Beyond the Lines: An Autobiography

by Kuldip Nayar

  This informal spirit spread to other areas too. Radio Pakistan and All India Radio changed their vituperative tone; the two governments instructed them to avoid such broadcasts as would adversely affect Indo–Pakistan relations. Political leaders became circumspect and spoke less of differences and more of amity, and newspaper editors from both sides met to agree to forsake ‘hate’ campaigns.

  This atmosphere of goodwill was more pronounced after Nehru and Ayub signed the Indus Waters Treaty at Karachi on 19 September 1960. The treaty divided the six Indus rivers – the Sutlej, Beas, Ravi, Chenab, Jhelum, and Sindh – between India and Pakistan. The waters of the first three rivers were to go to India and of the other three to Pakistan. It was stipulated that Pakistan would continue to receive water even from the rivers allotted to India for ten years or so by when Karachi was expected to construct alternative channels. The treaty also created an Indus Basin Development Fund of $900 million to finance Pakistan’s replacement programme. The Western powers, including the US and UK, were to contribute roughly $725 million and India $175 million in ten equal installments.

  The water dispute was as old as Partition itself. When the Radcliffe Boundary Commission award split the composite irrigation network of Punjab between India and Pakistan, the irrigation canals went to Pakistan, and the rivers feeding them to India, while the controlling headworks were evenly divided. The Boundary Commission Chairman, Radcliffe, had hinted at ‘some joint control’ which Nehru had rejected at that time as ‘a political recommendation’.

  As there was no ‘joint control’, the two countries had argued endlessly over their respective rights. Pakistan had said that the rivers were common to the subcontinent and hence India could not do anything unilaterally. New Delhi had maintained that it was the sole owner of the waters and the headworks in its territory. Karachi had suggested that the matter be referred to the International Court of Justice, but Nehru had rejected the proposal on the ground that it would be ‘a confession of our continued dependence on others’.

  This was an amicable settlement of the dispute. In 1951, when Pakistan was on the point of bringing the dispute before the Security Council, an article by David E. Lilienthal, former chairman of the US Tennessee Valley Authority, was published in an American magazine, suggesting a comprehensive engineering plan under which India and Pakistan could jointly develop the entire Indus basin, ‘perhaps with the World Bank’s assistance’. Eugene R. Black, then heading the World Bank, had been consulted before Lilienthal wrote the article, and the US gave the proposal its blessings. As the proposal suggested a way out and was also laced with money, both India and Pakistan accepted it.

  In response to the formal proposal by the head of the World Bank (November 1951), a ‘working team’ of engineers was appointed to discuss the problem outside the political arena. India gave a guarantee not to disrupt supplies until the end of the negotiations, and it kept its word though Pakistan continued to make allegations to the contrary. For nine years the negotiations between India and Pakistan covered a long, tortuous route, and even in the last stages, both Nehru and Ayub had to intervene to put the talks back on track when the prejudice and cussedness of officials appeared to be derailing them.

  Nehru had to face criticism within India on agreeing to continue deliveries till Pakistan had built its alternative channels. Indian engineers had prepared a formidable case to prove that both Punjab and Rajasthan would be virtually ruined if India were to give water to Pakistan for a ten-year transitional period. Opposition from political quarters was organized by Morarji Desai, then a member of Nehru’s cabinet. Even Pant, who was very loyal to Nehru, expressed his unhappiness over India’s ‘heavy contribution’ to the Indus Basin Development Fund. He wanted to get it adjusted against the value of the property that Hindu refugees had left in Pakistan.

  Nehru brushed aside all objections. He was anxious to build good relations with Karachi, and settlement of the water disputes could serve as a foundation upon which would be built a durable structure for Indo–Pak amity.

  Ayub’s problem was not politicians, because they were discredited at that time, but the bureaucrats upon whom he lent heavily. Some thirty or forty engineers and administrators, who were fomenting trouble, accosted him at Lahore. He explained to them that in the absence of a settlement, India could decide to divert the waters and starve Pakistan, ‘If we can get a solution which we can live with, we will be very foolish not to accept it’. He said: ‘Since the Indian army was three times the size of our army, the dice was loaded against us. It was not a good bargain but I had no choice in the circumstances and I accepted it.’

  Before the treaty was signed there was a hitch. Ayub was not happy over India’s insistence on using in Kashmir ‘some water’ from the Chenab, a river allotted to Pakistan. ‘It appeared as though the entire arrangement would break down,’ later Dayal told me. New Delhi deputed him to talk to Ayub, and after a great deal of persuasion, he was able to get him to agree to the proposal. Nehru had no time to sit back and feel gratified by the Indus treaty because China’s aggression was gaining momentum.

  6

  Lal Bahadur Shastri as Home Minister

  Foreign Policy, the Sino-India War, Kashmir, and the World of Journalism

  After Govind Ballabh Pant’s death on 7 March 1961, Lal Bahadur Shastri was appointed home minister. He changed virtually the entire personal staff, the two survivors being the driver, who drove very fast, and I whom Shastri described as that ‘lamba presswala who publicized Pant ji so much’. In time I became so close to him that he confided to me many political secrets, and I read all his mail. His secretary, Rajeshwar Prasad, became a friend and would share with me all the information he received. During Pant’s time too I would see letters and notes but usually secretly and not openly as was the case with Shastri.

  I also felt more comfortable with Shastri and wasn’t in awe of him as was the case with Pant. Shastri’s simplicity and modesty were in their own way as impressive as Pant’s sagacity and maturity. Both represented the best of the Indian independence movement and its traditional values. They wanted to do all they could to take the country forward, personal interest never so much as crossing their minds. How diminutive in comparison were the leaders of political parties whom I saw from close quarters 45 years later as member of the Rajya Sabha.

  After India gained Independence, Nehru, as the first prime minister, began building the edifice of foreign policy, brick by brick. He was clear in his mind that the Cold War necessitated India distance itself from the two political blocks, the Western led by the US and the Eastern headed by the Soviet Union. He developed the concept of non-alignment with the idea of bringing together the small and economically backward countries. Leading the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) were India, Egypt, Indonesia, and Yugoslavia.

  Nehru had organized the First Asia Conference in 1946 when he was prime minister of the interim government and had declared that Asia as an entity would assert itself against the colonial powers. He hoped that the Asian countries would develop close relations with one another and eschew mutual hostilities.

  He developed India’s policy towards Pakistan only after he realized that its troops were complicit in the attack on Kashmir. Till then his attitude was friendly despite Karachi’s pinpricks. He knew that anti-India feeling was what united Pakistan’s Punjabis, Sindhis, Pathans, and Baluchis. He also began to see Pakistan as a pawn of the great powers when both the UK and US supported it on Kashmir. Nehru held his ground and found the great powers ‘bereft of principles and decency’ in their utterances and activities.

  Stalin in the Soviet Union and John Foster Dulles in the US, although mutually opposite in character, spoke the same language of power and allies. Nehru found very little space for small or weak countries in the Cold War between the two blocks. His advocacy of non-alignment, he felt, was the Gandhian approach suited to his country.

  Towards China, Nehru adopted a ‘cautious friendly’ policy in order to woo it from the
Soviet sphere of influence. At the same time, he did not want any quarter for Beijing’s enemies because he was confident of his ability to win over Beijing to his side and was satisfied by the ‘Hindi–Chini Bhai-Bhai’ thesis.

  When Nehru visited the US in November 1961, he did not openly discuss with President John F. Kennedy India’s soured relation with China. Kennedy wanted Nehru to discuss this because the US was aware of China’s aggressive stance towards India and he himself was disturbed by China’s indirect aid to Vietnam. He entreated Nehru, his icon, to advise him on what the US should do in Vietnam. In response, Nehru looked at the ceiling, as he was wont to do when he was disinclined to discuss something. He, however, told M.J. Desai, then foreign secretary, accompanying him, to convey to the US president that they would get stuck in Vietnam if they did not withdraw soon. Kennedy organized a breakfast meeting between Nehru and top US economists and foreign policy experts. Nehru was late for the meeting and generally monosyllabic in his responses. The breakfast ended in 20 minutes. Some of them reported this to Kennedy who remarked in the presence of his aides that Nehru had ‘lived too long’. President Lincoln was fortunate that someone killed him, said Kennedy.

  Nehru depended a great deal on Shastri who literally worshipped him. He was circumspect when dealing with the dynasty: Nehru’s two sisters, Vijayalakshmi Pandit and Krishna Hatheesingh, and daughter, Indira Gandhi. As commerce minister, Shastri had allowed a car presented to Krishna Hatheesingh in West Germany to be brought to India without her paying the customs duty.

  As home minister he was startled when he received a copy of a letter Vijayalakshmi Pandit had written to Nehru that the Raj Bhawans (she was then governor of Maharashtra) were being used as dak bungalows by central ministers. Shastri received the complaint after he had stayed at Raj Bhawan, Bombay. From then onward, Shastri and his staff would stay at the airport even at night, with all the attendant discomforts, but never at any Raj Bhawan.

  Shastri, who like Nehru belonged to Allahabad, was conscious that he was way down in the social ladder in comparison to the Nehru family. After all, Motilal Nehru, Jawaharlal Nehru’s father, was an iconic figure and a dashing social figure while Shastri was a struggling lower middle-class individual. I recall Indira Gandhi’s remark about ‘middle-class living’ when she visited Shastri’s residence to consider whether she could move there after his death.

  Shastri was impressed with English-speaking intellectuals who he believed belonged to highly educated families. Once he wrote a note on the Punjab situation and asked me to read it. I thought he wanted me to see whether his analysis tallied with mine as I came from Punjab, but to my surprise he wanted to know whether the note was well written. As I began reading it, Shastri said that even L.P. Singh, his favourite joint secretary, had praised his writing style.

  Shastri’s note to Nehru on Punjab did not create any stir, but his letter on Vladimir Nabakov’s racy novel Lolita, did. One Congress leader had written to Shastri that Lolita, which had reached bookshops in India, was so lewd that it should be banned. Shastri accordingly wrote to Nehru (the draft was provided by L.P. Singh) that the book should be banned. Prompt came Nehru’s reply the following morning (he replied to all correspondence within 24 hours) arguing at length why he thought Lolita should not be banned and why D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover should continue to be. Lolita was not banned.

  Shastri was not a moralist but he was a traditionalist. When he watched Swan Lake performed by the Bolshoi Ballet group in Leningrad he was uncomfortable. At intermission I asked if he was enjoying the show. He said he had felt embarrassed throughout because the legs of the dancers were naked and amma, the word with which he addressed his wife (Lalita Shastri), was sitting by his side. He was equally embarrassed at the reception hosted by Kamal Amrohi in Bombay at the sets of his film, Pakeeza. Meena Kumari, then at the peak of her career, garlanded him and read out a small speech in his praise. Before responding he took me aside and asked who the lady was. I was flabbergasted and told him that she was Meena Kumari, the leading film star in the country. He began his speech in Hindi: Meena Kumari ji mujhe maaf karen [should forgive him] for admitting that he had heard her name for the first time in his life.

  My intimacy with Nepal began when Shastri took me to Kathmandu as part of Nehru’s bid to improve relations which were far from happy. Harishwar Dayal was our envoy. Like his predecessors, he treated Nepal as if it was a backyard of India. Shastri ignored him and asked his secretary Rajeshwar Prasad and me to prepare a draft of a joint statement. Dayal sheepishly sat with us. Through the statement Shastri was able to eradicate Kathmandu’s impression that New Delhi was dictating it on foreign policy.

  I also recall the day B.P. Koirala, founder of the Nepali Congress, called me to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, where he had been convalescing for a few weeks. Surprisingly, he was not bitter against the king who he referred as Maharaj. I found him keen to find a place in his country’s politics. He was eventually to become Nepal’s prime minister.

  I heard that Nepal wanted to merge with India when King Tribhuwan Bir Bikram Sah took shelter in New Delhi. I checked this with Koirala, who said that Nehru was clear in his mind that Nepal should remain a sovereign democratic state with a freely elected parliament. Nehru did emphasize that the two countries should have soft borders and act closely militarily and economically. That more or less reflects the policy today.

  These days, whenever I visit Nepal, I find people voicing many grievances in the form of anti-India sentiments. New Delhi’s Ministry of External Affairs is largely to blame for this because most Indian ambassadors posted to Kathmandu have acted like viceroys of the British raj, dabbling in Nepal’s internal politics. This attitude has boomeranged and Nepal has fallen under the influence of pro-China Maoists. Beijing has moved close to Nepal, extending large loans and building railway lines and roads to Kathmandu to bridge the distance between them.

  However, the real irritant for the Nepalese is the 1953 treaty which New Delhi signed with Kathmandu. The treaty is loaded in favour of India and has defined security relations as if Nepal is a vassal of India. Although both countries are inclined to alter the treaty of 1953, it still hangs like an albatross round their necks. The monarchy has gone and Nepal has become a secular republic in which Hinduism is no longer the state religion. It is difficult to say how Nepal’s proximity with China will affect the people there but there is little doubt that relations between Nepal and India will continue to be close through their shared culture, heritage, and even religion. Provided India plays its cards right, there should be no room for misunderstanding between the two.

  These few distractions did not lessen Shastri’s attention on China. He agreed with Sardar Patel’s warning to Nehru that the Chinese government was trying to delude us by a declaration of peaceful intentions. Shastri told me that China would one day betray India and it was a pity that Panditji, as he referred to Nehru, did not see the writing on the wall.

  Nehru was a hero to me and I imagined there must be a good reason why he did not want to join issues with China. He was perhaps reluctant to divert his attention from development, because manning the 2,400-mile Sino–Indian border meant huge expenditure on the purchase of arms. He could perhaps envisage the consequences of an armed conflict with China, akin to a clash between ‘two giants’ as Nehru put it. He wanted to avert the confrontation, the tremors of which, he would say, would be felt throughout the world.

  Whatever the reason, Nehru opted for quiet negotiation through diplomatic channels. Indian officials wrote to their Chinese counterparts, politely pointing out that Peking was ignoring India’s traditional boundaries. What concerned New Delhi most was that Peking had depicted part of Bhutan as its territory within Tibet.

  The Chinese in their reply reiterated that the alignment in their maps was based on old ones, which would be corrected after fresh consultations and surveys. This, however, proved to be a ruse to gain more time to prepare to attack India. When the
re was no communication from China in answer to the questions New Delhi had raised, Nehru grew suspicious.

  By mid-1961, Chinese border forces had advanced 70 miles west of the Sinkiang–Tibet road from the position they had held in 1958. This meant the occupation of 12,000 squares miles of Indian territory. Krishna Menon told me many years later that nobody in India appreciated the fact that India ‘encroached on 4,000 sq. m. of territory belonging to China’.

  The war was, however, preceded by a string of events. I am reconstructing the story after having spoken to General P.N. Thapar, the then chief of army staff and Defence Minister V.K. Krishna Menon. Somewhat peeved by the criticism, Nehru ordered Thapar to evict the Chinese from the posts they had built within Indian territory. The army chief was reluctant to do so because he thought it would be like ‘disturbing a hornet’s nest’.

  A meeting was held under the chairmanship of Krishna Menon, who was all for action. Thapar argued that the Indian army did not have the necessary strength, the ratio being six Chinese to one Indian. Menon responded confidently that he had met Chen Yi, the Chinese deputy premier, at Geneva and had been assured that China would never fight India over the border issue. When I asked Menon specifically whether this information given to me by General Thapar was true, his reply was: ‘That toothless old woman; he did not know how to fight a war.’

  Thapar had submitted a note to the government when he took over as chief in 1960. In it, he had pointed out that the equipment with the army was in such poor condition and in such short supply that China or Pakistan could easily defeat India. This was in sharp contrast to Nehru’s statement, which I heard from the press gallery: ‘I can tell the House that at no time since Independence has our defence been in better condition and finer fettle.’

  It appeared as if the government was determined to fight the Chinese without reorganizing or re-equipping the army. At Menon’s meeting, Thapar was supported by only one person, V. Vishwanathan, then the additional secretary in the home ministry. He said that if Gen. Thapar felt that India was unprepared there was no point in being foolhardy, but Menon was obdurate about attacking China.