C. 1954 Military Aid In Context
The nature of America’s military aid to Pakistan at this time understandably caused panic on the Indian side, as it did even on the Pakistani side. America and India agreed in 1950 to send India weapons “to foster international peace and security” and “maintain its internal security, its legitimate self-defense of the area of which it is a Part, [so long as it does] not undertake any act of aggression against any other state.”[84] In light of the fact that almost the exact same words were used for Pakistan in its agreement with America at the same time,[85] the proclaimed American support for India seems meaningless (especially in view of the scant military aid actually sent).
Several years later, as the United States considered sending Pakistan military aid, it took its time in specifying the details of the 1954 “US-Pakistan Mutual Defense Agreement.” Meanwhile, it came to be understood that America would gain “the right to establish military bases and station troops on [Pakistani] territory, and Eastern Pakistan and the North-Western province are to be special strategic areas.”[86] Further, Pakistan would receive from the United States 200 million dollars; it would ultimately buy 400 tanks and 700 planes from the United States, of which 150 would be jet-planes.[87] The program would be a grant-aid military program, to which the United States would contribute a “force basis.”[88] Meanwhile, in weighing the repercussions of military aid to Pakistan, the United States understood that such aid would further indicate to India a policy of “favoritism” to Pakistan on the issue of Kashmir, “(b) lead to a dangerous increase in Pakistan’s military strength; and (c) sooner or later involve establishment of US bases in Pakistan.”[89]
It should be understood that India, too, was receiving American military aid at this time. Still, Pakistan was the primary recipient of American military aid through the 1950s and until around 1962.[90] The distinction of Indian military aid from military aid to Pakistan lay in the use of military bases in Pakistan. Aid to South Asia was not new, so long as South Asian nations controlled this aid. The American military aid to Pakistan was not simply aid; it was an alliance. This guaranteed the presence of America in South Asian affairs. Of course, wherever America went the containment of Communism was the primary objective, particularly in light of China’s renewed militarism in response to America’s “hostile bases.”[91]
As Nehru proclaimed and attempted to extend the “no-war” zone from India’s borders to include the entire Subcontinent, India would be wary of threats to its desire to keep the Cold War out of South Asia.[92] In this light, India’s National Council of the Party’s Joint Secretary believed that the 1954 US-Pakistan alliance was an American attempt to establish and fortify bases around the Soviet Union.[93] The Council believed that that this alliance would involve the region “in great power conflict and eventually in war.”[94] Further, it would prevent the development of a “third force” that was neither capitalist nor Communist. With this in mind, Nehru did not want to involve India with American military aid at all. In response to Eisenhower’s offer to India to request military aid from America, Nehru decided to forego the opportunity. This was probably because India’s nonalignment clashed with “[a] program of United States military grants-in-aid . . . [which] would mean the return of colonialism to the Indian [S]ubcontinent in a new form, and would bring the hatreds of the ‘[C]old [W]ar.’”[95] Also, Nehru believed that India would buy arms when she needed them and from where she could find them, instead of relying on the supplies of one particular power.
In our struggle for independence, we never thought of foreign aid and we never asked for it. We carried on in our own peaceful way and ultimately made good. The only way we can preserve the freedom of India through crises or difficulties, in peace or war, is by holding on to the ideals and the methods which we learnt during our struggle for independence.[96]
America’s alliance was all the more threatening because it followed on the heels of the Turko-Pakistan pact, which called for defensive collaboration between the two nations.[97]
The fact that India was receiving military aid from the United States at all, however, in Pakistan made Nehru’s condemnation of American military aid to Pakistan seem hypocritical. “India, while campaigning bitterly against proposed American arms aid to neighboring (sic) Pakistan, has been quietly purchasing a substantial amount of modern military equipment in the U.S.”[98] As McMahon points out, Brigadier General William T. Sexton disappointed Mohammad Ayub Khan by indicating that the U.S. intended to give Pakistan less than $30 million in the first year of aid. Not only had he expected about $200-$300 million, but he was also hoping for funds that “could be spent as he declared appropriate rather than funds restricted exclusively to equipment and training support.”[99] Instead, this aid was more of a military alliance in the interest of America’s desire to surround the Soviet Union. The US could thereby check the spread of Communism into South Asia and balance Communist influence in the region. This is indicated by a vague American commitment (no dollar values attached) after the 1954 agreement to send military aid to Pakistan.[100] This vague commitment thereby left the door open for India to interpret American aid to Pakistan in whatever way it wished, though there were already indications that America would establish its own military bases in Pakistan.
This ideological mission on the part of America spread a Realist worldview to Pakistan. Whether or not Pakistan indeed planned to use such aid in Kashmir, a breach in ideologies was symbolic in this instance. As Ali believed, “[t]he matter which now holds up further progress with the settlement of the Kashmir dispute is the construction that the Bharati[101] Prime Minister has put on Pakistan’s decision to receive military aid from [the] USA.”[102] This indicates either his belief that Nehru was thinking only in terms of power struggles, but was not being conciliatory, or that Nehru was simply not accepting an international power struggle and was therefore not cooperating. Pakistan’s The Civil-Military Gazette indicates the belief that some diplomatic failures result from “Mr. Nehru’s refusal to take [a] ‘realistic’ attitude towards the problems facing the region.”[103]
Nehru, however, completely rejected foreign involvement. For him, the only power struggles were those among the nations of South Asia. As such, this misunderstanding prevented progress, as is indicated in the letters between him and Ali:
Nehru: “It has always been . . . my fervent hope that India and Pakistan . . . would keep out of the war approach. . . . Pakistan, by rejecting this course, completely lines up with one of the great power blocs. The effect of this is that she becomes a pre-determined party as well as a theatre, base or arsenal . . . in the present conflicts or in a possible war.”[104] For this reason, he called for a “No-War Declaration.”
Ali: “I am puzzled by your statement that by seeking to strengthen its defenses (sic) by outside military aid Pakistan has decided on a war approach instead of a peaceful approach to the solution of Indo-Pak differences. It seems to me extraordinary that steps taken by a country to strengthen its defenses (sic) should be considered steps not in the direction of peace, since weakness inevitably invites aggression, but in the direction of war. . . . A mere ‘No-War Declaration’. . . could serve no useful purpose.”[105]
D. Early Encounters
“Political Realism believes that politics, like society in general, is governed by objective laws that have their roots in human nature.” — Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace[106]
American strategic policy in South Asia has been historically limited, in large part due to the Subcontinent’s Dominion status until 1947. Thereafter, American perceptions of India and vice versa were shaped primarily by interactions among Indian and American leaders.[107] This was a product of a limited tradition of US-Indian relations, the framing of relations around ideology, and “free presses and public platforms” in both democracies.
Particularly, speakers from both nations at United Nations conferences appeared to be ideological contenders rather than collaborators working for a common purpose. As Charles Heimsath and Surjit Mansingh detail, “[t]he major Indo-US involvement in the 1950’s resulted from the participation of both states in the global ideological disputations of the post-Second World War period, each as the leading spokesman for its respective ideological grouping.”[108]
Such people as Indian Prime Minister Nehru and Indian representative Krishna Menon, as well as the impressions they made on people such as US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, Dean Acheson, Richard Nixon, and President Eisenhower and vice versa primarily determined each nation’s perception of the intentions and ideological stances of the other. For example, Menon did not fit the hyped-up American expectation of an Indian as thoughtful, passive, and relaxed. He came across as “sardonic, vigorous, prone to outbursts of passion, and [someone who] never lost his fox-like alertness.”[109] Further, Dulles made a poor impression with Indians by stating that “[i]n India, Soviet Communism exercises a strong influence through the interim Hindu government.”[110] Dulles dominated the new Republican Administration’s foreign policy with an “overt hostility to uncommitted nations … offer[ing] full military assistance to those who were prepared to acquiesce in US global strategy of building a ‘cordon sanitaire’ against communism in different regions of the world.”[111] Also, Acheson proved his limited understanding of the Subcontinent, when he reportedly told an author that America in the 1950s “was ‘blind’ to happenings in south Asia, being preoccupied with Europe and the [F]ar [E]ast.”[112] Acheson also found Nehru difficult to deal with and was offended by Nehru’s criticisms of the US.[113] In addition, Vice President Nixon after a visit to South Asia recommended American military aid to Pakistan to counter India’s “confirmed neutralism.”[114] Indeed, he was instrumental in convincing the Pentagon and the State Department to include Pakistan in military links through SEATO and CENTO.[115] Just as some later administrations overtly called New Delhi “Leftist” and pro-Soviet, India too came to believe that American policies were anti-Indian and aggressive.[116]
Further, due to the limited sources on which to draw to make impressions of the other government, the informed populaces of both nations were each guided by their own government’s impression “that the other state represented an opposing ideological posture.”[117] This facilitated a popular view that these two governments’ ideologies were dissimilar, despite the opinions of many who believed that Indian and American foreign policy objectives were alike and only the means of carrying them out differed.[118] Of course, because of different means leaders from both nations would be reluctant in cooperating with corresponding leaders of the other nation of whose ideologies they did not approve. The result was an Indian impression of America as “the current embodiment of Western power, progress, and personal aggressiveness, while Americans transferred their images of non-Western economic backwardness, social inefficiency, and pathetic but dignified mass humanity from China to India.”[119]
E. Nehru’s View
The historical significance of Pakistan’s military aid procurement from the United States must be understood on a regional level. When the United States agreed to aid Pakistan militarily in 1954, this represented the first intrusion through military means into South Asian affairs since the 1947 Independence of India and Pakistan. And the issue of Kashmir has been considered to be directly affected by this military aid. Indeed, according to Jayantanuja Bandyopadhyaya, Kashmir “is the single most important factor which brought about the [C]old [W]ar to the Indian [S]ubcontinent.”[120] With the Pakistani request for weapons came an extension of the debate over whether foreign military powers should be allowed into the South Asian sphere.
In the Kashmir dispute, Nehru emphasized Indian secularism (as reflective of his domestic idealism), which followed from a policy of non-alignment (as reflective of his regional realism). First, the traditional Indian stance on non-alignment finds its voice in Nehru. Speaking before the Indian Congress’ upper-house, Nehru said of American aid: “We welcome it, although we have made it always clear that we cannot accept any help to which any string is tied or any conditions are attached.”[121] Indian nonalignment was meant to be an indication that India did not want to be another pawn in the international chess game between American capitalism and Soviet Communism. Instead, India preferred to be a model for the Western world by relying on acceptance of differences in domestic relations, and by employing diplomacy, rather than military might exclusively, in foreign relations. (This is one reason that Pakistan could not accept nonalignment for too long.)
Further, India’s nonalignment in the foreign sphere related to her secularist stance in the domestic sphere. Nehru explained how India’s traditional secularism made her different:
[E]specially in Europe, you will find, in the past intolerance and persecution . . . But in India, in olden time there was almost full tolerance…. The slight conflict between Hinduism and Buddhism was nothing compared to the violent conflicts of religious sects in the West…. [W]e have had religious and communal troubles recently, and some people, ignorant of history, imagine that this has been India’s fate right through the ages. This is wholly wrong.[122]
It is this belief that Indian secularism was unique in that it had historically been acceptance in practice, not just in name, that convinced Nehru that the Cold War should be kept out of South Asia. The Cold War did not originate in South Asia; so, why should South Asian nations want to allow it to spread within their own borders? With this logic, Nehru blasted Pakistan’s decision to ally with the United States, arguing that it would further make the Kashmir issue explosive, as it has since indeed become.
Nehru also specifically opposed the Pakistani request for military aid from the United States in 1954. “[I]f something affects Asia, India especially, and … in our opinion, is a reversal of history after hundreds of years, are we to remain silent? We have thought in terms of freeing our countries, and one of the symbols of freedom has been the withdrawal of foreign armed forces.”[123] Any return of foreign armed forces would therefore be a reversal of history. While the American acceptance of the Pakistani request might sound well-intentioned, the situation in South Asia at the time of the request would not, according to Nehru, require Pakistan to be on the defensive. The only “situation” in which Pakistan was involved was Kashmir, where it was on the offensive. Of course, Nehru saw this immediately because he understood the context in which the United States offered this aid. “Now it is in the context of this rejection of our proposal for a No-War declaration [by Pakistan] that we have to view this military aid from the United States to Pakistan.”[124]
