SHOULD INDIA BE AFRAID OF CHINA?
There is widespread talk in public and media that India is weaker than China, which is modernizing its military and massing big number of troops on Indo-Tibetan border. The background of fear is the 1962 war. The fact is people are ignorant of India's modern history. They are not even interested in knowing it. Indians have never been fond of history. Our history textbooks quote foreign visitors (mostly Chinese) to tell us about our country. Even senior bureaucrats do not know true history of India's partition, independence and British perfidy.

In 1947, British divided India in their own self-interest so that they could control "life and progress" of India and keep up the prestige of Britain's worldwide Empire. They did this by creating and promoting communal riots between Muslims and Hindus to prove that they could not live peacefully together. They did this so cleverly that most of the world and Indians thought that British were very good, specially Labor Party and Labor leaders like Atlee and Cripps. The fact was there was not much difference between two parties, as far as the British Empire was concerned, as wrote Jawahar Lal Nehru. Their plan was as follows.

At that time, Britain had become very weak militarily and economically due to World War. At that time the British troops number in India was 70,000 against 2.4 million Indians and the Indian Army was no more loyal to them. Due to necessity of fighting Japan, Indian Army was expanded to 2.5 million and Indians were trained in the use of modern arms. Hence, they could not rule India militarily but could create trouble for India due to superior naval strength of two sides. Lifeline of British Empire was broken. As Indians could not manufacture modern arms, the British could manipulate the military strength of both India and Pakistan, by supplying them arms.

The raj ended in India (with post partition boundaries in August 1947), leaving it starving, partitioned with the threat of Balkanization due to lapse of paramountcy, defenseless, and facing the problem of one of the biggest migrations in history. No wonder the British did not expect India to survive. But SURVIDE IT DID, overcoming daunting odds. India lost wheat-producing areas in West Pakistan. They were developed by hardy Sikh and Hindu farmers. India also lost rice and jute in East Pakistan, aggravating food/raw material problem. India had become very poor with little industry and capability to make modern arms. It had become food deficient. Problems were, partition, mass killing and migration, shortage of food with little foreign trade. It meant no foreign exchange to import food, machinery and arms. India survived and made steady but slow progress. The credit goes to one of the greatest man, Jawahar Lal Nehru, some of his great colleagues like Sardar Patel and resiliency of Indian people.

In independent India top priority was given to 3 problems.
Rehabilitation of refugees and consolidation of the country by elimination of more than 500 states by joining many with provinces or in big groups.
Food problem. New projects were started to help in grow more food campaign, like production of fertilizers, and manufacture of railway engines.
Expenditure of more money for economic development by keeping defense expenditure low.


During 1947-1948 defense expenditure was Rs., 190 crores (i.e. 2% of GNP). As U.S. started to give Pakistan more modern arms in the name of fighting communism in 1954, India had to raise defense expenditure to Rs. 290 crores (i.e. 2.9% of GNP). After 1962, six mountain divisions were raised to enable army to fight on both fronts, i.e. Pakistan and China. Defense expenditure rose to Rs. 816 crores. from Rs. 280 crores in 1960-1961. After 1962, Indian government started making plans for expansion of India's military strength. Due to India's policy of non-alignment, Soviet Union was willing to give required military arms to India. On September 21, 1964 Defense Minister announced a 5-year plan to enhance India's defense forces by March 1969 to an army of 825,000 men and air force to 45 squadrons of modern fighters. This was 3 times that of 1962. Of course, this was at the cost of economic development.

The Indian military soon showed its strength. Proud Indian Army avenged Chinese aggression of 1962 in 1967 at Nathu La and taught a lesson to Chinese never to under-estimate Indian army. Again Chinese intruded in Sumdurong Valley in Arunachal Pradesh in 1989; but withdrew without a fight, when Indian mechanized infantry surrounded the Chinese. In 1965 during the middle of 5-year expansion plan, Pakistan boasted that it would take Kashmir by force and made an attempt to take Kashmir, but attempt failed miserably.

In 1971, world saw the armed strength of India when 5 year expansion had changed Indian strength. Pakistan, the ally of U.S., champion of human rights and democracy, was committing genocide and murdering democracy in Pakistan. In East Pakistan, Pakistan's 100,000 strong army killed 3 million innocent civilians, which included 2 million Hindus and drove away remainder Hindus (8 million) and 2 to 3 million Muslim East Pakistani civilians to India. On December 3, 1971, Pakistan attacked Indian cities starting Indo-Pakistan war. Indian army moved in Pakistan next day. After only four days of war Dictator Yahaya Khan, who had vowed to teach "that women" (meaning Indira), agreed to Pak army asking for cease-fire at the request of Pak army commander in East Pakistan, but war continued at the instigation of U.S. and China for another week. He asked for surrender of Pak army in East Pakistan, even with China and U.S. on its side. It was most disgraceful that after only a loss of 7,000 troops in East Pakistan 93,000 troops surrendered and became Indian prisoners of war. World recognized the strength of India.

Though lot of credit goes to Nehru for survival of India and its steady progress, and present might, there are many Indians, who hate and criticize him and blame him for all India's troubles! They do not understand the seemingly insurmountable problems he faced and created a great country. Today India's GNP in terms of PPP is third in the world. India has big industrial base and is a major power. Nehru knew China more than anybody else and some of his ideas are worth quoting. On October 1, 1959, he wrote to Chief Ministers about India- China problem:

"In any event we have to be firm and vigilant and at the same time calm and restrained, and we must realize that real strength does not come from strong language, or even by addition of our armed forces, but from industrialization in a big way and from unity". Nehru's decisions to spend more money on economic development than on defense in the beginning and non-alignment were correct, though criticized at that time. One enabled India to develop economically and later militarily. The second enabled India to get arms from Soviet Union so that U.S did not succeed in making India a satellite like Pakistan.

Date April 10, 1910. P.K. Nigam
(The writer is author of recently published book, titled "Reflections on the History of World in 20th Century" Web-site www.peaceamongmankind.com.)

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