FROM AN INDIAN VIEWPOINT

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31902, 1 February 1969, Page 4

FROM AN INDIAN VIEWPOINT

The Pakistan China Axis. By | B. L. Sharma. Asia Pub-' lishing House, Bombay. | 211 pp. Plus Index. The India-China Border. Al Reappraisal. By G. N. Rao. Asia Publishing House, Bombay. 106 pp. Among the international problems from which the focus of world attention has been temporarily shifted by more pressing preoccupations elsewhere, are the disputes between India and China over the border issue, and the wider disputes between India and Pakistan over Kashmir and many other issues. These two books present the Indian ; side of the case on these I issues. Mr Shanna's “The Pakistani ’ China Axis” is the more, ' interesting of the two. The I I title is in fact rather mis-' leading: Mr Sharma makes a | broad survey of Pakistan foreign policy over the last 120 years. It is a fascinating I topic. As late as 1960, President Ayub Khan could say “Pakistan has openly and unequivocally cast its lot with the West. We do not believe lin hunting with the hounds land running with the hare.

We wish to follow a clear and 1 unambiguous path.” Yet two i years later Pakistan was 1 accepting military aid from ; Communist China, and Ayub j Khan was affirming in 196411 that the development of Sino- \< Pakistan relations had I, followed “from immutable;! facts of location, the price-1 j less heritage of tradition, im- I peratives of progress at home 11 and peace in Asia and the ( world." Unfortunately, Mr Sharma,]; who was for some years'! Principal Information Officer I > in the mdian Ministry of I i Information, and was later in t charge of Kashmir affairs in j the External Affairs Ministry, i is not well placed to give an i impartial account, and does s (not really attempt to do so. ] i This is a book full of villains. ]The United States appears i 'alternately as the ingenuous i I dupe of Ayub Khan’s malevo- i lent schemes, and as condon- 1 ing his aggressiveness: I Britain “established Israel i and Pakistan to create i tensions in South and West i Asia” (Mr Sharma quotes ; Mrs Gandhi’s authority for < this); Pakistan, “driven by i insensate hatred of India, has ’ turned one somersault after i another.” 1 As for Mr Jinnah, the f founder of Pakistan. Mr ; Sharma really lets himself i go- “Blind to the past, i irresponsive to tradition, cold t to humanity, he preached the pernicious doctrine of s religious hatred year after i year, consigning millions of i innocent men, women and 1 children . to insensate mass I hysteria, and turning count- t

less hordes into homeless refugees fleeing for life and honour.” The only heroes, apart of course from the peace-loving democratic forbearing Indian Government, are that group of countries which Mr Sharma usually refers to as “the secular, progressive socialist Arab states.” If consistency is to be; rated so high on the scale of virtues, it is surely ironical i that, in what appears to be ja semi-official Indian .publica- ! tion, Pakistan should be so strongly criticised for “open'ing the door to Chinese penetration into South and West Asia and Africa,” and running the risk that the area may fall into the Chinese sphere of influence. Krishna Menon, please note. Mr Rao’s book is of less interest to the general reader. He is mainly concerned with a fairly detailed historical analysis of the border question. He was himself an adviser to the Indian delegation to the border talks with China in 1960. Predictably he concludes that China’s claims have, little or no basis in history or logic. This book too is not free from purple passages: “Whatever the ostensible origin (of the Sino-Indian dispute), it is now as much a part of China’s ideological and power-game as it is a product of her territorial lust.” These are good books to stimulate interest in their respective topics, but the reader is likely to feel, when he finishes them, that perhaps there is another side of the case to be heard.