Former President
Pranab Mukherjee seems to have stirred a hornet’s nest when in his posthumous
book “My Presidential Years” apparently has made a reference to Prime Minister
Nehru rejecting an offer from Nepali king to merge his state with India. This
apparently happened during the restoration of King Tribhuvan while ousting the
Ranas. The story has been floating around for decades, of course with
semi-authenticity but with Pranab Mukherjee referring to the same in his book
has reinforced the authenticity of the offer. It is highly conceivable that
Tribhuvan did make an offer and it would not be unusual for Nehru to have
rejected the same. Nehru did allow Bhutan and Sikkim to remain independent. In
fact, the people in Sikkim wanted to join India, but PM Nehru allowed the
monarchy to continue. It was left to his daughter Indira Gandhi as PM to ensure
Sikkim acceded to India. It is possible that she would have annexed Nepal and
Bhutan too at some point of time had not other domestic factors intervened
including the Emergency, post-Emergency defeat and the Punjab uprising after
her re-election. The reference in Pranab-da’s book has again led to the
demonization of Nehru for pusillanimity in protecting India’s interests. It
gets reinforced especially when India under Nehru was humiliated in 1962 by
China. Therefore it would be interesting to decode the possible Nehruvian
thinking in keeping states like Nepal or Bhutan independent.
Nehruvian
thinking arose perhaps from the concept of buffer state that was dominant in
strategic thinking of those days. The concept of buffer state between two
rivalrous powers was not unusual. Such states have existed from times
immemorial. In centuries gone by, the rulers would create nominally independent
states which would act as a buffer with another powerful state. these buffer
states would perhaps give a first line of defence to each of the kingdoms. In
more modern times, states like Uruguay or Paraguay or even Ecuador came into
existence as buffer between the powerful South American states. Thailand or
Siam as it was known in the past essentially maintained its independence only
because it could offer itself as a buffer between British India and French Indo
China. The British India created Afghanistan precisely as a buffer against the
then expansionist Russian empire. To Russian Tsars, in search of a warm weather
port, a southward expansion was something inevitable. This led them to conquer
Central Asian republics and move towards Persia. This obviously posed a threat
to interests in British India. Therefore Afghanistan became the fulcrum of the
Great Game something romanticised by Rudyard Kipling in his book Kim. The
numerous adventures undertaken by the British explorers in Afghanistan to East
Turkestan to Samarkhand to Bukhara are all part of folklore legends in their
managing the buffer between the British India and expansionist Russian empire.
Similarly, at the beginning of the twentieth century, Tibet became the buffer
state between a possible prospective power of China and British India. It must
be said that during those days, China was quite weak and Tiber was essentially
for practical purposes independent. Nepal and Bhutan too served as buffer
states to protect against a possible Chinese expansion.
Buffer states definitely
served certain logic in the pre-World War days. There were rogue states which
would capture these states. In European terms, it was akin to breaking the
balance of power doctrine that came into existence post Westaphalia. It was
made more explicit by diplomats like Metternich in post-Waterloo era and
especially after the Congress of Vienna in 1848. Those days, the countries
could conquer only through land in many instances thus the use of army. There were
many naval states with long coastlines. Yet in European terms, naval battles
could hardly be fought except with Britain. In fact, Britain by its virtue of
geography had very unique characteristics. It had very strong navy that allowed
it to capture the world so as to speak but yet its army was relatively weak. If
only Napoleon or Hitler had managed to land their armed forces on the British
shores, history might have well taken a different trajectory. Coming back to
the Indian context, the only way the India could be invaded from the north was
through the crossing the Himalayas. There were hardly any reported conquests
across the Himalayas barring a skirmish or two. There was a cold and hot war
through the Himalayan kingdom’s ranging from the Sikh rulers of Punjab seeking
to conquer Tibet or the battles between kingdoms of Kashmir and Ladakh, Nepal,
Bhutan or Sikkim happening in the Tibetian mountain plains. Therefore, a buffer state like Tibet served
the British purpose very well. Nepal or Bhutan or Sikkim in fact offered the
second line of defence to the Indian Territory. Nepal though subdued and forced
to secede current regions of Uttarakhand or Siliguri was allowed to remain
independent with Gurkhas forming a key component of British armed forces. At the
dawn of Indian independence, this was the position.
Nehruvian belief
was being dictated by the European logic. To him, a buffer state would ensure
China too remain within its confined territory and not engage in expansionism. The
buffer state would not survive when a rogue empire decides to expand beyond its
territories. All the buffer state would give is the kingdom to prepare for its
defences. When China sent its troops to Tibet and annexed in varying measures,
it would have been a warning bell for India. It was time for India to have
shored up the defences for which it had more than a decade to prepare. China
had borders with India for the first time in centuries. The buffer states like
Nepal or Bhutan would hardly play a role in being India’s line of defence in
the new circumstances. Sardar Patel had recognised the same about Chinese
intentions in Tibet but Nehru was apparently unwilling to hear anything of it.
Moreover, the three Himalayan states were part of Foreign Office and not the
States which Patel was heading. Post the death of Sardar, nobody could challenge
Nehru. In this context, his outdated thinking was the reason for his refusal to
allow Nepal to merge with India. Rather than being naïve, Nehru did not grasp
the significance of China conquering Tibet thus bringing it to the borders of
India. To him, China would always be a peaceful nation even though after it
constructed a road through Aksai Chin. It was this mistake that would have to
be decoded rather than purely looking from a simplistic view of Nehruvian
rejection of Nepali merger offer.
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