ABSTRACT
Friendship has long been marginalized in a discipline in which both critical and conventional approaches have assumed that fear, enemies and ‘threatening others’ are the most important factors governing relations between states. Nehru too recognized fear as a driver of world politics, but he was convinced that this was not inevitable but could be changed. Indeed, Nehru saw the amelioration of fear, as the emotion governing social relations both within and between nations, as a key part of both the anti-colonial struggle and his post-independence attempt to construct an ethical modernity which could overcome the destructiveness of modern inter-state relations. Moreover, by engaging in a politics of friendship, modern India would be able to overcome an important source of India’s civilizational backwardness. Looking into India’s past, Nehru found evidence of a dynamic Indian civilization aware of its interdependence with, rather than isolation from, other societies. Looking at India’s colonial present, however, Nehru came to the conclusion that it was precisely because India had turned inward that it had become a stagnant, backward civilization. The outward outlook of Western states was therefore something to be emulated, but Nehru’s international politics of friendship went further by encompassing policies, namely nonalignment and Panchsheel (peaceful coexistence), whose history he traced back to ancient India, that would challenge the ‘fear complex’ that Western modernity had produced and which, he suggested to a newspaper in 1933, was the ‘cause of half the troubles of the world’ (Nehru 1973: 509). When he expressed these sentiments in 1933, Nehru’s preoccupation was the prospect of another devastating world war. However, as we will see in this chapter, the psychology of fear amongst states remained central to his analysis of conflict well into his tenure as Prime Minister. In suggesting that nonalignment and Panchsheel be read in terms of a politics of friendship I am arguing against more typical readings of these policies. The idea that policies like nonalignment constituted an Indian Monroe Doctrine-style bid for regional hegemony, for instance, has been suggested by several authors. Devin Hagerty (1991: 363), for instance, argues that ‘although it was never enunciated explicitly or officially, successive Indian governments have systematically pursued an active policy of denial in South Asia similar to that applied to the Western Hemisphere by the United States in the nineteenth century’. Bharat
Karnad (2002b: 66-162) argues that Nehru’s opposition to regional defence pacts such as the South-East Asia Treaty Organisation (SEATO), was not the result of deeply-held moral convictions, but reflected a desire for regional dominance. A.Z. Hilali (2001) argues that regional dominance has been India’s ongoing motivation since 1947 and claims that the Indian leadership, beginning with Nehru, have seen themselves as the successors to the British Raj and have adopted colonial strategic concerns as their own. Raja Mohan (2003: 238-9, 2007: 101) also attributes Monroe doctrine-style ambitions to Nehru and describes nonalignment as ‘a means to protect India’s newly won freedom to conduct its own independent foreign policy and to maximize India’s relative gains in the bipolar system’. The interpretation of nonalignment in realist terms, however, requires a sustained disregard for Nehru’s copious writings which display a consistent critique of the assumptions and outcomes of realist policies. Moreover, it overlooks the fact that the normative origins of policies like nonalignment and the rejection of collective defence pacts can be found in writings penned well before the beginning of the Cold War or the creation of Pakistan. A more common interpretation of Nehru’s policies places them within a framework of liberal internationalism or classical idealism (Mitra 2001: 362). A.P. Rana (1969: 311), for instance, traces the roots of nonalignment to Gandhi’s influence on Nehru but argues that he lacked Gandhi’s more transformational sensibility and ‘firmly linked his non-aligned policy to the maintenance of the structure of international society and continually manoeuvred towards this end’. Kanti Bajpai (2003: 242) characterizes Nehru’s position as ‘Westphalia plus nonalignment’ because while accepting basic Westphalian assumptions, Nehru challenged the idea that order and stability in the international system was dependent on the great powers and argued that the non-aligned would be the most positive force in world politics. Bajpai does not, however, explain why Nehru arrived at this conclusion and does not question whether this should complicate the portrayal of him as a liberal internationalist. Indeed, he is dismissive of Nehru’s frequent comments on the inevitability of a ‘world government’ or ‘world federation’ suggesting that they should not be read literally because he ‘was probably suggesting that states would increasingly collaborate in propagating international law and organisations’ (Bajpai 2003: 240). Gopal Krishna (1984: 272, 4, 85-6) on the other hand, calls Nehru a ‘pragmatic idealist’ who tried, and failed, to ‘promote the transformation of world order’ by pursuing a foreign policy based on securing autonomy without power while Srinath Raghavan (2010: 14) has argued that Nehru was a liberal realist because like ‘many liberals he abhorred war for its inherently illiberal effects and consequences’ but ‘unlike the liberals Nehru also held that conflict was an endemic feature of politics; for all national and social groups were inevitably moved by self-interest’. Yet, as will be discussed, Nehru did not seek to rid international relations of power but rather, envisioned these policies as a means of exercising power in moral ways. Moreover, as I argued in the last chapter and will further elaborate on in this chapter, Nehru did not believe in any unchanging conception of human nature that makes conflict among collectivities inevitable.
