Two bullocks,a ladder and a lamp: electoral symbols in Nehruvian India

There is a substantial body of literature on nation‐building that, from a variety of theoretical approaches, examines the role of symbolic constructs in the process of construction and consolidation of new nation‐states. Among these works, the dramatic and symbolic aspects of election and their function in the nation‐building project have been investigated by political scientists and anthropologists alike. However, analysis of electoral emblems as constitutive elements in the nation‐building process has been largely missing from most studies of nation‐building and official nationalism. A case study of postindependence India suggests how national belonging was also made to hinge upon on competent democratic participation of the masses in the political life of the country. Central to this process of identity work was the establishment of an independent Election Commission and of strict rules for the design, selection and allotment of election emblems. Conventional accounts have argued that these procedures were introduced primarily for the benefit of the uneducated masses who were suddenly invited to participate in India's democratic process. I argue against this simplistic interpretation. Far from being only tools for the simplification of electoral processes, India's election symbols were one of India's institutional mechanisms designed to nurture the development of a correct democratic conduct and therefore ultimately contributing to the Nehruvian national project.     

Mountbatten and India, 1948–64

This article brings to light Lord Mountbatten's continuing links with India after 1948 - a neglected aspect of his life and career. It probes his involvement and influence in Indian affairs through his personal relationships and professional experience. In doing so, it presents Mountbatten as the personification of the change in Indo-British ties from those of empire to dominion and beyond. On the three key issues of Hyderabad, arms sales, and Kashmir, this article evaluates his role as a ‘friend of India’ in the West as well as a conduit for the British government(s) of the day to reach out to Nehru. Considering the scope and limits of ‘influence of friendship, it shows that Mountbatten remained characteristically involved in India after his departure and this was appreciated by both Nehru and his British counterparts. Mountbatten epitomised the old ties, which continued to bind India to Britain, after the empire and through the Commonwealth. His views were offered and sought; how much they influenced remains a matter of emphasis, but that he was involved cannot be denied. The weakening of Mountbatten's involvement and influence after Jawaharlal Nehru's death in 1964 represented the wider, generational weakening of Indo-British association.     

Walking the Thin Line: India's Anti-Racist Diplomatic Practice in South Africa,Canada, and Australia, 1946–55

Historians of India's foreign policy have often failed to see beyond the ‘Great man’ Jawaharlal Nehru. This Nehru-centric vision is not only misleading, but also unfair to Nehru. Here, we seek to take the gaze off Nehru and New Delhi so as to view Indian foreign policy from different locations. We examine the ways in which India's diplomats in Australia, Canada, and South Africa resisted racial discrimination. India's anti-racist diplomacy has most often been viewed as pointless moralistic ranting: the domain of the ‘hypersensitive, emotional’ Indian. We argue, however, based on largely unexamined archival material and an emphasis on the practice of Indian diplomacy, that India's diplomats in these bastions of settler-colonial racism were tactful, strategic, and effective in challenging racist, colonial practices and bringing an anti-racist discourse to international politics. Nehruvian foreign-policy discourse, and its goal of an anti-racist world order, then, was tempered by its diplomatic practices. In particular, this occurred outside of New Delhi in places where India's hopes for productive international relationships clashed with its Nehruvian worldview.     

New Delhi’s All-India War Memorial (India Gate): Death,Monumentality and the Lasting Legacy of Empire in India

This paper traces the colonial and postcolonial histories of one of India’s most iconic structures, New Delhi’s All-India War Memorial. Designed and built by Edwin Lutyens immediately after the Great War, the memorial commemorated both Indian soldiers who had died in defence of the empire and the reason for such human sacrifice. As such the memorial reaffirmed and celebrated Britain and India’s unbreakable imperial bond, now strengthened by the fiery crucible of war. After independence in 1947, India took ownership of the memorial by renaming it India Gate to symbolise the country’s transition from what it had been to what it was becoming through India’s passion to be free. In the process, the memorial was re-evaluated and re-imagined in ways that transformed this site of unwelcome colonial memory into one of India’s most important symbols of national renewal. And yet this new interpretation remained as highly contested and problematic as its original colonial meaning. While the memorial became a site of national cohesion for many, it also perpetuated a colonial politics of division along communal (religious) and inter-communal (caste) lines that has eroded a sense of well-being and security for significant sections of the Indian community. Today, India Gate serves as a symbol of both national renewal and national fragmentation.     

论尼赫鲁政府的和平核政策

在先经济后国防的发展战略以及尼赫鲁反核伦理思想的指导下,从1947年8月到1964年5月,尼赫鲁政府奉行和平核政策,坚持和平利用核能,反对发展核武器;鼓吹核裁军,主张全面禁止核试验;着眼经济建设大局,加强核基础设施建设。1962年印度发动对华战争及其惨败,预示着扩张权势、增强防务的努力开始逐步取代经济优先的基本国策,尼赫鲁的反核伦理思想和核权威主义开始动摇,对华战争后关于核问题的公开辩论说明尼赫鲁和平核政策开始受到冲击,印度核政策的变革即将随着尼赫鲁时代的结束而到来。     

Ghana,India, and the Transnational Dynamics of the Congo Crisis at the United Nations, 1960–1

This article examines the role of Ghana and India at the United Nations during the Congo crisis from July 1960 to February 1961. The role of non-aligned countries both in the UN peacekeeping force, Opération des Nations Unies au Congo (ONUC), and in the negotiation of Congo policy was fundamental to the evolution of events. The article shows how Jawaharlal Nehru of India and Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana used the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and the Afro-Asian bloc to alter UN Congo policy. In leveraging their influence with in the General Assembly, the NAM was able to sustain the UN effort in the Congo and preserve the prestige of the organisation. In the process, NAM members realised the benefits and the limitations of non-aligned politics in the context of a violent, anti-colonial war. The crisis had the effect of rupturing the status quo at the UN and in the eight months under study here, it is argued that the actions of the NAM within the UN helped to activate the agency of the organisation in pursuit of neutralist principles. The Congo crisis served as the turning point in the decolonisation drama and NAM's influence over UN Congo policy represented a dynamic form of anti-colonial internationalism.     

The Making of a Non-Aligned Nuclear Power: India's Proliferation Drift, 1964–8

The article examines the strategic circumstances leading to non-aligned India's safeguard of its nuclear option during a crucial period in its proliferation trajectory, when it was one of the states closest to nuclear-weapons development, and faced US pressures to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that was being negotiated at the time. Based on Indian, US, and French primary sources, this paper demonstrates that India's regional strategic insecurities and bilateral tensions with the United States were too great for it to sign the NPT. Yet, New Delhi's capability to successfully reprocess weapons-grade plutonium permitted the developing country substantial leverage that it exploited through advancing on a slow dual-use nuclear programme.     

Between Vanity and Sensitiveness: Indo–British Relations During Vijayalakshmi Pandit’s High-Commissionership (1954–61)

Studies of Indo–British relations in the 1950s have been usually dominated by the personalities of Jawaharlal Nehru and, after him, VK Krishna Menon. This article instead focuses on Vijayalakshmi Pandit and her tenure as India’s High-Commissioner in London. Pandit came to London having served as Nehru’s envoy to the Soviet Union, the USA and the United Nations. Based on government records and private papers in India, Britain and America, this article shows that her time in London offers insights into the wider context of changes in Indo–British relations and presents her High-Commissionership as a microcosm of the inter-governmental relations.     

The rise of the Indo-Pacific: understanding ideational change and continuity in India's foreign policy

In 2011, the concept of the Indo-Pacific began to appear in India's foreign policy discourse. This article argues that rather than signalling a dramatic shift in India's foreign policy, however, the way in which the Indo-Pacific has been interpreted by the Indian leadership suggests significant continuity as well as change, which is contrary to the goals of the concept's most fervent proponents in India. The article seeks to develop a framework for understanding ideational change and continuity in foreign policy by theorising the interplay between ideas, political and economic flux, and social expectations related to effective and legitimate state-building. It is argued that the Indo-Pacific concept has instigated a new emphasis on regional architecture-building to manage the ongoing regionalisation in the area between the Indian and Pacific Oceans as a result of heightened trade flows and production and investment linkages. Yet, the Indo-Pacific concept, like the new policy ideas on regional engagement that preceded it—the Look East policy and the ‘extended neighbourhood’—has been articulated in ways that are also compatible with long-standing ideas—such as non-alignment—about what constitutes appropriate international behaviour. This reflects the nature of the broader state project that has emerged since 1990, which, while encompassing a new focus on economic growth and competitiveness as being essential to effective state-building, continues to prioritise older ideas about what constitutes effective and legitimate state-building.     

Grey and the Russian Threat to India, 1892–1915

ABSTRACT

As Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in the Liberal Government from August 1892 to June 1895, Sir Edward Grey was exposed to the damage that an anti-British, Franco-Russian Alliance could do to the interests of the British Empire. The experience of those years left an enduring impression upon him. Between June 1895 and December 1905 Grey espoused the cause of agreement with the Russian Empire wherever possible. As Foreign Secretary, he advanced this cause through the Anglo-Russian Conventions of August 1907, whose objectives were to achieve what he described as ‘repose’ on the North West Frontier of India, and the reduction of Russian pressure on Persia in particular. So far as the outbreak of war in 1914 is concerned, Grey's known propensity to maintain good terms with Russia gave the latter a degree of leverage which they exploited to the full in insisting on British support in standing up to Germany and Austria-Hungary following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Grey's position within the Liberal Government, and his clear determination to resign unless Russian demands were met, swung the British government from a neutralist stance to one of full participation in the Great War.     

A delicate balance: Australia's ‘tilt’ to Pakistan and its impact on Australia–India relations

The Australia–India relationship has pivoted on more than the sale of uranium, and is not purely a narrative of neglect. While there have been some periods where bilateral relations received inadequate attention, the years 1947 to 1980 tell of a more complex story. During this time, many Australian diplomats and leaders worked hard to include India in Australia's foreign policy calculations. However, it proved difficult, arguably impossible, to negotiate a path for the Australia–India connection through the complexities of the India–Pakistan relationship and the strategic uncertainties of this most fragile of regions. Indian leaders, not without cause, constantly accused Australia of a ‘tilt’ to Pakistan. An examination of the Australian archives for this period reveals the inhibiting effects of the India–Pakistan conflict, particularly over Kashmir, on the development of a more fruitful Australia–India collaboration.     

China's and India's perspectives on military intervention: why Africa but not Syria?

This article addresses the puzzle for students of international relations as to why China and India, two major re-emerging powers in Asia, do not always baulk at military intervention invoked by Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, while they rhetorically harbour strong reservations about it. The recent cases of Côte d'Ivoire (2011), Libya (2011), Syria (since 2011) and Mali (since 2012) show that both China and India acquiesced in external military intervention in these African countries plunged into brutal civil wars, with only intervention in Syria being rebuffed. By studying how they voted in the United Nations Security Council in 2011–12 and their discourses on intervention, including humanitarian intervention, this article examines why their decisions about intervention in Africa diverged from their decisions regarding intervention in Syria. The authors put forward the thesis that their behaviour can be explained by an interplay between norms and interests, in which they express a common anti-US liberal imperialist stance, shaped by a ‘collective historical trauma' and ‘post-imperial ideology', and demonstrate concerns for state failure and preferences for regional initiatives and political mediation to resolve civil wars.     

印度对日媾和政策探微

战后印度制定了它的对日媾和政策,其中要求中苏参加和会。这与美国的主张背道而驰。而后,印关间进行反复交涉,最终印度从本国利益和本国外交理念出发,拒绝参加旧金山和会。但它却于会后不久即同日本谈判和约之事。总之印度执行的是一种中间路线。     

Cables in Cipher,the Raoul Wallenberg Case and Swedish–Soviet Diplomatic Communication 1944–1947

In 2011, the Russian government, in order to mark the 100th anniversary of Swedish Diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, decided to allow one Swedish researcher to go through the diplomatic correspondence in cipher between the Soviet Embassy in Stockholm and the Soviet Foreign Ministry during the years 1944–1947. This article presents some of the major findings on Wallenberg and discusses whether parallel paths of Soviet encrypted communication between Moscow and Stockholm may still be harbouring additional information on his case. The ciphers cannot provide us with any conclusive answers on the Soviet motives for arresting Wallenberg, or his ultimate fate. They do, however, provide us with unique insights into how the matter was handled on both the Soviet and Swedish sides.     

Securitizing Development Assistance: India’s Nuclear Program and Canadian Societal Views on Nuclear Reactor Exports, 1974–1978

This article examines an often overlooked but nevertheless important element of Canada’s Cold War-era development assistance policies—the export of nuclear reactors to the developing world. In particular, the focus is on societal responses to India’s explosion of an underground nuclear device in May 1974, an accomplishment made possible in part through the export of Canada’s nuclear expertise, technology, and material. India’s entrance into the nuclear club sparked an intense and wide-ranging debate in Canadian society concerning the nature of Canada’s development and foreign policies, and more specifically, the types of policies that would enable the country to fulfill its main international purpose as a middle power—contributing to conditions of international peace and security. The protracted debate which involved not only politicians but many civil society actors revealed stark divisions among Canadians centered on the extent to which nuclear reactor exports served Canadian national interests.     

A Liberal Ghost? The Left,Liberal Democracy and the Legacy of Harold Laski’s Teaching

ABSTRACT

This article explores the ways in which British socialism may have supported and strengthened liberal ideas held by postcolonial leaders who were educated in Britain. It attempts to do so by examining the role of liberalism in Harold Laski’s teaching at the London School of Economics and Political Science (1920–50), with particular attention to his Indian students. Laski, a self-declared Marxist, promoted socialism in his voluminous writings, frequent speeches, and in his lectures, which were attended by many future post-colonial leaders. Although often rigid in its adhesion to socialist dogma, Laski’s thought nevertheless reflected the malleability of political ideologies, incorporating liberal and pluralist elements in its makeup, which were in turn conveyed to students. This article focuses on how two former pupils, G.L. Mehta and Renuka Ray, responded to Laski’s thinking in the context of early Nehruvian India. Drawing on students’ lecture notes, political writings and assessments of their former professor, I suggest that Laski, and British socialism more generally, served to both radicalise students’ desire for economic planning while moderating their understanding of how to generate political change by reinforcing liberal norms, including a belief in constitutionalism and representative government.