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India in the Mirror of Foreign Diplomatic Archives. Manohar Publishers (IND). 2004.
On the foreign policies of United States of America and few other Developed countries of the world towards India; contributed articles presented earlier at a seminar.
16 pages, Hardcover
First published September 15, 2004
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May 19, 2013
India in the Mirror of Foreign Diplomatic Archives, edited by Jean-Max Zins and Gilles Boquérat has the distinction of being a readable work of scholarly non-fiction. Its collection of essays regarding Indian foreign policy from 1947 to approximately 1971 returns to the same points over and over, so even if the subject matter may be confusing, the discussion of it is not.
Because the daily headlines emphasize the present, it can be easy for one to forget that the state of the world today is but a single point on a graph of flux. Yesterday’s enemies are today’s friends and vice versa. Looking at India’s foreign policy in the first twenty-five years of the country’s existence is a potent reminder of the shifting alliances that comprise international relations.
The countries that are chiefly discussed in the book are India, China, the US, the UK, France and the USSR, with Pakistan always glaring menacingly from the shadows. India’s relationship with France and the UK are fairly easy to define during this period. The Beijing-Moscow-Washington-Delhi quadrangle is markedly more difficult.
The Indo-French relationship has had two phases. First, the countries were adversarial over colonialism. However, by the early 1960’s, when France signed over Pondicherry and its other sub-continental footholds and also recognized Algerian demands for independence the relationship quickly became benign. Since then the Indo-French relationship rarely collides because its trajectories are different, sometimes parallel, but always different.
India, after the British to quit it, still wanted to retain their advantageous trade relationship. India elected to remain a part of the Commonwealth in 1949, and fostered economic ties throughout the early stages of the Cold War. Because Britain had a long history on the sub-continent she tended to take a more regional view of the Indo-Pak conflict than the US or the USSR. Britain and India’s post-colonial relationship was largely peaceful, though India did speak out against Britain’s imperial posturing in the 1956 Suez crisis.
The China-India-US-USSR saga goes a little something like this: Newly independent India adopted a policy of non-alignment. The USSR felt a neutral India could still serve its expansionist ambitions and courted India. The US felt “if you’re not with us, you’re against us” and chose instead to arm Pakistan as its regional ally against Communist expansion. When Mao won out in China, India was one of the earliest countries to recognize the People’s Republic. It decided to befriend its neighbour rather than attack it. This policy worked until 1962, when India was embarrassed by a lighting strike and subsequent unilateral ceasefire by China in the Ladakh region. Shortly after this, the US saw a Sino-Soviet rift would be advantageous for the spread of democracy and began to foster a relationship with China. China gravitated toward the US and Pakistan leaving India to turn to the Soviets for aid and arms assistance. This quicksand of shifting alliances is why the world oldest and largest democracies couldn’t work together until after the Cold War.
India in the Mirror of Foreign Diplomatic Archives may not be a page turner but it does an excellent job of clarifying sub-continental foreign policy during the heyday of the Cold War.
Because the daily headlines emphasize the present, it can be easy for one to forget that the state of the world today is but a single point on a graph of flux. Yesterday’s enemies are today’s friends and vice versa. Looking at India’s foreign policy in the first twenty-five years of the country’s existence is a potent reminder of the shifting alliances that comprise international relations.
The countries that are chiefly discussed in the book are India, China, the US, the UK, France and the USSR, with Pakistan always glaring menacingly from the shadows. India’s relationship with France and the UK are fairly easy to define during this period. The Beijing-Moscow-Washington-Delhi quadrangle is markedly more difficult.
The Indo-French relationship has had two phases. First, the countries were adversarial over colonialism. However, by the early 1960’s, when France signed over Pondicherry and its other sub-continental footholds and also recognized Algerian demands for independence the relationship quickly became benign. Since then the Indo-French relationship rarely collides because its trajectories are different, sometimes parallel, but always different.
India, after the British to quit it, still wanted to retain their advantageous trade relationship. India elected to remain a part of the Commonwealth in 1949, and fostered economic ties throughout the early stages of the Cold War. Because Britain had a long history on the sub-continent she tended to take a more regional view of the Indo-Pak conflict than the US or the USSR. Britain and India’s post-colonial relationship was largely peaceful, though India did speak out against Britain’s imperial posturing in the 1956 Suez crisis.
The China-India-US-USSR saga goes a little something like this: Newly independent India adopted a policy of non-alignment. The USSR felt a neutral India could still serve its expansionist ambitions and courted India. The US felt “if you’re not with us, you’re against us” and chose instead to arm Pakistan as its regional ally against Communist expansion. When Mao won out in China, India was one of the earliest countries to recognize the People’s Republic. It decided to befriend its neighbour rather than attack it. This policy worked until 1962, when India was embarrassed by a lighting strike and subsequent unilateral ceasefire by China in the Ladakh region. Shortly after this, the US saw a Sino-Soviet rift would be advantageous for the spread of democracy and began to foster a relationship with China. China gravitated toward the US and Pakistan leaving India to turn to the Soviets for aid and arms assistance. This quicksand of shifting alliances is why the world oldest and largest democracies couldn’t work together until after the Cold War.
India in the Mirror of Foreign Diplomatic Archives may not be a page turner but it does an excellent job of clarifying sub-continental foreign policy during the heyday of the Cold War.
Displaying 1 of 1 review