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ABSTRACT
Before the Second World War it was a cardinal Commonwealth principle that intra-imperial disputes must be kept away from international fora. Yet in 1946 the not-yet-independent India complained to the United Nations about South African legislation discriminating against people of Indian origin. It did so without seeking Britain's approval, and went on to level fierce criticism at Britain's opposition to the UN General Assembly's discussion of the matter.
This article explains the circumstances which led to these events; uncovers the divergent responses of the relevant British government departments – the India Office, the Dominions Office, and the Foreign Office – and shows how they were resolved; depicts the way in which Britain's delegation to the General Assembly handled the matter; and discusses the significance and consequences of the dispute for South Africa and for Anglo-Indian relations.
Acknowledgements
When I first researched this topic, I was assisted by the Nuffield Foundation, the National Archives of India, the Nehru Memorial Library, the India Office Library and Records, the British National Archives and the libraries of Keele University, Central Manchester and the FCO. Individuals who helped me included Ambassadors CS Jha and Khub Chand; Professors Sarvepalli Gopal, Partha Sarathi Gupta, KP Saksena and Jack Spence; Drs TG Ramamurthy and Panigrahi; Mr BR Curson and Mr Kenneth East. This article additionally benefited from research in the South African National Archives, the UN Archives in New York and the US National Archives; online documents; and correspondence, conversations and interviews with, and material provided by, Lords Beloff and Shawcross, Drs FD Tothill and Peter Henshaw, Sir Brian Barder and Lady Barder, Sir William Dale, Mr Arthur Menzies, Mr Geoff Murray, Mr Bill Peters and Mr Basil Robinson. Dr Tothill also made valuable comments on earlier drafts. Professor Alan James remains my keenest and most constructive critic. I thank them all.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Quoted in Hancock, Survey of British Commonwealth affairs, 179.
2 In 1870, Natal's Indian population was 6,448; in 1884 it was 27,000, in 1891 it was 35,00; and in the 1890s the Indians outnumbered Europeans: see ibid. 178–9. The Transvaal also introduced tough anti-Indian legislation but most South African Indians lived in Natal where, in 1946, there were 233,000 Europeans and 228,000 Indians.
3 Pandit, The Scope of Happiness, 206.
4 Smuts quoted in Beinart, “The Day my Father Lost his Country”. Dr FD Tothill alerted me to this.
5 Agreed communiqué announcing Cape Town Agreement, Annex V to FO draft memorandum for Cabinet Steering Committee on International Organisations, IOC (S)(46), 2 Oct. 1946, London: India Office Records (IOR), L/E/9/1403.
6 Cabinet Delegation and Wavell top secret telegram S/3 to Attlee, 4 May 1946, IOR, L/P&J/5/337.
7 The only exception is when the UN is taking enforcement action under Chapter VII of the Charter.
8 Indians had grievances in East Africa and Ceylon, Australia had a ‘white’ immigration policy, and the Canadian province of British Columbia discriminated against Asians.
9 Khare, My Political Memoirs or Autobiography, 183.
10 For the sources of quotations in this section, and a longer discussion of India's case, see Lloyd, “A Most Auspicious Beginning,” 133–5. On the background to the dispute, see Lloyd, “A Family Quarrel,” 703–25.
11 Paul Gore-Booth (Head of Reconstruction Department, FO) draft memorandum, 24 Jul. 1946, Kew, The National Archives (TNA), UN1691/432/78 FO371/59785.
12 Trevelyan, The India we Left, 246.
13 G H Baxter (senior official, IO) minute, 3 Jul.1946, IOR, L/E/9/1403.
14 Wavell to Pethick-Lawrence, 8 Jul., Pethick-Lawrence to Wavell, 25 Jul. 1946, IOR, L/PO/474.
15 R N Gilchrist (IO) minute for J.P. Gibson (Head of Political Department), 29 Jun. 1946, IOR, L/E/9/1403.
16 Gibson minute, 29 Jul. 1946, IOR L/E/9/1403.
17 Lord Shawcross interview, 1990.
18 East, A Part of All that I Have Met; private communications and conversations 1987, 1988.
19 Machtig minute, 1 Aug. 1946, TNA, DO121/107.
20 FO draft memorandum, 2 Oct. 1946.
21 Lord Shawcross to author, 19 Feb. 1990.
22 Gilchrist minute, 29 Jun.1946.
23 Garner, The Commonwealth Office 1925–68, 142. Brian Barder conversation (1999). Interviews: Arthur Menzies (1998), Bill Peters (1998), Basil Robinson (1998).
24 Parkinson, The Colonial Office from Within, 96.
25 Cross, “Whitehall and the Commonwealth,” 201.
26 Fitzmaurice, “Sir Eric Beckett”. Beckett was probably ‘the most gifted person ever to have held the post’. See also Fitzmaurice and Vallat, “Sir (William) Eric Beckett,” 267–326.
27 South Africa's ‘Indian problem’. Background to the new legislation, Public Relations Officer, South Africa House London, 10 Apr. 1946.
28 Pethick-Lawrence telegram 15024 to Wavell.
29 Wavell telegram to Pethick-Lawrence, private & secret, 15 Oct. 1946 in Mansergh and Moon, The Transfer of Power, vol. 8, 1942–47, document 469.
30 Machtig to Monteath (PUS, IO), secret & confidential, 2 Oct. 1946, TNA, DO35/1290.
31 Unless otherwise indicated, quotations in this section are from the FO draft memorandum, 2 Oct. 1946.
32 Charles Dixon (Constitutional Adviser, DO) minute, 1 Aug 1946, TNA, DO35/1122/G715/36.
33 Dixon to Berkeley (FO), 13 Sep. 1946, TNA, DO121/107.
34 Curson (IO) minute, 13 Sep. 1946, IOR, L/E/9/1403.
35 Gore-Booth minute, 9 Sep. 1946, TNA, UN2388/432/78 FO371/59787.
36 Beckett minute 10 Sep. 1946, IOR L/E/9/1403. On the doctrine of inter-se, whereby Britain insisted that intra-imperial relations were of a special, non-international nature and, accordingly, were not governed by international law, see Fawcett, The British Commonwealth, 144–207.
37 CM9(46), minute 3, http://filestore.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pdfs/large/cab-128-6.pdf.
38 See Jebb, The Memoirs of Lord Gladwyn, 194.
39 Noel-Baker to Arthur Bottomley (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, DO), 7 Mar. 1947, Noel-Baker papers, Churchill College Cambridge.
40 Pandit, Scope, 213.
41 Ben Cockram (DO official attached to British embassy Washington) to Sir John Stephenson (senior official, DO), 30 Oct. 1946, TNA, UN3736/432/78 FO371/59794.
42 UK delegation telegram 1395, 1 Nov. 1946, TNA, UN3325/432/78 FO371/59792. Curson said Shawcross never actually said that he or his government considered India's complaint inadmissible under Article 2.7. See ‘Summary of discussions’, 27 Jun. 1947, IOR, L/E/9/1405.
43 UK delegation telegram 1332, 29 Oct. 1946, TNA, DO 121/107.
44 Hugh Keenleyside memorandum, “The India and South Africa Problem”, enclosed in New York telegram 83, 1 Nov. 1946. Document 862 in Page, Documents on Canadian External Relations.
45 Shawcross during UK delegation meeting, 3 Nov. 1946, TNA, UN3640/434/78 FO371/59974.
46 Curson telegram 1395 to R M J Harris (Pethick-Lawrence's Private Secretary), private & personal, 3 Nov. 1946, IOR, L/E/9/1403.
47 On Canada's policy, see Henshaw, “Canada and the ‘South African Disputes’,” 9–12.
48 Cripps minute for Attlee, 31 Oct. 1946, TNA, DO35/1293/G715/46.
49 CM94(46) minute 1, http://filestore.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pdfs/large/cab-128-6.pdf.
50 UK delegation telegram 1668, 14 Nov. 1946, TNA, DO35/1293/G715/46. Looking back, Shawcross thought ‘the British were right on a strict legal basis but, possibly correctly from a broader point of view, most of the delegates were concerned with the politics of the human rights moment’: Lord Shawcross to author, 19 Feb.1990.
51 Beckett minute, 18 Nov. 1946, TNA, U3704/432/78, FO 371/9794.
52 Report of the Indian delegation to the second part of the first session of the General Assembly of the United Nations 1946, Lucknow, 27 Feb. 1947, New Delhi: Indian National Archives, 2(19)-UNOI/47 1947.
53 By 24 to 19 with 6 abstentions and 5 absent.
54 For the sources of unreferenced quotations in this section, see Lloyd, “Auspicious Beginning,” 146–8.
55 Curson to Anderson, 2 Dec.1946, IOR L/E/9/1404.
56 Tothill, South African-Australian Diplomatic Relations 1945–1961, 408.
57 Australian delegation cablegram, 9 December 1946. Document 302, in Hudson and Way, Documents on Australian Foreign Policy.
58 Sole, This Above All, 102.
59 Tothill, South African-Australlian, 409.
60 Berendson to Fraser, 23 Dec. 1946, quoted in Battersby, “New Zealand, Domestic Jurisdiction, and Apartheid,” 109.
61 Jha, From Bandung to Tashkent, 25.
62 Minute on Curson to Anderson, 28 Nov. 1946.
63 Shawcross obituary, The Guardian, 11 Jul. 2003, http://www.theguardian.com/news/2003/jul/11/guardianobituaries.obituaries.
64 Chagla, Roses in December, 231.
65 Garner minute, 9 Feb. 1954, TNA DO35/9014; Curson top secret report on Krishna Menon, 31 Dec. 1946, IOR L/E/9/1396; Curson note on the Indian Delegation, 27 Dec. 1946, IOR, L/E/9/IOR, L/E/9/1392.
66 Shawcross interview; P H Gore-Booth (High Commissioner, New Delhi) to Joe Garner (PUS Commonwealth Relations Office) 3 Feb. 1962, TNA, DO196/209; Garner minute, 9 Feb. 1954, Malcolm MacDonald (High Commissioner, New Delhi) to Lord Home, 18 Sep. 1957, TNA, DO35//9014.
67 Curson to Shannon (DO), 18 Jan. 1947, IOR, L/E/9/1392; Curson to Anderson, 28 Oct. 1946, IOR, L/E/9/1396.
68 Curson to Shannon, 18 Jan. 1947.
69 ‘Lasting for at least three months, a regular session is a grinding task’: Gore-Booth, With Great Truth and Respect, 159.
70 Interviews: Lord Shawcross, Sir William Dale (1998), Geoff Murray (1999).
71 Cockram and Shannon confidential note, 19 Dec.1946, IOR L/E/9/1392.
72 Garner, Commonwealth Office, 288.
73 Pethick-Lawrence to Wavell, private & secret, 22 Nov. 1946 in Mansergh and Moon, The Transfer of Power, vol. 9, 1942–47, document 78; Curson note on Indian delegation, 27 Dec. 1946.
74 Pethick-Lawrence private & secret to Wavell, 8 Nov. 1946, in Transfer of Power, vol. 9, document 18.
75 Ibid.
76 Pandit, Scope, 213.
77 Noel-Baker to Bottomley, 7 Mar. 1947, Noel-Baker papers.
78 Curson to J D Peek (Cabinet Office), 7 Mar. 1947, C&0 1067/47, IOR, L/E/9/1405.
79 Chagla, Roses, 242, 243. Chagla became a distinguished judge, diplomat and member of the cabinet.
80 See Egeland, Bridges of Understanding, 202.
81 Curson note on Indian delegation, 27 Dec. 1946.
82 Pandit quoted in Cockram note enclosed in Cockram (Washington) to Shannon, 19 Aug. 1947, IOR, L/E/9/1405.
83 Pandit, Scope, 206, 211.
84 Curson during interdepartmental discussion, 24 Jun. 1946, TNA, DO35/3284.
85 ‘He did not hear very well, especially when listening to interpretations … he knew nothing about rules of procedure and how they could be manipulated’: Sole, This above all, 101–2.
86 See Tothill, “Evatt and Smuts,” 187–8; See also Dubow, “Smuts,” 66.
87 Lord Listowel (Pethick-Lawrence's successor at the IO) in Henshaw, “Britain and South Africa at the United Nations,” 87–8. Tothill points out that in 1948 the Nationalists won office with 37.7% of the vote (401,834 votes) to the United Party's 49.2% (524,230 votes): Tothill email.
88 Tothill, “South African-Australian,” 444.
89 Beloff, ‘The British Empire’, manuscript in author’s possession.
90 Ibid.
91 Sir Brian Barder conversation, 1999. British Diplomatic Oral History Programme interviews: Denis Doble 29 Mar. 2004, Brian Barder 6 Mar. 1997; Rex Browning nd, https://www.chu.cam.ac.uk/archives/collections/bdohp/.
92 In May 2018 there were 170 parties to the covenant on civil and political rights and 167 parties to the covenant on economic, social and cultural rights.