Yesterday, a twitter handle https://twitter.com/TrueIndology sent out a series of tweets about Nehru and how the Firstpost Article was wrong. He does this based on a book called Letters to Chief Minister Volume 4 these letter were written by Nehru between 1954 and 1957. Skipping his rhetoric and background in tweet 1,2 and 3, where he presents the case against Nehru and how the Frontline article is wrong and misleading. I will go straight to Tweet 4 where he says, “But just a month earlier,on August 2 1955, Nehru in his letter to Chief Ministers clearly mentions there was indeed an informal offer from US for a UNSC seat. Nehru denied it because he didn’t want to take the seat ‘because it would be unfair to a great country like China'” And he posts an excerpt from this book, with required underlines to prove his point.
So the first thing I did was to read the underlined sentence from the beginning. Reading from the beginning of the sentence we will realise that an informal suggestion was made by US to kick China out of UNSC and get India in its place. There is no offer being here. Let us understand this sentence further
- No Offer Was Made, this is crucial, because Nehru can accept or reject an offer only after an offer is made. TrueIndology is lying when he says that an informal offer was made. First US doesn’t own UN to make and offer, next they did not even make an offer, all they made was an informal suggestion. Guess TruIndology is so used to Untruths and intentional misleading interpretations that an informal suggestion is an offer to him.
- informal suggestion by US, again this needs to be explained to those who have no experience of either diplomacy or law. And let us remember Nehru was a lawyer and TrueIndology is not, an informal suggestion means nothing, specially the one which is proposed by country and opposed by everyone else (a similitude coming up later to explain why everyone opposed). But most importantly US was not UN to offer anything to India, if it has to be an offer it has to come from UN not US. Only those who know zilch about Diplomacy will argue otherwise.
- to throw out China from Security council this was because of US was backing capitalist Taiwan (Republic of China) as true representation of and opposing communist China (People’s Republic of China). Remember this is mid 1955, and the cold war is warming up. And this forms the background which I will explain later. Remember in 1955 China was a great friend of ours, it became a foe only after we gave refuge to Tibetans in 1959.
- get India in UNSC after throwing out China but US alone can not do this, it needs countries to back it UK, France and Russia have already said that do not support Taiwan and wanted Peking to take the seat. The informal suggestion is a non starter from the beginning as it does not have any backer and hence the suggestion dies its natural death.
To understand the background we have to read the whole letter specifically when this issue comes up in point 18 of page 235 of the book, (an extract is available here to read). I point 18 Nehru discusses that there two major world issues one is the situation in Germany and the other is in Formosa (now Taiwan). He says he is not worried about situation in Europe as the Western Block (ie Capitalists) is stronger, but the situation is opposite in Far East where Eastern Block (ie Communists) is stronger . The context is that after WW2 ended, China being one of the winners of WW2 got a seat in UNSC. But soon the Chinese Civil War restarted between Kamantek (Chinese Nationalist Party ) led by Chiang Kai-Shek and backed by Capitalists and Communists Party led by Mao Tse Tung and backed by Communists. By 1949 Chiang Kai-Shel has been defeated and routed from the mainland China and has been reduced to Taiwan and other small Islands in East China Sea. The crisis in 1955 was about two Islands of ‘Quemoy and Matsu’ that were being claimed by Taiwan as they were close to its territorial border. Apart from USA no one else was supporting Taiwanese claim. The only permanent member of UNSC backing USA was Taiwan itself. On the other hand this was frustrating USSR as it saw Taipie take China’s seat instead of Peking. US had not even recognised Peking as a legitimate government of China, and it wanted this controversy of Taiwan in China’s seat by giving it to India, but this would have never happened because Russia would have vetoed it, apart from everyone else objecting to it.
Clearly nobody was talking of regime change in China, and had no backing from anyone except USA. And without backing nothing would have happened, this was an informal suggestion from USA was nothing serious that could be explored. Any exciting reaction to an informal suggestion with no backing would have made India laughing stock of the world. Next even our excitement on this informal suggestion with no backing’ would not have been ignored by Chinese and would have spoilt relations with a friendly country whom we were first to recognise outside of Communist Block.
Coming to his 5th Tweet, he says, “This letter can be accessed online. It is available on Page 237 of Jawaharlal’s Nehru’s “Letters to the Chief ministers Volume 4 (1947-1964)”, Oxford university Press. Government of India 1988 Check for page 237 in this link “ Obviously I accessed it and found that no offer was made to Nehru it was a dirty trick US was playing by making an informal suggestion with no backing and TrueIndology lying that an offer was made.
His 6th Tweet says, “The propaganda @firstpost article quotes what Nehru said in Parliament, but carefully ignores what Nehru wrote to this chief ministers, as that would complete expose their Chacha Nehru” The reason it is ignored is that there was no offer of any kind, formal or informal the offer needs to come from United Nations, an informal suggestion from US does not qualify to be an Offer. Clearly TrueIndology is lying by saying that an offer was made, while in reality it was an informal suggestion with no backing.
His 7th Tweet is an attack on Congress, he says “To defend Nehru’s image, official congress handles @AICCMedia are making factually incorrect claims There HAS BEEN a change in UN composition. In 1950, PRC was blocked from taking Chinese seat at UN. In response Russia walked out. These events gave a scope for a new member “ Again misses the background, China was given a permanent seat in 1945, before Civil War tore the country in two countries, Republic of China (henceforth Taiwan) with capital Taipei and People’s Republic of China (henceforth China) with capital in Peking. In 1949 only Communist Bloc countries recognised China, the first country outside the Communist Bloc to recognise China was India in 1950. China was claiming the seat on UNSC that was then seated by Taiwan. Taiwan claiming to be original China and kept that seat till 1971. The 1950 protest was about giving seat to partitioned Communist China instead of Capitalist China. Since it was a matter of which Chinese republic is the correct inheritor of seat. So No, TrueIndology is lying by implying that that a Non Chinese was sitting on Chinese seat, or that it was empty.
The 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th Tweet need to be read together, He says, “It was not once, but twice that India was offered a seat at UNSC. Nehru rejected the seat both the times. The above mentioned excerpt of Nehru’s letter to Chief Ministers refers to the UNSC offer of 1955. There was another UNSC offer in 1950 which was also rejected by Nehru. In a letter to Nehru dated 24th August 1950, Indian Ambassador to US and Nehru’s sister Vijayalakshmi Pandit reveals that US State department made a proposal to India for UNSC seat. Those were the days of Cold War and US was looking at a potential ally in India. Nehru wrote a response to this letter on August 30 He unequivocally denied the offer. He said the UNSC seat would break “the impeccable relations between India and China”. He further said “it would be an affront to China” and he would “press for China’s admission in UNSC” You will see a lot of Nehru apologists arguing that the offer was “just a bait”. But the fact is that in those days US was indeed willing to concede India a fair deal because it was looking at potential allies in our region in the wake of Cold War “
The similitude of this is like a cunning Amriki Baniya comes to you and says “Look I don’t like your best friend and neighbour Bada Pehalwan. He is the real inheritor of this great job that I have given to his weak brother and his enemy Chhota Pehalwan. Chhota Pehalwan is occupying the job illegally and only because of my influence and my veto. Everyone else including you have said several times that Bada Pehalwan must get the job. But, since I have a veto I will not let Bada Pehalwan get the job. Obviously Bada Pehalwan is pissed with me, and so is everybody else. To take some heat off me I was thinking that if you should state your candidature instead of a country who should actually be there. Although you will never get the job because Commie Roosi Pehalwan also has a veto and will not let Commie Bada Pehalwan’s place go to someone who is not a Commie. Of course it would make you look like an idiot, but at least I will have some less accusations of being unfair and unjust. To conclude, you will not get the job and you will piss off Bada Pehalwan … say what???? Lastly I must warn you, you are best friends with Bada Pehalwan and because of this friendship he has ignored a border dispute with you, and this could spark fires and you might loose your state Arunachal Pradesh. But above all, this is all completely unethical because the job really belongs to Bada Pehalwan.”
Which kind of sparkling idiot would listen Amriki Baniya’s scheme, to back stab our friend, to go for a job that he can not get us, for which he does not have support, for which Roosi Pehalwan will undoubtedly veto and will permanently damage our relations with Bada Pehalwan with whom we have a border dispute about a whole state we have. But the bottomline still remains that no offer yet from UN, formal or informal.
The 12th Tweet is again a complete lie, He says, “Nehru got three foreign offers in total for a UNSC seat. Twice by US in 1950 and 1955. Once by Chinese rebels. It takes a bare faced liar like Nehru to deny such an offer ever took place” Again an informal suggestion is not an offer. Also what was being offered to India was stolen goods. TrueIndology does not have a problem subsiding ethics and morals or dealing with stolen goods, but rest of us have. Like most Indians, Nehru certainly did. How could India partake in an exercise of great injustice for which she had a no hope of being successful and involved back stabbing one of her best friends. Let their be no doubt the seat always belonged to China and not Taiwan. Taiwan was sitting on it only because of USA, and USA wanted to give this China’s seat to India.
His 13th, 14th, 15th and 16th Tweets are about an article published in the Wire discussing the above so called offers, so I am not going to repeat my arguments for them. He also brings a new so called offer of Russia, one which the Russians themselves withdrew saying that the time is not right. But the interesting things that the all these claims and Nehru’s decisions are very well defended in the Wire itself. Furthermore Sujit Nair’s video here also explains the Russian angle in the video.
To Conclude: United Nations Security Council Never made an offer to Nehru. The offer that is being allegedly made is actually an informal suggestion which has no support. Also, for sake of argument even if we take these ‘offers’ as genuine, they were offering us stolen goods, they would have made a friendly country an enemy forever and would have never materialised. Here are two other reputed journalists explaining things.
The Khalafzaee Blog 
You must be logged in to post a comment.