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India’s External Relations
No, India’s foreign policy does not reflect her desire to be an important power. It had never been an objective of her foreign policy. India has always followed the Principle of Peaceful Coexistence and never followed the policy of intervention in the internal affairs of other countries. Bangla crisis in 1971 was the biggest internal crisis of Pakistan which emerged due to general elections. As the Pakistani rulers did not accept the democratic verdict as well as Awami League’s demand for a federation, the people started a struggle to liberate Bangladesh. About 80 lakh refugees took shelter in India. A US–Pakistan–China axis had formed and to counter this India signed 20 year Treaty of Peace and Friendship with the Soviet Union.
This situation and subsequent events led to war with Pakistan,where India emerged as victor and declared unilateral ceasefire. Pakistani army of about 90000 had to surrender. Under these circumstances, India could have imposed a harsh treaty on Pakistan but it did not do so because India’s policy was of peaceful coexistence. It never reflected her desire to be an important or dominant regional power.
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“Broadly, non-alignment means not tying yourself off with military blocs... It means trying to view things, as far as possible, not from the military point of view, though that has to come in sometimes, but independently, and trying to maintain friendly relations with all countries. ” —Jawaharlal Nehru
(a) Why does Nehru want to keep off military blocs ?
(b) Do you think that the Indo-Soviet friendship treaty violated the principle of non-alignment ? Give reasons for your answer.
(c) If there were no military blocs, do you think non-alignment would have been unnecessary ?
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