THE REPUBLICspoiled everything. Desai, who did not approve of the 1974 explosion, was
nevertheless firm in his adherence to the nuclear option and told Carter
that he himself should scrap American stockpiles of atomic bombs before
he lectured other nations about non-proliferation. Contrary to earlier
expectations there was thus no rapprochement with the West.
On the other hand, Indo-Soviet relations remained stable as they
coincided with the perceived national interest of both partners.
Nevertheless, the Soviet Union was somewhat nervous about India’s closer
contacts with the United States and China. Desai’s visit to Washington in
June 1978 and the February 1979 visit of Indian Minister of External
Affairs Atul Bihari Vajpayee to Peking showed a new initiative in Indian
foreign policy which alarmed the Soviet Union. Vajpayee was treated to
anti-Chinese harangues by the Soviet leaders when he visited Moscow
prior to his Chinese tour and, to their great relief, the Chinese behaved true
to type when Vajpayee was in Peking: the Chinese demonstration war
against Vietnam was started at that time and the Chinese leaders did not
hesitate to stress the analogy of this war with that against India in 1962.
Vaipayee left Peking abruptly and the normalisation of India’s relations
with China was postponed for the time being.
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and India’s reactionA completely new political scenario seemed to come about when the
Soviet Union staged a massive invasion of Afghanistan in December
- India had very friendly relations with that country and the
sudden demise of a non-aligned regime was a severe blow to India,
which still considered itself to be a leader of the non-aligned world.
Both in terms of global and regional dimensions, this was a serious
challenge to India and it was perceived as that. However, this
perception was not articulated in public because India had to retain the
friendship of the Soviet Union. The events in Afghanistan coincided
with the elections in India which brought Indira Gandhi back to power.
Prior to her reinstatement she had made some critical remarks about the
Soviet invasion; as soon as she came to assume responsibility for the
conduct of India’s foreign policy, though, she refrained from such
statements—the more so since Pakistan emerged once more as the major
partner of the United States in South Asia. Indian diplomacy was now
aimed at quiet mediation with the hope of achieving a political solution
in Afghanistan which would help to ease out the Soviet troops. India
emphasised that in the interest of such efforts it would be better not to
subject the Soviet Union to futile verbal attacks. But Indian leaders felt
very uncomfortable about the whole situation and, as time went by,
they realised that they could not do much about a political solution
whether they refrained from criticising the Soviet Union or not.