Jawaharlal Nehru and China: a Study in Failure?

2011

HARVARD-YENCHING INSTITUTE WORKING PAPER SERIES

JAWAHARLAL NEHRU AND CHINA: A STUDY IN FAILURE?

Ramachandra Guha

JAWAHARLAL NEHRU AND CHINA: A STUDY IN FAILURE?* by Ramachandra Guha I In the late autumn of 1962, there was a short, intense border war between India and China. It resulted in the complete rout of an underprepared and poorly led Indian Army. The battle was seen in national, civilizational, and ideological terms. India became free of British rule in 1947; China was united under Communist auspices in 1949. These two nations were, or at least saw themselves as, carriers of ancient civilizations that had produced great literature, philosophy, architecture, science, and much else, but whose further evolution had been rudely interrupted by Western imperialists. The recovery of their national independence was seen as the prelude to the re-emergence of China and India as major forces in the world. The defeat of 1962 was thus at once a defeat of the Indian Army at the hands of its Chinese counterpart, a defeat of democracy by Communism, a defeat of one large new nation by another, a defeat of one ancient civilization at the hands of another. In India, the defeat was also interpreted in personal terms, as the defeat of Jawaharlal Nehru, who had held the offices of Prime Minister and Foreign Minister continuously since independence in 1947. That debacle at the hands of China still hangs as a huge cloud over Nehru‟s reputation. There is an intriguing comparison to be made here with with his fellow Harrovian, Winston Churchill. Robert Rhodes James once wrote a book called Churchill: A Study in Failure, whose narrative stopped in 1940. It excavated, perhaps in excessive detail, its subject‟s erratic and undistinguished career before that date. But of course,

*

This essay is based on the Daniel Ingalls lecture, delivered at the Harvard-Yenching Institute on the 29th of March 2011.

2 all Churchill‟s failures were redeemed by his great and...