Introduction

If we seek to make informed assessments about India’s future foreign policy and possible contestations, we must revisit a much larger and earlier slice of its strategic past, in order to discern prior policy patterns during times of inflexion and change. The Cold War period offers a rich and relatively untapped empirical reserve that can provide much needed depth to understanding Indian strategic thought and geopolitical practices. And, to truly understand Indian statecraft one must go beyond the study of non-alignment and examine more concrete ideas that have informed Indian geopolitics over the years. This book attempts to explicate some of these ideas and their application during some of the most significant events and crises in India’s immediate and extended neighbourhood over three decades during the Cold War. This chapter sets up the book’s main argument, lays out the conceptual framework, elaborates on the historical scope of the case studies, and, finally on the archival material that has been consulted by the author.

Vietnam War and India, 1965–6

Even though the escalation of the Vietnam war was the most significant Asian crisis of the 1960s, we rarely ever think about Indian diplomacy during this conflict. But what makes the second Indochina crisis of 1965–6 particularly interesting is that the post-Nehruvian foreign policy shifts vividly reflected in the contestations and debates on India’s posture and strategy towards the Vietnam war. Hence, we will be able to evaluate Indira Gandhi’s foreign policy in the extended neighbourhood very early in her tenure when domestic rivals contested her leadership and authority at a time of significant flux in Indian politics. In many ways, this phase marks the final displacement of Nehru’s peacemaker role conception with an alternative security seeker role.

War or Peace in the Subcontinent? 1950

The first East Bengal crisis is perhaps the only time during the 1950s where India came close to an armed confrontation with an immediate neighbour. What makes this crisis even more interesting is that Nehru’s foreign policy authority at the apex was contested by powerful political rivals led by Vallabhbhai Patel who fiercely competed with the Prime Minister in shaping India’s strategy towards Pakistani intransigence on the question of atrocities against Hindus in East Bengal and the sudden exodus of refugees into India. More broadly, the 1950 crisis also reflects a historical pattern in India’s Pakistan policy: the tussle between the idea of strategic restraint and the impulse to employ coercive means to persuade Pakistani leaders to take Indian interests seriously.

Pakistan’s Dien Bien Phu, 1971

The 1971 East Bengal crisis was one of the most destabilizing events in the subcontinent since the partition of India in 1947. While this case at first glance suggests an over-scrutinized event, in terms of careful archival-based foreign policy analysis it is actually less so. Our understanding of Indira Gandhi’s real motives still remain obscure and revisiting the early and middle stages of the crisis might reveal some clues because the fundamental ingredients of India’s strategy were actually laid quite early on. Indeed, this chapter questions some of the most influential accounts of India’s statecraft in 1971.

Indira Gandhi’s Role Conception

This chapter reconstructs Indira Gandhi’s role conception by analysing the Prime Minister and her core advisors’ public and private communication record. Indira Gandhi’s regional role conception of India as a security seeker, it is contended, was shaped by three core inter-related beliefs: a definition of India’s interests in more narrow terms compared to Nehru’s beliefs, and, a regional image centred on the subcontinent rather than on an extended Asian space that lay at the heart of Nehru’s image; a divisible conception of security rather than an indivisible one, and an inclination to leverage the balance of power for geopolitical advantage rather than to reform Asia’s interaction culture as per Nehru’s role conception; and, an inclination to employ coercive means to solve disputes or to pursue geopolitical ends in South Asia rather than a preference for ethical statecraft and strategic restraint embodied in Nehru’s worldview.

Nehru’s Role Conception

This chapter reconstructs Nehru’s role conception by engaging in an analysis of his public and private writings and speeches as well as those of his core advisor Krishna Menon. Nehru’s regional role conception of India as a peacemaker, it is argued, was shaped by three core inter-related beliefs: internationalism centred on Asia, rejection of the balance of power concept, expression of an alternative concept of indivisible security called the peace area, and a mode of statecraft that favoured persuasion and accommodation rather than coercion or force in inter-state relations.

Conclusion

This chapter returns to the central theme and examines whether changing role conceptions from a peacemaker to a security seeker is a persuasive interpretation for the dramatic shift in India’s foreign policy during the Cold War. It then situates this study in the broader historiography of India’s foreign policy and suggests why we might need to reconsider the mainstream depiction of India’s statecraft during the Cold War. Some of this book’s implications for future research is also briefly discussed, and finally, the contemporary relevance of this study is underlined by showing that many of the recurring questions and debates about India’s future role can be engaged if we situate India’s foreign policy journey in a larger historical backdrop.

Cold War on India’s Doorstep, 1954

The importance of 1954 is recognised but rarely dwelled into by historians. That year was a major inflexion point in South Asian history, when the regional balance of power was altered by a US decision to craft a military alliance with Pakistan. During this same period, a crisis was also brewing in South East Asia where both blocs jostled to preserve their strategic positions both on the Indochinese battlefield and through a great power conference at Geneva. For Nehru, these twin crises were perceived as indivisible fronts of a common threat to Asian security and it triggered an unorthodox but creative strategy that aimed to counter the expansion of the Cold War in the region.

Bringing Sikkim into the Fold, 1970–5

India’s trials and tribulations over Sikkim offer a vivid canvas to contrast Nehru and Indira Gandhi’s regional role conceptions and how they conditioned two distinct geopolitical approaches to managing India’s security interests on its periphery. In retrospect, the contestations over Sikkim policy also exemplify a recurring and broader pattern in India’s approach to its immediate neighbourhood, and, this chapter takes a look into the debates and disagreements of those years and places them as being reflective of contemporary India’s foreign policy.

Preventing a Sino-American Clash, 1955

The 1954–5 Formosa crisis, also known as the first offshore islands crisis, offers another forgotten event to understand Nehru’s geopolitical vision for a stable Asian order as well as look back at India’s extraordinary role in averting a major Sino-American conflict in the Western Pacific. India’s response to the possibility of a breakdown in East Asian security may be seen as a logical extension of Nehru’s statecraft in the first Indochina crisis, namely, to stabilise the geopolitical status quo in the extended neighbourhood and arrest an escalating crisis between a rising China and a dominant America before it spiralled into wider regional instability or a hot war. In essence, Nehru sought to promote an inclusive order where both these great powers could preserve their vital interests in Asia’s future.