It is consensus in India that
China backstabbed our first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in spite of his
friendly stand that believed the Indian and the Chinese were brothers (Hindi
Chini Bhai Bhai). The 1962 Sino-Indian war is the biggest symbol of China’s
betrayal in spite of Nehru’s sacrifice that allowed China to have permanent
seat on the United Nations Security Council.
Mao Zedong, China’s supreme
leader, in fact wanted to crush Nehru alleging India of interference in Tibet,
a document released by the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars
shows. It is a transcription of meeting between Soviet Union Premier Nikita
Khrushchev and Chinese leaders including Mao Zedong and Chinese Premier and
Foreign Minister Zhou Enlai on October 2, 1959. It was a heated conversation where
the Soviet Premier blamed China for Tibet unrest, defending India and Nehru,
and blasted the hostile Chinese action at the Sino-Indian border.
Before Nikita Khrushchev
arrived in China, the USSR had passed a resolution, known as the TASS Declaration,
taking a public stand in order to be seen neutral and ‘not anti-Nehru’ in the
ongoing India-China conflict. This stand by one communist nation on another
offended China and in fact laid the foundation of cold-war Sino-Soviet split
that continued till late 1980s.
By this time, the
expansionist Chinese tentacles had become clearly visibly. China had killed and
detained Indian soldiers in Ladakh and had forcefully occupied an Indian post
at Longju at Assam-China border resulting in casualties on the Indian side and
was increasingly sounding belligerent, especially after the Dalai Lama and countless
Tibetans, who were given moral support and shelter by India, had to flee the
Chinese oppression, a development that brought China a bad name.
The transcript of the
meeting shows how China was hell-bent on proving India and Nehru wrong even if
it was not able to convince Nikita Khrushchev of its words, motives and action.
Nikita Khrushchev: We....do
not understand in particular your conflict with India. You have had good
relations with India for many years. Suddenly, here is a bloody incident, as
result of which [Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal] Nehru found himself in a
very difficult position.....If you let me, I will tell you what a guest should
not say the events in Tibet are your fault. You ruled in Tibet, you should have
had your intelligence [agencies] there and should have known about the plans
and intentions of the Dalai Lama.
Mao Zedong: Nehru also says
that the events in Tibet occurred on our fault. Besides, in the Soviet Union
they published a TASS declaration on the issue of conflict with India.
Nikita Khrushchev: Do you
really want us to approve of your conflict with India? It would be stupid on
our part. The TASS declaration was necessary. You still seem to be able to see
some difference between Nehru and me. If we had not issued the TASS
declaration, there could have been an impression that there was a united front
of socialist countries against Nehru. The TASS declaration turned this issue
into one between you and India.
Mao Zedong: Our mistake was
that we did not disarm the Dalai Lama right away. But at that time we had no
contact with the popular masses of Tibet.
Nikita Khrushchev: You have
no contact even now with the population of Tibet.
Mao Zedong: We have a
different understanding of this issue.
Though sounding harsh on the
Dalai Lama, Khrushchev goes on to vindicate India’s stand on giving shelter to
the Dalai Lama pinning the blame squarely on the Chinese Communist Party, “It's
not a matter of arrest; I am just saying that you were wrong to let him go. If you
allow him an opportunity to flee to India, then what has Nehru to do with it?
We believe that the events in Tibet are the fault of the Communist Party of China,
not Nehru's fault.”
Mao Zedong: No, this is
Nehru's fault.... We also support Nehru,
but in the question of Tibet we should crush him.
Nikita Khrushchev: Why did
you have to kill people on the border with India?
Mao Zedong: They attacked us
first, crossed the border and continued firing for 12 hours.
Zhou Enlai: What data do you
trust more, Indian or ours?
Nikita Khrushchev: Although
the Hindus attacked first, nobody was killed among the Chinese, and only among
the Hindus.
Zhou Enlai: But what we are
supposed to do if they attack us first. We cannot fire in the air.... In my letter of 9 September to Nehru we provided detailed
explanations of all that had occurred between India and us.
Nikita Khrushchev: Comrade
Zhou Enlai. You have been Minister of Foreign Affairs of the PRC for many years
and know better than me how one can resolve disputed issues without [spilling]
blood. In this particular case I do not touch at all the issue of the border,
for if the Chinese and the Hindus do not know where the borderline goes between
them, it is not for me, a Russian, to meddle. I am only against the methods
that have been used.
Zhou Enlai: We did not know
until recently about the border incident, and local authorities undertook all
the measures there, without authorization from the centre.
Nikita Khrushchev: That the centre
knew nothing about the incident is news to me.
Like China is sounding
obstinate today, in the ongoing Doklam standoff, it was the same behaviour on display
even then. They kept on repeating their falsities that finally frustrated Khrushchev,
“There are three of us here, and nine of you, and you keep repeating the same line.
I think this is to no use. I only wanted to express our position. It is your
business to accept it or not.”
Though Mao Zedong assured
Nikita Khrushchev that the border clash with India was a marginal issue and
would be resolved peacefully, the Chinese had other designs and it becomes
clear from the letter that Zhou Enlai wrote to India in the aftermath where he
blamed India for escalating tension by indulging in border aggression, anti
China propaganda and Tibet unrest.
China, in fact, was preparing
to betray India all along 1950s, clandestinely intruding into the Indian
territories to forcefully acquire them and the Tibetan uprising of 1959 was just
a pretext to impose its sinister designs of grabbing thousands of kilometres of
Indian Territory in Jammu & Kashmir’s Ladakh, i.e., Aksai Chin that the
whole world saw after the 1962 war. Prime Minister Nehru, in fact, detailed
these Chinese designs in response to Zhou Enlai’s letter that how Chinese were
intruding into the Indian territory since 1954, that how they had built a road
in Ladakh, that how China arrested Indian security forces personnel in Aksai
Chin in 1958 and so on. Nehru also added in the letter that India did not make
public these because it was still hoping for their peaceful resolution.
The streak of the Chinese
betrayal has continued ever since, resulting in China usurping India’s territory
and claiming for more, ignoring India’s sovereignty by developing an economic
corridor in Pak-occupied-Kashmir that is legally India’s, its persistent belligerence
on Sino-Indian border, its attempts to encircle India by having military
presence in India’s neighbouring countries and its anti-India stand on global
multilateral platforms that exhibits itself in its moves like blocking India’s
entry in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) or vetoing India’s and world
community resolution to ban Pakistan based Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist Masood
Azhar.
©SantoshChaubey
