Focus on India’s relations with China never recedes to a point where the contents of a book on it become anything less than riveting. Add to it meticulous research and scholarship of an author like Arun Shourie and you have an absorbing read on your hands. Self-Deception: India’s China Policies – Origins, Premises, Lessons turns its spotlight largely on the history of our diplomatic handling of China, especially by the first Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru. It does traverse the more contemporary ground too, albeit briefly.
The central theme of the argument has been this: our handling of relations with China has been extremely inept and self-deluding. We have lived – and continue to do so – in a bubble of denial, often ignoring signs of clear and present danger. In the 50s, we somehow convinced ourselves that there was no pending border issue with China, that somehow our supplicant acceptance of China’s annexation and absorption of Tibet had bought us a permanent seat on the table of friendship, that the Chinese leadership was dependent on our sagacity for learning the nuances of diplomacy and that every Chinese aggressive or hostile move needed to be explained away by us lest the country became anxious! It appeared that we had forgotten that self-generated ‘hope’ should hardly be the sole pillar of foreign policy.
The book solidly relies on documentation. Letters from Prime Minister Nehru to the Chief Ministers, minutes of meeting between Nehru and Chou En Lai and speeches in the parliament have been quoted extensively. There is little to redeem us in those documents.
Many years ago I had read Neville Maxwell’s India’s China War. The conclusions that Maxwell had reached regarding our diplomatic handling of the border dispute were exactly the same. This book provided me with a gloomy confirmation.
Have things changed since? I wish there were reassuring signs but neither the book nor media reports provide us with any. Only recently we described a blatant Chinese intrusion thus: “one little spot is acne, which cannot force you to say that this is not a beautiful face... that acne can be addressed by simply applying an ointment.”
When Arun Shourie was the editor of the Indian Express, he was known for outstanding investigative journalism. Indeed, he was the pioneer in that form of print-media, one who unerringly dug up facts and presented his reports without fear. Later, even as a Union Minister he was known for his competence and probity. All this is reflected in his writing.
The book is highly recommended for anyone with an interest in the trajectory of relations between China and India – and the course correction that ought to be applied.
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