India's Commitment to Peaceful Coexistence and the Settlement of the Indochina War

Abstract

India could not be a passive onlooker of the Indochina War since it involved many basic principles of its foreign policy principles such as its opposition to colonialist and neo-colonialist activities of Western powers in Asia and the relevance of non-alignment as a diplomatic tool to ensure peaceful coexistence. India emerged as a force of proposals to reckon with in the search for a peaceful settlement between the contending parties before and during the Geneva Conference. In spite of adverse developments, the application of the Geneva agreements assumed great importance as they represented a validation of India's approach to crisis resolution. The article focuses on the reasons underlying India's intervention, an analysis of its interests and the view taken by other international players of this activism.

Notes

[1] Brecher, India in World Politics, 44.

[2] India's attitude during and after the Indochina War as part as its larger foreign policy aims has aroused little academic interest even if more attention has been given of late to the role of the peripheral actors during the Cold War. This is the result of the traditional focus on India–Pakistan relations and of India's estrangement from Southeast Asia from the early 1960 s until its rediscovery of the region with the launch of the ‘Look East Policy’ in the early 1990s. Books dealing with this issue are rather few and published decades ago – one can quote Rajan, India in World Affairs and Tien, India and South East Asia – also this article intends to shed new light on India's involvement in the settlement of the Indochina war notably through the use of primary material not available at the time.

[3] Outward telegram from the Direction Asie-Océanie to the Embassy in Nanking and the legations in Bangkok and Saigon, 11 April 1947 in Archives du Quai d'Orsay (AQO), Asie-Océanie, 1944–55, India, Vol.62.

[4] This refusal was directly related to the over-flight by two Halifax military aircraft and followed another refusal to permit small battleships to put in at Cochin. Dispatch from Henri Roux, 21 November 1947. Outward telegram from the Direction Asie-Océanie to the Embassy in Nanking and the legations in Bangkok and Saigon, 11 April 1947 in Archives du Quai d'Orsay (AQO), Asie-Océanie, 1944–55, India, Vol.62.

[5] This refusal was directly related to the over-flight by two Halifax military aircraft and followed another refusal to permit small battleships to put in at Cochin. Dispatch from Henri Roux, 21 November 1947. Outward telegram from the Direction Asie-Océanie to the Embassy in Nanking and the legations in Bangkok and Saigon, 11 April 1947 in Archives du Quai d'Orsay (AQO), Asie-Océanie, 1944–55, India, Vol.62.

[6] On a different note, Syama Prasad Mookerjee, leader of the Bharatiya Jan Sangh, expressed his regret in March 1953 that India should be so little represented in Indochina, one of the countries whose relations with India went back several centuries and ‘who were anxious to come back to their spiritual mother’. Parliamentary Debates, 1953, Vol.2, Part 2, 16 March, col. 2105. Quoted by Tien, India and South East Asia, 193–94.

[7] Inward telegram from the UK High Commissioner in India to the Commonwealth Relations Office, 8 March 1954 in Public Record Office/The National Archives (PRO/NA), FO 371/112034.

[8] Nehru's minutes of his discussions with John Foster Dulles, New Delhi, 22 May 1953. Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, Vol. 22, 511.

[9] Johnson–Menon Meeting, Geneva, 13 July 1954: the United States Delegation to the Department of State. FRUS, 1952–54, Vol.XVI, pp.1345–46.

[10] In his memoirs, the then French President, Vincent Auriol, reports that during a meeting held on 13 November 1953, René Pleven, the Defence Minister, and himself considered favourably an approach to Nehru to see if he could contemplate an appeal to France and China to discuss peace in Indochina. Auriol, Mon Septennat, 575. Apparently, this possibility of an Indian mediation never really took shape, maybe because it would have implied in return a softening of the French attitude vis-à-vis its settlements in India, something unacceptable for some officials. V. Auriol had previously been far less enthusiastic about the prospect of an Indian mediation, notably after a meeting with Nehru in January 1951 during which he conveyed that France's presence in Indochina was a bulwark against communist expansion towards the subcontinent. FRUS, 1952–54, Vol.XVI, 369.

[11] Inward telegram from Henri Hoppenot, Permanent Representative of France in the UN Security Council, New York, 1 December 1953 in AQO, Asie-Océanie, 1944–55, Indochina, Vol. 320.

[12] Inward telegram from the UK High Commissioner in India to the Commonwealth Relations Office (CRO), 26 February 1954 in PRO/NA, FO 371/112046.

[13] Inward telegram from Henri Hoppenot, Permanent Representative of France in the UN Security Council, New York, 22 February 1954 in AQO, Asie-Océanie, 1944–55, Indochina, Vol. 320.

[14] 6 November 1953. Nehru, Letters to Chief Ministers, Vol. 3, 420.

[15] 31 December 1953. Nehru, Letters to Chief Ministers, Vol. 3, 475.

[16] Inward telegram from Henri Hoppenot, New York, 5 March 1954 in AQO, Asie-Océanie, 1944–55, Indochina, Vol. 320.

[17] Outward telegram from the Bureau Asie-Océanie, Paris, 10 March 1954 in AQO, Asie-Océanie, 1944–55, Indochina, Vol. 320.

[18] FO minute: Record of a conversation between the Foreign Secretary (Anthony Eden) and the Indian High Commissioner (Kher), 10 March 1954 in PRO/NA, FO 371/112033.

[19] 14 April 1954. Nehru, Letters to Chief Ministers, Vol. 3, 516–18.

[20] Eden, Full Circle, 97.

[21] Eden, Full Circle, 94.

[22] Inward telegram to the CRO from the UK High Commissioner in India, 6 May 1954 (report of talk with Krishna Menon the day before) in PRO/NA, FO 371/112034. Regarding Molotov, whom he met several times during the conference, Krishna Menon said that he had a constructive attitude right from the beginning.

[23] 26 April 1954. Nehru, Letters to Chief Ministers, Vol. 3, 529.

[24] Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, Vol. 25, 442.

[25] Count Ostrorog questioned Nehru on the significance of paragraph 5 concerning a non-intervention agreement, which appeared dangerous to him in view of China's proximity and Chinese imperialistic traditions followed by the People's Republic. The latter admitted the seriousness of the threat. But, at the same time, he stressed that it was based on unchanging geographical data and that, in his opinion, it was necessary to overcome the problem by putting an end to the warlike situation and trying to bring about peaceful conditions on the basis of the existing territorial boundaries which were not under dispute. Telegram from the Ambassador of France in India, 24 April 1954 in AQO, Asie-Océanie, 1944–55, Indochina, Vol. 320.

[26] See memorandum from the Adviser to the United States Delegation (Stelle) to the Special Adviser to the United States Delegation (Bowie), Geneva, 30 April 1954. FRUS, 1952–1954, Vol. XVI, 635–38. The Americans were opposed to the idea that Krishna Menon could be one of the presidents of the ‘Indochina phase’ of the Geneva Conference, even though it was likely that the Soviets would propose his name.

[27] Sir John Kotelawala says in his memoirs that one of the prime ministers present accused another of being ‘nothing better than an American stooge!” to which the other retorted by saying “you are nothing better than a Russian stooge!’ Kotelawala, An Asian Prime Minister's Story, 124.

[28] Inward telegram to the Commonwealth Relations Office from the High Commissioner in Ceylon, 3 May 1954 in PRO/NA, FO 371/112059.

[29] Inward telegram to the Commonwealth Relations Office from the High Commissioner in India, 5 May 1954: Message from Nehru to Eden in PRO/NA, FO 371/112060.

[30] Telegram from Ostrorog, 28 June 1954 in AQO, Cabinet of Mendes-France, Geneva Conference, General File No.2.

[31] From the Geneva Conference (UK Delegation) to the Foreign Office, 10 May 1954: Message from Eden to Nehru in PRO/NA, FO 371/112062.

[32] Krishna Menon went to Geneva on 23 May, initially with the idea of spending a just few days there before proceeding to the United States via London. On his return to London, Eden is supposed to have asked Krishna Menon to return to Geneva and take up his role of mediator. His departure for New York via London was postponed again when Casey, the Australian Foreign Minister, expressed the wish to meet him in Geneva during his meeting with Nehru in Delhi on 10 June.

[33] Memorandum of conversation sent by the Acting Director of the Office of Philippine and Southeast Asian Affairs (Day), Washington, 24 June 1954. FRUS, 1952–1954, Vol. XVI, 1237.

[34] The United States Delegation to the Department of State, Geneva, 5 June 1954. FRUS, 1952–1954, Vol. XVI, 1045–46.

[35] Although at one time the whole of Indochina was under Indian influence, it had practically disappeared in Vietnam over the centuries. In 1954, there were about 2,500 Indians in the whole of Indochina, about 500 of whom lived in North Vietnam, and India had a consulate in Saigon. In the modern era, the Hindu influence in Vietnam was gradually wiped out following the fragmentation and then the total disappearance of the Hinduized Champa Kingdom in the early nineteenth century, the withdrawal of Cambodia to the right bank of the Mekong in the eighteenth century and after the Lao principality of Xieng-Khouang came under Vietnam's suzerainty in the first half of the nineteenth century. While implementing the Potsdam Treaty in 1945, an Indo-British contingent under the command of General Gracey was sent to South Indochina until the return of the French.

[36] Inward telegram to the CRO from the UK High Commissioner in India, 17 May 1954; from the Geneva Conference (UK Delegation) to the Foreign Office to the CRO, 17 May 1954 in PRO/NA, FO 371/112066.

[37] Eden, Full Circle, 124.

[38] The United States Delegation to the Department of State, Geneva, 13 June 1954. FRUS, 1952–54, Vol. XVI, 1130.

[39] The Secretary of State to the United States Delegation, Washington, 4 June 1954. FRUS, 1952–54, Vol. XVI, 1038.

[40] From the Geneva Conference (UK Delegation) to the Foreign Office, 9 June 1954. Inward telegram from the UK High Commissioner in India (Acting) to the CRO, 9 June 1954 in PRO/NA, FO 371/112070.

[41] Telegram from Henri Hoppenot, 20 June 1954 in AQO, Cabinet of Mendès-France, Geneva Conference, General File, No.2.

[42] Message from Eden to Nehru, 23 June 1954. Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, Vol. 26, 354.

[43] Telegram to Krishna Menon, 22 June 1954. Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, Vol. 26, 352.

[44] Second session, New Delhi, 25 June 1954. Telegram to Krishna Menon, 22 June 1954. Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, Vol. 26, 377–78.

[45] Inward telegram from the Ambassador of France in India, 2 July 1954 in AQO, Cabinet of Mendès-France, Geneva Conference, General File, No.2.

[46] Cable to V.K. Krishna Menon, 16 July 1954. Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, Vol. 26, 357.

[47] Press Conference, 13 November 1954. Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru Vol. 27, 103.

[48] 1 August 1954. Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, Vol. 26, 419–23.

[49] Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, Vol. 27, 9.

[50] Speech during the debate on foreign affairs in the Lok Sabha, 29 September 1954. Nehru, India's Foreign Policy, 89.

[51] 2 November 1954. Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru Vol. 27, 69–70. See also note, 14 November 1954. Nehru, India's Foreign Policy, pp.85–86. The Indian consul had indicated to his government in June that the victory of communism was a certainty if elections were held within the time limit demanded by Pham Van Dong in Geneva. He felt that given the prevailing political conditions in Vietnam, general elections should not be held immediately after a ceasefire, but after a lapse of at least 18 months to two years. Retransmission of a telegram from Saigon, 10 July 1954 in AQO, Cabinet of Mendès-France, Geneva Conference, General File, No.2.

[52] Talks with Pham Van Dong, New Delhi, 9 April 1955. Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru Vol. 28, 190.

[53] Conversation between the British Foreign Secretary (Anthony Eden) and Mr. Dulles at the British Embassy in Paris, 16 December 1954 in PRO/NA, FO 371/112042.

[54] Outward telegram from the CRO to the UK High Commissioner in India (message from Eden to Nehru), 23 December 1954 in PRO/NA, FO 371/112042.

[55] AQO, Asie-Océanie, 1954–55, Inde, Vol. 65, Note of the Direction Asie-Océanie, 27 October 1955, AQO, Asie-Océanie, 1954–55, Inde, Vol. 65.

[56] Talks with Chou En-lai and U Nu, Bandung, 26 April 1955. Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru Vol. 28, 195.

[57] Message to Norodom Sihanouk, New Delhi, 4 June 1955; cable to Chou En-lai, Vienna, 26 June 1955. Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru Vol. 29, 348–54, 354.

[58] When articles appeared in the Cambodian and Indian press accusing the United States of forcing Cambodia to join SEATO by threatening to reduce or stop its aid and urging South Vietnam and Thailand to launch an economic war against Cambodia, the Indian chargé d'affaires in Phnom Penh was suspected of spreading these rumours. Memorandum from the Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs (Robertson) to the Secretary of State, Washington, undated. FRUS, 1955–1957, Vol. XXI, 513–14.

[59] Memorandum from the Ambassador in Cambodia (McClintock) to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Radford), Phnom Penh, 27 July 1956. FRUS, 1955–1957, Vol. XXI, 539. It was suspected that the Indians were responsible for Diem's volte-face about joining SEATO after the visit of his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu to New Delhi in March 1957, an idea the South Vietnamese President seemed to be keen on a year earlier. ‘He [Diem] may have been encouraged by Nehru and Menon to believe that India would be willing to abandon its uncommitted stand with respect to North and South Vietnam in return for a closer alignment by the GVN with India's foreign policies involving, specifically, GVN aloofness from SEATO. The GVN apparently believes that a show of Indian support would markedly strengthen its position both in Asia and vis-à-vis the Democratic Republic of Vietnam’, even if Diem seemed to believe that the Indians singularly lacked realism. Dispatch from the Embassy in Vietnam (Elbridge Durbrow) to the Department of State, Saigon, 12 August 1957. When articles appeared in the Cambodian and Indian press accusing the United States of forcing Cambodia to join SEATO by threatening to reduce or stop its aid and urging South Vietnam and Thailand to launch an economic war against Cambodia, the Indian chargé d'affaires in Phnom Penh was suspected of spreading these rumours. Memorandum from the Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs (Robertson) to the Secretary of State, Washington, undated. FRUS, 1955–1957, Vol. XXI, 513–14., 361.

[60] Discussions between Nehru and the Crown Prince and the Prime Minister of Laos, New Delhi, 20 & 21 September 1955. Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru Vol. 30, 441–42.

[61] Revised draft of cable from C.S. Jha to Samar Sen, New Delhi, 8 November 1955. Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru Vol. 30, (italics added), 444. M.J. Desai and other members of the International Supervisory Commission in Vietnam had been set upon by a crowd in Saigon on 20 July with the tacit approval of the South Vietnamese Government.

[62] Statement in the Lok Sabha, 25 August 1954. Nehru, India's Foreign Policy, 403.

[63] The feeling of helplessness at the course of events can be gauged at Nehru's reluctance to commit himself when J.F. Kennedy, at the time of its visit to the United States in November 1961, attempted to obtain India's cooperation in finding an acceptable solution in South Vietnam.