Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
premier, Pierre Mendes-France, referred to the Geneva Conference as 'this ten-power con-
ference - nine at the table
- and India'. In consequence, India was invited to chair the three International Commis-
sions for Supervision and Control set up to monitor the implementation of the accords on
Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
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India was at this time 'punching above our weight, measured strictly in realist balance
of power terms', as Shivshankar Menon, India's national security adviser from 2010 in the
Manmohan Singh government, and a former foreign secretary, put it in August 2011 in a
tegic space that the Cold War opened up for us, and because of the eminent good sense and
reasonableness of what Nehru was doing and advocating. During the fifties, India stood
higher in the world's (and her own) estimation than her strength warranted'. Menon went
on to admit rather elliptically what happened after that: 'During the sixties the reverse
was the case. After 1971 there has been a greater correlation between India's strength and
prestige, and this seems likely to continue for the foreseeable future'. This was a neat dip-
lomatic way of saying (correctly) that India's defeat by China in 1962 ended both its clout
and Nehru's international attempts at leadership. India then displayed regional strength
when it helped Bangladesh to be carved out of Pakistan in 1971, but it has not been able
to extend that on a wider international plane because of its relative economic and military
weakness, despite the 1998 nuclear tests and economic growth in the 2000s.
After Nehru
In any case, India no longer has the will to be heard, nor does it seem confident, as it was in
Nehru's time, that it has something different to say, apart from believing in non-interven-
tion in other countries' affairs and therefore opposing the sort of regime change led by the
US and UK in Iraq and elsewhere. Implicitly criticizing the West's military intervention in
Libya and support for Syrian rebels, Manmohan Singh said at the UN in September 2011:
'The observance of the rule of law is as important in international affairs as it is within
countries. Societies cannot be reordered from outside through military force. People in all
countries have the right to choose their own destiny and define their own future'.
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That said, India is now much more focused on its own concerns, as Menon explained in
his 2011 lecture: 'Our primary task now and for the foreseeable future is to transform and
improve the life of the unacceptably large number of our compatriots who live in poverty,
with disease, hunger and illiteracy as their companions in life. This is our overriding pri-
ority, and must be the goal of our internal and external security policies. Our quest is the
transformation of India, nothing less and nothing more.' India had 'sought the strategic
