require blatantly pro-American voices; it simply amplified as many non-
communist and anti-radical voices among intellectuals and politicians
as it could. (Among the political trends the CCF adopted wholeheartedly
was the bhoodanmovement; Jayaprakash Narayan, Masani’s old comrade
from the CSP, joined both the bhoodanmovement and the CCF. There is a
delicious irony in the CIA and CCF sponsorship of an ‘indigenous’
movement: ‘It is the colonialists who become the defenders of the native
style’.^41 )
Such funding as the CCF provided did not actually procure pro-
American opinion, the centrality of Minoo Masani in both the right-wing
opposition to Nehru and in the Indian branch of the CCF notwith-
standing. However, in a country with limited resources, funding and work
opportunities, it had a central role in the career and prospects of many
persons, and enabled an anti-communist agenda to occupy a dispropor-
tionate amount of space. Many prominent academics and intellectuals- people of high status in the Nehruvian order – were also attracted by a
novel situation: Indians were being taken seriously and funded to present
their opinions before a potentially wide audience. This was seductive for
persons accustomed to the marginalisation that was the lot of intellectuals
from the colonies. Given that the CCF had among its larger circles various
members of Nehru’s Cabinets at different times, the constraints on
Nehru’s left-wing tendencies, or those of them that remained, would be
maintained, and pressure to align more closely with the USA was never
too far away. But it was not merely through the CCF and ‘cultural’
activities that the CIA operated in India; details are now beginning to
emerge that some extremely prominent members of Nehru’s inner circle
were working with, and possibly for, the CIA.
DEFERRALS: NATION-BUILDING AND ITS
DISCONTENTS
The relative success enjoyed by Nehru in the foreign policy realm obscured
continuing problems, or potential problems, on the domestic front –
indeed, critics were prone to accuse Nehru of spending too much time
and energy on foreign policy, to the detriment of domestic policy.
Nowhere were the domestic problems more evident than in that delicate
project of ‘nation-building’. ‘External affairs’ were usually less contentious
than internal affairs, because they were conducted on behalf of the ‘nation’206 CONSOLIDATING THE STATE, c. 1947–55