Was Nehru about to make Telangana Another Kashmir?

There is an interesting piece of Information how Nehru was on the verge of making Telangana another Kashmir by going to UN while Indian Army wiped out any resistance of Nizam's forces and took over Telangana. As we all know how Nehru made Kashmir a spit fire with rather idiotic wisdom, stopping the war while our Indian forces are about to walk into the territory of occupied Kashmir and into Pakistan. Without him entire Kashmir would have been with India and would have been peaceful without 371 article. He unnecessarily went to UN in the midway while India was about to win that war with Pakistan and gain the Kashmir without any problem. Why was Nehru kept on doing such historic blunders despite the noble counsel like Sardar Patel and others. Even Rajgopalachari who succeeded Patel showed better wisdom than Nehru.

Here is an account of Sri TVR Shenoy in his words


Ladder of lies - by TVR Shenoy on Rediff on net

Two recent statements from Communist Party of India-Marxist general
secretary Harkishen Singh Surjeet deserve our attention. He wondered why
the Left had not stuck roots outside Kerala, West Bengal, and Tripura
"despite its glorious role in the freedom struggle." And he slandered
the Bharatiya Janata Party as "the men who killed Mahatma Gandhi."

A man's memory is the first faculty to start withering. But I suspect
Surjeet's speeches sprang from malice rather than age. They are, in any
case, easily disproved.

"I have kept myself almost in daily touch with the progress of Bapu's
assassination," Sardar Patel wrote to Jawaharlal Nehru on February 27,
1948, "It emerges clearly that the RSS was not involved in it at all."

Whom would you rather believe, Surjeet or the Sardar?

Why was the Iron Man's statement ignored? Simple, Sardar Patel was
feared and hated by Nehru-Gandhis and Communists alike, and they joined
to bury his memory. Surjeet, however, may recall the Sardar as the man
who vowed to uproot Marxism from the soil of his Gujarat.

The Sardar has a right to be wary. The Communists spewed poison against
everyone else in the late 1920s and early 1930s. (Even the Congress
Socialists, a group within the Indian National Congress, were described
as "social fascists.") This wasn't original; the Communists were simply
parroting the line laid down by Stalin at the sixth congress of the
Communist International.

This changed abruptly after the seventh congress was held in Moscow in
1935. Stalin decided to infiltrate socialists into the country. The
Sardar wasn't fooled. He acidly described the Socialists as nothing but
"the sappers and miners of Communism" and did his best to keep them out.

Simply put, Sardar Patel didn't trust Indians who owed allegiance to
foreigners. His suspicions were well founded. When Hitler invaded Russia
in June 1941, the Communists abruptly reversed themselves, even acting
as British informers during the Quit India Movement.

Yet at the CPI-M's Calcutta session, Surjeet accused BJP leaders of not
participating in the freedom struggle! Not only is this demonstrably
wrong, it is a blatant method of hiding the Left's own horrible record.

Communist hostility continued even after 1947. Vijayalakshmi Pandit,
India's first envoy to Moscow, recorded Stalin's refusal to believe that
India was truly free. And not a single Russian bureaucrat signed the
condolence book after the Mahatma's death.

Their Soviet masters' attitude was echoed in the 'Calcutta Thesis'
formulated by the Communists in February 1948. Repeating the charge that
India was still a British colony, it vowed to continue the ''liberation
struggle''. The practical expression of this philosophy came in the form
of the Telangana peasant struggle (a fancy name for guerrilla warfare).

Telangana was part of the then Hyderabad state, a princely state
refusing to join the India Union. The Nizam had given free rein to a
group called the Razakars. Their leader Kasim Razvi vowed that "if India
invaded nothing but the bones and ashes of 10.5 million Hindus would be
found". Hindus were openly killed in Marathwada (also part of the
princely Hyderabad).

This was the gentleman with whom the Communists allied. It was said in
Warangal and Nalgonda that "the Razakars rule by day and the Communists
at night." But Nehru's government didn't react, a stance encouraged by
Lord Mountbatten (India's governor-general at Nehru's invitation).

Hyderabad took advantage of this idiocy. It loaned 200 million rupees to
a Pakistan teetering on bankruptcy. It appealed to the Americans and
sent a delegation to the United Nations. Nehru's response was to send a
counter-memorandum, but Sardar Patel's patience was exhausted.

"You referred Kashmir to the UN when victory was at hand," he said,
"What happened?"

On June 21, 1948, Mountbatten finally left, and Chakravarti
Rajagopalachari took over as governor-general. Nehru continued to plead
for a softline as late as September 8, 1948. However on September 13,
'Operation Polo' began. It took just 108 hours before Hyderabad was
forced to lay down arms on September 17.

The Communists, however, fought on for three more years. The Sardar died
in December 1950, but his work was continued by Rajaji who succeeded him
as Union home minister. (He described the Communists as "Public Enemy
Number One.")

I wouldn't normally use this column to talk about events that took place
half a century ago and more, but comrade Surjeet is trying to rewrite
history six hundred and one months after the Nizam's fall.

You cannot ascend the pinnacles of power by standing on a ladder of
lies.

The Nehruvian Penalty: 50 wasted years

The Goldman Sachs report 'Dreaming with BRICs: The Path 2050' by Dominic Wilson and Roopa Purushothaman, dated October 31, 2003, has, with good reason, caused quite a stir, especially in India . It is especially noteworthy for its optimistic statements about India, for example:

India has the potential to show the fastest growth over the next 30 and 50 years. Growth could be higher than 5% over the next 30 years and close to 5% as late as 2050 if development proceeds successfully.

In US dollar terms, China could overtake Germany in the next four years, Japan by 2015 and the US by 2039. India's economy could be larger than all but the US and China in 30 years.

There are plenty of caveats, of course. But the very fact that an American investment bank is now talking up India is significant. There is a whole slew of other positive news, for example an adulatory cover story in Businessweek ('The Rise of India,' December 8, 2003) http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/03_49/b3861001_mz001.htm and a Pacific News Service article ('Return of the Old Empires: India and China) http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=6261b8c8117ae9848d747eb3da747eeb and a new buzz about India's economic prospects in the world media. Even Peter Drucker, the grand old man of American management, weighed in recently, saying very positive things about India's prospects especially as contrasted with China.

The American investment banks have been especially diligent in talking up China in the last few years. This probably had something to do with the fat fees they were expecting from the initial public offerings of some large Chinese firms, for example China Telecom, whose multi-billion-dollar offer must have brought them very large fees.

India has not had juicy carrots like these in the pipeline, and in any case investment banks in India are quite capable of managing any large offers. So if the Goldman Sachs of the world are now positive on India, that must mean they smell some juicy business. The new American ambassador-designate is, perhaps not coincidentally, a banker from Credit Suisse First Boston.

The BRIC (Brazil , Russia, India, China) report bases its conclusions on some growth model assumptions:

• high rates of return from increased capital per worker
• the ability to leapfrog technologies
• significant increases in the exchange rate
• growth in employment.

Based on India's positive demographic profile which means workers will come into the economy for longer than in other BRICs, Goldman Sachs expects India's high growth rate will continue for longer than the other countries.

The report cautions that its projections are dependent on the following, so there is no room for complacency:

• Macroeconomic stability: low inflation, supportive government policy, sound public finances and a well-managed exchange rate
• Institutional capability: legal system, functional markets, health and education systems, financial institutions and government bureaucracy
• Openness: to trade and foreign direct investment
• High levels education: there is a strong positive correlation between secondary education and growth

Clearly, it is for Indians collectively to lose this race. For every one of the above is an area of some concern. In particular, education is a key matter: the Goldman Sachs report suggests that 1 additional year of schooling for the workforce on average provides a 0.3% faster annual growth rate over the next 30 years. This is a vulnerability for India. The issue of openness is a double-edged sword: over-eager openness to FDI and trade, especially in an atmosphere of 'managed trade', may be suicidal. Americans, up until now zealous proponents of 'globalization', are beginning to have second thoughts: it seems 'free trade' is good only insofar as it benefits the West. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/06/opinion/06SCHU.html?8bl

Much of what Goldman Sachs says is a priori sensible; the projections are merely startling in their boldness about how India will overtake all other nations barring China and the US by 2050. The following table summarizes their projections for both GDP and per capita GDP growth over the next fifty years. Note the tortoise-hare scenario: India is slow to get off the block, but grows consistently faster in the long run. China's early lead, however, enables that country to have a significantly greater GDP per person by 2050.

	China GDP % growth	India GDP % growth	China GDP per capita % growth	India GDP per capita % growth
2000-2005	8.0	5.3	9.2	3.7
2005-2010	7.2	6.1	11.2	7.5
2010-2015	5.9	5.9	9.2	7.4
2015-2020	5.0	5.7	7.8	7.2
2020-2025	4.6	5.7	7.3	7.4
2025-2030	4.1	5.9	6.9	8.2
2030-2035	3.9	6.1	6.5	8.9
2035-2040	3.9	6.0	6.3	8.9
2040-2045	3.5	5.6	5.9	8.3
2045-2050	2.9	5.2	5.4	7.6

Given these assumptions, here are the GDPs and per capita GDPs of major nations in 2050, in constant 2003 US$, sorted by projected GDP in 2050:

Country	GDP in 2050 (billion US$)	GDP per capita in 2050 (US$)
China	44,453	31,357
US (G6)	35,165	83,710
India	27,803	17,366
Japan (G6)	6,673	66,805
Brazil	6,074	26,592
Russia	5,870	49,646
UK (G6)	3,782	59,122
Germany (G6)	3,603	48,952
France [ Images ] (G6)	3,148	51,594
Italy [ Images ] (G6)	2,061	40,901

All this is good news, but in a way it merely buttresses the optimism many of us have had about the Indian economy.

But what I found most interesting in the report was the Goldman Sachs economists' attempt to test their model but running it backwards for the period 1960-2000. That is, they attempted to see how well the model would have predicted actual growth if applied to major developing countries in 1960. Here are the results of that analysis:

Country	Predicted GDP growth rate 1960-2000%	Actual GDP growth rate 1960-2000%
Argentina	4	2.4
Brazil	5.8	4.8
France	3.4	3.2
Germany	3.3	3.1
Hong Kong	6.2	7.4
India	7.5	4.5
Italy	3.5	3.3
Japan	4.5	4.8
Korea	6.8	7.8
UK	2.6	2.4
US	2.8	3.2

I would draw your attention to the row regarding India. Forecast for annual GDP growth 1960 to 2000, based on its endowment: 7.5% per annum, actual: 4.5% per annum. That 3% per annum shortfall sounds small, but it isn't. Look at what (South) Korea has accomplished: by growing at 7.8% in those forty years, they, who started at roughly the same point as India, is now far ahead of India in GDP per capita, and their GDP is roughly the same as India's, although they are a far nation.

Put another way, in forty years GDP would have grown by a factor of 1800% without the Nehruvian Penalty, instead of the actual growth of 580%. Instead of an actual GDP of about $460 billion in 2003, and also a per capita GDP of about $450, India's numbers would have been $1451 billion GDP and a per capita GDP or about $1400. India's economy would have been the fourth largest in the world, after the US, Japan and Germany! Per capita, Indians, while far behind the G6, would have been better off than Chinese.

In other words, the 3% shortfall has condemned a quarter of a billion people to grinding poverty. It is an economic crime against humanity. The blood, sweat and tears of a billion Indians, for one half century. Wasted.

And what was the reason for the 3% shortfall? That, gentle reader, is the Nehruvian Penalty, the effect of the Nehru dynasty, India's Sorrow. Had it not been for the dubious and half-digested economic ideas eagerly accepted by Nehru and fellow Stalinists, India would have been far better off.

One of those Old Left hoi-polloi, one Raj Krishna, coined the untruthful phrase 'Hindu rate of growth' to refer to the pathetic Nehruvian Rate of Growth of 2% to 3% a year. The unlovely Comrade knew he could get away with demeaning Hindus. He is referred to as 'the famous economist Raj Krishna' although I believe he is only famous for having coined this insult. So according to the famous Raj Krishna, I take it that Pakistan's pathetic economic showing would be the 'Muslim rate of growth'? But of course, no Comrade would ever say anything that might 'hurt Muslim sentiments.'

I hope if I can now claim I am 'the famous economist Rajeev Srinivasan' for having coined the phrase 'The Nehruvian Penalty.' Gentle reader, I implore you to propagate this rude but accurate phrase so that I may truly become a 'famous economist.'

The shortfall is clearly cause and effect. Nehru was here, and India had the 3% gap. Now Nehru is dead, and his acolytes are out, and India now has managed to get back to 7+ % growth, which is what Hindu India enjoyed before the Muslim and Christian colonization sprees. The 8.4% growth achieved in Q2FY2003 is an indication of the true Hindu rate of growth. Clearly the Nehruvian Albatross is now gone. And good riddance, too.

I have noticed recent attempts by Nehru hagiographers to polish up the man's image. But, in an example of the axiom that you cannot fool all the people all the time, large numbers are beginning to question all the wonderful things the JNU court jesters claim our Jawaharlal accomplished. I have been thinking about this for some time, and have come to the conclusion that Jawaharlal was an unmitigated disaster for India.

It is clear that Nehru screwed up big time on Tibet, Kashmir, the NAM, the Security Council, in fact everything he touched. Nehru's little lambs never fail to claim that even if he did nothing else right, Nehru started the IITs, which has led to India's increasing prestige in the world. Wrong. The IITs have done the exact opposite of what Nehru intended, in a spectacular example of the principle of unintended consequences.

Nehru, being himself a deracinated person with no understanding of Indian culture (read his autobiography where he confesses that he was brought up as an Uncle Tom, a little Briton in brown face), hoped to create good coolies for the use of his idols, the British and the Communists. Nehru was not burdened with a massive intellect (as he admits in his autobiography) or with great knowledge (as you can see from the absolute howlers in his Glimpses of World History, which should be titled more properly The Word According to Garp and shelved under 'fiction'). He wanted, in continuation of the Macaulayite project, to create de-Indianized and de-Hinduized robots, much like himself.

What has happened, ironically enough, is that the majority of IIT products have not followed the plan: they have not become rootless. (There are some notable exceptions, though, who, infected with 'South-Asianitis', are eager to bring the benefits of IT services to Karachi, that is when the good citizens there can tear themselves away from their AK-47s.)

What the IITs have done is to locate a bright group of students, teach them a lot of engineering, and substantially enhance their self-esteem. This last was not part of the Nehruvian/Macaulayite project, but this is perhaps the one thing that most IIT graduates share: self-confidence and a belief that they are the best of the best. Since people do what they expect themselves to do, this has become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

This self-confidence has enabled many IIT graduates to make a mark in whatever they chose to do. It is poetic justice that it is JNU students who have fulfilled Nehru's objective of providing slaves for the Communists and the West. It is to intimidate these innumerate and generally intellectually challenged individuals that I have included the numbers above. I forecast that the hate mail from them will carefully skirt the numbers and confine themselves to abusing me as a human being: perfect, because that is a purely subjective opinion for which they have to show neither proof nor thought process, just knee-jerk sloganeering.

In passing, there is a crying need in India for a world class school focusing on the humanities. In the sciences, we have the Indian Institute of Science; in engineering, the Indian Institutes of Technology; in medicine, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences; in the law, the National Law School University of India; in management, the Indian Institutes of Management and the Indian School of Business, all clearly world class.

It is time that a globally competitive Indian Institute of the Humanities be set up, perhaps in Hyderabad or Bangalore, to do original research into the unsung contributions of Indic culture to the world. Some focus areas could be Indology; classical languages Sanskrit, Pali/Prakrit and Tamil; yoga; ayurveda; economics; statecraft (eg. the Arthashastra); astronomy; mathematics (eg Aryabhatiya); all areas in which Indic thought is far too underrated. This will help us to avoid Nehruvian Albatrosses in future, based on half baked and imported ideologies.

Fifty wasted years. A billion people forced to live below their potential. Since I believe in the long cycles of history, I have to believe that having to put up with the Nehruvian Penalty has atoned for whatever sins India has committed for a thousand years. And now this is India's century. As Businessweek commented, for the first time a developing nation is clawing its way out of poverty by using the intelligence of its citizens, not natural resources that come out of a hole in the ground.

Courtesy : Rajeev Srinivasan at rediff.com

Historical Blunders by Congress those haunt India forever

Kashmir Mess

There can be no better example of shooting one’s own foot than India’s clumsy handling of the Kashmir issue. It is a saga of naivety, blinkered vision and inept leadership.

Hari Singh was the reigning monarch of the state of Jammu and Kashmir in 1947. He was vacillating when tribal marauders invaded Kashmir in October 1947, duly backed by the Pakistan army. Unable to counter them, Hari Singh appealed to India for assistance and agreed to accede to India. Indian forces blunted the invasion and re-conquered vast areas.

First, India erred by not insisting on unequivocal accession of the state to the Dominion of India and granted special status to it through Article 37p0 of the Constitution. Secondly, when on the verge of evicting all invaders and recapturing the complete state, India halted operations on 1 January 1949 and appealed to the Security Council. It is the only case in known history wherein a country, when on the threshold of complete victory, has voluntarily forsaken it in the misplaced hope of winning admiration of the world community. Thirdly and most shockingly, the Indian leadership made a highly unconstitutional offer of plebiscite in the UN.

Forty percent area of the state continues to be under Pakistan’s control, providing it a strategic land route to China through the Karakoram ranges. As a fall out of the unresolved dispute, India and Pakistan have fought numerous wars and skirmishes with no solution in sight. Worse, the local politicians are holding India to ransom by playing the Pak card. Kashmir issue is a self-created cancerous furuncle that defies all medications and continues to bleed the country.

The basic mistake was not rushing the Indian Army after his SOS.Sardar Patel was swift to move but was stalled by Nehru for inexplicable reason dithered.had the army been moved swiftly,Pakistan would have had no chance of entering Kashmir. The inexplicable reason was Farouk Abdullah(the so called Blood Bother of Nehru).Old timers know what it is.

Ignoring Chinese Threats and Neglecting the Military

Memories of the year 1962 will always trouble the Indian psyche. A nation of India’s size had lulled itself into believing that its protestations and platitudes of peaceful co-existence would be reciprocated by the world. It was often stated that a peace-loving nation like India did not need military at all. The armed forces were neglected. The political leadership took pride in denigrating the military leadership and meddled in internal affairs of the services to promote sycophancy. Foreign policy was in shambles. The intelligence apparatus was rusty.

Even though signs of China’s aggressive intentions were clearly discernible for years in advance, the Indian leadership decided to keep its eyes shut in the fond hope that the problem would resolve itself. When China struck, the country was caught totally unprepared. Troops were rushed to snowbound areas with summer clothing and outdated rifles. Despite numerous sagas of gallantry, the country suffered terrible embarrassment. India was on its knees. With the national morale and pride in tatters, India was forced to appeal to all nations for military aid. Inept and incompetent leadership had forced a proud nation to find solace in Lata Mangeshkar’s Ae Mere Watan Ke Logo.

The Tashkent Agreement and Return of Haji Pir Pass

Following the cease-fire after the Indo-Pak War of 1965, a Russian-sponsored agreement was signed between India and Pakistan in Tashkent on 10 January 1966. Under the agreement, India agreed to return the strategic Haji Pir pass to Pakistan which it had captured in August 1965 against heavy odds and at a huge human cost. The pass connects Poonch and Uri sectors in Jammu and Kashmir and reduces the distance between the two sectors to 15 km whereas the alternate route entails travel of over 200 km. India got nothing in return except an undertaking by Pakistan to abjure war, an undertaking which meant little as Pakistan never had any intention of honouring it.

Return of the vital Haji Pir pass was a mistake of monumental proportions for which India is suffering to date. In addition to denying a direct link between Poonch and Uri sectors, the pass is being effectively used by Pakistan to sponsor infiltration of terrorists into India. Inability to resist Russian pressure was a manifestation of the spineless Indian foreign policy and shortsighted leadership.

The Simla Agreement

With the fall of Dhaka on 16 December 1971, India had scored a decisive victory over Pakistan. Over 96,000 Pak soldiers were taken Prisoners of War (PoWs). Later, an agreement was signed between the two countries on 2 July 1972 at Shimla. Both countries agreed to exchange all PoWs, respect the line of control (LOC) in Jammu and Kashmir and refrain from the use of threat or force. Additionally, Bhutto gave a solemn verbal undertaking to accept LOC as the de facto border.

India released all Pak PoWs in good faith. Pakistan, on the other hand, released only 617 Indian PoWs while holding back 54 PoWs who are still languishing in Pakistani jails. The Indian Government has admitted this fact a number of times but has failed to secure their release. India failed to use the leverage of 96,000 Pak PoWs to discipline Pakistan. A rare opportunity was thus wasted. Forget establishing permanent peace in the sub-continent, India failed to ensure release of all Indian PoWs – a criminal omission by all accounts.

The naivety of the Indian delegation can be seen from the fact that it allowed Pakistan to bluff its way through at Shimla. The Indian leadership was fooled into believing Pakistan’s sincerity. Unquestionably, Pakistan never intended to abide by its promises, both written and verbal. Fruits of a hard-fought victory in the battlefield were frittered away on the negotiating table by the bungling leadership.

The Nuclear Muddle

Subsequent to the Chinese Nuclear Test at Lop Nor in 1964, India showed rare courage in carrying out its first nuclear test on 18 May 1974 at Pokharan. Outside the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, India was the only nation to prove its nuclear capability. The whole country was ecstatic and every Indian felt proud of its scientific prowess. But Indians had not contended with their Government’s penchant for converting opportunity into adversity and squandering hard-earned gains.

Instead of asserting India’s newly acquired status of a nuclear power and demanding recognition, India turned apologetic and tried to convince the world that it had no nuclear ambitions. It was a self-deprecating stance. Displaying acute inferiority complex, India did not want to be counted as a member of the exclusive nuclear club.

Whereas a few more assertive follow-on tests would have forced the world to accept India as a member of the nuclear club, India went into an overdrive to placate the world through a self-imposed moratorium on further testing. It lost out on all the advantages provided to it by its scientists. It suffered sanctions and yet failed to gain recognition as a nuclear power. The country missed golden opportunities due to the timidity and spinelessness of its leaders.

Illegal Immigration and Passage of IMDT Act

It is a standard practice all over the world that the burden of proving one’s status as a bona-fide citizen of a country falls on the accused. It is so for India as well under Foreigners Act, 1946. Political expediency forced the Government to make an exception for Assam. In one of the most short-sighted and anti-national moves, India passed the Illegal Migrants – Determination by Tribunals (IMDT) Act of 1984 for Assam. It shifted the onus of proving the illegal status of a suspected immigrant on to the accuser, which was a tall and virtually impossible order. Detection and deportation of illegal immigrants became impossible.

Whenever demands were raised for repealing the Act, the Congress, the Left Front and the United Minorities Front resisted strongly. Illegal immigrants had become the most loyal vote bank of the Congress. Worse, every protest against the Act was dubbed as ‘anti-minority’ , thereby imparting communal colour to an issue of national security. The government’s ‘pardon’ of all Bangladeshis who had come in before 1985 was another unconstitutional act that aggravated the problem.

The Act was struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court on July 13, 2005, more than 20 years after its enactment. The Apex Court was of the view that the influx of Bangladeshi nationals into Assam posed a threat to the integrity and security of northeastern region. Unfortunately, immense damage had already been done to the demography of Assam and the local people of Assam had been reduced to minority status in certain districts. Illegal immigrants have come to have a stranglehold over electioneering to the extent that no party can hope to come to power without their support. Nearly 30 Islamic groups are thriving in the area to further their Islamist and Pan-Bangladesh agenda. It is incomprehensible that a nation’s leadership can stoop so low and endanger even national security for garnering votes.

All these pseudo secular parties have proved that they go any extent to capture power, even to the extent of making all those Illegal immigrants as voters of India there by endangering the security and Integrity of India.

Courtesy : Major general Mrinal Suman/ Ramanan50 (blog with some changes)

The Blunder of Pandit Nehru

In one of his article, well-known Tibet and Kashmir expert "Claude Apri" wrote:

Everything started in early 1946 when the Indian National Congress had to elect a new president. It was an accepted fact that the leader chosen as Congress president would become the first prime minister of independent India. Three candidates were in the race: Acharya Kripalani, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Sardar Patel. The working committee of the INC and the pradesh committees had to send their nomination for one of the three candidates.

Sardar Patel was easily the most popular. Everyone knew his efficiency and his toughness for tackling difficult problems. Twelve out of 19 Pradesh committees nominated him. None nominated Nehru.

From the start Gandhi had indicated that he favoured Nehru. His reasoning was that his British education was an asset: 'Jawaharlal cannot be replaced today whilst the charge is being taken from the British. He, a Harrow boy, a Cambridge graduate, and a barrister, is wanted to carry on the negotiations with the Englishmen.'

Another point Gandhi made was that while Sardar Patel would agree to work as Nehru's deputy, the reverse might not happen. He also felt that Nehru was better known abroad and could help India play a role in international affairs.

Eventually, in deference to Gandhi, Kripalani nominated Nehru and withdrew from the race. Patel had no choice but to follow his colleague 'so that Nehru could be elected unopposed.' Dr Rajendra Prasad later stated: 'Gandhi has once again sacrificed his trusted lieutenant for the sake of the glamorous Nehru.'

It is how India got a Kashmiri Pandit as its first prime minister.

I have always found it strange that a man professing to be above caste or religion agreed to be called 'Panditji.' Nonetheless, the fact that a Pandit was the prime minister made Kashmir a state different from the 500 other princely states.

Soon, the conflicting aspects in Nehru's persona came to the fore. On one hand, he was a democrat and revolutionary; on the other, he was often carried away by his 'Socialist' ideals to the point of blundering with India's destiny.

After his election as Congress president, he gave his support to his friend Sheikh Abdullah (he called him his 'blood brother') who had been jailed by Maharaja Hari Singh of Kashmir. In June 1946, he decided to go to the valley to free Abdullah. The situation was certainly not shining in Kashmir (as in the rest of India), but to take on the maharaja at this point in time was a serious mistake.

However, for Nehru, 'Anything that happens in Kashmir has a certain importance for the rest of India, but recent events there have had an even greater importance, [they] became symbols of a larger struggle for emancipation. Thus Kashmir became symbolic of the [princely] States in India.' He wanted to take on 'the autocratic and often feudal rule that prevails there.' He did not realise that the princes' support and collaboration would be indispensable during this all-important transition period for the nation.

Though prohibited to enter the maharaja's state, in July 1946 Nehru decided to defy the ban. Patel and other members of the working committee tried to dissuade him: there were more important matters to tackle in Delhi after the Cabinet Mission had come to discuss the transfer of power.

In a letter to D P Mishra, Patel explained: 'He [Nehru] has done many things recently which have caused us great embarrassment. His actions in Kashmir … are acts of emotional insanity and it puts tremendous strain on us to set the matters right.' However, Patel, always fair, added: 'but in spite of all these innocent indiscretions he has unparalleled enthusiasm and a burning passion for freedom.' Patel, thus, pointed out the two powerful (and opposing) aspects of Nehru's personality.

A year later, hardly two weeks before Independence, Nehru still wanted to go to Srinagar. He wrote to Gandhi: 'I shall go ahead with my plans. As between visiting Kashmir when my people need me there and being prime minister, I prefer the former.' Once again he had to be dissuaded.

At the stroke of the midnight hour on August 14, India awakened to life and freedom. Unfortunately, Maharaja Hari Singh remembered the events of the previous year and while most princes signed the Instrument of Accession of their state to the Dominion of India, Hari Singh prevaricated. What would happen to him and his state under Nehru's rule? He also knew that the future of his state could not lie with Jinnah and his government.

In September, he decided to offer Kashmir's accession to India. This was refused by Nehru, who first wanted Sheikh Abdullah to be freed and installed as prime minister of the state. This was not acceptable to the maharaja.

Things came to a head at the end of October 1947 when raiders from the North West Frontier Province entered the state, killing, looting, and raping along. On October 26, they had reached the outskirts of Srinagar. Hari Singh agreed to sign the Instrument of Accession.

On the same day a historic meeting was held in Delhi with Mountbatten, the governor general, as chairman. A young army colonel named Sam Manekshaw, who attended the meeting, recalled: 'As usual Nehru talked about the United Nations, Russia, Africa, God Almighty, everybody, until Sardar Patel lost his temper. He said, 'Jawaharlal, do you want Kashmir, or do you want to give it away?' He [Nehru] said, 'Of course, I want Kashmir.' Then he [Patel] said: 'Please give your orders.'

This anecdote perfectly exemplifies Nehru, who could make the greatest speeches, but was unable to take a decision at a crucial moment. Thanks to Patel's decisiveness, troops were flown to Srinagar the next morning and the airport, the only link with India, was saved. Military operations to expel the raiders started.

Nehru's colleagues soon discovered they had made another serious blunder, a collective one. They had chosen Mountbatten to be the first governor general of independent India while Jinnah had kept the post for himself in Pakistan. At that time, it was probably easier for the Congress to have a foreigner as the head of the Dominion; it conveniently avoided having to choose among themselves. However, Mountbatten manipulated matters so well that he became chairman of a newly created defence council. Nehru did not see a problem in this: Mountbatten (and his wife) were his best friends.

But this was to have grave repercussions on Kashmir policy. Mountbatten, a British officer, was now at the helm of the executive defence machinery. British generals still serving in India reported to him. Mountbatten was not working for India's interests, but the British crown's.

Nehru's sentimental attachment to the Mountbattens deeply vitiated the Kashmir issue. It was certainly the most important factor for the failure to find a solution in the first years of the conflict.

Events took a turn for the worse at the end of December 1947 when the governor general managed to convince Nehru that India had to refer the Kashmir issue to the UN instead of conducting a military counterattack in West Punjab. Patel did not agree. But at this precise point in time the Sardar, who had so far looked after the relations with the princely states, was sidetracked. On December 23, he wrote his resignation, but was prevented (by Gandhi) from pressing for it. From that day, with Patel out of Kashmir affairs, things went from bad to worse.

In the first months of 1948, during the UN hearings, the British showed where their interests lay. The original Indian complaint was completely left aside and the Security Council began adopting anti-India resolutions.

Abdullah had already started his crusade (particularly with the US administration) for Kashmir's independence. He remained Nehru's friend till his scheming became too dangerous for India. In August 1953, he was finally dismissed by Karan Singh, the sadar-i-riyasat. Two months earlier, Shyama Prasad Mookerjee, who had been arrested by Abdullah and left without medical care in Srinagar, died in mysterious circumstances. Nehru had visited the capital of Kashmir a few days earlier, but did not find the time to call on his former Cabinet colleague. He later wrote to Mookerjee's mother: 'Indeed, I hoped that the healthy climate of Kashmir might lead to an improvement in Shyama Babu's health.'

Though in the following years Nehru hardened his position when different UN commissions (Dixon, Graham, Jarring) visited Delhi, it was too late. Pakistan was certainly not interested in vacating the so-called 'Azad Kashmir', rendering the plans for a plebiscite mentioned in the UN resolutions of August 1948 and January 1949 irrelevant.

A few days before his death Nehru sent a freshly released Abdullah to meet Ayub Khan with a proposal to have a confederation of India, Pakistan and Kashmir. The proposal was contemptuously rejected as 'absurd' by the Pakistani military ruler. It was Nehru's last attempt to solve the issue and it failed.

In retrospect, despite Nehru's love for great principles, his incapacity to take decisions in time, his inability to work with colleagues like Patel, and his friendship with individuals such as the Mounbattens or Abdullah, who had their own interests, blinded him so much that he did not further India's national interests. The consequences have been tragic and the muddle created 57 years ago remains far from being sorted out.

Courtesy : Sri Pankaj Madhukar

First Nehru, Then Congress/ UPA spoiled India's place in UN Security Council

By OP Gupta, IFS (Retd)

The countries that have made the strongest demands for permanent seats are Brazil, Germany, India and Japan. Japan and Germany are the UN's second and third largest fund contributors, respectively, while Brazil, the largest Latin American nation, and India, the world's largest democracy and second most populous country, are two of the largest contributors of troops to UN-mandated peace-keeping missions.

In 1953 or so India was offered China's permanent seat in the UNSC then held by Taiwan but Jawaharlal Nehru rejected it saying that it was an American effort to marginalise the Communist China. In his book Nehru: The Invention of India Shashi Tharoor, a former UN Under-Secretary has also confirmed that Nehru turned down a US offer for India to take Permanent Seat in the Security Council held by Taiwan, and Nehru urged that it be offered to Beijing instead. So India missed a golden opportunity to be in the UNSC as a Permanent Member with veto.

On July 26, 2005, five UN Member countries, Argentina, Italy, Canada, Colombia and Pakistan, representing a larger group of countries called (Uniting for Consensus), proposed to General Assembly another plan that maintains five Permanent Members, and raises the number of Non-Permanent Members to 20 from 10. On April 11, 2005, China had "endorsed" this proposal.

In view of stiff opposition offered behind the curtain by the People's Republic of China and open opposition of the members of the Coffee Club, Japan panicked and offered to accept Permanent Membership without veto power or that Japan would not exercise veto power for many initial years. Such dilutions were not acceptable to India and to African aspirants.

Despite forging the so-called strategic alliance with the USA, and, despite having agreed to curtail military application of nuclear technology in India under the unequal Indo-US nuclear deal, the UPA government failed to get Bush presidency support for Indian case for Permanent Membership with veto power.

At the recent conclave of foreign ministers of BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) held in May 2008 at Yekaterinburg, Russia, China refused to endorse Russian proposal of supporting India?s bid for a permanent seat in the UNSC in the joint communique issued at the end of this meeting.

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In 1953 Nehru threw to winds the golden offer to place India in the UNSC with veto powers. In September 2008 the UPA failed to place India in the UNSC as a Permanent Member with veto power. Since then UPA government has put this matter on back burner.

Every student of international politics knows that under the Monroe Doctrine [1823] and the Roosevelt Corollary [1940] an important foreign policy objective of the USA has been to exercise hegemony over Latin America. The unstated objective of the USA is not to support any Latin American country for Permanent Membership of the UNSC. Thus by openly and formally linking its candidature with that of Brazil in the format of G-4, the UPA Government ensured that the USA shall cold shoulder Indian candidature.

India rightly aspires to become a Permanent Member of the UN Security Council with full veto power as [1] India is one of the founding Members of the United Nations Organisation, [2] India is the largest democracy with the second largest population of the world, [3] India has been one of the largest contributors of manpower to the peacekeeping operations of the UNO, and, [4] Indian economy is the fourth largest on purchasing power parity basis. There has been substantial goodwill and support to this just aspiration of India in the international community but the UPA Government due to its myopic policies and arrogant attitude of its senior functionaries especially towards small countries failed in harnessing and channelising this support to achieve the goal. The UPA government on one hand failed to enlist clear support of USA and China; and, on the other hand, by joining the G-4 forced even supporting countries to oppose India sponsored motion as they were/are against inclusion of either Japan or Brazil or Germany in the UNSC. The UPA government could not foresee that joining the G-4 could result into lining of opponents of the other three aspirants against India.

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the principal organs charged with the maintenance of international peace and security. Its powers include the establishment of peacekeeping operations, the establishment of international sanctions, and the authorisation of military action.

Under chapter six of the Charter, 'Pacific Settlement of Disputes', the Security Council investigates any dispute or any situation which might lead to international friction or give rise to a dispute. The Council may recommend appropriate procedures or methods of adjustment if it determines that the situation might endanger international peace and security. The recommendations under chapter six are not binding on the UN Members. The UNSC resolutions pertaining to J&K being chapter VI resolutions are neither binding on India nor can be enforced by the UN.

Under chapter seven, the Council has broader power to decide what measures are to be taken in situations involving "threats to the peace, breaches of the peace, or acts of aggression". In such situations, the Council is not limited to merely making recommendations but may take action, including the use of armed force 'to maintain or restore international peace and security'. This was the basis for UN armed action in Korea in 1950 during the Korean War and the use of coalition forces in Iraq and Kuwait in 1991. Decisions taken under chapter seven, such as economic sanctions, are also binding on UN Members.

As per 1946 provisions there are 15 Members of the Security Council, consisting of five Permanent Members, also called P-5 countries [China, France, Russia, the UK and the USA] and ten Members each elected for two years period. The Security Council?s five Permanent Members have the power to veto any substantive resolution. Procedural matters are not subject to a veto, so the veto cannot be used to avoid discussion of an issue.

The five Permanent Members were drawn from the victorious powers of World War II, and in 1946, the Security Council consisted of France, the Republic of China [non-Communist], the United Kingdom, the United States and the USSR. There have been two seat changes since then viz.

[i] China's seat was originally filled by the non-communist Republic of China. In 1971, the People?s Republic of China [Communist] was awarded China?s seat in the United Nations by the UN General Assembly Resolution 2758. Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi?s governments continuously supported the case for replacing the [non-Communist] Republic of China [Taiwan] by the [Communist] People's Republic of China in the UNSC. Before the establishment of the Security Council in 1946, the USSR and the UK were against China?s position in it, however the USA had insisted that China [non-Communist] should be in the Security Council as a Permanent Member.

[ii] Russian Federation, being the legal successor state to the Soviet Union after the latter's collapse in 1991, acquired the original-Soviet seat, including the Soviet Union?s former representation in the Security Council.

The five Permanent Members of the Security Council are the only nations recognised as possessing nuclear weapons under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, although some countries with nuclear weapons [India, Pakistan etc] have not signed the NPT treaty.

Ten other Members of the UNSC are elected by the General Assembly for two-year terms starting on January 1, with five replaced each year. The members are chosen by regional groups and confirmed by the United Nations General Assembly. The African bloc chooses three Members; the Latin America and the Caribbean, Asian, and Western European and other blocs choose two Members each; and the Eastern European bloc chooses one Member. Also, one of these Members is an Arab country, alternately from the Asian or African bloc.

In 1953 or so India was offered China's permanent seat in the UNSC then held by Taiwan but Jawaharlal Nehru rejected it saying that it was an American effort to marginalise the Communist China. In his book Nehru: The Invention of India Shashi Tharoor, a former UN Under Secretary has also confirmed that Nehru turned down a US offer for India to take permanent seat in the Security Council held by Taiwan, and Nehru urged that it be offered to Beijing instead. So India missed a golden opportunity to be in the UNSC as a Permanent Member with veto.

With continuous change in the world political and economic scene it was being felt in the international community that 1946 composition of the UNSC had become outdated and needed democratisation to reflect the current realities.

On March 21, 2005, the then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan called on the UN to reach a consensus on the September 2004 Earth Summit on expanding the council to 24 Members. He suggested two alternatives for expansion, but did not specify which proposal he preferred. The two options mentioned by Annan are: [i] Plan A calls for creating six new Permanent Members, plus three new non-Permanent Members for a total of 24 seats in the Council. [ii] Plan B calls for creating eight new seats in a new class of Members, who would serve for four years, subject to renewal, plus one non-permanent seat, also for a total of 24.

The countries that have made the strongest demands for Permanent Seats are Brazil, Germany, India and Japan. Japan and Germany are the UN's second and third largest fund contributors, respectively, while Brazil, the largest Latin American nation, and India, the world's largest democracy and second most populous country, are two of the largest contributors of troops to UN-mandated peace-keeping missions. These four countries [known as G-4] joined in some sort of a pact obviously to pool their resources to support each other's aspirations to become Permanent Members of the expanded Security Council. The push of G-4 in form of a resolution at UN General Assembly failed in September 2005.

In view of stiff opposition offered behind the curtain by the People's Republic of China and open opposition of the members of coffee club, Japan panicked and offered to accept Permanent Membership without veto power or that Japan would not exercise veto power for many initial years. Such dilutions were not acceptable to India and to African aspirants. However, Japan announced in January 2006 that it would not support a retabling of the G-4 resolution and was working on a resolution of its own.

Uniting for Consensus is a movement (nicknamed the Coffee Club) that developed in the 1990s in opposition to the possibility of expansion in the UNSC. It was later revived by Italy and now has about 40 members aiming to counter the G-4 nations' bids for Permanent Seats. The leaders are Italy, South Korea, Mexico, Argentina and Pakistan. Argentina, Colombia, Mexico 'opposed to a bid for Brazil; Italy, Netherlands, Spain' opposed to a bid for Germany (wishing for a seat for the whole European Union); People's Republic of China, South Korea - opposed to a bid for Japan; and, Pakistan - opposed to a bid for India. Canada - opposed in principle to expansion not achieved by consensus or near-consensus.

On July 26, 2005, five UN Member countries, Argentina, Italy, Canada, Colombia and Pakistan, representing a larger group of countries called Uniting for Consensus, proposed to the General Assembly another plan that maintains five Permanent Members, and raises the number of Non-Permanent Members to 20 from 10. On April 11, 2005, China had endorsed this proposal. In other words China is against induction of new Permanent Members.

Despite forging the so called strategic alliance with the USA, and, despite having agreed to curtail military application of nuclear technology in India under the unequal Indo-US nuclear deal, the UPA government failed to get Bush presidency support for Indian case for Permanent Membership with veto power.

The Peoples Republic of China actively canvassed to oppose the G-4 motion at the UNGA as it had decided to oppose Japan's inclusion in the UNSC.As early as October 2004 this writer then serving as Indian Ambassador to Finland had informed Delhi that the Chinese Politburo had taken a firm decision to oppose Japan's induction into UNSC for 'historical reasons,' therefore, India's case should not be linked with Japan's. The same source had also informed that there was no decision at the Politburo to support or to oppose India's case. In the January 14, 2008 communique, China did not offer clear support for our Permanent Membership but came to extent of only saying that China understands and supports India's aspirations to play a greater role in the UN including in the Security Council. Greater role does not necessarily mean Permanent Membership with veto.

Indian mandarins have been over enthusiastic in reading Chinese responses. In November 2006, Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee claimed that Chinese President Hu Jintao had reiterated that Beijing was in favour of New Delhi's inclusion as a Permanent Member of the Council. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's 2005 visit to India did not yield any definitive commitment that China would support India's case for a Permanent seat at the UNSC. Despite the assertion of Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon that President Hu had assured India on a bilateral visit in 2006 that China would not be an obstacle to New Delhi's bid for Permanent Membership of the Security Council, no concrete guarantee was secured in the Joint Declaration. At the recent conclave of foreign ministers of BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) held in May 2008 at Yekaterinburg, Russia, China refused to endorse Russian proposal of supporting India's bid for a Permanent Seat in the UNSC in the joint communique issued at the end of the meeting.

This writer sought and secured clear and categorical support of all the countries to our Permanent Membership case wherever he served as Ambassador or High Commissioner. President Ben Mkapa of Tanzania told the Indian Press accompanying the then PM IK Gujral that he did not envisage expansion of UNSC without India being there as a Permanent Member. Deputy Prime Minister of Jamaica personally conveyed support of his government to Shri Jaswant Singh in New York. The Dominican Republic Government announced its support on floor of its Parliament. When I reached Helsinki in 2001 I was told that Finland was working on a joint formula with other Scandinavian countries so it could not give any support bilaterally, and, that, before seeking Finnish support India should first get regional support for its UNSC candidature but two years of my continuous efforts paid off when in summer of 2004 Finnish Foreign Minister said that Finland would support India being made a Permanent Member. Estonian Prime Minister publicly conveyed Estonian support to visiting Minister of State in the MEA [Shri Digvijay Singh]. Tunisia is not against.

In 1953 Nehru threw to winds the golden offer to place India in the UNSC with veto powers. In September 2008 the UPA failed to place India in the UNSC as a Permanent Member with veto power. Since then UPA government has put this matter on back burner. The new government must revive it and should avoid repeating mistake of forming G-4 type mechanism. Ekla chalo re appears the best tactics to achieve the goal while keeping all understandings with other countries behind the curtain. Every student of international politics knows that under the Monroe Doctrine [1823] and the Roosevelt Corollary [1940] an important foreign policy objective of the USA has been to exercise hegemony over Latin America. The unstated objective of the USA is not to support any Latin American country for Permanent Membership of the UNSC. Thus by openly and formally linking its candidature with that of Brazil in the format of G-4, the UPA Government ensured that the USA shall cold shoulder Indian candidature.

[The writer retired in the rank of Secretary to the Government of India in the Indian Foreign Service (1971 batch). He served as Ambassador to Finland, Estonia, Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Tunisia and Tanzania etc and; as Consul General, Dubai and Birmingham (UK).]