1959, marked the first clash of border forces – Indians usually had the
worst of these encounters. From late 1959, China dominated Parliamentary
proceedings and inflamed passions. The China issue led to a progressive
erosion of Nehru’s dominating authority in Parliament. Attacks on China
were easily connected to criticism of the government’s China policy, and
spread swiftly to non-alignment and thence to Nehru’s ‘socialist’ economic
and domestic policy. Socialists were keen to play on the idea of Chinese
‘expansionism’, as the Praja Socialists put it – it was a stick to beat the
communists with at home. The non-communist left therefore joined
in the verbal attacks on China, and the right – both within and outside
the Congress – took this forward into a general attack actually aimed at
Nehru’s economic policy. After the first border raids, officials became wary
of supporting cooperative farming too openly – they had frankly looked
with envy at the Chinese agricultural cooperatives, but then ‘everything
Chinese became taboo’.^15 State trading in food-grains – considered
desirable in connection with cooperatives – also encountered obstacles.
Attacks from the Swatantra Party and Jan Sangh on the socialist principles
of planning became much simpler.
The paradoxical manoeuvres of Nehru tied him up into an even more
complicated knot than usual. Nehru at first tried his best to hold a
moderate line on China – in Parliament, on occasion, he admitted that the
borders were vague and needed further discussion – especially Aksai Chin.
Nehru also said frequently that it was not worth going to war to claim
barren mountain peaks. But such open-mindedness was never expressed
in communication with Beijing – trapped by the increasingly hysteri-
cal nationalism surrounding the border issue (not so much a popular
sentiment as one among the ‘political classes’), Nehru felt it best to hold
his peace. There were also indications that he was getting annoyed with
what he saw as Chinese arrogance. It became a matter of personal – and by
projection national – pride: China was undermining his foreign policy and
damaging his reputation as the architect of a pro-People’s Republic policy.
Meanwhile, Dr S. Gopal, then the director, Historical Division, Ministry
of External Affairs, son of the then vice-president, Dr S. Radhakrishnan,
and later Nehru’s official biographer, was despatched to London to the
India Office and Foreign Office archives – he returned to declare that India
had a better claim to Aksai Chin than had China. After this, Nehru’s
openness regarding the possibility of negotiations vanished from his
internal pronouncements as well.242 HIGH NEHRUVIANISM AND ITS DECLINE, c. 1955–63