WHEN NEHRU LOOKED EAST EPZI C

Jawaharlal Nehru Indias first Prime Minister and Minister of External Affairs from 1947 to 1964 set the framework of foreign policy which has remained Indias reference point until the present. One of the most significant leaders of the twentieth century Nehru came to power in the early years of the Cold War determined to assert independent Indias influence and interests in Asia and beyond. Drawing on the Nehru Papers Francine Frankels When Nehru Looked East reinterprets the doctrine of nonalignment with which Nehru is most closely identified to reveal its strategic purpose. Analyzing IndiaUS and IndiaChina relations during this period Frankel explains how these parties came to distrust each other. From the outset Nehrus vision of Indias destiny as a great power collided with that of the US as leader and protector of the free world. He considered the US a rival in South and Southeast Asia and the Middle East and carried out an active diplomacy to dissuade newly independent nations from joining USled anticommunist mutual security alliances and instead follow Indias example of nonalignment. He did not see a threat from the Soviet Union and believed despite the dispute with China over the northern border that Indias approach would bring India and China together as advocates of Asianism to counter American penetration in the region. This historic miscalculation manifested in the 1962 ChinaIndia War overthrew the pillars of Nehrus foreign policy. Frankel provides the most authoritative account yet of the origins of IndiaUS suspicions and IndiaChina rivalries. Outlasting the Cold War Nehrus worldview lived on in the mindset of successor generations making it difficult for the US and India to form a strategic partnership and establish a natural balance in Asia.