It is no big secret that Indo-American relations have had their ups and downs ever since India became independent in 1947. Indeed scores of books have been written on the subject. In many ways the atmosphere was vitiated because of the Cold War. Matters turned worse when the United States, for reasons of its own security, began to patronise Pakistan openly, almost right from the start. Jawaharlal Nehru had reasonably good relations with US President Eisenhower, though the latter'sSecretary of State, the pompous John Foster Dulles took a dim view of India'sNon-Alignment. It was when John F. Kennedy became president that things improved a bit. Kennedy had a high regard for Nehru.
However, when Lyndon Johnson became president, relations between the two countries began to turn sour. In 1960, Indian independence was hardly a decade and a half old. By and large the country had enormous problems to face, not the least chronic food shortage. At the same time, though it wanted large scale imports of food grain, it did not to be seen as a beggar. Worse, under Nehru'sguidance, India had chosen to adopt a socialistic pattern of society as a policy that was suspect in American eyes. The Indian economy was not showing any great success. India needed food aid badly.
To make matters worse, India was going in for nuclear development to compete with the western world. To add to that Nehru had no great liking for America. All these factors helped shape Indo-American relations. Nehru had been especially concerned with America'sintrudence into Vietnam. Then came the Chinese attack on India in October 1962 and Delhi'spublic humiliation, at the hands of those who he once considered were his friends which literally served to shorten his life. All these complicated Indo-American relations. How did India, in the circumstances, fare?
This book deals primarily with the years when Lyndon Johnson was president from 1963 to 1969. The author had been given access to top secret White House papers, confidential State Department records, CIA reports and correspondence between US diplomats stationed in Delhi like Ambassador Chester Bowles and officials in Washington. This is what gives verisimilitude to the contents of this book which carries dozens of photostats of documents hitherto unavailable to the public. One of the longest-serving ambassadors to Delhi was Chester Bowles who comes through as having a greater understanding of Indian politics than surprisingly, employees of the CIA. In part he had direct access to the higher echelons of Indian politicians.
Kalyani Shankar states that the US Government ?kept track of Nehru'shealth in his last days and also had accurate information from various sources such as top officials and Ministers like S.K.Patil, T.T. Krishnamachari and even from then President Radhakrishnan?. What comes through in this book is that while no major stories are uncovered, one gets insights into where and how American officials got inside information on the functioning of the government.
After his defeat at the hands of Lal Bahadur Shastri ?in conversations with the US officials, he (Desai) strongly criticised Shastri and his government??an extremely foolish thing to do. Morarji Desai is pro-US and at least in private vigourously supports our policies in south Asia, once wrote Bowles.
Notes Kalyani Shankar: ?What began as a Johnson'scharming relationship with Indira Gandhi soured with his tough posture on providing foodgrains to India with the result Indira Gandhi also started showing her reluctance by way of criticising him on Vietnam. The Indo-US relations suffered for more than a decade?. How one wishes there were books on the same subject in the decades thereafter! They would be far more interesting than fiction and would constitute a good education in itself.
(Macmillan India Ltd., 2/10, Ansari Road, Darya Ganj, New Delhi-110 002)
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