Fateful Triangle. Tanvi Madan
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need and the reality that neither could ignore the other had kept the US-India relationship from deteriorating into hostility or total indifference. But between 1949 and 1956, that need had not been sufficient to overcome their major differences in attitudes and approaches toward key issues, including China. Moreover, the two countries had not developed the habits of cooperation that allowed the US, for example, to overcome policy differences—especially, but not solely, on China—with countries like Britain. American and Indian policymakers had limited historical experience interacting with each other. And as Dulles told Pandit, “Trust is built up over a period of time.”309 At times, the governments were willing, albeit grudgingly, to give the other the benefit of the doubt, but this was not common. Simultaneously, however, in each country expectations of the other were—perhaps unrealistically—high. Many in the US expected India to play a role in their Cold War script. After all, it was a noncommunist democracy faced with a communist threat at its doorstep. On the other hand, many in India expected the US to understand India’s perspective. After all, it was a fellow postcolonial democracy that had advocated for India’s independence and had itself experienced the desire not to become entangled in power politics.310 But when these expectations went unfulfilled, it had only increased the disillusionment.
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The Pandit and the President (1956–1958)
It speaks much for the latent strength of Indo-US friendship that the stresses and strains of the international crises in 1958 and storms in [the] UN did not cause any basic adverse effects on Indo-US friendly relations in spite of the known divergencies [sic] in outlook. The tendencies in the past which have cast considerable doubts and suspicions on the ability of the “two largest democracies in the world” to co-operate were not only kept in check but were materially reduced in influence.
—Annual Political Report for 1958 from Embassy of India, Washington, DC1
It was also dawning on America that in a war of ideas or ideologies, India was the strongest “ally” in a strategic region of the world not because India had announced this alliance, nor that India had signed any treaty, but that India existed and continued to grow as a thriving Democratic State.
—Annual Political Report for 1959 from Embassy of India, Washington, DC2
By the time Nehru traveled to the US in December 1956, there was greater convergence or at least parallelism in American and Indian views than there had ever been. And between 1956 and 1962, Delhi’s perception of China and its policy toward that country would move closer to those of the US. There were changes in Washington too—not on the question of whether China was a threat, but in the kind of threat that it posed and in the means considered best to tackle it. This US-India convergence on China not only implicitly eased the strains between the two democracies but also explicitly brought them together.
Washington had growing concerns about both the security threat and the ideological challenge that China posed. Likewise, the Indian leadership increasingly saw China as a traditional security threat as well as a symbolic one. Moreover, the US and India agreed on what was required to contain and confront such a threat: close partnership with each other, and the strengthening of India’s development effort and eventually its defense apparatus.
Between 1956 and 1958, Eisenhower came around in part to Nehru’s view of the threat from communism and China. His administration worried that along with communist infiltration of individuals, the infiltration of ideas and influence could be threatening. Washington watched the battlefield for hearts, minds, and stomachs unfold beyond Europe through a Cold War lens. It would be a victory for communism if Soviet-backed China succeeded while India failed economically. But if the US helped India win the development race versus China, it could demonstrate to the uncommitted world that democracy and development could coexist and thrive.
Simultaneously, Nehru started to worry about the threat of the infiltration of individuals and influence from China. There was growing concern about China’s attitude toward the Sino-Indian border, Chinese behavior in Tibet, and Beijing’s increasing interactions with India’s neighbors. Delhi had growing doubts about China’s commitment to peaceful coexistence and noninterference. Furthermore, Nehru was anxious that China might demonstrate that its approach—rather than democratic India’s—was more successful at delivering the goods to its people. Between 1956 and 1958, his government dealt with charges of complacency and stagnation while China seemed to thrive next door and communism established an official foothold within India. Nehru’s government had to kick-start the economy, but this task was near impossible without external assistance, especially from the US.
The US and India now needed each other to play a role in their China strategies. This newfound importance was accompanied by a greater tolerance of the other’s approach. There was also a reduced emphasis on differences and—where they continued to exist—a better way of handling disagreements. For India, this stood in sharp contrast to the way communist countries seemed to handle disagreements.
This chapter, covering the period from 1956 to 1958, first considers the reasons for the shift in the Eisenhower administration’s approach toward the uncommitted world, and its changing perception of India in relation to China. It then outlines how the idea of the development race between China and India took hold in American and Indian minds and facilitated the American desire to aid India. The next section considers why Indian views of China—and the US in relation to it—changed. It lays out how China’s bilateral and subcontinental behavior raised Indian concerns, and how Indian policymakers found their approach to global issues diverging from that of China and the communist world more broadly. The chapter then looks at how converging American and Indian perceptions of China, as well as India’s stepping back from an intermediary role between China and the US, created the conditions for Delhi and Washington to manage their differences more effectively.
Changing Diagnosis, Changing Prescription: The Infiltration of Ideas and Influence (1956–1958)
By the mid-1950s, Eisenhower saw the uncommitted world as a crucial, if not the primary, Cold War battleground—and it appeared to be tilting toward the communists. The post-Stalin Soviet leadership had taken the initiative in wooing these nations, and a rival suitor piqued US interest and concern. Toward the end of 1955 and into 1956, the administration was anxious about the Sino-Soviet bloc’s economic offensive. The CIA highlighted a particular concern: most of the Soviet economic assistance was for four countries (Afghanistan, Egypt, India, and Yugoslavia). Eisenhower worried that, unlike Soviet-supplied guns, which elicited fear, butter would present a more benign and attractive Soviet face in those countries. This concern was not restricted to the White House. A significant majority in a public survey indicated that they, too, worried about the Soviet drive to win over uncommitted nations.3
Furthermore, in the Cold War, the battles for territory were giving way to battles for not just hearts and minds but also stomachs. The Eisenhower administration believed that if the free world could not prove that democracy and development could coexist, it would lose large sections of the world. By the mid-1950s, it had also become apparent that the US was not the best model to demonstrate democracy’s ability to deliver. For countries just emerging from colonialism, far behind on the socioeconomic and political development ladder, a country like India would be more relatable.
Conceptually, officials and observers were increasingly juxtaposing the democratic Indian development experiment against the communist Chinese one. Given the “keen competition” with China, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles stressed in public remarks in December 1956 that “[a] great deal depends” on India’s success.4 Consequently, many officials argued, the US had a stake in facilitating an Indian victory.
There was a related challenge—that of potential Indian failure. Rather than outright attacks or invasions, there was a sense that internal subversion in underdeveloped or developing countries was a more imminent threat. Communism might win in these countries not through the use of military