Annual Report 1965-66

1965-66 Contents Jan 01, 1965 CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. India's Neighbours 1-22 II. States in Special Treaty Relations with India 23-26 III. South East Asia 27-32 IV. East Asia 33-35 V. West Asia and North Africa 36-39 VI. Africa south of the Sahara 40-43 VII. Eastern and Western Europe 44-58 VIII. The Americas 59-62 IX. United Nations and International Conferences 63-78 X. Disarmament 79-82 XI. External Publicity 83-88 XII. Technical and Economic Cooperation 89-92 XIII. Passport and Consular Services 93-101 XIV. Organisation and Administration 102-110 111 E.A.-1. APPENDICES PAGE APPENDIX I. Tashkent Declaration 111-112 APPENDIX II. International Conferences, Congresses and Symposia etc. in which India participated 113-117 APPENDIX III. International Organisations of which India is a Member 118-121 APPENDIX IV. Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Meeting, June 1965 : Final Communique 122-130 APPENDIX V. Foreign Diplomatic Missions in India 131-132 APPENDIX VI. Foreign Consular Offices] in India 133-136 APPENDIX VII. List of Distinguished Visitors from abroad 137-139 APPENDIX VIII. Visits of Indian Dignitaries to foreign countries and other Deputations/Dele- gations sponsored by the Ministry 140-143 APPENDIX IX. List of Indian Missions/Posts abroad 144-152 (ii) INDIA UZBEKISTAN Jan 01, 1965 India's Neighbours CHAPTER I INDIA'S NEIGHBOURS BURMA At the invitation of the President of India, the Chairman of the Revolutionary Council of the Union of Burma, General Ne Win paid a state visit to India from Feb 05, 1965 to 12 February, 1965. The Chairman ha d talks with the President and the Prime Minister of India. The talks were held in an atmosphere of friendliness and mutual understanding. A common outlook on international issues resulting from the pursuit of the policy of non-alignment has helped in the development of close relations between the two countries. The visit helped to reaffirm the close identity of approach to various international problems and paved the way for a better understanding of the problems facing the two countries. At the invitation of the Government of India, a Burmese Air Force delegation headed by Brigadier Thaung Dan, Burma's Vice Air Chief and Minister for Information and Culture, visited India in June, 1965. The delegation visited the Hindustan Aeronautics Plant at Bangalore. A delegation of officials led by Shri B. K. Kapur, Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs, visited Burma in August, 1965 to discuss the question of the assets of Indian nationals. Various aspects of the problem were discussed in a cordial and friendly atmosphere. There may have to be further meetings before a final solution can be reached. At the invitation of General Ne Win, Chairman of the Revolu- tionary Council of the Union of Burma, the late Prime Minister of India, Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri, paid a good-will visit to the Union of Burma from 20 to 23 December, 1965. He was accompanied by Shrimati Lalita Shastri, Shri Swaran Singh, Minister of External Affairs and high ranking officials. The late Prime Minister and party were accorded a warm welcome by the people and the Government of the Union of Burma. During the visit, the Chairman and the late Prime Minister held talks on Indo-Burmese relations and exchanged views on international matters <pg1> <pg2> of common interest. These talks were held in an atmosphere of great cordiality and mutual understanding. This visit has further strengthened the friendly relations existing between the two countries. CEYLON India's relations with the new Government of Ceylon headed by Mr. Dudley Senanayake have continued to be close, cordial and friendly. During the hostilities between India, and Pakistan in August and September 1965, Ceylon remained strictly neutral and banned flights of Pakistan aircraft carrying armed personnel and military supplies to and from East Pakistan. Shri Dinesh Singh, the then Deputy Minister for External Affairs paid a goodwill visit to Ceylon from 16 to 19 October, 1965 and had cordial discussions with Mr. Senanayake, Prime Minister of Ceylon and other prominent persons, on subjects of mutual interest. There has been further progress towards the implementation of the Indo-Ceylon Agreement of October 1964. A Joint Committee comprising Ceylonese and Indian officials has been set up with head- quarters at Colombo. There have been regular fortnightly meetings of the Committee. It is expected that the notices inviting applica- tions for Indian/Ceylonese citizenship will be issued shortly and that the return of repatriates under the agreement will commence by the middle of 1966. CHINA Throughout the year under review, the Chinese Government maintained, in an intensified form, its hostility towards India. Developments during the year revealed, even more clearly than before, that the India-China border question was not merely a territo- rial issue but an instrument forged by China to bring about a political confrontation between the two countries and to apply protracted military pressure on India. It was clear that conflict with India was an integral part of China's foreign policy and its revolutionary objectives in Asia and Africa. While keeping the border question pending and tension on the frontier alive and often dangerously active, the Chinese Government and its organs of propaganda hurled threats and abuses at India and subjected India's domestic and foreign policies to intemperate criticism and outright condemnation. <pg3> In the domestic field China's opposition was directed to India's experiment in the development of its economy through peaceful democratic methods. The Chinese press and radio tried to present a lurid picture of conditions in India describing the Indian economy as a semi-colonial economy dependent on foreign aid and the Indian experiment in economic development a failure and "a negative example for the advancing people in Asia, Africa and Latin America". This brought to the surface some of the ideological bitterness and sense of rivalry the Chinese Government has been harbouring towards India. The Chinese aim was to hold up to Asia and Africa the Chinese example as the only model worthy of imitation, ignoring the fact that what the Afro-Asian countries want is not to copy the example of 'the big brother' but to develop their economies and political systems in the light of their own particular conditions, set of values and national requirements. India's foreign policy of non-alignment and peaceful co-existence was another major target of Chinese criticism and condemnation. Even though it was only India which was criticised, it was clear that the Chinese were attacking the policy of non-alignment and peaceful co-existence in general. For them this policy stood in the way of their war-like theory of uninterrupted struggle and confrontation with "the imperialists" and "the revisionists". The fact that India's foreign policy played some part in bringing about relaxation in the cold war and in the detente between the two power-blocs was parti- cularly disliked by China. During the year under review the Chinese tried hard to link India with the United States and the Soviet Union imagining that there was some kind of collusion between these three powers against China. The Chinese incessantly talked of "the U.S. imperialists", "the Russian revisionists" and "the Indian reactionaries", fitting the three countries into a preconceived and maliciously neat ideological pattern framed up in Peking. Reviewing the situa- tion in India in 1965 the New China News Agency said that "during the outgoing year, the Indian reactionaries, while serving American imperialists and modern revisionists in international affairs, tried to undermine the Afro-Asian solidarity in the struggle against imperia- lism, worked in the vanguard of their anti-China policy and committed aggression against their neighbour-Pakistan". In the Asian-African world, and especially in connection with the Algiers Conference the Chinese attempted to damage the image of India and to isolate her. In the outcome, however, it was China who <pg4> found herself isolated. China wanted to convert the second Afro- Asian Conference into a political bloc dominated by her, and to exclude the Soviet Union. India, on the other hand, looked at the conference as a cooperative endeavour by the community of Afro- Asian nations for eliminating the remnants of colonialism, ensuring world peace, and developing constructive cooperation amongst the countries of the two continents. India also believed that the Soviet Union as a great Asian power and a champion of Afro-Asian causes had a right to participate in the conference. In June, 1965, when It, India together with a substantial number of Afro-Asian countries proposed the postponement of the conference, China criticised it as a sabotage of the conference. However, in October when the conference was to meet as scheduled, the Chinese, who discovered that the majority of Afro-Asian countries were not in favour of the extremist and destructive line propagated by them, demanded postponement of the conference and blamed India for taking a positive and helpful stand at Algiers. It was widely recognised that China's attempt to set herself up as the leader of the Afro-Asian world and her policies towards that region received a rebuff at Algiers. The consensus of Afro-Asian opinion at Algiers favoured Soviet participa- tion. This was a vindication of the Indian approach and a defeat of the Chinese stand. All this made the Chinese Government only more belligerent towards India. The most dramatic demonstration of China's hostility to India took place in September during the Indo-Pakistan conflict when the Chinese Government gave "out and out support" to Pakistan and threatened to create a second front against India.

Load more