INDIA: A Letter for Chou

INDIA A Letter for ChouIn New Delhi last week, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru gave a last reading to his note to China’s Chou Enlai, signed it and dispatched it to Peking. It was a strong answer. Nehru firmly rejected Chou’s proposal that both Indian and Chinese troops withdraw 12 ½ miles from their present positions, which, in the cases of Ladakh and Longju, are deep inside Indian territory.

Instead, Nehru made a counterproposal of his own, suggesting to the Chinese that the proper course “would be for you to withdraw from Longju” on India’s northeastern frontier, and pledging that Indian troops would not then reoccupy the border post. As for Ladakh, in Kashmir, where the Chinese have seized some 9,000 square miles of Indian territory, Nehru proposed that Indian troops pull back to the west of the line that China claims is the boundary, while Chinese troops retire to the east of the line claimed by India.

Chou En-lai’s note had fulminated in the Communist manner against the “sinister” forces “searching for “every chance to disrupt the great friendship between India and China.” Unimpressed, Nehru coldly pointed out that “the cause of the recent troubles is action taken from your side of the border,” and concluded grimly that “we have to face the realities of a situation, and the present situation is that relations between our two countries are likely to grow worse.”

Nehru’s unexpected and untypical sternness won him instant approval from India’s press and public. The Hindustan Times, recently his most bitter critic, declared it was “unreservedly in agreement” with Nehru’s policy, and that the proposals offered to China were “sane and practical and give none of our rights away.” There were still demands that Nehru fire Krishna Menon, India’s lean and irascible Minister of Defense, whom many Congress Party leaders blame for Nehru’s past disregard of Red China’s encroachments. Loyal to his friends as always, Nehru answered sharply that if there was any fault, it was his own. And Menon himself seemed to be taking hesitant steps toward personal rehabilitation. In a radio address urging Indians to volunteer for the Territorial Army, Menon cried: “In the last few days, weeks and months the country has been, quite rightly, legitimately concerned about a threat to its frontiers, about violations of its territory, and we have all spoken with one voice that we shall defend the sanctity of this land.”