India from Colony to Nation-State: A Re-Reading of India’s Foreign Policy in Southeast Asia, c.1945-1955 Matthew Robert Carnell Department of History Thesis submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy September 2012 Abstract Indian independence in August 1947 came through partition and the transfer of power to Congress. India inherited a region destabilised by this partition and an economy in desperate need of reconstruction and development. India also entered into a world fundamentally destabilised by the end of the Second World War, the onset of the Cold War and the re-imposition of European colonial authority in Southeast Asia. Within this context and in an attempt to disassociate India’s international approach from that of the Raj, Nehru espoused the two main pillars of India’s foreign policy as neutralism and anti-colonialism. However, through the selected case studies and employing archival materials from India, the United Kingdom and the United States, this research challenges the existing monolithic notions of both neutralism and anti-colonialism that dominate studies of India’s external affairs. The case studies are as follows: the external implications of the transfer of power, Indonesia’s freedom struggle, Indian entry into the Commonwealth and Sterling Area, the Malayan Emergency, the Colombo Plan and Gurkha recruitment. Together they expose and explore several key themes: India’s imperial transition and legacy, the Cold War and colonialism/decolonisation in Southeast Asia, external affairs and national identity, and India’s nascent relationship with a Communist China. Also, and fundamentally important, was India’s need for economic development and how this affected its policies in South and Southeast Asia, for example development as the answer to Communism, and its relationship with the UK, its empire and the Commonwealth. This thesis provides a nuanced analysis of the first years of Indian independence that fills silences in the existing narrative and historiography that emphasise an idealistic and morally governed foreign policy. Through the following examination it is possible to recast India as a key Cold War player in South and Southeast Asia that balanced its national interest with the need to publically adhere to its espoused foreign policy principles. Contents Acknowledgments 1. Introduction – India’s Foreign Policy pp. 1-26 2. The Transfer of Power in India: Inheriting the Raj, c.1945-1948 pp. 27-52 3. “Every Possible Help”: Indonesia pp. 53-98 4. India’s Membership of the Commonwealth, 1945-1949 pp. 99-158 5. Indian foreign policy, the Malayan Emergency and Regional Stability pp. 159-96 6. India and the Colombo Plan: Putting South Asia back in Colombo pp.197-236 7. ‘Halt this Cannibalism! Severing the Heads of Liberation Fighters’: Colonial Legacy and Colonial War, India, Britain and Gurkha pp. 237-74 Recruitment for Malaya 8. Concluding Notes pp. 275-80 9. Bibliography pp.281-334 Select Abbreviations: INC – Indian National Congress GOI – Government of India NAI – National Archives of India MoEA – Ministry of External Affairs IOR – India Office Records CRO – Commonwealth Relations Office FO – Foreign Office CO – Colonial Office UN – United Nations NMML – Nehru Memorial Museum and Library Acknowledgments First of all, I think it only right to thank my parents for their support over the last few years that has allowed me to complete the PhD. My Grandad also deserves recognition here for his continued and generous financial assistance. Secondly, I must thank all of those friends that have made doing a PhD a more enjoyable task than it otherwise would have been, and particular recognition should go to Matt Chetwood, Laura King, Kate Law, Helen Smith, Julia McClure and Mark Seddon for their encouragement. Thanks also have to go to the History Department for giving me the opportunity to undertake this research. Without the financial support of the Royal Historical Society my research trips would have been far shorter and far less fruitful. Many thanks have to go to Bob Moore for his close reading of drafts and his perspicacious comments. Ben Zachariah has been an academic guide throughout and a sounding board for my ideas and for this I thank him. Dedicated to Joyce and Jacqueline. Introduction India from Colony to Nation-State: A Re-Reading of India’s Foreign Policy in Southeast Asia, c.1945-1955 1) Introduction India achieved independence in August 1947 after 200 years of British domination ended with partition and the transfer of power to the Congress Party. Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister, inherited the colonial administrative structure, the Indian Civil Service (ICS) and a two-thirds proportion of the Indian Army. However, India also inherited a region destabilised by partition and conflict over a disputed Kashmir and an economy in desperate need of repair and development. Moreover, India entered a world fundamentally destabilised by the end of the Second World War, the onset of the Cold War conflict and the re-imposition of European colonial authority in Southeast Asia. 1 Within this international system India positioned itself on the world stage as a new and potentially influential country. India, as a new state, with no established foreign policy (as this had been handled by the British) had to formulate and define its basic foreign policy principles ex nihilo . The new state, however, could not completely escape the confines of its geography and the legacy of British regional policy. 2 India had myriad hurdles to overcome in the first years of independence and its domestic needs largely defined its responses to international events. This thesis, therefore, explores how Indian policy evolved and how it was 1 Christopher Bayly and Timothy Harper, Forgotten Armies: Britain’s Asian Empire and the War with Japan (London, 2005), this is one of the most incisive and comprehensive introductory accounts of the political and social aspects of the war in South and Southeast Asia. Bayly and Harper manage to weave multiple individual stories into a meta-narrative that provides an overview of the region in the 1940s and 1950s. For an account with an emphasis on the United States (hereafter US) and the end of the Pacific war see Ronald H. Spector, In the Ruins of Empire: The Japanese Surrender and the Battle for Postwar Asia (New York, 2008) and for an account that says nothing new but provides a concise overview see, Jost Dülffer, ‘The Impact of World War II on Decolonization’, in M. Frey, R.W. Pruessen and T.T. Yong (eds), The Transformation of Southeast Asia: International Perspectives of Decolonisation (New York, 2003), pp. 23-34. 2 For example India stepped in to the role that the British had played in Nepal as Lord Curzon’s buffer policy also served the needs to protecting the territory of the independent state. 1 Introduction applied in practice in light of both global and domestic developments. The chosen case studies analyse India’s external affairs in relation to parts of Southeast Asia in the context of the early Cold War and decolonisation. In this way, it is possible to chart India’s integral role in the Asian Cold War that has until now largely only been addressed in order to chart the roots of the Bandung Conference and the formal declaration of the Non-Alignment movement. Furthermore, the thesis addresses how Nehru and his government presented foreign policy to the Indian public and to what extent Indian foreign policy was constrained by public expectations, and, importantly, to what extent domestic political imperatives influenced foreign policy. The case studies enable an examination of episodes in India’s foreign policy that have either been neglected in the existing literature, or are in need of re-evaluation and as such can contribute to our overall understanding of India’s foreign policy. Southeast Asia is the geographical focus of this thesis, but this is not an area or regional history and does not purport to cover the whole of Southeast Asia. In September 1946, Nehru, as head of the Interim Government, announced the embryonic underpinning features of India’s foreign policy when he broadcast to the population that ‘we propose, as far as possible, to keep away from the power politics of groups, aligned against one another, which had led in the past to two world wars and which may lead to disasters on an even vaster scale.’ 3 Moreover, Nehru announced that an opposition to colonialism and the protection of Indians abroad would be two of India’s aims and guiding principles. Nehru hoped to achieve these goals not through military strength, but through the use of diplomacy based on India’s moral, non-violent characteristics, which he claimed derived from the teachings of Buddha and were most recently personified in M.K. Gandhi. 4 This announcement has consequently informed all accounts of Indian foreign policy, and it is in the effort to execute these foreign policy aims that this thesis is concerned. The importance of these first years of independence need to be stressed to expose the nuances of India’s foreign policy. However, the aim of the work is not to attempt to re-define neutralism/non-alignment, as much ink has already been spilled in the 3 G.H. Jansen, Afro-Asia and Non-Alignment (London, 1966), p. 116. 4 See the article, published under the auspices of the Government of India (hereafter G.O.I.) by Vijayalakshmi Pandit for a succinct examination of these historical influences, ‘India’s Foreign Policy’, Foreign Affairs 34 (1955/56), pp. 432-40. 2 Introduction pursuit of this, but rather to examine how a professed neutralism actually operated in the cases examined. Bandung is often cited as the apogee, the defining moment of India’s international achievements for its part in the emergence of the Third World and the birth of the non-aligned movement, and although its myths are now being challenged, this thesis looks at the nuances in India’s foreign policy.