Nehru’s Folly and the ‘Loss’ of Tibet continues....

This author believes that President Ayub’s offer was indeed genuine, even though both a foreign researcher, Lorne Kavic, and most Indian commentators believe it was not. By 1959, China’s territorial aggressiveness had become quite clear and there was public debate about a possible defence arrangement with Pakistan to protect the strategic indivisibility of the subcontinent.

Ayub himself had personally proposed the joint defence in May 1959, after a statement made on 24 April 1959, when he had stated that ‘in the case of external aggression both India and Pakistan should come together to defend the sub- continent’. He repeated the offer in June and again personally at Delhi to Pt. Nehru on 1 September 1959, having come specifically for this purpose, arguing that the subcontinent’s internal strife had always invited invasion from the north and that to avert such an recurrence Indian and Pakistan should settle their differences on lasting basis ‘to defend themselves against the common enemy.’ He reiterated his proposal at a press conference in Peshawar on 6 November 1959, and repeated it while on a tour of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) in January 1960.

To be continued...