Indian Defence Review

Indira Gandhi was much more equipped in foreign affairs than Lal Bahadur Shastri. As Nehru’s daughter, she had the rare privilege of being constantly exposed to the outside world. At their luxurious house in Allahabad, where she lived as a child, she was surrounded by books, and by a sweep of intellectual atmosphere created by a rich grand father and politically oriented father whose sojourn in England had made him conversant with a wide array of ideas that saturated the West at the turn of the 20th century. Her own extended sojourn in the West also greatly contributed to the enhancement of her understanding of the world.

Europe, at the time, was in an tumultuous state—a Europe heavily marked by the Spanish Civil War, by Nazism and Fascism, by Soviet sponsored popular front movements, and a slew of small countries of the continent living in constant fear of dictatorial dangers looming on the horizon.

It was hardly possible for Indira Gandhi to escape the impact of these events–politically conscious as she was, and living as she did in the heart of Europe as a young girl.

There is no evidence to suggest that Indira Gandhi had any reservations with the broad foreign policy framework that Nehru had originally established…

Much has often been made of her lack of intellectual verbosity, and the absence of any marked capacity to dovetail dimensional global issues in abstract theoretical frameworks. This may be viewed as an handicap by those pretending to be intellectuals, but they should hardly be considered as vital instruments for comprehending what was happening in the world. Abstract theoretical frameworks often have a tendency of congealing existing realities into a set and fixed positions that may not have anything to do with the complex environments one lives in.

In her letters to her father from Europe, one can discern the socialistic options she took, the strident attacks she made on the British establishment for its contribution to European fascism, and openly declaring in one her letters to Nehru that fascism “seems to be spreading like flames” 197 in an another letter to her father she went even further justifying the Soviet decision to sign the Soviet-German Pact. She wonders if the responsibility for this act did not rest “heavily on those eight years of British Foreign Policy.” “Munich, England and France,” she asserted, “proved definitely on which side they stood.

Russia’s policy of collective security having failed, she retired into her pre-Litvinov isolation, and her chief preoccupation was bound to be how to keep herself out of the impending European war.”198 While this was a standard argument among European intellectuals, it took an excessive form among the Indians in Europe because it highlighted British responsibility—an imperialist nation for which they had developed a contempt due to British colonialism in India.The ongoing educative process continued at adult age. It must have been even more impactful than the earlier years since it really entailed a direct experience in foreign affairs. Acting as the official hostess at Prime Minister Nehru’s official residence she had innumerable opportunities of meeting foreign dignitaries and interacting with them. Accompanying the Prime Minister on his myriad official visits to other lands must have also given her an additional backdrop of diplomacy, of power and of international actors.

None of the other Indian mainstream politicians had the privilege of such an experience. And, finally, consider the countless informal tête-à-tête she must have had with her father on world affairs and about global leaders. As they were very close to each other, Nehru’s level of openness with her must have been more exalted than with anyone else.

…she was neither attracted by long-winded theories of international relations, nor by any abstract conceptualisation of the configuration of international forces despite the fact that she had frequented Marxist circles.

To all these exposures should be added the circle of Indian intellectuals she encountered during the earlier periods of her life. Their impact can be as critical as those of parents and educators. At times even more so, especially at an early age when vulnerability is at its apogee. At some moments in our early lives we can be carried away by ideas and by proponents expounding them.

While in London, Indira Gandhi had an exposure to a set of radicals through Krishna Menon— like Feroze Gandhi (her future husband), P.N. Haksar (her future Secretary) a student at the London School of Economics, the journalist Nikhil Chakravarty studying at Oxford, and Mohan Kumarmanglam, a product of Cambridge who later became her Cabinet Minister. All of them were proponents of Marxist thought, rampant among Indian intellectuals residing in Europe of the thirties. And, they, all of them, remained Marxist even after the independence of the country.

In India too, when she was still in the corridors of power, with her father as the central political figure, she surrounded herself by the so-called “Kitchen Cabinet” largely composed of left-wing intellectuals. While all of them were leftists, some of them were committed Marxists, including Romesh Thapar, I.K.Gujral, Nandini Sathpathy, Pitambar Pant, Dinesh Singh, C.Subramanium, etc. But, their role was different from the London crowd.

For they were not involved so much in the theoretical realm of floating ideas, as in the nitty-gritty of power politics. She could hardly keep herself away from politics while living with her father, whose house and environments were essentially political. Besides, Indira Gandhi was herself a political animal, watching and even participating in politics, and holding responsible positions in the Congress Party.

Perception

However, notwithstanding this privileged knowledge of international affairs, it is difficult to suggest that Indira Gandhi had developed a structured perception of the outside world. She had not. Temperamentally she was neither attracted by long-winded theories of international relations, nor by any abstract conceptualisation of the configuration of international forces despite the fact that she had frequented Marxist circles. She did not have the mental make-up for such intellectual wanderings, nor did she really believe that theoretical underpinnings were essential for political behaviour.

From the documentary evidence available, it can be argued that, like most Indians of her class and her epoch, she considered herself as anti-imperialist socialist who was attracted by the Soviet Union as a country that embodied socialism, and ,even more so, as a victimised country targeted by the capitalist world.Fascination with the Soviet Union continued after the war. From her trips in 1953 and 1955 (accompanying her father) she returned greatly impressed by the Soviet system. The original perception of a victimised USSR in the thirties was replaced by a new thinking of that of a powerful country representing an economic system that dovetailed with her own ideas.

…Indira Gandhi’s perceptual journey through the years, one thing is certain: years of continuous exposure to international affairs had given her an incomparable background and knowledge of the world when she became the Prime Minister

There is no evidence to suggest that Indira Gandhi had any reservations with the broad foreign policy framework that Nehru had originally established—a framework of nonalignment, a balanced equidistant approach to the two superpowers, active participation in the international system, and mediation in conflictual situations.

These were the normative goals that Nehru had established and followed. Indira Gandhi had no reason to give short shrift to any of them. But, unlike her father she was a pragmatic person interested in India’s backyard. The Nehruvian record of relations with neighbours had not been impressive. If anything, it was a record of failures: impassed armed conflicts with Pakistan; humiliating defeat at the hands of the Chinese, a drift away from India by Nepal, Burma and Sri Lanka.

In the face of this debilitative record, interested as she always had been with power politics, her perception of foreign affairs was focalised on the region, and on setting the record straight by making India a powerful centre of South Asian politics. The rest was all marginal during her first mandate as Prime Minister.

In any event, whatever views one may have of Indira Gandhi’s perceptual journey through the years, one thing is certain: years of continuous exposure to international affairs had given her an incomparable background and knowledge of the world when she became the Prime Minister—in any event far greater mastery than anyone else among her mainstream political contemporaries. What must have made things easier was that she had personally encountered many of them who were in office, and with whom she could interact comfortably and easily when she became the Prime Minister. Indira Gandhi was one of the persons who could completely close up, but, who also had the remarkable capacity of becoming aimiable, open and interactive whenever cirsumstances required such a behaviour.

By no means was it an intellectually abstract mastery of the underlying forces that underpinned the world. What she had acquired was more than sufficient knowledge and diplomatic savoir faire that gave her what her assistant considered as an “incomparable mastery of India’s foreign policy.”