November 28, 2005
India in the British
Commonwealth
The Problem of Diplomatic Representation, 1917-1947
(Ph.D. London, 1975)
By
J.
L. Kember
(Posted
with the kind permission of the author)
ABSTRACT
This
thesis examines the ways in which a dependent India was brought into a system of
external relations enjoyed by the Dominions, while that
system was in the process of evolution. The subject is approached from the Commonwealth
rather than Indian viewpoint in that the major concern is with the manner in
which a Commonwealth pattern of diplomacy (intra-Commonwealth, as well as
relations with foreign countries) was extended to fit India when that country had neither
the same internal status nor the same historical background as the
Dominions. As such, it is mainly a study
in governmental relations and the machinery for those contacts, though neither
the unofficial view nor the work undertaken in those contacts is ignored,
Chapter
I discusses the developing organisation of external affairs in the Dominions
and, by contrast, in India,
and then considers Commonwealth interest in establishing links with the Government of India. The
constitutional limitations on dependent India’s
external relations are highlighted in Chapter II when the Indian High
Commission in London,
and the attempts to persuade the Colonial office to permit representation in
other dependent areas of the Commonwealth, are examined. The problems
surrounding the welfare of Indians resident overseas, which are the motive for
much of India’s
early representation abroad, are also presented in these early chapters. Chapter II concludes with a study of the
unofficial (and primarily the Indian National
Congress) views on foreign policy before 1947.
In
Chapter III, the genesis of India’s
international status is discussed, along with India’s representation at (largely)
imperial conferences during the inter-war period. By contrast, Chapter IV
treats the international aspect of the same period.
The
more permanent side of India’s
external experience, the overseas posts, is the subject of Chapters V and VI.
The problems of Indians
overseas gave rise to representation in other Commonwealth areas, while the
Government of India’s desire for contact with neighbours and allies is evident
in the contacts with China
and the U.S.A. Chapter VII brings the varying threads
together in a study of the last years before independence, when major political
events in India
were being matched by profound international changes. On the one hand, there
was the establishment of a new world organization (U.N.); on the other, the
transition, through an interim government, from British-ruled to independent India.
CONCLUSION
Professor Mansergh wrote of Nehru’s complaint in 1936 that India’s membership of the League of Nations was
a farce, “though certainly true … was not the whole truth”.[1] What that ‘whole truth’ was has been the subject of
this thesis. As that remark implied, India’s involvement in
international affairs had an ill-defined air about it, and was an experience
which belonged between the realms of dependence and independence rather than to
either one. The experience of international participation was peculiar to India, a great
imperial member seeking freedom. Its international involvement became possible
because of external considerations; the Dominions were also emerging into a new
international status. After World War I, ‘Dominion status’ was
not readily defined.
For
about thirty years, the Government
of India had control, in varying degree, of its foreign relations without
having the final authority over foreign policy. While this marked an advance on
the situation which obtained before 1917, the Government of India became
vulnerable to the charge that its ‘in-between’ involvement in external
relations was no better, or even worse, than what went before. The government’s
critics could rightly argue that there was no substance behind its foreign
relations, that a totally misleading impression was created by India’s
membership of an imperial or international conference, or of the League of
Nations – for behind the façade was the British Government. Yet, as Mansergh
has said, the position was more complex than might first have appeared. The
Government of India became steadily more responsive to the wishes of its
subjects. Responsible ministries were created and a greater number of Indians
involved in the legislative and executive business of government. British
policy towards India,
as towards other dependencies, was not simply to create a void on departure,
but to promote the development of democratic institutions in the dependent
country. Included in this educative policy was the attempt, albeit belated, to
foster in Indians a sense of international involvement. The forms which this
took, international and Commonwealth, permanent and ad hoc, official and
unofficial, have already been described.
What
significance did this experience have in laying the foundations for the
independent Dominions of India and Pakistan? The architect of
independent India’s
foreign policy was Nehru who, until 1946, was unable to put policy into
practice. Yet, as it has been seen, characteristics of the post-1947 policy
appeared in the attitudes and activities of certain Indian representatives
prior to independence. Not only (at the U.N. conference) at San Francisco, but earlier, at the League
of Nations, representatives were demonstrating a line different
from the British masters. League membership stimulated discussion and provided
a forum for India to
champion the causes of Asia in economic and
social matters. In the minds of the nationalists, the value of early
representation was slight; few questions of real interest to India were
debated, and the one of greatest interest – the welfare of Indians overseas –
could not be discussed in the League; nor was much satisfaction achieved at
imperial meetings. On the other hand, independent India
took over the foreign affairs machinery established under British rule: the
central departments in India,
and the embassies, high commissions and consulates throughout the world. The
structure of external relationships was not overturned at independence.[2] Zafrullah Khan has spoken of the importance of
giving Indians experience in external relations, and of the easier transition
for independent India than
for Pakistan
which had to build its foreign machinery from almost nothing. K.P.S. Menon also
referred to the value of early experience and the strategic, i.e. Commonwealth,
positioning of posts abroad.[3]
As to the value of this
experience as a policy, the most significant point is that certain
administrators believed in the importance of developing a sense of foreign
relations while British supervision remained possible. Whether that was the
right policy was immaterial; the fact that they believed it conditioned
their thinking and made it important. The options lay between strict
constitutional interpretation and guided progress beyond that fixed position.
Fraught with dangers, it was nevertheless a policy which was tried because of
the coincidence of momentous events, internationally as well as for India, between
1917 and 1919. In the late 1950s, consideration was given to similar
international experience being afforded to the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland after the Indian example. In rejecting the
possibility, it was recognised that India’s experience was unique, made
possible in an era of uncertain Dominion status. By the 1950s, that status was
a set, not an evolving, principle.
The effect of India’s early
international experience on the Commonwealth was slight. Not only were the
Dominions inclined to ignore India
(except in strategic terms) until the mid-1940s, but so too was there a lack of
consultation between the Dominions Office and the India Office. India was a
British problem, catered for in a particular department, and not ‘one of us’:
so the Dominion view ran. In the search for status, India’s
presence could be a hindrance, as it had been in the 1920s over the diplomatic
standing of the High Commissioners in London.
Yet India’s
presence in the Empire forced Commonwealth
attention on Indian problems. The
Government of South Africa sought full governmental relations as a way of
keeping an issue [discrimination against and bad treatment of South Africans of
Indian extraction] dormant; but it failed and
… Indian representatives proved more than the Union government could
cope with. Like Australia
and Canada, South Africa entered direct relations with India,
and pushed the British government a little into the background. Intra-Commonwealth
relations were established, and problems were left to be resolved by the
parties immediately involved. Whether this was merely British government
avoidance of responsibility was certainly debatable, especially with regard to South Africa.
But from an understanding of the views of men like Amery and Wavell, and
certain Indian office officials, it is clear that there was a policy of
encouraging direct relations to flourish rather than just an abdication of
responsibilities. An experiment with numerous disadvantages, it was not a
failure.
More research remains to be
done: further studies in India’s
relations with neighbouring countries, the establishment of the foreign
services in the first five or six years of independence, and the effect of the
pre-independent missions in Indian (not
Commonwealth) terms.
These will be possible in time, as material becomes available or in the last
case, when fuller study can be undertaken in India of unofficial views. The most
important avenue to be explored will be the links between pre- and
post-independent India,
the true influences of the former on the latter. There are surveys in abundance
on independent India and Pakistan’s
foreign relations, and when the records for 1946-1950 are open, the crucial
transition years can be examined. This thesis has served to provide a fuller
understanding of the pre-independent period. But ultimately, it is a study, not
of the origins of independent India’s
foreign policy, but of the system as it was; the significance of external
relations for the government of the day. That government was the British Government
of India, operating within and evolving imperial network to suit the prevailing
needs in the thirty years before independence.
By the end of the Second World
War, it was obvious that Britain
was determined to transfer power. Preparations, both internally and externally,
had been made since 1917. The Government of India had had external relations
because of its imperial basis, because external advance was an adjunct to
internal advance, and because it had the task of promoting an imperial outlook
on foreign affairs. As independence came nearer, the latter task assumed
greatest importance. When the British raj ceased to exist in August 1947,
traditions, experience and machinery for external relations were transferred to
the independent governments of India
and Pakistan.