Logo

Synopsis The present volume, which draws upon the period 1 June to 31 August 1955 … is richer in foreign policy than in internal developments. Goa is the dominant single problem at home… where the popular movement is controlled not by the Congress but by radical groups in the Socialist Party and the Jana Sangh… He confronts the leftist parties and questions their nationalist bona fides, makes an interesting distinction between socialism to which the Congress Party is committed and the undisciplined behaviour of the students in Patna under revolutionary leftist slogans and is upset by the repeated insults made to the National Flag. He also notices the enduring menace of communalism and the new danger of casteism within the Hindu society and the indigenous communities, under-represented in the administration in the North East. The most important single event in foreign policy during this period was his visit to the Soviet Union and some other socialist countries and to Australia and Italy … Nehru and his principal negotiator, Krishna Menon, play an important part in conveying to Washington, London, Paris and Moscow, and more controversial issues. The Moscow conversations are most important not so much on bilateral matters as in global diplomacy… As the centre of this diplomatic episode is the mutual trust between Chou En-lai and Nehru on the one hand and Nehru and Eisenhower on the other with Eden and Macmillan willing to play a mediatory role. There were three important areas of foreign policy in which India was actively interested – the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, the problems arising out of the newly constituted Indo-China commissions after the 1954 Geneva Conference and the tense, near dangerous situation in the relations between China and the United States on Taiwan and the offshore islands.