean prisoner exchange and' bring a truce in Korea...
...He himself admits: "I am terribly afraid of people who talk about morality or about crusading...
...It seems clear that no other man in our time has done more to keep the peace by bringing hostile nations together for negotiation, that no other world leader has insisted so unswervingly that prevention of atomic-hydrogen war is the paramount goal...
...To most Americans, the choice in the world today seems painfully simple: it is democracy versus communism...
...It was his quiet, unobtrusive pulling and hauling which culminated in the summit conference in Geneva last summer...
...But Nehru refuses to depend upon military aid either to solve economic problems internally or political problems externally...
...For almost a century the choice facing Asians was colonialism versus anti-colonialism...
...for provincial Americans who must write weekly stories from Rockefeller Center or must make crucial foreign policy decisions from Capitol Hill he is far too complicated a personality for the blacks and whites of American journalism and politics...
...He is an Easterner who became a Westerner...
...Jack, minister of the Unitarian Church of Evanston, Illinois, has edited two anthologies on Gandhi, "The Wit and Wisdom of Gandhi" and "The Gandhi Reader," the latter just published by the Indiana University Press...
...One of his sisters writes that he is so westernized that, when HOMER A. JACK spent five months in Asia last year...
...Americans don't like unbelievers...
...What have been Pandit Nehru's major achievements...
...But Time is not alone in its work of distortion...
...They want a statesman to pay his respects, if not to their God, to some God, even to gods with strange, unpronounceable names...
...Despite our honest criticisms and dishonest smears, despite our diplomatic myopia and blunders, despite our relative trickle of economic aid, Nehru persists in being democracy's—and America's— best friend in Asia...
...It is not clear to them that Nehru's socialism is far more like Clement Attlee's moderate, democrat-, ic brand than the communism of Tito or Bulganin...
...Infinitely more than Chiang Kai-shek or Syngman Rhee, more even than Mao Tse-tung or Chou En-lai, Nehru is the key to understanding crucial Asia which is the home of half the population of the globe...
...Despite the first thrilling national election in 1952, India is still a fragile state, as the frequent riots attest...
...There is, however, the grim possibility that he might go the way of Gandhi...
...V These five major political achievements of Nehru's would be enough to give any statesman anywhere in the world a secure place in history.* They help to explain why, despite the journalistic conspiracy of slanted articles, Nehru has a small but articulate group of supporters even in America...
...This independent foreign policy should be familiar and make more sense than it does to Americans who know their own history...
...She has a food surplus now, and land is belatedly being redistributed to the landless...
...It is not the business...
...Three—Nehru has done much to rout the Communists within India...
...Is he anti-American...
...No country in Asia has made as much over-all political, economic, and cultural progress...
...And he became "the political heir" of Mahatma Gandhi, although his mood and method are quite different...
...He has spurned feelers from both Russia and China for similar military pacts...
...For, as John Gunther observes in Inside Africa, "Jawaharlal Nehru is more likely to be the spiritual father of the new Africa than Dwight D. Eisenhower...
...I can vouch that this is true in one of the most strategic areas on earth...
...This makes neither America nor Russia totally happy...
...Communism captured China and caused, and is even now causing, serious disruption in Indonesia, Malaya, and Burma...
...The proportion of the national budget of India allotted today for the armed forces makes many a Gandhian shudder...
...He interviewed Pandit Nehru and observed him at the Bandung Conference and in India...
...gests that Secretary of State Dulles "had confidence in Nehru's genuine interest in peace and, more important, in his ability to communicate speedily with Peking...
...Americans feel that Nehru is preaching to them and they don't like to be preached at, especially by dark-skinned Asians...
...III Nehru's approach to world affairs involves accepting economic and technical aid from all countries—but without political strings...
...He is convinced that "it is not by military pacts and alliances and by piling up armaments that world pace and security can be attained...
...It is only common sense to try to understand Nehru and support him...
...The Detroit Times in a recent editorial charged: "Nehru says India is strictly neutral...
...When I was in India last summer I was shown a file of Time comments on Prime Minister Nehru that included these phrases: "Nehru likes to scold everybody else . . . The old familiar Nehru line . . . Hot and grumpy was Pandit Nehru last week . . . Nehru showed telltale signs of jealousy . . . Nehru sat in the wings, grumbling softly . . . Prime Minister Nehru stepped forth to tout his own magical formula for getting peace in our time . . . The truth was, however, that Nehru looked bad . . . Nehru acted in high-strung fashion . . . Nehru was beset with a deep psychological unease . . . Croaked Nehru throatily...
...In addressing the Congress of the United States in 1949 Nehru said: "Where freedom is menaced, or justice is threatened, or where aggression takes place, we cannot be and shall not be neutral...
...Undeniably much credit goes to Great Britain for "preparing" India for independence...
...Nehru insists: "If we find it comfortable to sit on the fence, then we shall continue to sit on the fence...
...He is an aristocrat—son of a wealthy Brahman lawyer—who became a socialist...
...We wish to judge every issue on its merits," not on the basis of "being against a particular country or group of countries...
...But an anonymous article once drew this picture of Nehru: "He has all the makings of a dictator in him— vast popularity, a strong will directed to a well-defined purpose, energy, pride, organizational capacity, ability, hardness, and with all his love of the crowd, an intolerance of others and a certain contempt for the weak and inefficient...
...David Lawrence writes for his syndicate of the "tricky neutralism of Krishna Menon, who manages to persuade naive Nehru to do his bidding...
...These achievements have come within the basic context of democracy, without dictatorship, without dependence on support from a ruthless political machine or a personal army...
...He has virtually no bodyguard and at least three attempts have already been made to assassinate him...
...The Asian-African bloc is that continuing voice which is heard increasingly in the jungles of Africa if not in the suburbs of America...
...But credit also belongs to Nehru for his wise leadership during the crucial years since August 15, 1947...
...What he seeks to represent is the finest in Indian traditions . . . he sets high aims for [his people]— ideals that challenge the best that is in them...
...Like all men, he is generously supplied with faults...
...We want no Caesars...
...Formerly a Republican Senator from Kentucky, he announced that he would stay in Washington as long as it might be necessary to communicate to his former colleagues in Congress "my sense of urgency" in formulating a more generous and understanding American policy toward Nehru's India...
...Four—Nehru has been a valuable mediator between East and West...
...Gandhi gave Nehru his mantle, saying: "The nation is safe in his hands...
...What is the truth about Nehru...
...His conceit...
...The important thing for us to remember is that they are determined to maintain their independence, economic and political...
...The Chicago Tribune complains that, for all the aid we have sent, "India has given us little more than the back of its hand...
...Two—Nehru has given the new Republic of India a stable, democratic government...
...These initial impressions of Nehru are often solidified by some of the things Nehru himself says and does...
...Even Time can be quoted against itself, in praise of Nehru, having reported at various times: "Nehru is no communist, no fellow traveler...
...In a statement following his appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the ambassador dealt with criticism of India's "neutralism" by saying: "The Indians don't call it neutralism...
...He comes from a Kashmiri family and clearly his contribution to world peace would be far greater if the bitter struggle between Pakistan- and India over Kashmir could be resolved...
...he knows and loves his people...
...Nehru's foreign policy rests on active friendship with all nations...
...Americans often confuse socialists with communists, especially if the former refuse to hate everything Russian...
...II Nehru is an outspoken agnostic...
...And it is true that while Nehru is basically disillusioned with communism_as are most socialists—he still seems to many observers to underrate the aggressive intent of communism and minimize its totalitarian character...
...Nehru appears to Americans as an outspoken moralist...
...Those who observe him regularly in New Delhi feel that there is another decade of service left...
...Nehru is not uncommitted about the moral values of justice, liberty, and peace...
...Small wonder that many Americans have been falsely led to write off Jawaharlal Nehru as anything but a friend—and perhaps a wicked enemy of America and the cause of freedom...
...They think that not to be aligned is to be free to help to bring about a world settlement...
...IV It was precisely this note that was emphasized recently by John Sherman Cooper, our ambassador to India...
...Justice William O. Douglas, certainly one of the best informed Americans on Asia, said in his Strange Lands and Friendly People: "Nehru's inheritance of the Gandhi tradition is genuine...
...He has an explosive temper and a dictatorial bent...
...and they know and love him . . . Nehru is no demagogue...
...Americans resent this attitude...
...His foreign policy involves a refusal to participate in military pacts...
...Americans don't like fence-straddleis...
...An analysis shows that out of 66 votes on Korea in the U.N., India voted with the U.S...
...India is similarly accepting Russian promises for aid, but strictly on the same basis...
...Five—Nehru has engineered the unification of Asia...
...to order us about...
...is already formidable...
...During the eighth session of the General Assembly (1953), India voted in support of the United States on 27 occasions and in support of the Soviet Union on 19 occasions...
...in the U.N...
...It is an unbelievably poor nation, but the first five-year plan has been a success...
...Small wonder that Asians are hopping mad at Time...
...Nehru is also far less neutral in opposing the "brink of war" diplomacy than one of our own leading churchmen, John Foster Dulles...
...Some of his most fervent defenders question his attitudes toward Kashmir, Indian civil liberties, and world communism...
...he speaks from the heart...
...And there are some special reasons why the American people don't understand Nehru...
...As desperately as India needs our aid, she feels that she needs her political independence more...
...of certain countries...
...He may not he the Voice of Asia, but the record is emphatic that he has done more than any other Asian statesman to give Asia—in less than a decade— a significant voice in the modern world...
...he becomes angry, "English words flow more freely" than Hindustani...
...She has gratefully accepted this aid but is proudly prepared to reject it at any time if our Congress attaches conditions...
...Even the New York Times pleads for "wiser Indian leaders" to set Nehru "straight...
...He is 66...
...Nehru helped bring about an end to war in Indo-China...
...And George Meany, shortly after becoming head of the combined AFL-CIO, called Nehru— and Tito—"aides and allies of communism in fact and in effect, if not in diplomatic verbiage...
...His flashes of temper are well-known and even when they are controlled, the curling of the lips betrays him . . . Let us not spoil him by too much adulation and praise...
...He helped bring America and China together for the current talks in Geneva...
...America has given or lent India 267 million dollars since 1950...
...Is he an aide and ally of Communism...
...they tend, impatiently, to accept the judgment of one of Henry Luce's magazines, "Nehru's privileged balancing cannot go on forever," and the insistence of so much of the nation's press that other nations are "either for us or against us...
...Americans confuse agnostics with atheists and identify agnostics with communists, not realizing that the religion of Nehru is more akin to the religion of Lincoln than Lenin...
...NEHRU: America's Best Friend in Asia By HOMER A. JACK IN THE Office Memo column of the February issue of The Progressive the Editors quoted letters from abroad hinting at the incalculable damage done the American cause in foreign lands by Time magazine...
...Nehru's foreign policy favors pursuit of an independent course in the world, especially in the United Nations...
...It is difficult enough'for sophisticated Indians to understand their Panditji...
...Within much less than a decade we could "lose" India with her almost 400 million people...
...Americans don't like socialists, especially foreign Fabian socialists who dare criticize American capitalism...
...Small wonder, too, that we are losing vital ground in that decisive area of the world where the great struggle of competitive co-existence ultimately may be resolved...
...Chester Bowles has repeatedly called for "a sympathetic understanding of the mind and heart of Nehru...
...Nehru is far less neutral in the struggle against colonialism in Africa than our own Henry Cabot Lodge...
...To understand Nehru's neutrality, Americans must understand that political neutrality is not moral neutrality...
...No statesman in our time has been more accepted by both Moscow and Washington, by both Peking and London...
...Today the ideological choices seem to Asians far more complicated than Time's sweeping edict: "The world is going either in America's or Russia's [way...
...Nehru tends to minimize the results of his efforts, and those of his as dates, to mediate the chronic dispu between East and West...
...Cooper, incidentally, drew on his own experience in India to urge on Congress and the Eisenhower Administration the need for more economic aid and sympathy for Nehru's regime...
...Life maga: zine in its "brink of war" article sug...
...Within the past decade we Americans have "lost" China with her 600 million people— lost the friendship of her people and the cooperation of her government...
...His aim is to make India's 400,000,000 people equal partners in all the dividends of freedom, to give to India a broad democratic base by raising the standards of the masses...
...It must be checked...
...He is an inspiring leader...
...It is difficult to exaggerate the damage that Time has done in creating a false image of Pandit Nehru for a large segment of the American public...
Vol. 20 • March 1956 • No. 3
