''There can hardly be a more glaring instance of Nehrujis unconcern for the Indias own strategic interests than his refusal to accept a U S offer in 1952 of a permanent seat in the U N Security Council, till then held by Taiwan,'' says Mr Advani. '
'He insisted that the seat be given to China. Interestingly, this fact is mentioned in his recent book on Pandit Nehru by Shashi Tharoor, an MOS in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Government,'' said Mr Advani.
''When Mr Nehru declined to accept the U S proposal, his argument was that he did not want U S to marginalise China. We thereby only hurt our own interests,'' he said.
Mr Advani pointed out that in 2008, a conclave of foreign ministers of BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) was held at Yekaterinburg (Russia), at which Russia pressed that the conclave support Indias plea to secure a permanent place in the U N Security Council. Russias move did not succeed because it was strongly opposed by China!
The Congress has always projected Pandit Nehru as an exemplary helmsman of Indias foreign policy, but Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee, on the other hand, regarded Panditjis handling of Pakistan, as well as China, as two egregious blunders of his, the BJP leader said.
''Sadly, the shock that Nehru suffered when confronted by Chinas gross betrayal in 1962 virtually cost him his life. His mishandling of Pakistan has left terrorism and Kashmir as two festering sores for our body politic right up to this day,'' he said.
Mr Advani quotes approvingly from a book of Fareed Zakaria, Editor of Newsweek International that ''Nehru rooted Indias foreign policy in abstract ideas rather than a strategic conception of national interests. He disdained alliances, pacts, and treaties, seeing them as part of the old rules of real politik, and was uninterested in military matters.''
'Ironically, Fareed Zakaria writes, Indias policies became'especially tough-minded and shrewd during the reign of Nehrus daughter, Indira Gandhi,'' says the BJP leader.
Mr Advani says that now all know that it was during her regime that Bangladesh was carved out, and that India took its initial step into the field of nuclear weaponry.
Those who have been following the development of India into a full fledged nuclear weapons state are aware that Pokharan I took place in 1974, during Ms Gandhis tenure, and the process then started was completed by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee through Pokharan II, where on May 1, 1999 three underground nuclear tests were successfully conducted, he said.
Zakaria, Mr Advani adds, in his Penguin publication titled 'The Post American world', says that the ''central paradox of India'' today is that ''its society is open, eager and confident ready to take on the world'', but its state - its ruling class - is ''hesitant, cautious and suspicious of the changing realities around it''.
''Nowhere is this tension more obvious than in the realm of foreign policy, the increasingly large and important task of determining how India should fit into the new world''.
He says Zakarias book recalls that when Mountbatten suggested that there be a powerful chief of defence staff, Nehru turned down the suggestion, and a week into his new government, he walked over to the Defence Ministry and was furious to find military officers working there (as they do in every defence ministry in the world).
''Since then all armed service personnel work in New Delhis South Block wear civilian clothes''. Mr Advani said Pandit Nehru remained Indias Prime Minister from 1947 to 1964 and throughout his tenure he was his own Foreign Minister.
Quoting from the autobiography of K P S Menon, one of the India's first Foreign Secretaries, Mr Advani said,''We had no precedents to fall back upon because India had no foreign policy of her own until it became independent. Our policy therefore necessarily rested on the intuition of one man, who was Foreign Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.''
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment