Union Minister Arun Jaitley recently criticised India’s first PM Jawaharlal Nehru for declining a US proposal in 1950 on India's permanent seat in the UN Security Council.
It is imperative, in this context, to understand the strategic and political rationale behind Nehru's decision.
Click here to know more on India's claim to UNSC permanent seat.
What was the proposal?
The US made a proposal to India in August 1950 through the Indian Ambassador in the U.S.
It expressed the American desire to remove China from permanent membership of the UNSC and possibly replace it with India.
Nehru allegedly refused to take this suggestion seriously and thus abdicated India’s opportunity to become a permanent member of the UNSC.
However, the complexity of the international situation might justify Nehru's stance then.
What was the international situation?
The above events took place in August 1950 when the Cold War was in its early stages.
The two superpowers were in eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation that threatened nuclear catastrophe.
The People’s Republic of China had just emerged from a bloody civil war and was seen at the time as the Soviets’ closest ally.
It was prevented from taking its permanent seat in the UNSC because of American opposition based on Cold War logic.
Furthermore, war was intense in the Korean peninsula.
The U.S. and allied troops were locked in fierce combat with North Korean forces supported by China and the Soviet Union.
What was Nehru's rationale?
Nehru, at that time, was trying to carve a policy that ensured India’s security, strategic autonomy and state-led industrialisation.
He anticipated that pushing China out, as the U.S. wished to do, would result in a perpetual conflict that could engulf all of Asia.
To him, the Korean War appeared a forerunner to more such conflicts in Asia that could even turn nuclear.
The U.S. had dropped nuclear bombs on Japan only 5 years ago and it would possibly not hesitate to do so again in an Asian conflict.
This is especially since nuclear deterrence had not become a recognised reality then.
So given these, Nehru did not want India to get embroiled in hazardous Cold War conflicts as it would risk India's own security.
He understood that peace could not be assured in Asia without accommodating a potential great power like China.
Nehru also felt that China had to be provided with proper place in the international system.
Why is Nehru's decision justified?
To be precise, America's proposal was not an offer but merely a vague sensor to explore Indian reactions to such a contingency.
The U.S. intended the offer to be a bait to attract India into an alliance with the West against the Sino-Soviet bloc.
The US aimed at pulling India into the “defence” organisations that it was setting up in Asia to contain the presumed “Communist expansionism”.
Nehru was well aware of this and the fact that Washington was only interested in using India for its own ends.
Had India accepted the American bait, it would have meant enduring enmity with China without the achievement of a permanent seat in the UNSC.
Moreover, even if accepted, the Soviet Union, then China’s closest ally, would have vetoed such move.
As, it would have required amendment of the UN Charter that is subject to the veto of the permanent members.
It would have also strained the relations between India and the Soviet Union, affecting the possibility of a close political and military relationship with Moscow later.
The ties, in fact, became necessary once the U.S. entered into an alliance relationship with Pakistan.
Moreover, the Indo-Soviet relationship paid immense dividends to India during the Bangladesh war of 1971.
