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

This proposal of Ayub’s was strongly supported by the former Indian Army Commander-in-Chief, Gen. Cariappa, in an interview he gave in Delhi on 1 November 1959, followed by a forceful article in the Times of India of 26 November 1959. Balraj Madhok, President of the Delhi unit of the Jan Sangh, the ancestor of today’s Bhartiya Janta Party, also supported a common defence pact with Pakistan against possible Chinese aggression.

Obviously, there were many difficulties and impediments, but Ayub had explained in his 6th November statement that his suggested association in joint defence did not mean association in other foreign policy areas, and was simply a matter of defending the frontiers.

Nehru was highly sensitive to criticism of his foreign policy, which in this case was that Pakistan was the only military threat and that China was not, and chose to rebuff these proposals with his characteristic arrogance, with his ‘Common defence? Against whom?’ Ayub Khan himself comments: ‘I kept coming back to this proposal and clarifying it more and more to enable the people of India to recognize its merit.

To be continued....