Open Letter to Pravda

FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS

To

The Editor,

Pravda,

Moscow.

Dear Comrade,

We have read your Editorial of October 25, 1962, with interest and without prejudice. Many of us have weighed every word in it for it touches a subject of prime importance for the Indian people today as also for the relation of our nation with your great people. And I regret to say that all of us are sorely disappointed with your stand in the current armed dispute between us and China.

We appreciate your anxiety over the deterio-ration of relations between the two biggest Asian neighbours, and we can understand your concern at the prospect of this dispute being exploited by imperialist powers. It is all the more unfortunate that Pravda should have at a very crucial moment come out with a stand which has helped only the forces that are bent on poisoning our country’s friendly relations with the socialist world, particularly with the Soviet Union.

I am prepared to accept that you have a right to express frankly what you think should be the basis for the opening of negotiations between India and China. Although I do not agree with your view, we would not have misunderstood you if you had stopped with recommending the Chinese terms for peace talks realesed on October 24. Every responsible organ has a right to say openly to friendly people what, in its wisdom, it considers to be the right course. What has surprised me is that you have described this as “a new step by the Chinese Government aimed at the peaceful settlement of the dispute with India†. Surely, you could not possibly have missed the forthright offer by the President of the Republic of India—whom you no doubt hold in esteem—as early as October 14 that the Chinese might restitute the position as it prevailed on September 7 and thereby prepare the ground for talks. Our President made the categorical declaration: “Much to our sorrow and much against our will, we are obliged to take part in this conflict. We hope that the Chinese even at this late date will withdraw to where they were before September 8, bring about a termination of hostilities and produce a climate wherein it will be possible to think of other things (talks, etc.).†This offer was officially reiterated by the Government of India in a Note to the Chinese Government on Ocotober 16, and repeated once again on October 24. I am at a loss to understand why you could not regard this offer, repeatedly made by the accredited leaders of this country, as a positive step for the solution of this border conflict, and give it your unstinted support. What is it tht has led you to prefer, not this offer made earlier, but the one made by Peking? You yourself have said in the Editorial that “the Soviet people highly assess the contribution of sovereign India to the struggle for peace and international security, against colonialism and imperialist military blocs†. If so, would it not have been fair on your part to have recommended the Indian offer for acceptance by the Chinese Government, instead of taking a one-sided position and testifying to the Chinese offer alone being “constructive†? Don’t you think that the position you have taken makes you open to the charge of discriminating against a friendly country, whose contribution to the struggle for peace you yourself recognise?

You have unreservedly taken the Chinese position regarding the border dispute itself. You repeat almost word for word what Chinese propaganda has been doling out when you say: “The question of the Sino-Indian border is a legacy of those times when British colonialists held sway on Indian territory, drawing and redrawing the map of Asia at their own will. The notorious McMahon Line, which has never been recognised by China, was foisted on the Chinese and Indian peoples. Imperialist quarters did their utmost to use border conflicts connected with this line for provoking an armed clash.†In all humility, I have to submit that your standpoint runs counter to reality.

The border between British-occupied India and the old Imperial China was drawn by the British imperialists fifty years ago. Even in those days, the objection from the then Chinese Government did not refer to the Indian sector of the McMahon Line but to the boundary between Tibet and China. However, I need hold no brief for the imperialists. What I have to emphasise is the fact, the indisputable fact, that this McMahon Line continued to mark the peaceful boundary between the independent Republic of China from 1949 to 1959 when the Chinese Government for the first time openly repudiated this boundary and unilaterally laid claim to thousands of square miles of Indian-administered territory south of the McMahon Line.

From the founding of the Chinese People’s Republic in 1949, there was not a single claim to this admittedly Indian territory for ten long years. In fact, in 1954 the two Governments signed a Treaty regarding the Tibet Region of China–when the Indian Government on its own handed over to the Chinese Government many of the privileges and special rights that the British had enjoyed in Tibet—in which the passes for trade and pilgrim routes were specified, the obvious assumption all the time being that there had been no dispute regarding the border as such. Besides, all these years, whenever the Indian authorities came across any map published in China showing the boundary wrongly, they promptly took it up with the Chinese Government and invariably the Chinese reply had been that those represented the old maps of the Kuomintang days, the implication being that India need not bother about them. In fact, there was not a single Chinese objection, formal or informal, in those ten years about Indian maps which clearly showed the McMahon Line as the boundary.

It was only on September 8, 1959—exactly three years before the present armed offensive of the Chinese Army on our border—that Prime Minister Chou Enlai sprang a staggering surprise and repudiated the McMahon Line: there are few parallels in history where a power claiming to be friendly digs up such astounding territorial claims over territory recognised as belonging to the other side for ten years. The armed dispute that has come up on this border is not of India’s making; nor has this country ever allowed any foreign power to make use of it. Meanwhile, the Chinese Government settled the border dispute with Burma along the continuation of that very same British-begotten McMahon Line.

How the Chinese Government has behaved in the matter of this Line can also be gauged from the fact that, even after the surprise claim to territory south of the McMahon Line, the Chinese Government went on making it clear that although they did not recognise the legal validity of this Line, they had not, nor would they, cross it. And yet in the massive offensive which began on October 20, the Chinese Army has blatantly invaded Indian territory—the territory which even their exaggerated bill of claims recognised as Indian soil—and the Chinese Defence Ministry has made a public declaration that the Chinese forces did go far south of the McMahon Line.

It is unfortunate that when you hastened to characterise the McMahon Line as being born out of imperialist conspiracy, you did not take all these into consideration. If the yardstick of territorial claims in the world of today is to be provided by the mere repudiation of the maps provided by the former rulers—whether imperialists or feudalists before them—do you seriously think that a single state in the world can retain its present boundaries? I would like to know how many frontiers of the world Pravda has demanded to be re-drawn only because they were drawn by the imperialists? By this criterion, you cannot even recognise the very existence of Pakistan. Burma was separated from India by the British rulers in 1935 in the teeth of anti-imperialist opposition and mainly with a view to disrupting the powerful anti-British movement of those days. Nobody would expect Pravda to demand the undoing of these imperialist-originated boundaries. Even the Chinese Government has to answer why it does not demand the incorporation of Hongkong or Macao, since these were seized by imperialist powers and retianed as such by them unto this day. But then everything is seen topsy-turvy in Peking today. Why this disease should spread to your Editorial sanctum, I cannot understand.

You have said in your Editorial that the “inviolable friendship†between your country and China is based on “identity of aims†and that both these countries together with other socialist countries are “united in the struggle against imperialism, for peace all over the world†. We understand this demonstration of solidarity and we do believe that the socialist countries are playing a decisive role in the struggle for peace.

But can we, in all frankness, say the same thing about the Chinese leaders? In the great ideological debate that has stirred the Marxist world in the last seven years, did you not notice the Chinese position as seriously questioning the possibility of effecting world disarmament? Have not the leaders of Chinese peace movement gone back upon the famous Moscow Declaration of the Disarmament Conference held in July last? The severely critical reference of the Peking People’s Daily about the magnificent Soviet inititive in thwarting the danger of nuclear war and guaranteeing Cuba’s freedom, this very week, only underlines Peking’s lopsided understanding of the very issue of life and death for mankind, namely, the issue of peace and war. And if this dispute between our country and China has disturbed the peace along a friendly border, you cannot escape facing the reality, that both in raising surprise claims and in enlarging the arena of armed conflict, the Chinese Government has only itself to blame. If today the flow of Western arms into India disturbs you, as it should, would it not be proper for you to address your appeal to the authorities in Peking instead of to our people, since with Peking lies the key to the solution of this embittered issue?

You have referred to the unity between the Soviet Union and China in the struggle against imperialism. Have you noticed how, day in and day out, the leaders of China, from the highest downward, have been branding Prime Minister Nehru of having walked into the American imperialist camp—and become its stooge—in return for the dollar aid? They are propagating that the present border conflict has been engineered by Nehru as he is getting dollar aid. I would ask you to tell us clearly whether this amazing piece of political jaundice fits in with your reading of events in India today. Do you deny the fact that even the recently concluded negotiations for MIG aircraft were conducted by Prime Minister Nehru in the teeth of bitter opposition from the West?

If the Chinese leaders are clear about the nature of the struggle against imperialism, how is it that they malign the very same people who are standing up to imperialist pressures? If Peking has no qualms in extending friendly overtures to President Ayub with all the military-aid commitments of Pakistan, how is it that it thunders at Nehru as the underling of US imperialism? Has not this assessment of Prime Minister Nehru gone against the common understanding of the communist world, reached at the Moscow conference of November-December 1960, whose declaration recognised the positive anti-imperialist role of the leadership of the newly-independent countries of Asia and Africa? It is no accident that a blindly sectarian understanding of the present-day realities has led the Chinese leaders into an adventurist policy against a friendly neighbour.

You have asked for “more active efforts on the part of progressive forces in India†for bringing about a peaceful settlement of the present conflict. And warning against the danger of “chauvinist influences†gaining the upper hand, you have said: “In this case an inter-nationalistic approach is called for.†We are beholden to you for the advice, but would it be out of place to point out that the upsurge of chauvinism over this issue has to be seen in China today and not here? The Foreign Minister of the Chinese Government, speaking at an official function in Peking on October 6, has not hesitated to brand the Government of India as “jackals†. Peking Radio and the People’s Daily of Peking have spared practically nobody worth the name in the Communist Party of India—attacking them with abusive terms.

Even at the very moment when the Chinese Government publicised its peace terms—which you have recommended to us—the showering of choice epithets had not stopped from Peking. With all the angry words uttered in India against China’s invasion of our territory, no leader of the government here has used the language against China that can match in venom the abusive outburst of Foreign Minister Chen Yi. You have quoted with approval the portion of the Chinese statement paying lip service to “the five principles of peaceful coexistence and the Bandung spirit†. I wonder if you can permit such piosonous polemic on the part of respon-sible personalities and organs of China as proof of the distilling of the Bandung spirit.

As for “the internationalistic approach†, you will surely agree that it can hardly be a one-way traffic. If the leaders of any country have betrayed a wonderful lack of the spirit of internationalism, it is those of the Chinese Government in their relation to our government as well as those of the Chinese Communist Party in their relation to our Communist Party. Would you not concede that chauvinism is obvious in the case of a government that sends its army to violate the frontiers of a neighbour rather than of the neighbour—its government as well as people—standing up to ward off that aggression? I would invite you to come to any town and village in India and meet the common humanity in field, factory, office or even at the front and see for yourself with what pain in the heart they are today standing up for the defence of their motherland. There is no jingoism in India today, it is the mass upsurge of a people forced by an intransigent neighbour to take up arms in their patriotic duty of defending their beloved land. I would earnestly urge upon you not to mistake the patriotism of our nation today for chauvinism. For, you must know that even with this new calamity visiting us, our people shall not deviate from the path of peaceful amity that this country has chosen for herself.

I have written this letter with candour but not with rancour. It is written in the spirit of comradely criticism which I sincerely believe is the accepted norm in the worldwide communist movement today. And I shall be happy if you will ponder over the points raised here and consider seriously whether your Editorial does not need re-examination. For, I strongly feel alongwith millions in this country, that Pravda should play its worthy role in bringing about mutual amity consistent with honour and independence among peoples of the world.

With warmest greetings,

Yours faithfully,

An Indian Marxist

New Delhi, November 3, 1962

(Mainstream, November 3, 1962)