External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said India needs to get out of ‘cult worship that everything from 1946 were great years and we did splendidly. If anything went wrong, other people were to be blame’
India’s foreign minister S Jaishankar said, in 1950s, India “spoilt” its relationship with the US as it was arguing on behalf of China.
India alienated Americans on behalf of China
Speaking at CNN News18 Rising India Summit, External Affairs Minister (EAM) Jaishankar said: “We (Indians) were alienating the Americans on behalf of China back in the 1950s. We were taking up China’s cause. In 1950, we spoilt our relationship with America because we were arguing on behalf of China.”
He went on to say, “In the earlier years, it was a Nehruvian ideological bubble where whatever (the former prime minister of India Jawaharlal) Nehru said we must be against the US and a friend of China so everyone followed, the vestiges of those continue.”
The minister also emphasised that India needs to get out of “cult worship that everything from 1946 were great years and we did splendidly. If anything went wrong, other people were to be blame.”
Citing example of China, Jaishankar said, even back then, Sardar Patel was wary of China.
“Sardar Patel warned Nehru, telling him that we are facing a two-front situation, the intentions of China, cannot be taken in a positive way. There is much that we have to apprehend, so please do not, have a sort of rosy picture of the situation.”
To this, Nehru apparently replied, “‘I cannot conceive that anybody would undertake wild adventure across the Himalayas’. That’s exactly what they did in 1962,” Jaishankar said.
The EAM further said it was believed that Nehru foreign policy was such a sort of impeccable theology that even today, whoever comes to power, must follow it. And any deviation is somewhere wrong.
“Just as companies are audited, countries and policies should be audited too. People should look at what happened in the past with an open and critical mind,” the minister added.