‘A World of Illusion’: The Legacy of Empire in India's Foreign Relations, 1947–62

¹ J. Nehru, The Hindu. 26 Oct. 1962.

² See P. Willetts, The Non-Aligned Movement: The Origins of a Third World Alliance (New York, 1978), 2–45, and I. Abraham, ‘From Bandung to NAM: Non-alignment and Indian Foreign Policy, 1947–65’, Commonwealth and Comparative Studies, xlvi (2008), 195–219.

³ B. S. N. Murti, Nehru's Foreign Policy (New Delhi, 1953), 7; B. R. Nayar and T. V. Paul, India in the World Order: Searching for Major-Power Status (Cambridge, 2003), 115–58.

⁴ A. Appadorai, ‘India's Foreign Policy’, International Affairs, xxv (1947), 37–46; E. M. Hause, ‘India, Nonaligned and Noncommitted’, Western Political Quarterly, xi (1958), 387–9. See also T. A. Keenleyside, ‘Prelude to Power: The Meaning of Non-Alignment Before Indian Independence’, Pacific Affairs, liii (1980), 461–83.

⁵ A. Gupta, ‘The Song of the Nonaligned World: Transnational Identities and the Reinscription of Space in Late Capitalism,’ Cultural Anthropology, vii (1992), 63–79. See also C. R. Mohan, Crossing the Rubicon: The Shaping of India's New Foreign Policy (Delhi, 2003), 29–30; A. P. Rana, ‘Intellectual Dimensions of India's Non-Alignment’, Journal of Asian Studies, xxviii (1969), 299–312.

⁶ For ‘racially defined civilizational thinking’ as a colonial legacy, see Abraham, ‘Indian Foreign Policy’, 199–208.

⁷ For details of the discourse of imperial justice and its implications for the anti-colonial movement in India, see M. Mukherjee, India in the Shadows of Empire: A Legal and Political History, 1774–1950 (New Delhi, 2009).

⁸ See M. Mukherjee, ‘Justice, War, and the Imperium: India and Britain in Edmund Burke's Prosecutorial Speeches in the Impeachment Trial of Warren Hastings’, Law and History Review, xxiii (2005), 589–630.

⁹ For a discussion of this, see Mukherjee, India in the Shadows of Empire.

¹⁰ Mukherjee, ‘Justice, War, and the Imperium’, 589–630.

¹¹ G. Prashad, ‘Whiggism in India’, Political Science Quarterly, lxxxi (1966), 412–31.

¹² Edmund Burke, Speeches on the Impeachment Trial of Warren Hastings, (Delhi, 1987), i, 16.

¹³ For the Supreme Court, see M. C. Setalvad, The Rise of the Common Law (London, 1960), 1–62; B. N. Pandey, Introduction of English Law into India: The Career of Elijah Impey in Bengal, 1774–1783 (London, 1967), 131–48; R. Travers, Ideology and Empire in Eighteenth-Century India: The British in Bengal (Cambridge, 2007), 181–206; N. Hussain, The Jurisprudence of Emergency: Colonialism and the Rule of Law (Ann Arbor, 2003), 69–98; L. Benton, ‘Colonial Law and Cultural Difference: Jurisdictional Politics and the Formation of the Colonial State,’ Comparative Studies in Society and History, xli (1999), 563–88.

¹⁴ See S. Schmitthenner, ‘The Development of the Legal Profession in India,’ presented at ‘Conference on the Comparative Study of the Legal Profession with Special Reference to India’ Chicago, August 1967.

¹⁵ F. G. Hutchins, The Illusion of Permanence: British Imperialism in India (Princeton, 1967), 1–19.

¹⁶ H. Maine, ‘The Theory of Evidence’ in Village Communities in the East and West with Other Lectures, Addresses and Essays (London, 1876), 300.

¹⁷ The East India Company, which refused to recognize that the Supreme Court was independent of the state, stymied the attempts of Earl Cornwallis and Lord William Bentinck to set up independent courts. Eric Stokes, The English Utilitarians and India (Oxford, 1959), 140–233.

¹⁸ S. V. Desika Char (ed), Readings in the Constitutional History of India, 1757–1947, (Delhi, 1983), lviii.

¹⁹ A. C. Banerjee, English Law in India (New Delhi, 1984), 123–7, 139–58.

²⁰ H. S. Cunningham, Earl Canning (Oxford, 1891), 171. See also M. Maclagan, ‘Clemency’ Canning (London, 1962).

²¹ For the Governor General's relationship with the Secretary of State, see A. P. Kaminsky, The India Office 1880–1910 (London, 1986), 123–58.

²² See W. Dalrymple. The Last Mughal, The Fall of a Dynasty: Delhi, 1857 (New York, 2006), 398–411.

²³ For the symbolic significance of the durbar of 1877, see B. S. Cohn, ‘Representing Authority in Victorian India,’ in idem, An Anthropologist among the Historians and Other Essays (Delhi, 1990), 632–82.

²⁴ For the implications of the events of 1857 for British policy in India see Hutchins, Illusion of Permanence, 79–100; T. R. Metcalf, Aftermath of Revolt: India, 1857–1870 (Princeton, 1964), 92–327; idem, Ideologies of the Raj (Cambridge, 1994), 28–159.

²⁵ In 1859, the British government republished Burke's speeches from the trial of Warren Hastings: E. A. Bond (ed), Speeches of the Managers and Counsel in the Trial of Warren Hastings (London, 1859).

²⁶ Minute, Dufferin, November 1888 [London, British Library, Oriental and India Office Collections, Dufferin Papers], MSS Eur. F 130/1199; emphasis added. For Dufferin, see S. Gopal, British Policy in India, 1858–1905 (Cambridge, 1965), 152–79.

²⁷ Ibid. Emphasis added.

²⁸ Stephen, letter to editor. The Times. 4 Jan. 1878, 3. Emphasis added. For Stephen in India, see L. Stephen, The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, bart, K. C. S. I., a Judge of the High Court (London, 1895), 237–76.

²⁹ See, e.g. B. Chandra, Indian National Movement: The Long-term Dynamics (Delhi, 1988), 1–5; P. Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World; A Derivative Discourse (New York, 1986), 36–53; A. R. Desai, Social Background of Indian Nationalism, 6th ed. (Bombay, 2000), 288–357.

³⁰  Report of the Twenty-first Indian National Congress held at Benares on the 27th, 28th, 29th and 30th December, 1905 (London, 1906), 6.

³¹  Report of the Fourth Indian National Congress held at Allahabad on the 26th, 27th, 28th and 29th December, 1888 (London, 1889), lv. Emphasis added.

³² H. F. Owen, ‘Towards Nation-Wide Agitation and Organization-The Home Rule Leagues, 1915–1918,’ in D. A. Low (ed), Soundings in Modern South Asian History, (London, 1968), 159–95.

³³ M. K. Gandhi, ‘Practicing Lawyers’ [Young India, 30 March 1921], in Young India, 1919–22 (New York, 1923), 367.

³⁴ See Mukherjee, India in the Shadows of Empire, 150–80.

³⁵ D. D. Basu, Commentary on the Constitution of India (Being a Comparative Treatise on the Universal Principles of Justice and Constitutional Government with Special Reference to the Organic Instrument of India), 3rd ed. (Calcutta, 1955), i, 402–4.

³⁶ J. Nehru, Visit to America (New York, 1950), 29.

³⁷ For India at the United Nations, see R. Berkes and M. Bedi, The Diplomacy of India: Indian Foreign Policy in the United Nations (Stanford, 1958), 1–139; T. R. Reddy, India's Policy in the United Nations (Rutherford, 1968), 11–88; S. Rana, ‘The Changing Indian Diplomacy at the United Nations,’ International Organization, xxiv (1990), 48–73; R. Singh, ‘India's Initiatives in the United Nations,’ Indian and Foreign Review, xv (1977), 13–14; S. A. Kochanek, ‘India's Changing Role in the United Nations’, Pacific Affairs, l, (1980), 48–68; M. Bhagwan, ‘A New Hope: India, the United Nations and the Making of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,’ Modern Asian Studies (2008) doi:10.1017/S0026749X08003600, 1–37.

³⁸  India and the United Nations: Report of a Study Group set up by the Indian Council of World Affairs prepared for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (New York, 1957), 27.

³⁹ In 1946, the British government viewed relations with the United Nations purely in relations to national sovereignty and power. To the suggestion that the struggle between Congress and the Muslim League over the formation of Pakistan should be referred to the United Nations, the Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, stated: ‘If the Government of India or His Majesty's Government took the initiative of appealing to the Security Council … they would in fact have abandoned their sovereign authority over India and would have invited the United Nations Organization to assume that responsibility. The political consequences of this action would obviously be incalculable’. Minute, Bevin, 14 June 1946, in The Transfer of Power 1942–7, ed. N. Mansergh and P. Moon (London, 1970–83), vii, 930.

⁴⁰ See speech, Nehru, ‘Invasion of Kashmir,’ 25 Nov. 1947, and, press conference, Nehru, ‘Reference to United Nations,’ 2 Jan. 1948, in [J.] N[ehru, India's Foreign Policy:] S[elected] S[peeches, September 1946-April 1961] (New Delhi, 1961), 443–9. For the Kashmir dispute, see S. Ganguly, Conflict Unending: India-Pakistan Tensions Since 1947 (New York, 2002), 15–30.

⁴¹ Note that the plebiscite in Kashmir had been proposed by Nehru himself in 1947 in consultation with the viceroy, Earl Mountbatten. See, broadcast, Nehru, ‘On Kashmir’, 2 Nov. 1947, in The Essential Writings of Jawaharlal Nehru, ed. S. Gopal and U. Iyengar (Delhi, 2003), ii, 329.

⁴² United Nations, General Assembly, Fourth Session, Official Records, 222nd Plenary Meeting (21 Sept. 1949) (Lake Success, 1949), 10.

⁴³ B. S. Gupta, ‘India and Disarmament’ in Indian Foreign Policy: The Nehru Years, ed. B. R. Nanda (Delhi, 1976), 238–40.

⁴⁴ Speech, Nehru, ‘Appeal to the U.S.A and the U.S.S.R,’ 27 Nov. 1957, NSS, 201–2. Emphasis added.

⁴⁵ Speech, Nehru, ‘Suspension of Nuclear Tests,’ 22 May 1957, NSS, 196.

⁴⁶ This proposal was made in the course of the Korean War as a way to end the war. See Swadesh Rana, ‘The Changing Indian Diplomacy at the United Nations’, International Organization, xxiv, 1 (Winter 1970), 61; Berkes and Bedi, Diplomacy of India, 109–10. See also, L. Pan, ‘Fighting with Formulas over China: Japan and the United Kingdom at the United Nations, 1961–1971’, International History Review, xxxi (2009), 329–55.

⁴⁷ Speech, Nehru, ‘An Evolving Policy,’ 22 March 1949, NSS, 43.

⁴⁸ Broadcast, Nehru, ‘Future Taking Shape,’ 7 Sept. 1946, NSS, 3.

⁴⁹ See K. P. S. Menon, ‘India and the Soviet Union’ in B. R. Nanda ed., India's Foreign Policy, 137.

⁵⁰ For India's role in Korea, see Berkes and Bedi, Diplomacy of India, 105–39.

⁵¹ Quoted in M. Brecher, India's Foreign Policy: An Interpretation (New York, 1957), 11.

⁵² Brecher, India's Foreign Policy, 11.

⁵³ M. Brecher, India and World Politics: Krishna Menon's View of the World (New York, 1968), 114.

⁵⁴ Speech, Nehru, ‘Suspension of Nuclear Tests,’ 22 May 1957, NSS, 196.

⁵⁵ India. Parliament: Lok Sabha Debates, Third Series, (24 Apr. 1962) (New Delhi, 1962), i, col. 679. Emphasis added.

⁵⁶ Brecher, India and World Politics, 8

⁵⁷ Speech, Nehru, 20 Aug. 1958, NSS, 78.

⁵⁸ Menon often spoke admiringly of the way in which the British had dismantled the Indian Empire. Brecher, India and World Politics, 312.

⁵⁹ Brecher, India and World Politics, 306.

⁶⁰ India, Constituent Assembly, Debates, 1947, ii, no. 5 (New Delhi, 1967), 1262.

⁶¹  India and the United Nations, 33, 144.

⁶² M. Brecher, ‘Non-Alignment Under Stress: The West and the India-China Border War,’ Pacific Affairs, lii (1979–80), 612–30.

⁶³ Speech, Nehru, ‘The Concept of Panchsheel,’ 17 Sept. 1955, NSS, 99. For the relationship with China, see J. Rowland, A History of Sino-Indian Relations: Hostile Co-Existence (Princeton, 1967); D. Woodman, Himalayan Frontiers: A Political Review of British, Chinese, Indian, and Russian Rivalries (New York, 1969); W. F. Van Eekelen, Indian Foreign Policy and the Border Dispute with China (The Hague, 1967); Y. Y. I. Vertzberger, Misperceptions in Foreign Policymaking: The Sino-Indian Conflict 1959–1962 (Boulder, 1984); S. Ganguly, ‘India and China: Border Issues, Domestic Integration, and International Security’ in F. Frankel and H. Harding (ed), The India China Relationship: What the United States Needs to Know (New York, 2004), 103–33.

⁶⁴ Brecher, India and World Politics, 150.

⁶⁵ J. Brown, Nehru: A Political Life (New Haven, 2003), 330.

⁶⁶ Brecher, India and World Politics, 151.

⁶⁷  Lok Sabha Debates, Third Series (24 Apr. 24, 1962) (New Delhi, 1962), i, col. 653.

⁶⁸ J. Nehru, Jawaharlal Nehru's Speeches (New Delhi, 1964), iv, 231.

⁶⁹ C. Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, trans. G. Schwab (Chicago and London, 1996), 52.

⁷⁰ For Indira Gandhi, see T. Drieberg, Indira Gandhi: Profile in Courage (Delhi, 1972), 146–81; P. N. Dhar, Indira Gandhi, the ‘Emergency,’ and Indian Democracy (New Delhi, 2000); and D. Moraes, Indira Gandhi (Boston, 1980). For India's foreign policy during under Gandhi, see S. Tharoor, Reasons of State: Political Development and India's Foreign Policy under Indira Gandhi, 1966–1977 (New Delhi, 1982); T. V. Kunhi Krishnan, The Unfriendly Friends: India and America (New Delhi, 1974), 13–116, 160–211.

⁷¹ After the PRC tested a nuclear device in October 1964, calls began for India to build its own bomb. See G. Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb: The Impact on Global Proliferation (Berkeley, 1999), 60–2.

⁷² R. Guha, India after Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy (New York, 2007), 456.

⁷³ Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb, 161–90.

⁷⁴ Speech, I. Gandhi, 7 March 1983 in Final Documents of the Seventh Conference of the Heads of State or Government of Non-aligned Countries, Annexure II (New Delhi, 1983), 5.

⁷⁵ Guha, India After Gandhi, 664. See also C. R. Mohan, Crossing the Rubicon, 1–28.