Why Was Nehru’s Forward Policy Introduced?

Plan of Investigation:
i. Subject of this investigation: Why was Nehru’s Forward Policy introduced?
ii. Methods:
1. Research from primary sources mostly of memoranda and archives from both India and China in order to ascertain contemporary views.
2. Two books will be relied on primarily for their comprehensive and recommended nature: India’s China War by Neville Maxwell investigating the causes, practice and effects of the Sino-India war and The Research of Nehru’s Foreign Affairs by Chinese historian Zhongxiang Zhang, who has devoted himself into researching Sino-Indian relationship. Several other books regarding Sino-Indian diplomatic relations were also used.
3. Supplementary research will come from scholarly journals, news papers and book reviews to obtain a broader perspective.

Word Count: 109
Summary of Evidence:
In 1913, representatives of Great Britain (acting for India), China and Tibet held a conference in Simla discussing their respective borders). While each representative signed the agreement in 1914, Beijing later repudiated the agreement. The Foreign Secretary of the Indian Government, Sir Henry McMahon, who proposed the conference, decided to bypass China and negotiated directly with Tibet to settle the border bilaterally thus lending his name to the border itself. Although India publicly claimed this border in 1954, it was not recognized as legitimate by the People’s Republic of China. As a result, some areas between the McMahon and Chinese-claimed lines, notably the Aksai Chin in the western sector of the boundary, were in dispute. (see appendix I) In the eastern sector of the boundaries there were further Indian territorial claims they placed under the aegis the North Eastern Frontier Agency (NEFA) within which today lies the Arunachal Pradesh region. The ensuing border dispute focussed primarily on “which nation Aksai Chin should belong to”.

Failure of Negotiations:
In 1960, Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Enlai met Nehru, his Indian counterpart in New Delhi and proposed that India drop its claim to Aksai Chin in return for China withdrawing its claims from NEFA. However, Nehru accepted neither the withdrawal of Indian troops from their claimed regions nor the maintenance of the status quo which, as Zhou suggested, could be achieved by both sides suspending patrols along the borders. Thus the conference failed.

The Forward Policy and how it led to its debacle:
Nehru’s Forward Policy was introduced at a meeting he chaired on November 2, 1961 with the main aim of establishing as many posts as possible along India’s claimed lines, particularly in Aksai Chin. Such an aggressive policy was strongly objected to by the military for strategic reasons. In March 1961, Army H.Q. informed the government about the limitations of air transport which had made it impossible to send out troops. Moreover, in April they cast doubt on the military strength in the disputed area.In June, the General Staff argued that several of the Army’s recently established posts should be evacuated unless the Air Force could treble the quantity of supplies. In addition to the military’s objections, a great numbers of warnings from Peking after the plan was put into effect were made, notably in April 21 1962 when the Indian ambassador to Peking was warned to inform his country “to stop India from patrolling troops immediately.” The following month Peking again strongly restated its grave concern about the situation in Aksai Chin and warned India again to abandon the Forward Policy.In August, the reaction from Peking became even more threatening militarily. However, this had little effect on Nehru who continued to ignore all opposition, both Chinese and domestic, and continued the Forward Policy of patrolling troops and creating further posts in Aksai Chin.

The importance of this investigation is that it was this policy that provided the stated reason for China to decide to launch invasion. In fact, the Forward Policy not only contributed as a chief reason for China to trigger the invasion, but a main factor for India’s defeat as well by putting the Indian army into a great military challenge to a far stronger power. It is clear that the Indian army was unprepared with its army lacking 60,000 rifles, 700 anti-tank guns, 200 two-inch mortars and its supply of artillery ammunition kept critically low. Furthermore, two regiments of tanks could not be operated and when the Forward Policy began to be implemented, the troops contained only two militias of Indian soldiers with winter clothing inadequate.

Word Count: 596


Evaluation of Sources:
Neville Maxwell ，India's China War，(Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1971)
This book by a British journalist was the first detailed account of events surrounding the disputes. The purpose, as he himself states in the preface, was to narrate and clarify an historical incident which he believed has continued to be widely misunderstood. page number? Throughout it is obvious his interpretation of what is "misunderstood" was the general view that China was to blame. What makes this book especially valuable is that, unlike others examining the crisis, from 1959 he was actually present, reporting from the area and in a position to watch and personally investigate the events first-hand;footnote a crucial consideration for one providing in-depth reasons for introducing this policy. Nevertheless, he could not enjoy access to documents held China and so provides an unavoidable one-sided account. He too was not trained as an historian and this feature left him open to accusations of “anti-India” bias. who accuses him?

《尼赫鲁外交研究》，张忠祥著。 中国社会科学院出版社 (Zhongxiang Zhang, The Research of Nehru’s Foreign Affair,(Zhong Guo She Hui Ke Xue Yuan Chu Ban She, 2002 )
Written by Chinese scholar Dr.Zhong Xiang Zhang to analyze Nehru's foreign affairs, this work is the first book solely dedicated to the study on Nehru’s diplomatic strategy. He is particularly well-suited for this task as an expert on Asian foreign policy (majoring in International Relations and Modern World History) and who had earlier written three critiques related to Nehru’s policy in respected scholarly journals in China. what are they? Recently published with access to documents both Chinese and Indian (his fluency in English was vitally important as most of the sources used are in English) kept hidden for the past fifty years. However, he himself never visited India which questions the breadth of his research. To make it worse, China does not allow scholars to publish books of revisionist ideas strongly oppose to the Chinese Communist Party’s standpoint, and in this book one can find some words referring to Marxist disposition (something critical of capitalism, a typical nature of Chinese history books).example? Concluding Nehru’s diplomatic strategy on relationship with China, he wrote “Nehru represented the interests of the Indian capitalists…” without providing any evidence.

Word Count: 395




Analysis:
Miscalculation by Nehru and his opposition:
Stephen Cohen argues the policy resulted from miscalculation by Nehru’s administration. Nehru’s perception of India as a unique country in its depth of pacific instincts made him believe India’s reputation abroad would, if not actively support, at least turn a blind eye to patrols into Aksai Chin. Nehru further perceived that a Sino-Indian conflict could conceivably lead to a world war which would be in the interests of all to prevent which the media at the time denounced as fantasy. He therefore deluded himself into believing that, as Neville argues, “whatever India herself did along the borders, China would not attack.”
Ironically, his political opponents’ overestimation of Indian nationalism further contributed to Nehru’s Forward Policy, arguing the conflict could be turned to good effect and the threat “can and must be used to achieve national cohesion and spur national endeavour.”Nehru was largely affected by their voices as he played the idea of India becoming “a nation of armies”. At the same time, the opposition underestimated China’s military strength. The media on the other hand, proved to be more realistic: “Most journalists were writing that the Indians were in superior strength and better equipped than the Chinese, and suggesting that the latter were garrison troops of poor fighting quality.” Though the real situation was not entirely unreported, India tended to accept optimistic reports of their military strength in comparison to the Chinese. It is not hard therefore to conclude that in Nehru’s mind, the war was not likely to begin if the Forward Policy was implemented and, even it did, India would not be defeated.

Foreign Policy and Nehru’s Political Struggle:
Zhongxiang Zhang contended that support from the Great Powers, especially the United States and Soviet Union, reinforced Nehru’s confidence. From the establishment of India to mid-1962, the United States provided India with 4 billion dollars of aid. Such a huge sum indicates that the U.S deliberately tightened its relationship with India to contain the perceived aggression of China. In the context of the Cold War this is a unique incident as the Soviet Union too provided support; on September 91959 the U.S.S.R publicly claimed to stand with India against China in the Sino-India border issues. The Russians’ attitudes changed in July 1962 as they began urging negotiation rather than war. At the same time President Kennedy expressed himself disappointed after his conversation with Nehru in November 1961. He nevertheless ordered air carriers to the Bay of Bengal in order to aid Indian army. Such mixed signals did little to dent Nehru’s confidence about India’s position.
Pressure exerted on Nehru:
Zhongxiang Zhang argued that facing critics from the public and the parliament, Nehru was pushed into going hard on China in order to maintain his political position.Indeed, the atmosphere in parliament, as Maxwell wrote, “was conductive to jingoism”Opposition members’ pre-war insistence was so strong that even Nehru’s cousin’s doubts on the equipment for Indian defence army was criticized as a serious indiscretion. The media too began coming onside as it began expressing general resentment of Chinese occupation of Indian territory This was further shown after a note India sent to China on July 26, 1962 revived the “perennial misgivings” that Nehru would accede to a settlement by appeasement. The Hindustan Times bitterly commented that the Government of India “for how long we have to endure the shame in order to let them Chinese know that we the Indian people are fighting for our dignity?”Answering such attacks, Nehru reaffirmed his position on August 13 making a statement which, as Maxwell claims, was “unusual for him” in that India proposed conditions for negotiation, though too demanding as the Chinese argued, remained unchanged showing that Nehru’s own nature was not for igniting a war against China. It was the pressure he faced which influenced him into doing so. Therefore there is no doubt that the pressure Nehru faced inside and outside parliament contributed to the continued execution of his Forward Policy.

Word Count: 698

Conclusion:
Whilst the main instigator of the Forward Policy which was a main cause of the war with China and brought India to ruin was Nehru, he himself was not operating in a vacuum. His decisions came from an overestimation of India’s diplomatic position and underestimation of China’s decisiveness and strength leading him to assume that the Forward Policy would never cause the Chinese to attack. Oscillation in Nehru’s public statements questioned his commitment and demonstrate, however indirectly, the amount of domestic influence his political opponents inside parliament and the public and media outside had on him as well as that of his foreign allies. Therefore, the Forward Policy can be recognised as a product of the Nehru administration’s miscalculations, the overestimation of India’s diplomatic relationship with the two superpowers and the pressure exerted on Nehru by the parliament and the public combining together which together led, to paraphrase Lloyd-George to a “muddling into the war.”

Word Count: 155


Total Word Count: 1953