Indian National Identity and Foreign Policy: Re-Evaluating the Career of K. M. Pannikar (1894–1963) (Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World) 3031364244, 9783031364242

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SECURITY, CONFLICT AND COOPERATION IN THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD

Indian National Identity and Foreign Policy Re-Evaluating the Career of K. M. Pannikar (1894–1963) mauro elli rita paolini

Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World

Series Editors Effie G. H. Pedaliu, LSE Ideas, London, UK John W. Young, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK

The Palgrave Macmillan series, Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World aims to make a significant contribution to academic and policy debates on international history, war and diplomacy since 1900. It evolved from the series Global Conflict and Security edited by Professor Saki Ruth Dockrill. The current series welcomes proposals that offer innovative historical perspectives, based on archival evidence and promoting an empirical understanding of economic and political cooperation, conflict and security, peace-making, diplomacy, humanitarian intervention, nation-building, intelligence, terrorism, the influence of ideology and religion on international relations, as well as the work of international organisations and non-governmental organisations.

Mauro Elli · Rita Paolini

Indian National Identity and Foreign Policy Re-Evaluating the Career of K. M. Pannikar (1894–1963)

Mauro Elli Department of Historical Studies University of Milan Milan, Italy

Rita Paolini Department of Aerospace Sciences and Technologies Politecnico di Milano Milan, Italy

ISSN 2731-6807 ISSN 2731-6815 (electronic) Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World ISBN 978-3-031-36424-2 ISBN 978-3-031-36425-9 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36425-9 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover credit: whitemay This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Paper in this product is recyclable.

Contents

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1

Introduction

2

Pursuing the Idea of India 2.1 Traditional Family Life in Kerala 2.2 Innovation through Tradition: The Challenge of Western Education 2.3 The Oxford Years (1914–1918) 2.4 Reflections on the Idea of Nation 2.5 Back to India 2.6 History and Politics 2.7 Militant Journalism 2.8 The Role of Princely States

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Politics and Diplomacy in Princely India 3.1 At the Service of the Maharaja 3.2 Local Episodes of a Unique National History 3.3 Princely States and the Federation: An Experience in Intra-Indian Diplomacy 3.4 Foreign Minister of a Princely State: The Need for Partition 3.5 Prime Minister in Bikaner: The Rush for Reforms 3.6 Endgame for Princely India

67 67 71

92 96 106

Independent India and the World 4.1 What Place for the New India? A Geopolitical Proposal

111 111

3

4

16 21 27 33 36 42 58

77

v

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CONTENTS

4.2 4.3

Indian-ness at Independence Ambassador to China

121 127

5

The 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4

Chinese Experience Korea Tibet Competing Revolutions Asia and the West

147 147 154 164 174

6

From Indian History to the History of Civilisations 6.1 Twilight of a Political Career 6.2 The Scholar’s Last Years

185 185 207

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Conclusions

225

Sources and Bibliography

237

Index

263

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

The personal and biographical path of Kavalam Madhava Panikkar (1894– 1963), his multiple activities and his very rich production as a historian, political writer, ideologist and publicist, make him a very interesting character, immersed in the climate and events of India’s independence struggles and the years of decolonisation and the Cold War. In Panikkar, the intense and multifaceted political action was in fact accompanied by a constant work of reflection and elaboration, giving rise to a remarkable character that sheds different light on many aspects of the tormented development of contemporary India during the twentieth century. He operated in very different environments: belonging to an influential caste in a small town in southern India—a provenance that always remained a key element for him—he received a Western-style education. It was precisely during his studies at Oxford, however, that he approached the national movement and developed sympathy for the ‘Extremist’ wing, without renouncing his autonomous and original thinking. Back in India, Panikkar began his career in academia but soon, restless and eager for direct participation in political and social life, he decided to turn to journalism, joining the Congress and collaborating with the reform movements. At the same time, while keeping the issue of national unity in the foreground, he asserted the importance of India’s plurality of © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Elli and R. Paolini, Indian National Identity and Foreign Policy, Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36425-9_1

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languages, religions, local traditions and forms of government, and paid increasing attention to ‘regional’ and national historical studies. By this route, he came to the service of princely states, elaborating the idea of an all-India federation and working towards its implementation. From the late 1930s, as he witnessed the failure of this project, the spread of organised political activity and democratisation drives in the native states, Panikkar began to lose confidence in the princes’ ability to cope with the general transformations now underway. He therefore concentrated on the necessary reforms in Bikaner, where he became Prime Minister, and at the same time he took an interest in international life and geopolitics. From 1947, Panikkar entered the service of the new government of independent India as ambassador first to China and then Egypt and France. Between these last two assignments, he was a member of the States’ Reorganisation Commission, the body charged with reconsidering the balance between the different components of the Indian Union. At the end of his life—in a period that he described in his autobiography as vanaprastha, i.e. preparation for renouncing the world of Hindu tradition—he retired from active politics and returned to academia. He was thus vice-chancellor of the universities of Kashmir and Mysore and devoted himself to a revision of many of his earlier studies, focusing on what increasingly seemed to him to be the essential themes: the history of India understood as the history of a civilisation and the theme of relations among different civilisations in the historical perspective. A figure, therefore, fascinating and full of interest. Yet, the richness of the character has so far received only marginal attention in the literature. From a biographical point of view, there are no comprehensive works on Panikkar that are based on a comparative critical analysis of the available sources. Some biographies have certainly been published, but these are limited to almost exclusively taking up the information in Panikkar’s own autobiography, published in Malayalam, his mother tongue, in 1962 and then translated into English in 1977.1

1 K.M. Panikkar, An Autobiography, translated from the Malayalam into English by

K. Krishnamurthy, (Madras: Oxford University Press, 1977). Examples of this kind of biographies are Konniyoor R. Narendranath, Sardar Panikkar. His Life and Times (New Delhi: Publication Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, 1998) and J. Chaturvedy, ‘K.M. Panikkar 1984–1963’, in: Ramesh Chandra Sharma ed., Historiography and Historians in India Since Independence (Agra: M. G. Publishers, 1991), 114–43.

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His work as a historian is the aspect that has been most neglected: the only two attempts to comprehensively analyse his work are a short article by Barun De published in Bengal Past and Present after Panikkar’s death and a paper by Tarasankar Banerjee.2 The former essentially lists Panikkar’s various themes, presenting him as an eclectic historian with multiple interests who was committed to defending an ‘Asian’ perspective that overcame regionalism, but still bound by a complex and problematic relationship with the West. Banerjee’s work is more in-depth. Reviewing Panikkar’s major themes as a historian, Banerjee argues that although he has been involved in various activities from time to time, he remains essentially a scholar. Here, too, the great variety of interests and the difficulty of placing and classifying his thought is emphasised: Panikkar would be identifiable neither with historians of the colonialist tradition, nor with nationalists, nor with socialists. His political position would remain elusive, being neither completely progressive nor conservative. The main limitation from a methodological point of view of this work consists in considering Panikkar’s themes of reflection by analysing them as separate chapters and without linking them to either Indian political events or to the author’s personal ones. The historiography seems to confirm this impression of one-sidedness: the different interests lead to separate chapters and the character remains too distant from the context of contemporary India. What is more, there has been a focus on a few episodes that have aroused lively controversy, such as the Tibet issue, but this has contributed to diverting attention from other important reasons and to losing the overall vision. The two most significant examples are the book Asia and Western Dominance, as far as his historical production is concerned, and his work as ambassador to China as far as his political activity is concerned. Both topics aroused bitter controversy in the years immediately following and continued to monopolise interest thereafter. Asia and Western Dominance. A Survey of Vasco da Gama’s Epoch of Asian History, was the book that made the Indian historian famous, both in Europe and Asia. Translated into many European and Asian

2 Barun De, ‘Sardar K.M. Panikkar’, Bengal Past and Present, January–June 1964, 69– 74. Tarasankar Banerjee, Sardar K. M. Panikkar, the Profile of a Historian. A Study in Modern Indian Historiography, (Calcutta: Ratna Prakashan, 1977).

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languages, it was published in 1953 and went through several editions.3 The one published in Kuala Lumpur in 1993 by the publishing house The Other Press, in view of the 500th anniversary of Vasco Da Gama’s voyage, contains a new introduction to the book in which Claude Alvares and Teotonio de Souza argue the relevance of this work in the context of a general rethinking of relations between Europe and Asia. The 500th anniversary of Vasco Da Gama’s voyage is compared to that of Christopher Columbus, whose celebrations were contested by the native American peoples. Instead, the Indian historian is presented here as a defender of the Asian vision in opposition to Western historiography.4 This work, indeed, has the distinction of being an attempt by an Asian historian to rewrite the history of relations between Asia and Europe from an Asian point of view. One tends, however, to overlook how Panikkar simultaneously attributed an important role in the development of modernity in Asia to its encounter with Europe. However, it was primarily some specific polemical elements that attracted attention and gave visibility to the text: the author’s dislike for the proselytising action of Christian missions in Asia and, conversely, his extremely positive assessment of Russian policy on the continent received heavy criticism. Panikkar was simultaneously accused of being a Hindu extremist and a pro-Soviet communist. His political action, likewise, is best known for one event: he was the first ambassador to China appointed by the Indian government after independence—between 1948 and 1952—during a period that saw the country switch from nationalist to communist rule. Panikkar was accused of having had a negative influence on Indian foreign policy, conveying an overly favourable image of the People’s Republic to Nehru and thus leading him to an overly conciliatory attitude towards it. He was said to have been excessively compliant towards the Chinese, especially with regard to the renunciation of India’s military and commercial presence in Tibet. The British government in India had in fact recognised—also in an anti-Russian function—the Chinese authority over Tibet, but had 3 K.M. Panikkar, Asia and Western Dominance. A Survey of the Vasco da Gama Epoch of Asian History, 1498–1945 (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1953). The last of many reprints in the eBook age is by LG Publishers Distributors, New Delhi, in 2021. 4 Panikkar, Asia and Western Dominance (Kuala Lumpur: The Other Press, 1993), v–xiv.

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obtained certain military and commercial privileges directly from the government in Lhasa. After the Chinese revolution, independent India renounced the rights it had inherited from the British Raj, with an agreement strongly advocated by Panikkar. India’s real interests were thus supposedly sacrificed in the name of a policy of friendship based only on abstract principles. More recently, however, certain themes in Indian history have attracted new attention and, as a result, certain aspects of Panikkar’s work that had remained in the shadows have also been rediscovered. One important example concerns the historical reappraisal of the figures of some of the Indian princes under the domination of the British Empire. Princes, including the rulers of the largest and most autonomous states, had traditionally been regarded by historiography as mere executors of the will of the British government. A closer analysis of the political affairs of the princely states has shown instead that they enjoyed important margins of autonomy and had the capacity to defend their positions even in opposition to British interests.5 In this way, the actions of some of their ministers have also been reevaluated: according to recent historiography, they played an important role in bringing a broader view and awareness of developments within and outside India into the politics of these states. In addition to the reappraisal of the degree of political autonomy of the princes and their ministers, research has mainly focused on the causes of the rapid and seemingly inevitable integration of the princely states after independence, on the question of the spread of communalism among the princes and among the populations of the states, and on the problem of the relationship between the princes and the national movement. These are all issues of great historical relevance on which the analysis of Panikkar’s experience sheds new light. In the context of this revision, therefore, Panikkar’s activity in the princely states has also been able to arouse renewed interest, but the studies on the subject have essentially continued to maintain a one-sided view of the character, simply adding a new field of enquiry but only

5 See the seminal studies by Ian Copland, The Princes of India in the End Game of Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) and Barbara Ramusack, The New Cambridge History of India, vol. III.6: The Indian Princes and Their States (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

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marginally studying the relationship between Panikkar’s action and his political, historical, juridical and theoretical reflection. This book therefore seeks to reconstruct Panikkar’s life and thought, considering the variety of his interests and occupations as a whole and integrating personal experiences, the influence of contemporary events, studies and intellectual activity. Some clarifications need to be made at this point. The purpose of this research is the study of a significant character because it is believed that, in this way, it might be possible to contribute to a better understanding of certain dynamics of great importance for the history of India in the first half of the twentieth century, and not only. This means that this will be a biography of Panikkar only to a certain extent, namely the intellectual and professional one. The emotions, the affections, the family, in short Panikkar’s intimate history, will remain in the background and will be properly considered insofar as it is functional for a better understanding of the intellectual and professional story. Secondly, an attempt has been made to proceed as closely as possible to the sources and to make manifest the difference between those interpretations or conclusions that find sufficient support in the documentary material from those with a high degree of probability, naturally concentrating on the former. This choice, besides being methodologically expedient, was made necessary by the quality and very nature of the documentary material examined. Panikkar, in fact, rarely quotes his own sources and, since much of his personal correspondence has been lost, this often makes it substantially impossible to make connections, except by analogy. For example, it is impossible not to notice the assonance of some of the arguments written in the inter-war years with the tradition of European democratic nationalism, from Giuseppe Mazzini to Tomáš Masaryk, whom Panikkar certainly knew. But in fact he does not quote them, and consequently an interpretation based on assumptions has been avoided. Thirdly, an effort was made to maintain a certain uniformity. In a nutshell, the extent of each chapter in relation to the text as a whole is not in proportion to the amount of documentation available on a certain topic or a certain phase of Panikkar’s life, but is functional to a nonunilateral interpretation of this rich experience and its relations to Indian and international political life. Finally, this book was given a chronological development. It would probably have been simpler to adopt a thematic argumentative structure,

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but two reasons worked against it—one of merit and one methodological—which we considered decisive. The reason of merit, or of expediency if one prefers, is that a thematic structure risked reproducing the onesidedness of the analyses mentioned above and thus seemed to contradict the purpose of this research. The methodological reason lies in the fact that, in analysing a historical development hinging on the life of a character, we felt we had to adopt his horizon from time to time, in short, avoiding giving any a posteriori reasons for concrete choices or changes in his thinking. This is not only to avoid the risk of teleologisms, but above all because in this way we could highlight the actual link between situations, facts and opinions in a perspective that connects continuity and differences. Thus Panikkar’s ‘biography’ articulates the decisive relationship between politics and historiography, between history and theory, between facts and ideas, between political experience and values. In order to reconstruct the figure of Panikkar, the book makes use of a multiplicity of sources, taking into account his copious production and at the same time making an extensive exploration of the unpublished documentation preserved in British and Indian archives. In various libraries in the United Kingdom and India, it was first of all possible to consult the books he published—around sixty—as well as many of his articles, which appeared in numerous newspapers and magazines that are not always easy to find. The British archives—that of the India Office at the British Library and the National Archives at Kew Gardens—also preserve various material, relating more or less directly to Panikkar, concerning the situation of Indian students in Britain, the negotiations with princely states for access to an all-India federation and Panikkar’s role during his diplomatic missions to China and Egypt. In Paris, documents concerning the History of Mankind project, in which Panikkar took part in the second half of the 1950s, are available in the UNESCO Archives. They also include his personal file. The bulk of the research work was necessarily carried out in India. In fact, Panikkar’s work involved various ministries and departments of the Indian government. In particular, at the National Archives in New Delhi, materials from the Home Department were consulted, documenting his activities during the period of the struggles for independence; the papers of the Ministry of States and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, both of which were entrusted for a number of years to Sardar Patel, with whom Panikkar was in contact, provided much information

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about him, especially regarding the integration of the princely states into independent India; the papers of the Ministry of External Affairs made it possible to follow the diplomat Panikkar and to better understand the criteria in the light of his theoretical reflections. The copies of the Crown Representative Papers, concerning the activities of the Viceroy and his offices, were very useful with regard to federal negotiations and also made it possible to closely follow the situation in some states, especially that of Bikaner where Panikkar was first Foreign Minister and then Prime Minister. The archives of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library in New Delhi hold the papers of the central bodies of the All-India Congress Committee and contain, among other things, correspondence between Panikkar and Nehru. Also available here are the papers of several other associations among which, in particular, those of the organisation of the subjects of the princely states, the All-India States’ People Conference. A collection containing Panikkar’s private papers is available in the Manuscript Section of the National Archives, but most of them have, unfortunately, been destroyed.6 Panikkar’s correspondence with Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi kept at the Gandhi Ashram in Sabarmati, Ahmedabad, and his correspondence with other members of the national movement at the Nehru Memorial were also accessed. The Nehru Memorial also offers a very rich collection of newspapers and magazines. Others were consulted at the Newspaper Section, National Library, Kolkata, India. At the Punjab State Archive in Patiala and the Rajasthan State Archive and Maharaja Ganga Singhji Trust Archive, both in Bikaner, there is material relating to the period Panikkar spent in the service of the Chamber of Princes and as a minister in these states. Finally, during several stays in Kerala, the testimonies of relatives were collected. The second chapter deals with the early formulation of a very peculiar form of Indian nationalism by Panikkar, in which the centrality of tradition is accompanied by the necessity of modernisation and, even more noteworthy, by the defence of internal diversity. As a student in Oxford, Panikkar came in touch with both Western culture and the ideas of the national movement which he adopted in a very personal 6 Most of Panikkar’s private papers were lost in a fire during a burglary at his house in New Delhi in 1960. R.K. Nair (K.M. Panikkar’s grandson) to Rita Paolini, 6 March 2008.

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way. His reflections emerged from several articles and his first published book dealing with a wide array of different topics: education and Indian migration; imperial relations and the cultural basis of British domination over India; the position of Indian princes and their states in the Indian nation. Following Panikkar’s return to India, the ideas of nation and national history which he had developed in Great Britain came to be tested through his active participation in the national movement. By 1926, Panikkar was back to Europe to study law. As a result of these hectic years, in 1927, he published Introduction to the Study of the Relations of the Indian States with the Government of India, which opened for him a new career in princely states. The third chapter shows how Panikkar, as Secretary to the Chamber of Princes and later as Foreign Minister of the Patiala State, was one of the protagonists in the talks on the proposed federation uniting British India and the princely states. His reflections on the federative model and his direct participation in the negotiations acted both as a stimulus for renewed intellectual concerns and as the base for a fresh look at the connection between unity and diversity in Indian history, culture and society. The years including the Second World War, however, represented a watershed. While still serving as minister in a princely state, Panikkar considered the federal perspective as increasingly doomed and Indian independence growing nearer. Accordingly, he changed his priorities. The immediate challenge became the reform of the constitutions and administration of princely states in order to shorten the distance between princes and the national movement. The fourth chapter shows Panikkar’s growing interest for geopolitics and the future of India’s international position. These new concerns, together with the crucial experience of Partition, modified Panikkar’s view of the problem of Indian unity. During his participation in the Constituent Assembly, he was prominent for insisting on the need for a strict control from the centre on the states of the Indian Union. Meanwhile, India was taking its first steps in the foreign policy arena, beginning with the 1947 Asian Relations Conference. In this context, Panikkar played a crucial role by serving as Indian ambassador to China over the period 1948–1952. The chapter investigates the impact of the Chinese revolution and the issue of diplomatic recognition of the PRC, focusing on Pannikar’s contribution to the definition of India’s early stance on China.

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The fifth chapter dwells on the climax of Panikkar’s influence as a diplomat and, more broadly, as a politician. From his post in Beijing, he contributed to the elaboration of Nehru’s non-alignment—which was then being put into practice. His activity was widely criticised and engendered an intense debate on Indian relations with the new Communist government, its policy towards Tibet, the unsolved issue of Sino-Indian Himalayan borders and New Delhi’s mediation in the Korean War. The perception that the Chinese revolution had finally put to an end the era of Western imperialism in Asia stimulated Panikkar in writing likely the most famous of his books, i.e. Asia and Western Dominance, published soon after his return from China. The sixth chapter investigates the final decade of Panikkar’s life. This was a period of intense intellectual revision, in the context of growing concerns for Indian unity and foreign relations troubles leading up to the Sino-Indian war of 1962. He served as Indian ambassador to Egypt and France, participated in the UNESCO project History of Mankind, was a member of the States Reorganisation Commission; finally, upon returning to India, he became vice-chancellor of Kashmir University and later Mysore University. All in all, by the end of the 1950s Panikkar had comprehensively receded from political life to turn back to academia. In the process, he developed his interest for Indian history as the history of a civilisation in a wider global history of civilisations. This continuing interest afforded him new conceptual tools to tackle issues like Sino-Indian relations or Asia’s encounter with the West in the era of decolonisation. ∗ ∗ ∗ The authors would like to express their gratitude to several people who, in different ways and at different times, have played a special role in the writing of this book: Alfredo Canavero, Sucheta Mahajan, R. Krishnan Nair, Effi Pedaliu, Nicola Resnati, Daniela Saresella, Michelguglielmo Torri, Antonio Varsori and Brunello Vigezzi (1930–2022). For the purposes of research evaluation mechanisms and selection procedures in the Italian university system, Mauro Elli is the author of Chapters 4, 5 and 6; Rita Paolini has penned the introduction, Chapters 2 and 3 as well as Chapter 7.

CHAPTER 2

Pursuing the Idea of India

2.1

Traditional Family Life in Kerala

Kavalam is a small village in the Alappuzha district1 of the Kerala region in south-western India. It is located alongside a branch of the sluggish Pampa River, in an area rich in water—swamps, paddy fields and canals that served both agriculture and navigation, since the first road was only built in 1987. The present-day state of Kerala, comprising the Malayalam-speaking territories, was divided in colonial times into three parts: the British Malabar, under direct British rule and included in the province of Madras, and the two princely states of Cochin and Travancore. Kavalam was in the latter state, linked to the British by a subordinate alliance treaty and ruled, in the late nineteenth century, by Maharaja Sri Mulam Tirunal (1885– 1924). Kavalam Madhava Panikkar was born here in 1894 in a house known as ‘Chalayil’. His family, quite prominent among the 100–150 or so nuclei that made up the village at the time, belonged to the nair caste.2 This is a difficult group to place in the theory of varna, the four major 1 Alleppey during the British rule. 2 K.M. Panikkar, ‘Some Aspects of Nayar Life’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological

Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 48: 1918, 254–93.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Elli and R. Paolini, Indian National Identity and Foreign Policy, Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36425-9_2

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groupings of the Indian caste system according to occupation or social function: the brahmans —religious or intellectual figures; the kshatriyas — warriors or rulers; the vaishyas —engaged in commerce or professions; the shudras —peasants or workers.3 The caste system of the region was peculiar and particularly rigid. The theory that contacts with an individual from a lower caste could contaminate those with a higher degree of ‘ritual purity’ was here taken to extremes. In fact, contamination could be transmitted even from a distance and strict rules of behaviour dictated how distant members of lower castes had to keep from those belonging to higher ones. The brahmans of Kerala, the nambudiri, could boast the highest hierarchical status but their numbers were limited. The second varna was represented by only a few thousand kshatriyas. Altogether, these ritually purer castes constituted just 1% of the population. Social and economic pre-eminence was thus de facto in the hands of the nairs, although they were generally considered to belong to the fourth varna, the shudra.4 In 1875, according to the first census conducted in the state of Travancore, the nairs accounted for 19% of the total population and were the largest landowners in most villages. Robin Jeffrey, a historian who worked on Kerala and Travancore in particular between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, argues that, although by the mid-nineteenth century the nairs had lost their role as a military aristocracy and their warrior traditions, they essentially still enjoyed the position of the dominant caste in Travancore society, due to their high status, control over much of the land and the largest number of positions in the state bureaucracy, among local groups.5

3 On varna in Induism, see Christophe Jaffrelot, ‘The Politics of Castes’, in Neil DeVotta (ed.), Understanding Contemporary India, (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2021), 249–67 and Brian Smith, Classifying the Universe. The Ancient Indian Varna System and the Origins of Caste, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994). 4 According to Anil Seal nairs claimed kshatriya status for themselves: Anil Seal, The Emergence of Indian Nationalism, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), 95–7, 109. According to Panikkar, it was improper considering nairs as kshatriya, though they represented de facto a feudal aristocracy of a kind: Panikkar, ‘Some Aspects of Nayar Life’, 255. 5 Robin Jeffrey, ‘Travancore. Status, Class and the Growth of Radical Politics, 1860– 1940. The Temple-Entry Movement’, in Robin Jeffrey (ed.), People, Princes and Paramount Power: Society and Politics in the Indian Princely States, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), 136–69.

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At the end of the nineteenth century, the social structure of the nairs continued to follow their matrilineal organisation (marumakkatayam). Several families with a common ancestry in the female line lived in a common house (taravad) under the leadership of the eldest man (karanavan). The property of the taravad was common and indivisible and the earnings of each would accrue to the family of origin. Furthermore, the nair society was matri-local: even after marriage, a man did not take his wife to live with him. Women continued to be part of the taravad of origin and men continued to live with their sisters, except for the right to ‘visit’ their wife in her home. They also had no rights over their children who were considered to belong to their mother’s taravad. The peculiar matrilineal organisation had made it possible, on the one hand, not to disperse resources and avoid the fragmentation of property and, on the other, to form a sort of alliance with the nambudiri and kshatriya who, for similar reasons, only allowed their first-born sons to marry women of the same caste. In this way, the other sons were forced to marry nair women, of lower status, but, thanks to their social system, they did not have to pass on inheritance to the children born of such unions who remained, however, in the taravad of the mother and were considered nair to all intents and purposes.6 Panikkar was born into a rather wealthy and locally important taravad. His grandmother, Kunji Pilla Gouri, had settled in Chalayil in 1832, leaving the village of Valady and founding a new branch of the family. The origin could only be feminine but, together with Kunji Pilla Gouri, her then 16-year-old cousin, Eravi Kesava Panikkar,7 also settled in Chalayil, a kind of brother in the nair family system since their mothers were sisters.8 Kunji Pilla Gouri and his ‘brother’ Eravi Kesava Panikkar were sent to Kavalam because the family properties in this village were not well administered. The ties with the village and the family of origin were, however, also maintained on an economic level and were expressed, on a religious and ritual level, by the worship of the same deity, Valadykootumma Devi,

6 Robin Jeffrey, The Decline of Nair Dominance, Society and Politics in Travancore, 1847 –1908 (New Delhi: Manohar Publishers, 1994), xviii. 7 Panikkar, An Autobiography, 1. 8 Panikkar, ‘Some Aspects of Nayar Life’.

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and by the fact that women from Chalayil continued to go to Valady to give birth.9 The Chalayil house was designed in the traditional way, described by Panikkar as follows: In the house itself only females live, while the male members of the family occupy rooms set apart for them, or, if they are rich, live in houses in neighbouring compounds. The Nayar house has always a large piece of enclosed ground in front of it, which is called Muttam. Often it is used as an ornamental garden, and no man of the lower caste may enter it. There the children walk about and play in daytime, and the women have their dance and general merriment in the evening. Behind the house is a vegetable garden and a bathing tank, which is reserved exclusively for women. The dominant idea in the arrangement of the house is the proper separation of sexes in the family.10

Even today, Chalayil comprises two main buildings: a low, one-storey, horseshoe-shaped building where the women of the family with their children stayed and a second, two-storey building for the men. Multi-storey buildings were an exception in the architecture of the area because the marshy terrain made their construction very difficult. It was therefore a testimony to the wealth and prestige of the family. Eravi Kesava Panikkar, as karanavan—the eldest man in the family and the repository of authority over its members—dedicated himself to improving rice production on the Chalayil lands and took part in the reclamation of the Vembanad lake. These were pioneering works. In particular, the diversion of the course of a river at Chennamkary, with indigenous materials and labour, was considered a technical marvel and a remarkable example of entrepreneurial innovation.11 When Panikkar was a child, it was still Eravi Kesava Panikkar who managed the family affairs. He described him in his autobiography as an authoritarian man, feared by all, an expression of a time when the karanavan’s power over the family was still supreme and undisputed.12

9 P.V. Panikkar, The Family Tree of Chalayil, (unpublished). 10 Panikkar, ‘Some Aspects of Nayar Life’, 260. 11 See Velu Ramon Pillai and Puthenveetil Govinda Kerala Panikkar, Land Reclamation in Kerala, (Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1965), 16–7. 12 Panikkar, An Autobiography, 2.

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Kunji Pilla Gouri had four children: Panikkar’s three uncles and his mother, Kochu Kunji Amma, who in turn had two sons and a daughter. Panikkar recalled: My grandmother practically brought me up until I was old enough for school. She was the children’s favourite, and by nature gentle, affectionate, fond of children and a devout Hindu. By contrast my mother, who ran the household, was of an imperious disposition and even grandmother was a little awed by her. I was even more so.13

Even today, Kochu Kunji Amma is remembered for her energetic management of family life and cattle breeding for milk, butter and curd production, which she organised personally. Panikkar’s father, Parameswara Namoothiri, was a Brahmin who came from another village and arrived in Kavalam to take charge of worship at the Palliyarakkavu temple. When he was in Chalayil, special precautions had to be taken so that his status, superior to that of the nairs, would not be contaminated.14 Panikkar describes him in his autobiography as a devout and conscientious man, very attached to his children. Despite this, in a nair family it was the maternal uncles who were the most important figures who established discipline and took care of the children’s education.15 At the age of four, Panikkar began his education, learning the rudiments of the Malayalam alphabet at home. The first school he attended, in 1899, was the one in his village, where, by tradition, a family member taught male and female children of all castes—nair, Christian, ezhava avarna. The curriculum embraced writing on sand, reading whole sentences, learning the story of Sri Krishna and arithmetic. The first thing I learnt was to write on a palm-leaf with a stylus. We had to transcribe Sri Krishna Charitam stanza by stanza on palm-leaf and learn each by rote. In the first year I managed to complete two cantos and learned to write on palm-leaf.16

13 Ivi, 3. 14 R.K. Nair, (K.M. Panikkar’s grandson) to Rita Paolini, 31 May 2008. 15 Panikkar, ‘Some Aspects of Nayar Life’, 262–3. 16 Panikkar, An Autobiography, 3.

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After Panikkar had attended the village school for a year, his grandmother decided that the education he had received in this way was inadequate and asked his uncle, Ayyappa Panikkar, to teach him arithmetic and how to write on paper. Little inclined to these exercises, he showed more interest in Malayalam literature and evening readings of Ramayana and Bhagavatam Gita.17 Panikkar was, therefore, born into a territory, a caste and a family strongly marked by deep-rooted traditions, customs and beliefs. At the same time, however, the social and economic situation had entered a phase of change, the effects of which could now also be felt in Kavalam.

2.2 Innovation through Tradition: The Challenge of Western Education At the end of the nineteenth century, Travancore was a state that was rapidly opening up to novelties. This renewal implied new possibilities for those groups and families who were ready to seize them, but also new challenges and the danger of falling behind in the race towards modernity. Traditionally conservative (the local rulers considered themselves gods on earth and guarantors of Hindu orthodoxy), by the 1850s, the state was beginning to be frowned upon by the British for its backward administration and corruption, even going so far as to speak of the danger of annexation to British India. But in 1860, a young Maharaja, Ayilyam Tirunal, with a Western-style education, came to the throne, and together with his Dewan, T. Madhava Rao, set about modernising the state.18 An increasingly centralised administration and a system of examinations for posts in the civil service were introduced; a vast network of schools was created; some trade monopolies (pepper and tobacco) were abolished and customs barriers were broken down; the ownership of state land was ceded, in many cases, to the farmers who worked it; land became alienable; roads were built where they did not exist at all. The region’s economy went through a phase of radical change with the rise

17 Ivi, 4. 18 A. Sreedhara Menon, A Survey of Kerala History, (Kottayam: DC Books, 2007),

270–2; Ramusack, The Indian Princes and Their States, 174–5. See also Caroline Keen, Princely India and the British, (London: Tauris, 2012), 161–6.

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of international trade and plantations producing exotic products (pepper, cardamom, coffee) for export.19 In this situation, new opportunities opened up for those who were able to seize them. Initially, it was mainly Brahmans of non-Malayali origin who sought Western education and who were used in the public administration, but soon the nairs also realised its importance—followed in turn by the local Syrian Christian community. On the other hand, such transformations injected instability into traditional society. Panikkar himself recounted an episode from his childhood that testified to the tensions between the different communities, the changing balance, first economic and then also social, and the attempt by the nairs to maintain their position of pre-eminence and prestige: A gentleman, when coming from Madras, had a Christian friend with him, and his servant who waited for him at Alleppey was eating his food when both of them entered the boat. It is a very rigid custom that no food can be taken in the company, or even in the proximity of any lower caste, and Christians are considered to be such. The result of it was that when they got home the news got abroad that the Nayar servant had eaten with a Christian in the boat, and the whole village was in a state of terrible fury. It was only with great trouble that they were persuaded not to excommunicate the poor man.20

For the nair society, a member of the caste, even if impoverished, had to maintain his purity because a lack of attention to ritual aspects would also compromise social as well as economic status. In this situation of increased mobility, taking advantage of Western education was, for the nairs, simultaneously an opportunity to improve their position and a defence of their status against the rise of other groups. On the other hand, however, the new education system, together with the competition with other castes, was also having important effects on the internal balances within the nair society itself, which were starting to be strongly felt in the late nineteenth century. First of all, the new schools were expensive and not all boys could attend them. This led to bitter clashes within the taravad over who should be sent to the ‘English’ schools and who should pay the school 19 Jeffrey, The Decline of Nair Dominance, 63–4. 20 Panikkar, ‘Some Aspects of Nayar Life’, 259–60.

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fees: the boy’s father or his taravad. Moreover, the change in customs and contact with the outside world could challenge the extended family itself, the forms of collective property and matrilineal society. Western-style schools advocated the values of individualism and resourcefulness typical of nineteenth-century English culture. Books such as Easy Lessons on Money Matters 21 and Self Help 22 could lead young nairs to question their own social and family institutions, where all economic resources were managed by the karanavan and where even what a man earned would be passed on as an inheritance to his sisters’ children.23 The young nairs also came into contact with open criticism of the forms and modalities of marriage unions. This prompted some of them to argue in favour of a Western-style model of the nuclear and patrilineal family and to condemn matrilineality as a possible source of immorality, taking on board the criticism of Christian missionaries.24 The change of customs among the Western-educated sectors of the nair caste preceded legal development, but in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, legislation also began to adapt to the new ideas. The first attempt to regulate nair marriages in British India was the Malabar Marriage Act of 1896, with negligible results.25 In 1899, the Travancore Wills Act allowed men to divide their inheritance in half between their taravad, on the one hand, and their wife and children, on the other. In the event of failure to express this will, however, the inheritance would continue to belong to the taravad. It was only the law promulgated by the Travancore State Legislative Assembly in 1912

21 Richard Whateley, Easy Lessons on Money Matters: For the Use of Young People, (London: John Parker, 1837). 22 Samuel Smiles, Self-Help; With Illustrations of Character, Conduct, and Perseverance, (London: John Murray, 1866). 23 Jeffrey, The Decline of Nair Dominance, 135–6. See also Aya Ikegame, Princely India Re-imagined, (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013), 53–70. 24 G. Arunima, There Comes Papa. Colonialism and the Transformation of Matriliny in Kerala, Malabar (1850–1940), (Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 2003), 106–95. 25 Charles Heimsath, ‘The Functions of Hindu Social Reformers—With Special Reference to Kerala’, Indian Economic and Social History Review, 15: 1, 1978, 21–39.

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that would regulate traditional marriages, declare polyandry illegal and impose the division of inheritance in equal parts.26 More and more taravads, meanwhile, had begun to divide common property between the various branches of the families, even in the absence of specific legislation in this regard. In Panikkar’s family, the first divisions took place in 1909, while other branches separated definitively from Chalayil’s in 1921.27 The division of property, contrary to what often happened, was concluded peacefully, which Panikkar attributed to the caution and skill of the karanavan.28 The society of Kerala, and of Travancore in particular, at the end of the nineteenth century was therefore in turmoil. The crisis of the matrilineal system and the division of property, combined with pressure from rising social groups, threatened to undermine the pre-eminence of the nairs. Alternative opportunities were available in administration, bureaucracy, trade and new professions, for which, however, a Western education in English was indispensable. This was the aspect of change that most closely affected Panikkar’s experience. The turmoil in Travancore society meant, for his as for other nair families, that in order to take advantage of new opportunities and, in a sense, not to be left behind, young people had to ‘be pushed out’ to acquire those skills that could enable the family itself to continue to prosper. The karanavan, Eravi Kesava Panikkar, had begun to realise the importance of an ‘English’ education. The first to be sent to ‘college’ was an uncle of Panikkar’s, Govinda Panikkar, a graduate of Maharaja College in Travancore.29 While Govinda Panikkar was at college in Trivandrum, his nephew, Panikkar’s elder brother, also joined him to attend high school. Panikkar himself, at the age of seven, was sent by the karanavan to Trivandrum to begin his ‘English’ education at the school attached to Maharaja’s College.30 26 Praveena Kodoth, ‘Courting Legitimacy or Delegitimizing Custom? Sexuality, Sambandham, and Marriage Reform in Late Nineteenth-Century Malabar’, Modern Asian Studies, 35: 2, 2001, 349–84. 27 Panikkar, The Family Tree of Chalayil, 7. 28 Panikkar, An Autobiography, 26. 29 See T.K. Velu Pillai, The Travancore State Manual, vol. II: History, (Trivandrum:

Government of Travancore, 1940), 605–7. 30 Panikkar, The Family Tree of Chalayil, 8–9.

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It was precisely the contact with a much wider world, however, that could challenge the permanence of even established habits. The boat trip to Trivandrum represented, for the young Panikkar, just that: the transition from the isolated village life and its strongly felt, traditional culture to a much wider world. The journey took place in the family’s kettuvallam, a typical boat covered in wood and coconut fibres, although even then steamships connected Alleppey and Trivandrum in one day. The journey by kettuvallam took, by contrast, three or four days, but the boat was equipped with everything necessary for cooking, eating and sleeping. With a minimal knowledge of English—the alphabet had been taught to him at home by his uncle Govinda in a fortnight—Panikkar began his ‘Western’ education, which he continued without distinction, in Trivandrum, up to class five.31 Despite the strict control of the family, the house in Trivandrum was a lively environment, frequented by Govinda Panikkar’s various friends, enthusiasts of Malayalam literature, whom the young Panikkar challenged in poetry competitions, or interested in Indian political life, who brought the first news about nationalists such as Surendranath Banerji, Pherozeshah Mehta and Gokhale.32 However, his subsequent schooling also proved to be inadequate: numerous transfers, a tendency to distraction and difficulties with the sciences led Panikkar to fail the college entrance examination both in Kottayam and Travancore. He fell ill and was taken back to Kavalam, losing another school year and, due to his sense of failure and the humiliation of being judged by his family as ‘unsuitable for further education’, he attempted suicide by drinking chloroform. The path that led him from giving up his studies and attempting suicide to Oxford was mainly due to the insistence of his brother, by then already in Edinburgh to study medicine. In fact, once Panikkar had finally passed the examination in Vepery, Madras, his brother took it upon himself to apply for admission to Christ College for him. Once again, it was an internal family debate that decided the young Panikkar’s fate.33

31 Panikkar, An Autobiography, 4–9. 32 Interview with Kavalam Narayana Panikkar, (K.M. Panikkar’s nephew), 10 April

2008. 33 Panikkar, An Autobiography, 13–4.

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The ‘English’ education was thus for Panikkar the first means of contact with the West and it paved the way for him to a wider world that offered many new opportunities and insights, but in which the way of life and traditions of the Kerala nairs could appear strange and incomprehensible. The peculiarity of this opening is that it began through, and with respect for, the institutions of tradition and it did not undermine Panikkar’s deep connection with his own culture of origin. Thus, for example, even his mastery of Western social sciences, acquired during his four years at Oxford, was used to defend the nair traditions under attack: the instability of conjugal bonds became an indication of superior gender equality; the extended family, an efficient instrument of original accumulation; the accusation of polyandry, a simple misunderstanding resulting from Western ignorance.34 Finally, during these years, Panikkar developed an interest in Malayalam-language literary production, which he never abandoned in the course of his life. This ambivalence was to be decisive for Panikkar’s adherence to the Indian national movement and the elaboration of an original formulation of the idea of India.

2.3

The Oxford Years (1914–1918)

In May 1914, Panikkar arrived in Britain and he was admitted, somewhat unexpectedly, to Christ Church College in Oxford.35 The impact was undoubtedly not easy. The young man did not come from a family where English was a commonly used language and he had not previously obtained a degree from an Indian university (as many students used to do before moving to England). Above all, in his autobiography, Panikkar recalls the strong sense of inadequacy for his own cultural background that he felt when hanging out with other Indian students.36 The young man sublimated his own wounded pride into a kind of challenge to prove his worth.37 It was, however, the general climate that was 34 Panikkar, ‘Some Aspects of Nayar Life’, 266–72, 289. 35 In general, see Richard Symonds, Oxford and Empire: The Last Lost Cause? (Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 1986) and Shompa Lahiri, Indians in Britain: Anglo-Indian Encounters, Race and Identity, 1880–1930, (London: Frank Cass, 2000). 36 Panikkar, An Autobiography, 16. 37 K.M. Panikkar, ‘What Life Has Taught Me’, Bharatya Vidya Bhavan’s Journal, 5

January 1964, 16.

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unfavourable. It was a climate of mutual suspicion between the Indian students and the British authorities. Those who were politically active, once at Oxford or Cambridge, organised themselves into nationalist associations, such as the Indian Majlis, in which they often radicalised, calling for full independence for their country.38 Even before the war, therefore, the government in London was already keeping an eye on the situation. In 1912, the India Office set up an Indian Students Department and, the following year, it appointed Local Advisers to Indian Students in Oxford and other universities. Officially tasked with assisting the latter, they were in fact seen by these very students as guardians forced upon them to keep under control their political views.39 According to an investigation carried out in 1921 by an ad hoc committee chaired by the Under Secretary of State for India, Victor Bulwer-Lytton, the creation of the Indian Students Department had exacerbated the already existing tension, with Indian students being discriminated against by academic institutions.40 The war had further worsened the situation and Scotland Yard began to keep tabs on those students suspected of disloyalty to the empire and of having pro-German sympathies. Panikkar, too, was in all probability under surveillance: in fact, although Scotland Yard’s reports were later destroyed, news of his activities at Oxford can be found in the archives of the Madras Police and of the India Office.41 Panikkar had probably not been exposed to strong influences of nationalist thought until then, but in that context, he began to follow the developments taking place in the political debate with interest. The nationalist camp was then divided into two opposing currents: that of the Moderates and that of the Extremists. The latter, led by Bal Gangadhar Tilak, were opposed to the methods used up to that point by the Congress

38 See Mahommedali Currim Changla, Roses in December, (Bombay: Bharatya Vidya Bhavan, 1978), 34. 39 Lahiri, Indians in Britain. 40 Report of the Committee on Indian Students 1921–22 (London: HMSO, 1922). 41 ‘Antecedents of Mr. Panikar’, R/1/1/1714, India Office Records (hereafter IOR).

‘Extract from the Madras Classified List of Political suspects &c., 1923’, L/PJ/12/264, IOR. ‘Indian students and societies at Oxford and Cambridge: Scotland Yard. Reports on individuals and conferences. Feb. 1936–Apr. 1946. Earlier files destroyed’, L/PJ/12/4, IOR. See also Symonds, Oxford and Empire, 259.

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nationalists, who merely demanded political concessions through petitions. The Extremists considered self-government a right of the Indians and were tempted to use unconstitutional and sometimes violent means. In 1907, following a bitter clash, they had been expelled from the Congress and Tilak had been arrested. The war years were, on the contrary, characterised by the arduous search for a new unity between the various souls of the national movement and by the radicalisation of the clash with the colonial authorities. Once released in 1914, Tilak and the Congress reconciled while Annie Besant, Secretary of the Theosophical Society, joined the organisation with the aim of uniting the Extremists and the Moderates.42 Initially, the moderate leadership opposed the return of the Extremists. Two Home Rule Leagues were then launched by Tilak and Annie Besant, independently of the Congress itself, with the aim of spreading the idea of self-government among the Indians through rallies, books and articles.43 With the death of moderate leaders Gokhale and Pherozeshah Mehta in 1915, the biggest obstacle to the Extremists’ re-entry into the Congress was removed. The condition they set for their re-entry was that the Congress accept the objective of obtaining for India a status identical to that of the white dominions and not merely similar. Accepted at the Bombay session of 1915, the Tilak wing was allowed to re-enter. At the same time, the Muslim League also took up the objective of national government and created a committee that was to propose, in agreement with the Congress, the reforms to be demanded at the end of the war.44 In 1916, the Congress and the Muslim League reached an agreement on

42 Hugh Owen, ‘Mrs Annie Besant and the Rise of Political Activity in South India 1914–1919’, in Id. (ed.), The Indian Nationalist Movement, 1912–1922, (New Delhi: Sterling Publishers, 1990), 41–54. See also Raj Kumar, Annie Besant: Founder of Home Rule Movement, (Jaipur: Pointer Publishers, 2003) and Jyoti Chandra, Annie Besant: From Theosophy to Nationalism, (New Delhi: K.K. Publications, 2001). 43 Hugh Owen, ‘Towards Nation-Wide Agitation and Organisation; the Home Rule Leagues, 1915–1918’, in Id. (ed.), The Indian Nationalist Movement, 55–99. Michelguglielmo Torri, ‘Il nazionalismo come fenomeno di élite: Annie Besant ed il movimento per la “home rule” nella presidenza di Madras (1914–1917)’, in Id. (ed.), Regime coloniale, intellettuali e notabili in India. Politica e società nell’era del nazionalismo, (Milan: Franco Angeli, 1996), 109–83. 44 Jim Masselos, Indian Nationalism: An History, (New Delhi: Sterling Publishers, 1985).

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a common programme of reforms that were to be granted immediately as a first step towards self-government.45 In August 1917, the growing support for the Extremists and the activities of the Home Rule Leagues prompted the Secretary of State for India, Edwin Samuel Montagu to declare that the British government was in favour of Indian participation in the various branches of administration and the gradual establishment of self-government institutions.46 Panikkar’s experience had mostly been limited to Travancore and Malabar. Until then, he had not had much opportunity to get to know Indians from other parts of India and thus develop a sense of a common nationality. At Oxford, on the other hand, Panikkar’s desire to quickly fit into the university environment soon led him to participate in associational and political life. He thus began to take part in the activities of the Oxford Majlis, which he later described as a world animated by strong enthusiasm and ideas that had a profound impact on him.47 The young Indian student did not go unnoticed and also aroused profoundly different feelings. On the one hand, police reports mention that he openly expressed ‘seditious’ political views and that he was very unpopular among his fellow students.48 On the other hand, one of these, who came from a wealthy landowning family in Tamil Nadu, remembers him as an excellent student who had a wide circle of friendships.49 Within a short time, Panikkar quickly achieved a remarkable command of the English language. Only a year after his arrival at Oxford, in May 1915, Panikkar published his first article, which was followed by many others, mainly in nationalist publications such as The Indian Review published in Madras, The Modern Review published in Calcutta or The 45 Hugh Owen, ‘Negotiating the Lucknow Pact’, in Id. (ed.), The Indian Nationalist Movement, 100–48. 46 Michelguglielmo Torri, Storia dell’India, (Rome-Bari: Laterza, 2000), 519. See also Arvind Elangovan, ‘Constitutionalism, Political Exclusion, and Implications for Indian Constitutional History: The Case of Montagu Chelmsford Reforms (1919)’, South Asian History and Culture, 7: 3, 2016, 271–88 and Farzana Khan, Political Problems of British India with Special Reference to the Introduction of Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms, 1919– 1928, Ph.D. Dissertation, (Montreal: McGill University, 1979). 47 Panikkar, An Autobiography, 20. 48 ‘Antecedents of Mr. Panikar’, R/1/1/1714, IOR. ‘Extract from the Madras

Classified List of Political Suspects &c., 1923’, L/PJ/12/264, IOR. 49 Paramasiva Subbarayan, ‘A Tribute to Panikkar’, in B.J. Chacko (ed.), Sardar K.M. Panikkar. Shashtyabdapoorthy Souvenir, (Kozhikode: Mathrubhumi Press, 1954), 92–5.

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Commonweal, edited by Besant. Also in 1915, Panikkar won a prize that led to the publication of his first book, Introduction to the Study of the Problems of a Greater India.50 The text was reviewed in the Asiatic Review by Sir Roland Wilson,51 Secretary of the East India Association, who also asked Panikkar to participate with a paper in a session on the problem of education in India.52 His academic achievements were also remarkable. He deepened his study of European and Indian history, even having the opportunity to collaborate with Vincent Smith, one of the leading British orientalists of the time, on the revision of his History of India.53 In this environment and through these experiences, Panikkar developed many of the ideas and interests that were to accompany him. His approach to nationalism was largely the result of his time at Oxford, with its extraordinary wealth of insights and proximity to the Extremist current. From the pages of The Commonweal, Panikkar voiced his dissatisfaction with the purely constitutional methods followed by the Congress after the expulsion of the Extremists: The fundamental idea of the moderate political programme is admittedly the conversion of the British public to Indian interests. The Congress had proposed to do it by agitation at home and by deputations to England. It was hoped that the sympathetic attitude created by the War would make such a work easier. It was also asserted that the timely help that India has rendered to the cause of Britain will be recompensed by a grant of a greater measure of Self-Government and a recognition of the proper place of India in the Empire.54

The war had placed the question of nationalities at the centre of attention, but it had also dealt a mortal blow to the more open formulations of

50 K.M. Panikkar, An Introduction to the Study of the Problems of Greater-India, (Madras: Swaminathan, 1916). 51 Roland Wilson, ‘An Introduction to the Study of Problems of Greater India’, The Asiatic Review, 12: 1917, 66–70. 52 K.M. Panikkar, ‘Problems of National Education in India’, The Asiatic Review, 13– 14: 39, 1918, 289–306. See also ‘Discussion on Foregoing Paper’, ivi, 307–17. 53 Vincent Smith, Oxford History of India, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1920). 54 K.M. Panikkar, ‘India and the Imperial Cabinet’, The Commonweal, 13 August 1915,

120.

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nationalism, in favour of more chauvinistic and imperialist conceptions.55 Moreover, it was demonstrating the importance of the colonies to Britain. It would therefore have been completely out of place to expect London to provide some sort of ‘reward’ at the end of the conflict. On the contrary, the weaknesses revealed during the hostilities should have been exploited to achieve self-rule for India following the methods of the Extremists.56 The more strictly political dimension was essential in Panikkar’s nationalism. On the other hand, however, political issues were always linked and, in a sense, subordinate, to social and cultural issues: above all, the defence of an Indian cultural identity in areas where it seemed to be under threat. This led Panikkar to support even highly criticised institutions, beliefs and ways of life, claiming in some cases their goodness and in others denying the British the right to interfere. Panikkar’s origin from a region and caste that saw its way of life strongly threatened by the encroachment of Western models weighed on this ‘traditionalism’. However, it was also about customs that were unique in the Indian landscape. This made Panikkar’s nationalism simultaneously traditionalist and open-minded, with a wealth of nuances and exceptions enriched by the study of history. He argued for the importance of the roots of Indian culture and an immediate, full Home Rule along with the importance of modernisation and maintaining ties with the British Empire. His abhorrence of uniformity—understood as “death uniformity […] against the evolution of man”57 —led him to reject imperialism, but also to emphasise the need to respect the variety within the nation itself. Panikkar’s nationalism always left room for variety, for local experiences, for the coexistence of different languages, religions and ways of life, always possible in every nation. Another myth […] is that India is not a Nation in any sense but a conglomeration of many Nations. […] That an unmistakable unity exists between the variegated forms of Indian life is now almost a truism; that even in Nation-States there are different and sometimes hostile nationalities is a historical fact that cannot be disputed. The English, the Scotch, the Welsh

55 K.M. Panikkar, ‘European War and Nationality’, The Commonweal, 27 August 1915,

166. 56 K.M. Panikkar, ‘Some Economic Illusions’, The Commonweal, 1 October. 1915, 261–2. 57 Panikkar, ‘European War and Nationality’, 166.

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and the Irish that compose the people of the United Kingdom are hardly less different in race, manners and life than the Bengalis, Andhras Tamilians and Gujeratis are.58

2.4

Reflections on the Idea of Nation

The peculiar ambivalence of Panikkar’s nationalism is the thread that connects the main thematic cores and the most original contributions of the rich production of the war years. Significantly, the first article published by Panikkar in English dealt with the Hungarian patriot Luis Kossuth. This was an intellectual operation through which the focus on European history and the relevance of the question of oppressed nationalities allowed for a broader political significance to be given to the events of the Habsburg Empire. In fact, while never mentioning India, the article attributed to the situation in nineteenth-century Hungary many of the characteristics of the Indian political and social scenario at the beginning of the twentieth century, even at the risk of misrepresenting the historicity of the characters dealt with: in particular, the division between a faction of moderates ready to compromise with the rulers and one of extremists willing to use more radical methods to support their claims. Mirroring his own political sympathies, Panikkar’s admiration for Kossuth was thus that of a patriot to whom he attributed a generous and open-minded nationalism, which aimed to uplift an oppressed population without forgetting solidarity with other national movements, combined with the impatience of those unwilling to wait for concessions from above. If the Hungarian 1848 had failed, it had nevertheless started an unstoppable process that culminated in the Ausgleich of 1867.59 Panikkar’s first book, dedicated to the problem of Indian emigrants, also confirmed the breadth of his interests, which ranged from Europe to India and from Great Britain to the Empire and relations between dominions. In dealing with Indian emigration, economic and social considerations were a cue for a reflection on the loss of identity. Hence,

58 K.M. Panikkar, ‘The Illusions of Anglo-India. II: Historical and Geographical Myths’, The Commonweal, 12 January 1917, 27. 59 K.M. Panikkar, ‘Louis Kossuth and the Hungarian Revival’, The Indian Review, 16: 5, 1915, 387–9.

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the heated political polemic against the claim of Western superiority and the supposed ‘benefits’ received from contact with Europe: “The social effects of the attempts of the European powers to coerce the Asiatic into accepting their laws and customs have been uniformly disastrous”.60 The concern for the defence of identity led Panikkar to emphasise more the need for Indian society to maintain a relationship with the past and traditions than that of renewal. In this way, Panikkar seemed partly to come closer to organisations that propagated a more aggressive ideal of Hinduism, such as the Arya Samaj.61 At the same time, however, the other side of his nationalism also emerged, prompting him to differentiate himself from that association. If, in fact, the latter was proposed as a model for the reconversion of emigrants, he was, however, careful to emphasise that it was not a matter of converting those who had consciously chosen another religion, but only those who had turned away from Hinduism almost involuntarily, because the circumstances in which they lived had loosened their social ties.62 Panikkar’s traditionalism was also tempered by his emerging focus on the needs of development and modernisation. The loosening of social ties, for instance, was seen as a cause of degradation in Indian communities abroad, but, on the other hand, he emphasised how greater freedom also allowed the sons of emigrants, who were not obliged to follow their fathers’ profession, to improve their condition. Similarly, the defence of the traditional extended family went hand in hand with the demand for women’s access to education and greater unmediated contact with society.63 In this analysis, the social and cultural problems were linked to the political situation to the point of proposing direct action by the government of India to maintain cultural ‘Indianness’. The problem, however, was that the Indian government was not in a position to take such action because it was under the control of London and not the Indian public. 60 Panikkar, An Introduction to the Study of the Problems of Greater-India, 79. 61 John Zavos, ‘The Arya ¯ Sam¯aj and the Antecedents of Hindu Nationalism’, Interna-

tional Journal of Hindu Studies, 3: 1, 1999, 57–81 and Bettina Robotka, ‘Der Arya Samaj in der Entstehungsphase der nationale Befreiungsbewegung Indiens (1875 bis 1918)’, Asien Afrika Latinamerika, 15: 3, 1987, 445–54. 62 Ivi, 97. 63 K.M. Panikkar, ‘The Educational Problem of Indian Nationalism’, The Modern

Review, 23: 1, 1918, 7–17.

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India, thus, could not deal fairly with the dominions who, on the contrary, were totally independent in their internal policies. Ultimately, the cause of the subordination of Indian communities in the emigration countries laid in the subordination of India itself. The only real solution was Home Rule, albeit within the Empire, obtaining dominion status immediately.64 Closely connected to these reflections was the thematic core of national education. Influenced by the turmoil at the turn of the century, which had seen the foundation of universities and numerous educational institutions, some financed by princes such as the universities of Mysore and Hyderabad, others by private individuals, such as the Benares Hindu University or the Muslim Anglo-Oriental College, Panikkar identified the education system as a very important tool to combat social degradation in Indian communities abroad. According to Panikkar, lack of education in the colonies was due to the fact that the schools available were not suitable for the Indian community. The controversy affected two aspects of this system: missionary schools and the use of the English language. The missionary schools were described as the main cause of the spread of illiteracy among the children of foreign-born Indians. This was because, faced with the danger of Christian proselytism, Indians preferred not to send their children to school. With regard to language, Panikkar argued that an education in English was counterproductive: The purpose of education is primarily to understand social phenomena. Now education in a foreign language without a training in the language of one’s own land has entirely the contrary effect. […] It is most ridiculous for a man to say that an Indian child born thousand miles away from his motherland but still adhering to Hindu customs and manners should first begin to study “I am”. There is no “I am” in any Indian language. The English language has no educational value for us.65

An ‘English’ education would have brought young people into contact with Western thought, but it would also have prevented them from interpreting the very life of the culture they came from: tempted by ‘Europeanism’, young people would have been more inclined to defect from the Hindu tradition. 64 Panikkar, An Introduction to the Study of the Problems of Greater-India, 38. 65 Ivi, 86–7.

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Rejecting English, however, posed the problem of what the all-India language of communication could be. Panikkar sidestepped the issue, arguing that a process of rapprochement between the various Indian languages was underway in the emigrant communities and that this was giving rise to a kind of Hindustani enriched with Tamil terms. This new language, he believed, should be the medium in which to conduct teaching. The attack on English expanded, in Panikkar’s report for the East India Society, into a negative assessment of the effects of Western education on Indian society. Picking up on Macaulay’s famous Minute on Education, Panikkar noted that a system of education had been created in India that had broken with Indian culture and civilisation, ensuring the mere reproduction of clerical figures destined for the lower ranks of the bureaucracy.66 The attack on English was the most criticised point of Panikkar’s report. In several speeches, the orientalists in London claimed the importance of their culture and language in creating unity in India from the pre-existing ‘chaos’. Furthermore, culture and language were indispensable to the Indian ruling classes if they wanted to govern themselves.67 Panikkar categorically rejected these arguments. In India, there was a common and very ancient cultural base, essentially rooted in Hindu culture. The lack of political unity, therefore, should not obscure the historical existence of a geographically identified Indian civilisation. Other contributions, Muslim or Western, had been positive, but had not altered this fundamental core constituted by Hinduism.68 However, even with regard to this sensitive thematic core, the ambivalence of Panikkar’s nationalism made itself felt: the need to safeguard tradition could not be resolved in a mere return to the past. It was necessary to take into account the demands of modernisation and development, as well as the internal variety within the Indian nation itself. Thus, however lauded, experiments in national education such as the Gurukula school of the Arya Samaj or the Benares Hindu University lacked the dynamic element that would have made it possible not to perpetuate traditionally justified evils such as the caste system.69

66 Panikkar, ‘The Educational Problem of Indian Nationalism’, 87. 67 ‘Discussion on the Foregoing Paper’, 310. 68 Ivi, 316. 69 Panikkar, ‘The Educational Problem of Indian Nationalism’, 7, 11.

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It is, nonetheless, important not to overestimate these concessions to the need for reform. For example, while declaring himself in favour of women’s education, Panikkar also raised the problem that a new type of education for women could have the negative effect of undermining the existence of the traditional family and completely wipe out the differences between the sexes, whereas in Hinduism there was an ideal of woman who was equal to, but not the same as, man.70 The decisive moderating element, however, was Panikkar’s horror of uniformity. Even the future nationalist government had to avoid imposing uniformity in the education system in India. There could be no a priori preclusion towards any kind of education as long as it did not aspire to become hegemonic.71 The second thematic core is the more strictly political one (India’s position in the empire, Home Rule, the establishment of equal relations between India and the white dominions) dealt with mainly in the articles for The Commonweal. Just as in the thematic core of national education Panikkar linked the various cultural problems to the political situation, vice versa, here, he found social and cultural contexts, justifications and motives. For example, in response to the criticism of those who claimed that Indians were not ready for democracy, Panikkar replied that it was a political institution alien to Indian civilisation and not indispensable. India could govern itself even without necessarily becoming a democracy and Indians could be ‘citizens of the empire’ even without universal suffrage. The merits or disadvantages of a democratic system were not considered here. Panikkar was merely rejecting it as non-indigenous, reaffirming the idea of the irreducibility of Hindu civilisation with respect to the West.72 Similarly, again for socio-cultural reasons, Panikkar opposed the idea of a federation between India, Britain and the dominions, suggesting the Austro-Hungarian model of the dual monarchy to unite the federation of the dominions on the one hand and the Indian Empire on the other. Thus, while not completely severing India’s relationship with the

70 Ivi, 15. 71 Ivi, 16. 72 K.M. Panikkar, ‘The Claim of Imperial Citizenship’, The Commonweal, 15 September 1916, 205–6.

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British Empire, the former would safeguard its autonomy and enshrine its diversity.73 The question of autonomy and the related question of India’s supposed political immaturity was investigated more systematically in 1917 with a series of articles titled ‘The Illusions of Anglo-India’. These ‘illusions’ for Panikkar were, in reality, mere fabrications designed to justify British rule. He denied, in fact, that in an India endowed with self-government, administrative efficiency would be lost and in any case the latter was a meagre gain when compared to the loss of self-respect due to being ruled by a foreign bureaucracy.74 Panikkar also denied that India was a mere geographical expression, populated by heterogeneous nationalities and only unified by British conquest, thus destined to shatter again had London left it. The chaos of the eighteenth century was due to the crisis of the Mughal Empire, but India was already finding a new equilibrium of its own. Similarly, even without British control, India would not have been prey to constant caste clashes, going so far as to define caste as a great institution, albeit one that needed to be reformed.75 The fact that the British had brought the railways and the postal system did not mean that the Indians could not have built them themselves, as did the Japanese.76 Finally, Panikkar denied that the position of women was an indication of social backwardness, arguing that Europeans did not understand that their social structure was only one among many possible ones, and that the central position given to the family in Indian society implied a very different ideal of woman than the European ideal of individualistic freedom.77 For Panikkar, it was imperative that Indian nationalists first, in particular, the Moderate current, rid themselves of these ‘myths’ in order to 73 K.M. Panikkar, ‘Indian Home Rule and Imperial Federalism’, The Commonweal, 27 October 1916, 335. 74 K.M. Panikkar, ‘The Illusions of Anglo-India. I: The Cult of Efficiency’, The Commonweal, 5 January 1917, 3. 75 Panikkar, ‘The Illusions of Anglo-India. II’, 27. 76 K.M. Panikkar, ‘The Illusions of Anglo-India. III: Hypnotism and Hypothetics’, The

Commonweal, 19 January 1917, 42–3. 77 K.M. Panikkar, ‘The Illusions of Anglo-India. IV: Social Myths’, The Commonweal, 16 February 1917, 127–8.

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actually achieve self-government for India. Otherwise, the British could always justify their presence with the bogeyman of caste rivalry, hostility between Hindus and Muslims or even with the spectre of anarchy among the Indian princely states.

2.5

Back to India

Upon his return to India in December 1918, Panikkar went back to Kavalam and his family soon organised his marriage to a cousin, which had been arranged since their childhood. Having completed his studies, the problem now was to find an occupation that would put them to good use. The years between 1919 and 1927 were quite lively for Panikkar, who deepened his relations with the Indian National Congress, came closer to Gandhian ideas and participated in current events in various roles, in different contexts and places. Travelling from the north to the south of the country, from Kerala to Aligarh, from Madras to Amritsar to Delhi, he met the most important leaders and was able to observe from the inside and according to different points of view, the developments of this crucial moment. At Oxford, Panikkar had absorbed diverse influences and he had developed his interests in various directions, dealing with European and Indian affairs, Great Britain and its Empire, and political, social and cultural problems. His predominantly traditionalist nationalism was, however, tempered by a partial openness to modernisation and his visceral ‘horror of uniformity’. His peculiarity allowed him to address a topic that had been previously broached, but little frequented by the national movement: the role of princely states. He thus entered the intense political debate on the reforms steered by Edwin Montagu and Frederic Chelmsford, against the backdrop of renewed divisions within the Congress.78 As is well known, the British Empire in India consisted of two parts: British India, administered directly by the British, and princely India, covering about two-fifths of the subcontinent and divided into over 500 states, where British control was only indirect. One of the justifications for delaying the granting of self-government to British India concerned 78 See Durba Ghosh, Gentlemanly Terrorists: Political Violence and the Colonial State in India, 1919–1947 , (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 27–59.

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precisely the relationship between the Crown and the princely states. It was argued that British authority over these states and responsibility for their defence and foreign relations—the so-called British Paramountcy— was based on a direct relationship between the princes and the Crown. The British government in India, as representative of the Crown, could exercise Paramountcy powers, but this would not have been legally possible in the case of an Indian government. British India, once granted self-government, would no longer have any authority over the princely states and the subcontinent would once again be condemned to relive the fragmentation and anarchy of the eighteenth century. Now, the focus of the national movement was exclusively on the territories of British India. Panikkar proposed, instead, an involvement of the princely states in the reform projects so that the political unity of India would not be compromised.79 Born in the princely state of Travancore, Panikkar was surprised by the lack of interest shown by the national movement in this part of India. He was convinced that the princes could be brought closer to the nationalist positions and, in the context of the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms, employed to demonstrate that self-government would not compromise unification and that the national movement could find a place for the states—with their own consent—in the Indian political structure.80 Panikkar attributed the greatest responsibility for this mutual indifference to the national movement, but noted that things were beginning to change. In particular, he observed the emergence, in the populations of the states, of a feeling of solidarity with the rest of the country and of a new national awareness. But the people of the Native States are entirely united in supporting the Nationalist demand for Home-rule. […] Such a sentiment has awakened not only among the people of the Native States but also among the rulers. The Maharajas of Bikanir and Mysore, not to speak of the Aga Khan and the Maharaja Gaekwar, have all expressed in unmistakeable terms the growing consciousness of national unity. The speeches of the Maharaja of Bikanir when he visited England to attend the Imperial Conference

79 K.M. Panikkar, ‘The Native States and Indian Nationalism’, The Modern Review, 25: 1, 1919, 37–44. 80 For an overview of this issue, see S.H. Patil, The Congress Party and Princely States, (Bombay: Himalaya Publishing House, 1981), 17–89.

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expressed […] the feeling of our rajas that they have a double capacity, that they are the rulers of their immediate subjects and also the natural leaders of their brethren in other parts of India.81

The climate would therefore have been favourable to a rapprochement if the Congress had recognised the value of the princely states. Drawing on the categories developed at Oxford, their importance was due, above all, to their ties to the past and tradition and their role in defending national culture and local variety. The great weight Panikkar attributed to the princes was thus linked to the antiquity of the dynasties and their rootedness in India’s thousand-year history. In referring to an alliance with princely states, therefore, he did not consider subjects so much as rulers. The adherence of the princes to the national movement would also give the latter greater prestige and historical legitimacy. Moreover, states deserved to be defended because they were islands where Indians had been able to continue to govern themselves and had a role in cultural preservation. Panikkar thus looked to the princes for a possible alliance that would allow the national movement to gain more weight and broaden its consensus.82 As regards constitutional arrangements, Panikkar suggested that a large number of states, whose size was too small to guarantee efficient administration, should definitely be annexed. For the larger states, on the other hand, he envisaged a substantial continuation of relations with the Crown as they had developed under British influence, thus benefiting a historical process of integration, but transferring the powers of the Crown to a future Indian government as an expression of the national movement.83 The real difference would be that, as far as internal matters were concerned, states would no longer be responsible towards a central government or foreign power but to their own populations. This idea of substituting internal for external responsibility, however, remained vaguely expressed and was contradicted by the guarantee given to the princes that a nationalist government would not lead to rapid democratisation, as well as the central government’s retention of the authority to intervene in cases of misrule. Oscillations—indicative of the still

81 Panikkar, ‘The Native States and Indian Nationalism’, 42. 82 Ivi, 39. 83 Ivi, 37.

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heterogeneous nature of Panikkar’s nationalist thinking—that pushed him simultaneously to safeguard the unity achieved but also the variety of forms of government. He did not hesitate to recognise the ‘historical right’ of existence of princely states, but he was ready to set it aside when their small size threatened to turn India into a kind of “museum of obsolete political curiosities”.84

2.6

History and Politics

While Panikkar was participating in the political debate with this original contribution, the Indian situation was about to undergo major changes. The old nationalist leadership was now in decline and the very division between Extremists and Moderates was soon to fade into the background in the face of the emergence of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. The latter, who had returned to India from South Africa in 1915, was by 1919 ready to launch a nationwide agitation as the national movement was gaining mass proportions. A series of political uprisings were launched, alternating with moments when these were suspended to leave room for both a rethinking of problems and strategies and for actions of social promotion.85 After experimenting with the instrument of satyagraha 86 in limited local campaigns, Gandhi launched his first nationwide mobilisation against the Rowlatt Bills in March and April 1919, which were intended to make permanent the special powers assumed by the government during the war period.87 The mobilisation was considerable but, in some cases, provoked violent incidents and was suspended without achieving the withdrawal of the bills. However, in the implementation of the Montagu Declaration, reforms were passed that introduced ‘Dyarchy’ government in India. The central government remained essentially in the hands of the British but, in the provincial governments, an effective share of power was devolved to 84 Ivi, 41. 85 See Bipan Chandra et al., India’s Struggle for Independence, (New Delhi: Penguin

Books India, 1989). 86 On satyagraha, or “holding firmly to truth”, see Judith Brown, Gandhi’s Rise to Power: Indian Politics, 1915–1922, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), 52– 259. 87 Ramanathan Suntharalingam, Indian Nationalism. An Historical Analysis, (New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1983), 247–52.

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ministers responsible to elected assemblies. These were, therefore, important reforms for the novelties they introduced, although still limited in their scope.88 The political climate heated up due to the events in the Punjab, where the unrest linked to the satyagraha movement had been particularly serious and the British, after forbidding a demonstration, had fired on an unarmed and peaceful crowd without warning.89 Moreover, the signing of the Treaty of Sèvres had given rise to numerous local committees that, based on pan-Islamic ideas, called for the preservation of the Ottoman Empire within its pre-1914 borders and for the sultan as the Muslim ‘Caliph’. It was on this basis that Gandhi, having gained control of the Congress, allied himself with the Ali brothers and supported the agitation for the Caliphate (Khilafat ), believing he could thus promote unity between the two communities.90 By the time the non-cooperation campaign got into full swing, Panikkar had already been employed as a history teacher at the Muhammeddan Anglo-Oriental College in Aligarh since March 1919. Ramalinga Reddi, Director of Education in Mysore, had noticed Panikkar for the lecture at the East India Association and introduced him to Syed Ross Masood, Director of Education in Hyderabad and an influential figure in the administration of Aligarh College. European lecturers had resigned between 1918 and 1919 due to issues of career advancement and interference of the administration in their work, and it was necessary to replace them with staff who had appropriate skills and, possibly, had studied at prestigious Western universities.91 Aligarh College was founded by Sayyid Ahmad Khan in 1875 with the aim of modernising the culture of the Muslim community by combining

88 Torri, Storia dell’India, 527–8. 89 Mohinder Singh, The Akali Struggle: A Retrospect, (New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers,

1988), 12–4. 90 Michelguglielmo Torri, Dalla collaborazione alla rivoluzione non violenta. Il nazionalismo indiano da movimento di élite a movimento di massa, (Turin: Einaudi, 1975), 160–3; 241–3; 254–5; 273–9; 302–10. Brown, Gandhi’s Rise to Power, 190–229. 91 Shyam Krishn Bhatnagar, History of the M.A.O. College, Aligarh, (Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1969), 288–290.

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Western values and the Islamic religion.92 The faculty maintained a decidedly pro-British attitude, but by the time Panikkar arrived at Aligarh, nationalist and, above all, Pan-Islamist ideas had spread among the students.93 Gandhi and the Ali brothers visited the city in October 1920 to convince the students to boycott the college, as it was affiliated to the government university in Allahabad and also financed by a government grant. Mohammad Ali proposed the creation of a new National College to accommodate students who chose the path of non-cooperation. About 150 students joined it; the MAO College was closed for a month and the remaining 490 students were sent back to their homes.94 It was on this occasion that Panikkar met Gandhi for the first time. Panikkar explained to him and Mohammad Ali that his delicate position as a Hindu in a Muslim university did not allow him to leave his post at a time of crisis, despite his closeness to the ideals of the movement. Although he avoided direct involvement, he nevertheless remained in contact with the nationalist leaders and students who participated in the foundation of the new National Muslim University, developing personal relations with them.95 In 1921, Panikkar decided to stay in Aligarh for another year and collaborate in the transformation of the College into a University, of which he was then placed in charge of the History Department.96 In the years between 1919 and 1922, the teaching of History, the non-cooperation campaign and life at a Muslim university stimulated the revival of reflections on India’s identity, its past and the role of religion 92 Mohammad Sajjad, ‘Envisioning a Future: Sir Sayyid Ahmad’s Mission of Education, in Yasmin Saikia - Raisur Rahman (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Sayyid Ahmad Khan, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 108–37; Belkacem Belmekki, Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan and the Muslim Cause in British India, (Boston: De Gruyter, 2020), 81–99. 93 Shan Muhammad, Education and Politics. From Sir Syed to the Present Day. The Aligarh School, (New Delhi: A.P.H. Publishing Corporation, 2002), 44–116. 94 Bhatnagar, History of the M.A.O. College, 340–51. 95 See Khwaja Ghulam Saiyidain, ‘Panikkar—A fragmentary Appreciation’, in Chacko

(ed.), Panikkar, 62–3. 96 See S.Y. Shah, Higher Education and Politics in Colonial India. A Study of Aligarh Muslim University (1875–1920), (New Delhi: Renaissance Publishing House, 1996), 206– 62 and Khaliq Ahmad Nizami, History of the Aligarh Muslim University. Vol. I (1920– 1945), (New Delhi: Idarah-i Adabiyat-I Delli, 1995), 28–80.

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in a definition of nationhood. The inevitable term of comparison was British historiography on India.97 Vincent Smith, with whom Panikkar had collaborated at Oxford, had simply ignored the national movement in his History of India. The issue, conversely, had been addressed by Verney Lovett, a reader in Indian History at Oxford since 1920, but from a perspective that was anything but sympathetic.98 It was with these precedents and comparisons in mind that Panikkar felt the need to write his own history of the national movement.99 Lovett, after describing the Indian national movement as the product of an exalted minority interested only in their own self-interest, concluded that much caution would be needed in making new concessions towards self-government because of the backwardness and heterogeneity of Indian society. Panikkar, precociously sensitive to the problem of Indian unity and already impatient with the argument taken up by Lovett, felt that the fundamental problem to be addressed before dealing with the national movement was that of defining the nation: for India to be considered as such, it was important to investigate what its unity consisted of. Panikkar had previously insisted that India was already a cultural reality in the very ancient past, certainly long before the British conquest. He now pointed out that this reality went back to the Vedas, where the motherland was already considered a unity because transfigured into a deity. Evidence to support this argument was to be found in the spread, throughout the land (from the Himalayas to the sea), of Hindu deities, temples, symbols and religious customs, or in the use of pilgrimages. On a cultural level, therefore, it was elements of Hinduism that constituted the unifying factor.100

97 On the genesis of topoi of Indian nationalist historiography via contacts with British orientalists, see Partha Chatterjee, ‘History and the Nationalisation of Hinduism’, in Vadudha Dalmia - Heinrich von Stietencron (eds.), Representing Hinduism. The Construction of Religious Traditions and National Identity, (Delhi; London: Sage, 1995), 103–27. 98 See Verney Lovett, History of the Indian Nationalist Movement, (London: Murray, 1920), 221–2. 99 K.M. Panikkar, Indian Nationalism: Its Origin, History, and Ideals. By K.M. Panikkar … and an Englishman, (London: Faith Press, 1920). 100 Ivi, 6.

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If cultural unity was presented as something existing from the ‘origins’, political unity was described, on the contrary, as the fruit of a centurieslong process: the whole of Indian history was presented as a succession of events which, taken together, had marked the path of the subcontinent’s political structure from chaos to order and in which the most varied contributions were added together. The British, therefore, represented only one phase of an imperial tradition that had ancient roots: from Asoka onwards, unity had been a constant aspiration that all the great rulers of all religions—the Mauryas, the Guptas, Harsha, and then also the Mughals and, finally, the Marathas—had sought to achieve.101 Having thus established that India could be considered a nation, Panikkar identified four elements that had pushed Indians along the path of nationalism: religious revival, Western education, the economic burdens of the colonial regime, and the fact that the government and administration were barred to Indians. The religious revival was the counterpart to Hinduism’s decisive role in defining Indian identity: it had provided an initial response to the challenge of European culture. The first reforming associations were Westernised and they had no political aims, but with Dayananda Saraswati and Swami Vivekananda, Hinduism had responded to the attacks and, with the creation of the Arya Samaj, the religious renaissance had also taken on a political message.102 Western education, previously attacked for its de-nationalising effect, had, however, put Indians in touch with the ideals of freedom extolled in British history, but so largely disregarded by British colonialism. The latter had imposed a number of economic burdens on India: the maintenance of a disproportionate army and the dominance of the British in administration robbed the country of resources, which were transferred to England. Indian industrial interests were also subordinated to British ones. Finally, the Indians were left with little room in the government and administration, which was highly centralised and removed from the influence of local public opinion.103 The actual history of the movement was made to coincide with the history of the Congress. Initially a pro-Western movement that did not

101 Ivi, 9. 102 Ivi, 17. See also David Hardiman, ‘Purifying the Nation: The Arya Samaj in Gujarat,

1895–1930’, Indian Economic & Social History Review, 44: 1, 2007, 41–65. 103 Panikkar, Indian Nationalism, 31–9.

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question British supremacy, it had been transformed by the Extremists, bringing religious aspects into its language and political conception. The prevalence of the Extremists had been facilitated by international events such as the damage to British prestige in the Second Anglo-Boer War or the resounding Japanese victory over Russia. It had sanctioned the transformation of the Congress into a true national force. The other key development had been the rapprochement of Indian Muslims to the national movement. The colonial government had tried to keep the Muslims separate from the Hindu majority but this, according to Panikkar, had had the effect of pushing them towards Pan-Islamism which, in turn, had pushed them away from the alliance with the British. Now the internal differences could be overcome with the common goal of the Swaraj —self-government. The alliance between the Muslim League and the Congress was thus proposed as a culminating moment of national unity.104 The positioning of the Islamic element in the fabric of Indian identity, however, was not without its problems. In Sri Harsha of Kanauj. A Monography on the History of India in the First Half of the 7th Century AD,105 Panikkar dealt with a page of pre-Islamic Indian history following the crisis of the great Gupta Empire. The choice of this topic was significant: teaching in an Islamic university, Panikkar wanted to show that the India of that period—neglected by Muslim historians—had an important history that deserved to be studied because it highlighted the ancient origins of Indian identity.106 Entering fully into the new historiography on the age of Harsha, stimulated by the publication of Chinese and Sanskrit sources and archaeological discoveries,107 Panikkar presented the period under examination as a path from fragmentation to order. Certainly, the crisis of the Gupta Empire had opened a new phase of fragmentation, but this was not a sign of an anarchy destined to be overcome only by British rule, but simply a

104 Ivi, 69–70. 105 K.M. Panikkar, Sri Harsha of Kanauj. A Monograph on the History of India in the

First Half of the 7th Century A.D., (Bombay: Taraporevala, 1922). 106 Panikkar, An Autobiography, 342. 107 Shankar Goyal, History and Historiography of the Age of Harsha, (Jodhpur:

Kasumanjali Press, 1992).

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moment in a longer and more complex path towards order in which unity and division alternated.108 The existence of a progressive historical process was demonstrated not only by the cultural vibrancy of the period, but also by the form of government in the reign of Harsha.109 Vincent Smith had supported the thesis of the absence of political evolution in Indian history, which was said to be inextricably linked to despotism.110 Panikkar, on the contrary, described Harsha as an enlightened ruler who shared his power with a Council of State and personally followed the affairs of his subjects.111 Finally, he reiterated the importance of religious tolerance and unity between the various communities, which was now proving so important for the non-cooperation movement: The generous vagueness of Hindu religion allowed room for every sort of opinion and hence dogmatic intolerance and sectarian persecution never very much disgraced Hindu history. […] In Harsha’s time the general tendency was so eclectic that toleration of all creeds would have followed as a natural result even if Hindu tradition had pointed to the other direction.112

Panikkar’s reflections on the ancient and recent history of his country thus helped to deepen his ‘idea of India’, but at a time when the national movement had been most active, he had still only observed it from the outside. This left him with a burning desire for direct participation.

2.7

Militant Journalism

The ‘aggressive’ phase of the movement had meanwhile come to an end. Having planned to experiment with the tax boycott, Gandhi had actually abandoned the idea in February 1922, due to a few incidents in which non-cooperation had resulted in violence, choosing instead to concentrate on the ‘constructive’ aspects of the movement, such as the promotion of hand-spinning, the advancement of rural areas, and the fight against 108 Panikkar, Sri Harsha of Kanauj, 4–5. 109 Ivi, 46. 110 Smith, Oxford History of India, xi–xii. 111 Panikkar, Sri Harsha of Kanauj, 29–30. 112 Ivi, 34–35.

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religious intolerance and untouchability. By March 1922, however, he had been arrested and the movement had lost its vitality.113 It was in this context that Panikkar’s decision to leave Aligarh ripened. He had been driven in part by a desire to get back into the game, and in part by the realisation that politics was the main interest of his life. When compared to his position as a lecturer, journalism, even with all the greater uncertainties, was in his eyes an ideal way to contribute to the cause by using his intellectual skills.114 Thus, in June 1922, Panikkar left the university and was hired as assistant editor by Swarajya, a Madras daily for which he had already written a number of articles. The newspaper had been founded the previous year by a group of Congressmen close to Gandhian positions, all concerned about the lack of support the non-cooperation movement was receiving from the local press.115 Panikkar assumed his new post at a delicate time, marked by new divisions in the Congress following Gandhi’s arrest. A minority of the members, in fact, had founded the Swaraj Party and decided to participate in the elections to the legislative councils, while the so-called ‘no-changers’ remained faithful to the recommendations given by the Mahatma. Within this debate, Swarajya always maintained a strictly Gandhian line. Panikkar, as deputy editor, thus found himself involved in the political life of the Madras province, one of the few regions where the Swarajists’ results in the 1923 elections were disappointing. The Legislative Council was governed by a majority based on the Justice Party, a formation originating from the non-Brahmin movement that aimed to lean on the colonial administration to shake the caste dominance in the professions and political life.116 On the one hand, Panikkar tried to indirectly support the ‘nationalist’ currents of the Justice Party that wanted to enfranchise the party from

113 Suntharilingam, Indian Nationalism, 281–5. 114 Panikkar, An Autobiography, 33–4. 115 David Arnold, The Congress in Tamilnad. Nationalist Politics in South India, 1919– 1937 , (New Delhi: Manohar Book Service, 1977), 51. Swaminath Natarajan, A History of the Press in India, (Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1962), 188. The group included Rajagopalachari, Vavilla Venkateswara and Prakasham (as chief editor): see Tanguturi Prakasam . , The Journey of My Life. An Autobiography, (Hyderabad: Prakasam Institute of Development Studies, 1992), 123–4. 116 Arnold, The Congress in Tamilnad, 19.

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British tutelage; on the other hand, he tried to give voice to some of the typical demands of the non-Brahmin movement, convinced that the Congress would remain in the minority until it had won the support of the non-Brahmin.117 In this context, the problem of untouchability became relevant and the situation of avarna was also one of the key points of the programme Gandhi left to the Congress before his arrest. Drawing on his reflections on the history of East–West relations and the effects of British rule in India, Panikkar traced the situation of the avarna back to social intolerance and religious bigotry. These, however, were the result of contact with the West’s rigidly exclusive nation model. Before the arrival of the Europeans, the history of India and Asia more generally had been marked by variety and diversity. As a reaction to imperialism, to missionary propaganda and to the political use of religion, a negative transformation had been generated, characterised by sectarian nationalism and the blind defence of tradition.118 The situation of the avarna in Kerala—Panikkar’s homeland, not far from Madras—was particularly dramatic: they were excluded from roads, wells, other public places and many educational institutions; they had to maintain a certain distance from caste Hindus. Various organisations had been set up to demand reforms and support the self-advocacy of dalit groups, among which the ezhava (or ilava) community was particularly active.119 In December 1922, during the Kakinada session of the Congress, Panikkar introduced T.K. Madhavan, one of the most prominent avarna in Kerala,120 to the Congress president, Maulana Mohammad Ali, whom he had met in Aligarh. The dalit leader was invited to the meeting of the organisation’s Working Committee while the assembly passed a resolution calling on local committees to promote initiatives for the eradication of untouchability. The Kerala provincial section thus created an 117 Regarding the relationship among the provincial Congress, the Justice Party and non-Brahmin instances see Christopher Baker, The Politics of South India (1920–1937), (New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1976). 118 K.M. Panikkar, ‘Europe and Asia’, The Modern Review, 34: 4, 1923, 424–7. 119 Swapna Samel, Dalit Movement in South India (1857–1950), (New Delhi: Serial

Publications: 2004), 328, 355–67. Suresh Kumar, Political Evolution in Kerala. Travancore 1859–1938, (New Delhi: Phoenix Publishing House, 1994), 88. 120 Jeffrey, ‘Travancore’, 148–64.

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Anti-Untouchability Committee—in which Madhavan also participated— which organised a public meeting in Vaikom, in the state of Travancore, where there was a famous temple, precluded to the avarna.121 The Congress was thus associated with a campaign that aimed to use Gandhian ways within a princely state, with the specific objective of opening access to the temple to all castes.122 In February 1924, however, Panikkar had to leave Swarajya, after having inaugurated a series of sensationalist campaigns to make the newspaper more popular, which were resented by the provincial government. Apparently, there were problems with the local Congress leadership, which probably did not like the vaguely anti-Brahmin line inaugurated by Panikkar. This was compounded by regional hostilities and financial problems, since he had not been paid in the previous months.123 Panikkar went to Andheri to consult with Congress leaders. Gandhi, recently released from prison, met him and, realising that he was reluctant to accept a new post at the Indian Daily Mail, a newspaper whose political views were not his own, recommended him to Nehru for a confidential mission at the Akali Sahayak Bureau in Amritsar, Punjab.124 The Congress had recently opened this office to support the Sikhs’ struggle for control of their temples in a very turbulent situation where political and religious discontent converged. In this region, traditionally loyal to the British, the reformers had long denounced malpractice in 121 On the events in Vaikom, see Periyar Erode Venkatappa Ramasami, Untouchability. History of the Vaikom Agitation, (Madras: Periyar Self-Respect Propaganda Institution, 1980). 122 Kumar, P olitical Evolution in Kerala, 120–1; Jeffrey, ‘Travancore’; Avilliath Kutteri Gopalan, Kerala Past and Present, (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1959); Charles Heimsath, Indian Nationalism and Hindu Social Reform, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964); T.K. Ravindran, Vaikkam Satyagraha and Gandhi, (Trichur: Sri Institute of Social and Cultural Development, 1975). See also, Louise Ouwerkerk, No Elephants for the Maharaja. Social and Political Change in the Princely State of Travancore (1921–1947), (New Delhi: Manohar Publishers, 1994). 123 “He left because he could not hit it off with Mr. Srinivasa Iyengar”: ‘Gandhi to Nehru’, 15 March 1924, file 4(1), All-India Congress Committee (hereafter AICC), Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (hereafter NMML), New Delhi. Srinivasa Iyengar was President of the Madras District Congress and later President of the Congress Provincial Committee in Tamil Nadu (1925–1929). He was one of the leaders of the anti-Gandhian faction led by Rajagopalachari: see Arnold, The Congress in Tamilnad, 42, 85. 124 Ibid.

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the administration of the temples, the gurdwaras. The mahants —hereditary or government-appointed priest-administrators—were not ‘orthodox’ Sikhs and the cults mixed Hindu elements, which were widespread. Moreover, some gurdwaras had accumulated considerable assets, the proceeds of which, considered personal property by the priests, were now claimed for the benefit of the community. Added to this was the close proximity of the mahants to the British government in the Punjab. The movement for the reform of the gurdwaras, at first exclusively religious, took on—between 1920 and 1923—a political and anti-government hue.125 The Akali Jatha, bands of volunteers united in the Akali Dal organisation, began to hold demonstrations and religious celebrations to demand that the administration of places of worship be transferred to the Sikh community itself and to the committee it had elected, the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, or SGMC.126 The provincial administration oscillated between concessions, neutrality and repression until the resistance of the mahant of the Nankana gurdwara, with the connivance of the British authorities, provoked an Akali massacre, radicalising the issue and bringing it onto the all-India scene.127 The provincial and central governments began to regard the Akalis as a subversive organisation and they became closer to the national movement. The subsequent agitations were then conducted under the eyes of the whole of India, adopting the programme of the non-cooperation movement that had, in the meantime, been launched by Gandhi.128 The importance of the issue had grown and, by this time, even the big leaders at the national level were involved: the Congress decided, at this point, to establish its Akali Sahayak Bureau in Amritsar.129

125 Singh, The Akali Stuggle, 16–26. 126 Ivi, 4–10, 94–5. 127 Ivi, 28–44. About Nankana, see Jagtar Singh Grewal, The Akalis: A Short History, (Chandigarh: Punjab Studies Publications, 1996), 39–41. See also Mohinder Singh, ‘Akali Agitation over the “Keys Affair”. An Early Victory of Non-cooperation’, in Verinder Grover (ed.), Story of Punjab Yesterday and Today, (New Delhi: Deep and Deep Publication, 1995), 376–85. 128 Singh, The Akali Struggle, 147–9. 129 Ivi, 53. See also Harbans Singh, Nehru Family and the Sikhs, (New Delhi BR

Publishing Corporation, 1984), 14–26.

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Panikkar arrived in Amritsar on March 17, 1924 to take up a post that was not initially intended for him and for which Gandhi’s recommendation had been decisive. Both Gandhi and Nehru were convinced that his experience as a journalist made him the right man.130 His duties, apart from investigating incidents of violence, consisted in dealing with propaganda on behalf of the Sikhs, handling the press and observing the state of relations between the religious communities, in order to inform the Congress leadership.131 At first, doubts arose in Panikkar about the relations between the Sikh groups and the national movement. His investigation encountered little cooperation from the SGPC, especially in putting him in touch with eyewitnesses.132 Dealing with the press and publicity, however, he realised how the use of violent language distanced the Sikhs from Gandhian ideals.133 In any case, Panikkar tried to carry out the tasks entrusted to him to the best of his ability. He concluded his investigation by reporting to Gandhi and Nehru that the Sikhs bore no responsibility for the violence that had occurred.134 At the same time, he tried to improve the image the gurdwara reform movement gave of itself. He wrote articles, sent press releases, asked other journalists to cover the issue and tried to give maximum publicity to the unjustified arrests, as noted by a British informant evidently close to him.135 He also took charge of the editorial staff

130 ‘Gandhi to Nehru’, 14 March 1924; ‘Nehru to Gandhi’, 13 March 1924, file 4(1), AICC, NMML. ‘Gandhi to Nehru’, 15 March 1924, in The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (hereafter CWMG), vol. 23, (New Delhi: The Publication Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, 1967), 154–5; ‘Gandhi to Mangal Singh’, 16 March 1924, ivi, 263. 131 ‘Nehru to Panikkar’, 27 March 1924, file 4(1)/1924, AICC, NMML. 132 ‘Panikkar to Nehru’, 23 March 1924, file 4(1)/1924, AICC, NMML. 133 ‘Panikkar to Gandhi’, 18 April 1924, intercepted by the British, R/1/1/1518,

IOR. In another letter, Panikkar dubbed local press as “inflammatory and untrustworthy”: ‘Panikkar to Gandhi’, 11 April 1924, Gandhi Ashram, Sabarmati (hereafter GAS). 134 ‘Nehru to Panikkar’, 2 April 1924; ‘Panikkar to Nehru’, 5 April 1924; ‘Jaito Firing Report’, undated, file 4(1)/1924, AICC, NMML. ‘Panikkar to Gandhi’, 29 March 1924, GAS. 135 ‘Note by a correspondent of the C.I.D., Punjab’, 18 April 1924, R/1/1/1518,

IOR.

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of the Onward, the movement’s English-language organ, whose verbal aggressiveness threatened to become a source of embarrassment.136 The issue was significant because it was symptomatic of a broader question concerning the sincerity and conviction of Sikh organisations in embracing the creed of non-violence. At least in private, Panikkar allowed himself to express some doubts. He admitted that the constructive programme of self-promotion had to a large extent been implemented: Sikhs wore non-imported Khadi clothes, they had abolished untouchability and there was a substantial prohibition of alcoholic beverages.137 He was, however, convinced that within the SGPC the majority still opposed the decision to embrace non-violence or, at best, saw it as a strategy rather than an end in itself.138 The community as a whole has understood non-violence merely to mean abstention from actively assaulting their opponents. Perhaps that idea is to some extent inevitable among uncultivated rustics who constitute the jatha; but what I consider a fundamental weakness in the whole Sikh position is that even the Shiromani Gurudwara Parbandhak Committee does not understand the implication of non-violence.139

The only Sikh leader whom he felt was aware of the principles of satyagraha was Mangal Singh and he had built a close relationship of cooperation and consultation with him.140 Panikkar, however, doubted that he enjoyed the confidence of the SGPC, believing, rather, that the

136 In writing to Mangal Singh, one of the Sikh leaders closer to him, Gandhi deplored the violent outbursts of the newspaper: “I was deeply hurt on reading it. Don’t you think that it reeks with gross exaggeration and falsehood? […] If the Onward is to be run as the official organ, you should have a sober and truthful editor.” ‘Gandhi to Mangal Singh and Raja Singh’, 5 April 1924, CWMG, vol. 23, 372. 137 ‘Panikkar to Nehru’, 31 March 1924, file 4(1)/1924, AICC, NMML. 138 According to Mohinder Singh, Panikkar’s reports, the influence of Lala Lajpat Rai,

and official propaganda are the reasons of Gandhi’s change of mind with respect to the gurdwara reform agitation: see Singh, The Akali Struggle, 81 and Mohinder Singh, ‘Akali Struggle: Past and Present’, in Joseph O’Connell (ed.), Sikh History and Religion in the Twentieth Century, (New Delhi: Manohar Publications, 1988), 191–210. 139 ‘Panikkar to Gandhi’, 11 April 1924, GAS. 140 ‘Panikkar to Gandhi’, 1 April 1924, GAS.

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Committee tolerated his influence only because, cornered by repression, it needed Gandhi and the Congress.141 In turn, this problem also opened up another one, of greater magnitude: the situation of the relations between the religious communities in Punjab. In fact, one of Panikkar’s tasks in Amritsar was precisely to keep this issue under control and, as soon as he arrived in the city, he immediately met with Sikh and Hindu leaders, noting that relations between the two communities were not particularly friendly.142 Panikkar attributed the responsibility for the tension to the Hindus who, bigoted and narrowminded, were intent on taking advantage of the difficult situation in which the Sikhs found themselves.143 Nehru, impressed by these statements, emphasised that the Sikh movement also had responsibilities because, from a religious point of view, it was ‘separatist’ and that this naturally also had political effects. So, while he agreed about the lack of open-mindedness of the Hindu leaders, it was still necessary to make gestures of détente when necessary.144 The problem was that the two communities had been closely intertwined both religiously and socially and the reform movement had challenged the existing balance. Calling for ‘purity’ of cults and internal cohesion, it aimed to eliminate all contamination and accentuate the perception of a separate Sikh identity.145 Panikkar himself had to revise his position on the responsibility for communal tensions. The Sikhs, in wanting to reform a religion that had hitherto been closely intertwined with Hindu customs had, inevitably, created conflicts attempting to take control of some gurdwaras.146 Panikkar’s analysis at this point also examined the modalities of the Sikh struggle and put the Akali Dal organisation itself under indictment. Consisting of well-framed bands of volunteers armed with kirpans, it was seen as a threat by the other communities: 141 ‘Panikkar to Gandhi’, 11 April 1924, GAS. 142 ‘Panikkar to Gandhi’, 1 April 1924, GAS. 143 ‘Panikkar to Nehru’, 23 March 1924, file 4(1), AICC NMML. 144 ‘Nehru to Panikkar’, 2 April 1924, file 4(1)/1924, AICC, NMML. 145 On the gurdwara reform movement as a vehicle for developing a peculiar Sikh identity in Punjab, see Prem Raman Uprety, Religion and Politics in Punjab in the 1920s, (New Delhi: Sterling Publishers, 1980). 146 ‘Panikkar to Gandhi’, 11 April 1924, GAS. ‘Panikkar to Nehru’, undated, file 4(1)/ 1924, AICC, NMML.

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I think that any peaceful solution of the question of our acceptance of the [Sikh] case as a national one must insist on the break-up of this force. […] Even non-Akali Sikhs have many times spoken to me about this and they are afraid that when once the fight with the Government in the Gurdwaras is over the forces of the Khalsa would have to be turned against someone else.147

Panikkar thought that Sikh culture and religion were essentially part of Hinduism.148 However, he was witnessing a drastic deterioration in communal relations. The end of the non-cooperation movement and the overcoming of the Khilafat issue due to the Turkish events had put an end to the Hindu-Muslim alliance. The Punjab was one of the regions where tensions were most evident: the shuddi (purification) and sangatham (organisation) movements launched by the Arya Samaj had an obvious anti-Islamic charge and were opposed by Muslims through similar means. They aimed, on the one hand, to convert or re-convert and, on the other hand, to strengthen community cohesion.149 In his letters, Panikkar also hinted at some cause for tension between the Sikhs and the Muslim community.150 But it was especially when he saw the spread of the Jatha model that his concern became acute: Dr. Kitchlew151 is very busy here with his Sanghatan movement. He is organising the Muslims on the lines of Sikh jathas. I have once written to you at length my objections to this system of armed peace, of each community organising itself into semi-military bodies. I am much afraid that if Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus are to have jathas on the Punjab the peace of the province would not be worth a day’s purchase.152

147 ‘Panikkar a Gandhi’, 18 April 1924, intercepted by the British, R/1/1/1518, IOR. 148 K.M. Panikkar, The Ideals of Sikhism, (Amritsar: Sikh Tract Society, 1924). 149 Suntharalingam, Indian Nationalism, 291. 150 ‘Panikkar to Gandhi’, 2 June 1924, GAS. 151 Saifuddin Kitchlew was one of the most important local Muslim leaders: see Amandeep Bal, A Nationalist Muslim in Colonial Punjab: Life and Times of Dr. Saifuddin Kitchlew, (Chandigarh: Unistar, 2015). 152 ‘Panikkar to Gandhi’, undated, GAS.

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To prevent the situation from degenerating, it therefore became essential to convince the Sikh leaders to embrace the non-violent struggle decisively and clearly and to declare that the movement’s only goals were religious, not political. As Panikkar wrote to Gandhi, the Congress had to wholeheartedly support the claims for control of the gurdwaras, while repudiating other overtly political issues.153 On this basis, Gandhi sent Mangal Singh a memorandum that he asked the Sikh leaders to make their own. Indeed, the provincial government seemed willing to reach an agreement that would entrust the SGPC with the management of the gurdwaras on the condition that the Committee would not interfere in the dispute over the reinstatement of the Maharaja of Nabha, who had been driven to abdication by the British authorities.154 Amidst various pressures and different positions, however, the issue dragged on and the Sikh leaders were stalling in order to avoid giving a response to Gandhi’s memorandum. In the meantime, the Vaikom satyagraha in Kerala had gone into full swing. Since March 30, small groups of volunteers, both avarna and savarna, had been trying to break the ban on access to the roads leading to the temple and were gradually being arrested.155 The next day, The Hindu, the most authoritative daily newspaper in Madras, published a warm invitation to support the campaign addressed by Panikkar to the caste Hindus of Kerala.156 Gandhi had also spoken publicly. To Kesava Menon, one of the organisers, who asked him for a message for the satyagrahi, he had replied wishing success and had congratulated him on the first arrests.157 However, as he wrote to Panikkar, although he agreed with him that what had been launched in Travancore was a movement of great importance, his position had been non-committal.158 Indeed, the fear remained that insufficient attempts had been made to convince the opponents.159 153 ‘Panikkar to Gandhi’, 1 April 1924, GAS. 154 ‘Panikkar to Gandhi’, 9 May 1924, GAS. 155 Kumar, Political Evolution in Kerala, 120. Dilip Menon, Caste, Nationalism and

Communism in South India. Malabar 1900–1948 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 81. 156 Ravindran, Vaikkam Satyagraha and Gandhi, 69. 157 ‘Kesava Menon to Gandhi’, 19 March 1924, CWMG, vol. 23, 560–1; ‘Gandhi to

Kesava Menon’, 3 April 1924, ivi, 272–3. 158 ‘Gandhi to Panikkar’, 10 April 1924, GAS. 159 ‘Gandhi to Kesava Menon’, 19 March 1924, CWMG, vol. 23, 272–3.

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The situation was complicated by the fact that the campaign took place in a princely state. Non-cooperation had been conceived as a means of fighting British rule and it was not legitimate for Gandhi to use it against Indian princes, whom he was inclined to regard as “trustees of their peoples”.160 The issue had, therefore, to remain purely religious and be limited to the local situation, without relying on external support and aid. Panikkar quickly aligned himself with Gandhian positions, drawing harsh criticism for a change of opinion that sounded like inconsistency.161 Accusations of opportunism, if not outright betrayal, were not long in coming: The so-called Satyagrahi-press in Travancore has been […] saying that I have expressed those opinions because the Travancore Durbar has bribed me and that I am anxious to get into Government favour by expressing opinions favourable to them. The vernacular press, which carries on propaganda for the Vaikom satyagraha is more violent in its language than even the Akali. It is also openly said that you have prohibited outside help because I misrepresented facts to you.162

Meanwhile, deprived of support and political significance, the satyagraha began to drag wearily towards an unsatisfactory compromise solution, found in November 1925.163 In Amritsar, however, in the summer of 1924, the Sikh movement seemed to have emerged from its stalemate. Panikkar could report that even the SGPC leaders who were in prison—the most intransigent up to that time—now seemed determined to drop the Nabha issue.164 Now that the closure of the Akali Sahayak Bureau, repeatedly hypothesised by Nehru and Panikkar, was becoming imminent,165 some of the most prominent members of the movement, and closest to the nationalist ideals, began to think that, in order to maintain contact with 160 ‘Gandhi’s interview to The Hindu’, 15 April 1924, ivi, 441. 161 Ravindran, Vaikkam Satyagraha and Gandhi, 70. 162 ‘Panikkar to Gandhi’, 16 May 1924, GAS. 163 Menon, Caste, Nationalism and Communism, 82. On Vaikom satyagraha, see also

Sreedhara Menon, Kerala and the Freedom Struggle, (Kottayam: D.C. Books, 1997), 75 and Kumar, Political Evolution in Kerala, 120–1. 164 ‘Panikkar to Gandhi’, 31 July 1924, GAS. 165 ‘Nehru to Maulana Mohammad Ali’, 30 July 1924, file 4(1)/1924, AICC, NMML.

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all-India public opinion, they could establish a new English-language daily. Panikkar suggested that the publication should take place in the capital and not in Amritsar.166 He thus became involved in the initiative, becoming the first editor-in-chief of The Hindustan Times, a position he held until the spring of 1925.167 In July 1924, the Home Department of the Indian government also began to inquire about the project of a new nationalist newspaper to be published in Delhi, reportedly made possible by donations from the Sikhs who had emigrated to Canada. At the same time, the news of Panikkar’s departure from Amritsar was commented on with great relief.168 The first issue of The Hindustan Times sported, on its front page, messages of best wishes and congratulations from all the important people Panikkar had had the opportunity to meet in previous years. Gandhi’s message read first, followed by those of Sarojini Naidu, Motilal Nehru, Rabindranath Tagore, Charles Freer Andrews, Mukhtar Ahmed Ansari, Madan Mohan Malaviya, Lala Lajpat Rai, Jawaharlal Nehru and Maulana Mohammad Ali, among others. To add solemnity to the occasion, Gandhi himself had attended the inaugural ceremony on September 15, 1924.169 The problem of communal relations, the focus of Panikkar’s attentions during his stay in Punjab, continued to be central in his new position. From the pages of The Hindustan Times emerged, in fact, that same concern which had led him to emphasise so many times in his letters to Nehru and Gandhi the dangers inherent in the confrontation of religious communities. The early issues of the newspaper were largely devoted to the Unity Conference. Promoted by Gandhi with his Hindu-Muslim unity fast to expiate the violence of September 1924 in the North-West Frontier Province, the Conference brought together representatives of religious communities to settle their disputes. On the opening day of the conference, the editorial read:

166 Panikkar, An Autobiography, 48. 167 ‘Panikkar to Gandhi’, 31 July 1924, GAS. 168 ‘Notes by C. Kaye’, 21 July 1924 and 01 august 1924, file 255/I/25, Political

Branch (hereafter PB), HD. ‘Note by C. Kaye’, R/1/1/1714, IOR. 169 ‘Speech at the Opening Ceremony of The Hindustan Time’, 17 September 1924, CWMG, vol. 25 (New Delhi: The Publication Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, 1967), 150.

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India has again become the cockpit of warring factions and creeds. […] It is well that the representatives of the great communities that meet here today should understand this in full. The choice before them is clear. It is whether they want India to be a united and prosperous nation taking her place among the civilised communities of the world, or whether she is to remain not only in bondage but the distracted prey of disunited factions and creeds. The choice is not only between self-government and foreign domination but between peaceful evolution into a civilised nation and the sudden and rapid descent into barbarism along the inclined plane of communal hatred.170

At Oxford, Panikkar had appeared confident that India’s internal divisions would not compromise self-government. Now, he was forced to admit that, without a sincere effort for unity, this was becoming a distant goal. In the following period, The Hindustan Times continued to follow the progress of the conference with a mixture of hope and concern. From the pages of the paper came reports of clashes, appeals for unity and reminders of the political effects which the lack of it might have in delaying the conquest of the swaraj, expressions of hope for the outcome of the Unity Conference and disappointment at the failure of the Unity Committee that grew out of it and was chaired by Gandhi himself.171 What is most remarkable is the gradual emergence of the belief that the integration of the various religions into cohesive and separate bodies was a feature of the Indian political scenario that was destined to be perpetuated. Although initially the editorials in The Hindustan Times had expressed a rejection of any form of communal organisation, later this came to be accepted, especially following the failure of the Unity Committee.172 It was therefore better, rather than opposing the existence of such organisations, to push them to dedicate themselves to the internal reform of the various communities. In this way, instead of clashing with one another, they would devote themselves to the constructive programme of self-promotion:

170 The Hindustan Times, 27 September 1924, 6. 171 The Hindustan Times, 9 October 1924, 6; 18 October 1924, 6; 1 February 1925,

6. 172 The Hindustan Times, 5 December 1924, 4; 17 December 1924, 6, 3 March 1925,

4.

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The relation of one community to another and of all the different communities to each, in a country constituted like India, can only be on the basis of independent organisation, as the existence of the Muslim League, the Khilafat Committee, the Central Sikh League and other communal institutions amply demonstrates. As long as the activities of these organisations are devoted to push forward the cause of social reform, internal adjustment and the definition of relation with other communities, no one […] can have the least objection to it.173

Panikkar, through active politics, was thus moving away from the ‘traditionalism’ that had characterised his nationalism in Oxford. Religious organisations had to deal with social reforms because a mere return to the past was false nationalism: The national feeling which is prolonged backwards in attempting to see in the past a golden age is such an inflation of the ideal of nationalism. […]. For our weaknesses of the present we satisfy ourselves that the past was a glorious one.174

Panikkar delved historically into the concept, noting that it was essential for any civilisation that there was continuous growth and, in India, progress had been constant, even during the period when political power was in the hands of Muslim ‘foreigners’ up to the nineteenth century. The introduction of the English education system had blocked the renewal: by proposing a radical break with the past, it had paradoxically provoked a conservative reaction in those Indians who saw their own culture threatened. Panikkar, however, considered a renewal in society to be necessary: the past had to be critically understood and India needed a rational social theory based on considerations of utility and justice. The old representation of the four varna, besides not being a completely positive ideal, had also never been realised in practice. Moreover, the individual had to

173 The Hindustan Times, 14 April 1925, 6. 174 K.M. Panikkar, ‘The Past and the Present’, The Modern Review, 36: 4, 1924, 387.

The text was reprinted in The Hindustan Times, 21 October 1924, while the idea is present also in K.M. Panikkar, ‘The Principles of Social Progress’, The Hindustan Times. 31 December 1924, 4.

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be revalued because the institution of the extended family prevented the individual from recognising himself in the wider society.175 All this was a far cry from the concerns for the preservation of traditions so alive at the beginning of Panikkar’s intellectual journey. The experiences of the years of contact with the national movement—at a time of crisis when it was politically divided and incapable of recomposing religious conflicts—now brought to the fore the need for renewal and the search for unity. The concern for unity was also expressed on the more strictly political front, where it seemed to find more cause for optimism. Indeed, the Congress gradually overcame its internal divisions and an agreement was reached between Gandhians and Swarajists, duly celebrated in Panikkar’s newspaper.176 The Swarajists now enjoyed greater freedom. They were described as the defenders of national interests, as in the case of their opposition to the railway budget in the Central Legislative Assembly.177 In Bengal, where the government had issued an ordinance to grant itself special powers— formally as a tool to fight terrorism—they were defended as the real targets of repression.178 The focus on the activities of the Swarajists led to giving more space to the assemblies—the Provincial Councils and the Central Legislative Assembly—and to the functioning of the dyarchy.179 Panikkar’s position was that the handover of new powers, expected to take place after ten years, should—as a minimum programme—make both the provincial governments and the central civil administration fully accountable to the assemblies.180 However, the line of The Hindustan Times, which emerges from the treatment of British political affairs, was that India could not rely on concessions from this or that party at Westminster, since their positions towards the colonial possessions did not differ greatly. The Indians had to rely only on themselves and their own strength.181

175 Panikkar, ‘The Past and the Present’, 389–90. 176 The Hindustan Times, 7, 8, 20 and 23 November 1924, 27 December 1924, 6. 177 The Hindustan Times, 19, 26 and 27 February 1925, 4. 178 The Hindustan Times, 29 and 30 October 1924, 12 February 1925, 28 March 1925, 6. 179 The Hindustan Times, 14 February 1925, 10, 21 and 25 March 1925, 6. 180 The Hindustan Times, 10 March 1925, 8. 181 The Hindustan Times, 14 and 15 October 1924, 6.

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National politics was thus the protagonist in The Hindustan Times, including the issue of Indian states that had interested Panikkar since Oxford and, even more so, during the heated debates on the satyagraha of Vaikom. As in Swarajya, readers’ interest was drawn to spicy and scandalous stories, and then channelled to political editorials. The front page was often devoted to the case of Mr. A., a mysterious figure later revealed to be Raja Hari Singh of Kashmir, a man embroiled in a scandal which involved his mistress, a French dancer.182 Some of the articles addressed the problem of the corrupt and inefficient government of Kashmir, in which both the people and the ruler had been dispossessed of their power.183 Elsewhere, the intrusiveness of British residents was criticised and the central government’s policy of expanding power at the expense of the princes was denounced.184 Above all, the Congress was urged to develop its own policy towards these states: At the not very distant future the place of Indian States in our polity will have definitely to be decided. […] It should be made perfectly clear to the Princes that the people of British India have no desire and do not put forward any right to interfere in their affairs, constitution or peculiar customs. But it must be made equally plain that on no account whatever can it be possible to allow them external independence.185

At that time, Gandhi argued that the princes were legitimate authorities to be respected and asked them to rule justly, for the good of their peoples. Panikkar’s paper supported these ideas against the attacks of those who saw them as a defence of autocracies and, based on Vaikom’s experience, he argued that reforms had to be demanded from within.186 These positions could bring Panikkar closer to the more ‘progressive’ and advanced section of the princes, as he had proposed beginning with his 1919 article on the subject.187 In the meantime, he was working on a book addressing precisely these issues. In July 1925, Panikkar wrote to the Maharaja of Bikaner, Ganga Singh—a prince whom he had criticised 182 The Hindustan Times, 6 and 10 December 1924, 6. 183 The Hindustan Times, 23 October 1924, 6. 184 The Hindustan Times, 4 October, 1924, 4 November 1924, 6. 185 The Hindustan Times, 17 October 1924, 4. 186 The Hindustan Times, 30 January 1925, 6. 187 Panikkar, ‘The Native States and Indian Nationalism’.

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because, in posing as a patriot, he had forgotten the need for reforms within his own state—188 to ask him to accept that he dedicate his new work to him.189 The publication of this book, however, had to be postponed as Panikkar’s personal affairs drove him away from Delhi and India once again. The Sikh leaders, in fact, unable to meet the expenses and nearing the end of their struggle for the reform of the gurdwaras, sold The Hindustan Times to Madan Mohan Malaviya and Lala Lajpat Rai, important exponents of political Hinduism. Panikkar left his post being at variance with the new owners.190

2.8

The Role of Princely States

Pannikar’s personal position after his resignation from The Hindustan Time had become very uncertain. He then decided, between July and October 1925, to temporarily distance himself from Indian politics and return to London to study Law. During this period, Panikkar continued to publish in various newspapers, Indian, British and European. He also put the experiences of the previous years to good use in writing a number of books, and—followed by the attentions of the British intelligence— 191 he travelled around Europe, also gathering material on the history of Kerala and its relations with the Portuguese and the Dutch.192 The two years he spent in Great Britain, France, Portugal, Germany and the Netherlands were a valuable opportunity to explore his ideas on imperialism and the relationship between Asia and Europe. Together with other Asian emigrants, especially Indochinese and Indonesians, he founded an Oriental Society in Paris and participated in the World Peace

188 K.M.P., ‘Bikanir’s Imperialism’, The Hindustan Times, 11 November 1924, 6–7. 189 Ganga Singh’s counsellors appreciated the work but suggested the Maharaja to

refuse in view of the sensitivity of the topic. ‘KM Panikkar’, file 2044, Maharaja Ganga Singh Trust, Bikaner (hereafter MGSTB). 190 Kushwant Singh, ‘Sardar Panikkar’, and relevant answer by Mangal Singh, The

Illustrated Weekly of India, 7 August 1977, 42–43. Panikkar, An Autobiography, 54. 191 ‘Intelligence Bureau, Home Department, Government of India to Major Sir John Wallinger’, 9 September 1925, L/PJ/12/264, IOR. 192 ‘Extract from the Madras Classified List of Political Suspects’, 9 September 1925, L/PJ/12/264, IOR. ‘K.M. Panikkar, editor Hindustan Times, Scotland Yard reports on activities, 1925’, undated, L/PJ/12/264, IOR.

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Conference held in Bierville in 1926,193 with the aim of expressing the views of anti-colonial movements. Together with the Hungarian historian of the Near East, Felix Vàlyi, Panikkar was in charge of a multilingual journal, Revue des Nations, which aimed to give voice to the universalist and internationalist ideals of the League of Nations. In a series of articles appearing in Europe, Europe Nouvelle and La Revue des Nations he tried to familiarise European readers with the problems of Indian nationalism.194 In particular, Panikkar addressed the problem of religious clashes, once again highlighting the responsibility of the separate communal organisations195 ; he dealt with imperialism and racial discrimination in India and the other territories of the British Empire196 ; he denounced the negative effects that colonialism had on European countries themselves, contributing to the rise of militarism and justifying practices that contrasted with Western moral values.197 Panikkar had also brought with him from India the manuscript of the book on the Indian princes, which, after a series of rejections by publishers, unconvinced of the profit prospects, finally came out in 1927 under the title An Introduction to the Study of the Relations of Indian States with the Government of India.198 The work was published at a time when relations between the Native States and the British Crown were going through a phase of conflict. Until the First World War, British policy towards the states had been centred on two elements. As far as external relations were concerned, the Indian government was to act as a conduit for all contacts and

193 ‘Documents. Asia and Peace’, India Quarterly, 2: 2, 1946, 192–5. 194 K.M. Panikkar, ‘La tache de Lord Irwin nouveau vice-roi des Indes’, Europe

Nouvelle, 9: 434, 1926, 828–30. 195 K.M. Panikkar, ‘The Psychology of the Hindu-Muslim Riots’, Contemporary Review, 131: 738, 1927, 230–6. 196 K.M. Panikkar, ‘The Colour Problem in the British Empire’, Revue des Nations, 1:

2, 1927, 102–10. 197 K.M. Panikkar, ‘Militarism and Empire’, Modern Review, 39: 3, 1926, 266–8 and Id., ‘The Reflex Action of Colonialism on Europe’, Revue des Nations, 1: 5, 1927, 126–30. 198 K.M. Panikkar, An Introduction to the Study of the Relations of Indian States with the Government of India, (London: Hopkinson & Co., 1927).

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was responsible for their security. As regards internal affairs, interference had been increasing, far beyond the terms of the treaties.199 The war, however, changed this situation. The princes supported the war effort with large donations and propaganda interventions in return for which they expected rewards in the form of concessions regarding disputed territories, reduced interference and, above all, continuation of the consultations that the government had initiated during the conflict. To provide a response, albeit a limited one, to these expectations, the Chamber of Princes was inaugurated in 1921, with consultative powers towards the Viceroy, which put an end to the traditional isolation.200 Attendance at meetings was rather low because the major rulers, worried about compromising their own status, tended to keep their distance. This did, however, allow for greater cohesion: leadership ended up in the hands of a small group of princes who were more committed and interested in all-India politics. The most active were, in general, from medium-sized states, mainly from western India and the Punjab. A prominent position was occupied by the Maharaja of Bikaner, Ganga Singh, Chancellor of the Chamber from its foundation to 1925, and by the Maharaja of Patiala, Bhupinder Singh, Chancellor from 1926 to 1931 and from 1933 to 1936. Thus, in spite of its limited powers and the fact that its decisions were not binding for its members, the Chamber became a place of confrontation, offering the possibility of developing common lines of conduct and gaining greater bargaining power when dealing with the Crown.201 The British attitude had soon changed once hostilities were over. Lord Reading, Viceroy between 1921 and 1925, abandoned the practice of consultations and replaced it with increasing interference by the British Indian Government in the internal affairs of the states. In this context, the event that catalysed the discontent of the princes was the dispute between the Nizam of Hyderabad and the Indian government over the interpretation of an earlier treaty concerning certain territories in Berar.202 To the Nizam’s demand that he be restored to full sovereignty over 199 Copland, The Princes of India, 17–21. Ramusack, The Indian Princes, 88–131. 200 Copland, The Princes of India, 33–41. 201 ‘Indian Round Table Conference, proceedings of the meetings Oct 1930–Jan 1931:

note by Political Department’, L/PS/13/287, IOR. 202 Surjit Mansingh, The Historical Dictionary of India, (New Delhi: Vision Books, 1998), 85.

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the province, Lord Reading countered with the full reassertion of the Crown’s Paramountcy rights, understood also as the possibility of intervening in the internal affairs of the princely states beyond the limits set by the treaties.203 Claiming to act for the welfare of the states’ subjects and to have, as paramount power, rights not bound by treaty provisions, the British Indian government would have endless opportunities for interference. The concerns that these assertions aroused among the princes led them to overcome the divisions that had hitherto paralysed the work of the Chamber and to insist that their relations with the Crown be subjected to an enquiry that would comprehensively reassess the issue. Panikkar, a keen observer of Indian politics, regarded this situation with interest. From his point of view, in fact, it was a critical phase of redefinition of power relations, which offered the possibility of resuming more effectively the project he had outlined in 1919 and reiterated in the pages of The Hindustan Times: bringing the princes and the national movement closer together.204 In this context, the book on princely states proposed itself as a defence against British pretensions. These states were of paramount importance because a purely Indian and, therefore, fully legitimate political authority, continued to exist in them. The states thus demonstrated the Indians’ capacity for self-government because they were already, in effect, areas of self-government. Moreover, they offered Indians the opportunity to develop their own capacities as administrators and politicians. Above all, however, for Panikkar they had historically played a role in the delicate balance between unity and diversity. The princely states had enabled the preservation of local identity and, thus, the richness of Indian national life, representing an element of stability in a context of rapid modernisation: In the midst of a changing and disintegrating society, [princely] states have in many cases preserved the solidarity of the social structure and kept intact the imperceptible bonds that unite classes and castes into one community.

203 Copland, The Princes of India, 55. 204 At the same time Panikkar was investigating the relationship between British India

and princely states from the point of view of international law, as modified by the establishment of the League of Nations. K.M. Panikkar, ‘International Law Affecting Indian States’, The Indian Review, 28: 9, 1927, 571–4.

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That is the explanation of the almost total absence of communal antagonism except that which is directly encouraged or imported from British India. […] This is certainly not all to our advantage, for progress can come only through purposive evolution, and a static society must tend to weigh down both individuality and activity through the leaden weight of encrusted custom. But all the same, a conservative tradition has much in its favour, especially in the midst of a society which is changing fast through the contact of dissimilar cultures.205

Panikkar read the ongoing dispute through the lens of the conflict between central government and local authorities, emphasising that not all states could be considered in the same way given the profound differences brought about by historical events. Some had been defeated in war; some were subordinate allies who had relied on British protection; others had previously been vassals who had never enjoyed full independence and had come under British protection when their ‘feudal lords’ had been defeated.206 The variety of situations had led to differentiated relations: some states had complete legislative and executive independence within their borders, others were only subject to supervision, while most were smaller states whose rights were due only in the form of concessions from the Crown. For Panikkar, it was essential to distinguish between the first two groups that enjoyed, at least on paper, special rights and the last one, over which all central government claims were legitimate, blocking the uniforming drive exerted by the British after the 1857 revolt. It was therefore suggested that the ideal political structure for India was a federal one and that historical development had led in this direction, allowing the British to create a central government, but not eliminate local authorities. Precisely for this reason, the proposed plan was for an all-India federation that would unite British India with the states, granting extensive autonomy to all components. The issue of the future Indian constitution had, however, another aspect that concerned the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms. Indeed, it was envisaged that, after ten years, further powers could be ceded from the

205 Panikkar, An Introduction, xxvii–xxviii. 206 See Christopher Bayly, The New Cambridge History of India, vol. 21: Indian Society

and the Making of British Empire, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1988) and Ramusack, The Indian Princes, 48–87.

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centre to the provinces or transferred to ministers responsible towards the assemblies. In fact, the timing of the evaluation was anticipated and the Simon Commission was appointed in 1927 for this purpose. Thus, Panikkar used his knowledge of the political life of the provinces, acquired through his years of militant journalism, to pass judgement on the outcomes of the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms.207 His opinion was that, in spite of many limitations and inconsistencies in the tasks entrusted to them, the legislative councils had made good use of the instruments they had been granted: they had voted on the budget and passed resolutions and interpellations. These limited powers had been used to the full and without abuse, with positive results in education and social legislation. In the field of state-population relations, the results had been very positive: elections had been an effective instrument of political education. The greatest difficulty was the separate communal electorates, which made those elected accountable only to a certain community. In addition, the ethnically and linguistically composite character of the provinces made political propaganda more difficult.208 While the balance sheet in the provinces was generally positive, in the central government, on the other hand, the reforms had not taken place on the basis of the dyarchic principle, but had only sought to bring the institutions closer to public opinion. The elective body had no final responsibility in any matter, which made it unaccountable. On the contrary, when the Indians had obtained actual governing responsibilities, they had shown themselves perfectly capable of handling them. Panikkar’s conclusion was that India only needed a responsible government in the British political tradition, because its modern political ideas were, to a large extent, the fruit of the latter: Both Indian public men and British Ministers have recently been announcing that what India wants is a constitution “suited to her own genius”. […] Village government, caste panchayats [assemblies of elderlies], and ancient republics are all undeniable facts, but it is no more possible to go back to them so as to develop an Indian constitution, as 207 Kerala Putra (pseud. K.M. Panikkar), The Working of Dyarchy in India, 1919–1928, (Bombay: Taraporevala Sons & Co., 1928). 208 Ivi, 82.

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it is to make the Ganges flow back to the Himalayas. The problem of an Indian constitution developing naturally out of the institutions that existed in the country previous to the British rule, is equally impossible.209

The idea of a constitution suited to the ‘Indian genius’ was an example of the ‘false nationalism’ that Panikkar had dealt with in his articles of the first half of the 1920s: a conception of the nation as being all about the past and as rejecting novelties only because they were associated with the West. Compared to those articles, however, the judgement on the influence of the West became here much more positive: Western political ideas were the ones on which to build the structure of the Indian constitution. Western influence was no longer just a process of de-nationalisation against which to react, but an essential source of modernity in India. A century and half of political contact made them [Western political ideas] a part of Indian tradition. It is impossible to efface from history the last 100 years of political growth in India, and no one, who has studied the Indian movement, can deny that in the realm of ideas, more than in the realm of politics, the assimilated tradition of England has become the basis of Indian thought.210

The conception of freedom in the Indian tradition was something different: for Indians, being free meant being able to follow the rules of one’s caste or religion or sect without government interference. When, however, the Indians demanded that the state approve social reforms, they began to follow the opposite principle of intervention in social customs and institutions. This new conception of the state implied a new conception of freedom. It was no longer a matter of escaping the control of the state, but of being able to control it and this necessarily implied a limitation of individual and group freedom. The Indian mind has shown an appreciation of parliamentary responsibility and democratic institutions not because there were democratic bodies in ancient India, but because they have, by the prolonged contact with the

209 Ivi, 111–2. 210 Ivi, vi.

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British and by the penetration of ideas from the schools, become a part of the national character.211

Since the Indians had shown that they were capable of taking on the responsibilities of government, Panikkar argued, further powers had to be ceded. At the central level, an Indian government accountable to the Legislative Assembly had to be created. This needed to be free from the influence of London except for those matters affecting the Empire as a whole. At the provincial level, the distinction between transferred and reserved matters was to be abolished and ministers made fully responsible towards the Councils. Unlike in the case of the princely states, which enjoyed special rights, the provinces of British India were to be subject to close scrutiny by the central government to avoid the dangers of particularism.212 The picture that Panikkar outlined was, therefore, in summary, that of a central government responsible to the elective assembly for all internal matters and which could control the provinces rather rigidly; of common electorates, not divided on a religious basis; of a voting system that, while aiming for universal suffrage, would only be extended gradually; of provincial institutions in which all ministers would have to have the confidence of the elective councils with no more division between transferred and reserved matters. The future Constitution must be based on principles which unite the past with the future and not separate them. These features of our political past, on which we can build safely and securely, are the traditions of the Rule of Law and Parliamentary Government which we have inherited from the British connection, the Centralised Administration which descends through ages from Chandra Gupta Maurya to Aurangzeb, Wellesley and Curzon, and the limited countervailing influence of autonomous local Governments so strongly represented at the present time by the Indian States. […] The unification of India through political institutions, a common language and an administrative machinery, is the greatest movement set on foot by the British contact with this country.213

211 Ivi, 116. 212 Ivi, 123. 213 Ivi, 148–9.

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Panikkar’s two volumes, An Introduction to the Study of the Relations of Indian States with the Government of India and The Working of Dyarchy in India, therefore constituted an overall project. The unification promoted by the British was to be maintained as a guarantee for Indian unity, but it was not to be extended to the princely states. These represented the link with the past and tradition, while reforms in British India were to take place on the basis of modern, Western ideas. The princely states were to remain largely autonomous in order to maintain an area of decentralisation in the Indian political structure, while the provinces of British India were to be under the strict control of the central government to safeguard unification. The idea of federation here sketched out was a link between the two parties and between their different, but complementary roles.

CHAPTER 3

Politics and Diplomacy in Princely India

3.1

At the Service of the Maharaja

At the age of 32, after two years in Europe, Panikkar’s life was about to enter a completely new phase. Partly thanks to the support of the new viceroy, Lord Irwin, the princes had secured the formation of a committee chaired by the former governor of Burma, Harcourt Butler, to comprehensively review the question of their relationship with the Crown. Their hope was that a clear delimitation of the powers of the British Crown would be achieved. The Chamber of Princes, confident that it could achieve good results, thus created a Special Organisation to deal with legal consultations and to collect documentation from member states on abuses and treaty violations.1 Against this backdrop, An Introduction to the Study of the Relations of the Indian States with the Government of India was immediately noticed by Kailash Narain Haksar, minister of the state of Gwalior and joint director of the Special Organisation, who suggested Panikkar take up a post with a princely state. The task was to assist the Maharaja of Kashmir in his claims to the Butler Committee, tracing through archival research the rights originally enjoyed and lost over time through undue interference by the British Indian government. Panikkar decided to accept the 1 On this subject, see Copland, The Princes of India, 56–71.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Elli and R. Paolini, Indian National Identity and Foreign Policy, Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36425-9_3

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offer and embark on a career in the service of the states for various reasons in which economic necessity, family situation, personal ambition and the desire to be at the centre of events were all mixed together.2 This was an opportunity to actively engage in politics, not just as an observer or opponent, but from within an ‘Indian’ government. India, in fact, had indeed acquired its own peculiar international physiognomy (it even became a member of the League of Nations), but it remained subordinate to London, unlike the self-governing dominions. If for the more moderate component of the Indian intelligentsia this represented an important progress on the road to granting ever wider margins of autonomy, for the more radical nationalists it was just empty show.3 Indeed, from the internal and administrative point, of view Dyarchy had introduced ‘transferred matters’ but, even in this field, control mostly remained in British hands. On the contrary, Panikkar’s view was that the treaties that bound the princely states to the British effectively allowed them to retain internal sovereignty over various issues. The smaller states had only the semblance of an administration, but the larger ones ceded powers only on certain matters. A position with a princely state was, therefore, one of the few opportunities for an Indian to experience active governmental functions. Moreover, that position allowed Panikkar to act more directly to realise his old project: to bring the princes closer to the national movement. Relations with all-India forces, with the British Indian government and with other princes, finally, represented for a ‘native state’ an external projection and for Panikkar could be a challenging and formative experience in a sort of intra-Indian diplomacy. In 1928, when Panikkar entered the service of the Maharaja of Kashmir, his new occupation aroused the attention of the Foreign and Political Department of the Indian government, which, on the basis of his political background, saw him as a dangerous subversive to be kept

2 Panikkar, An Autobiography, 69–70. 3 See Sneh Mahajan, Foreign Policy of Colonial India, 1900–1947 , (New Delhi, Rout-

ledge, 2018); T.A. Keenleyside, ‘The Indian Nationalist Movement and the League of Nations: Prologue to the United Nations’, India Quarterly, 39: 3, 1983, 281–98; Joseph McQuade, ‘Beyond an Imperial Foreign Policy?: India at the League of Nations, 1919–1946’, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 47: 2, 2020, 263–95.

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under control, but on the other hand, considered the ideas he expressed about princely states interesting.4 When Panikkar presented the results of his research in front of the Butler Committee, Leslie Scott, lawyer in the Chamber of Princes, asked that he be allowed to go to London with the Chamber committee of experts. The Maharaja of Kashmir, a member of the Standing Committee, decided instead to send him as his personal representative.5 It was in London, at Haksar’s suggestion, that Panikkar wrote the historical part of The British Crown and the Indian States, a text which— with a section written by the economist Austin Robinson—was intended to provide Leslie Scott with arguments to use before the committee.6 He used the historical perspective analysis of British expansion to investigate the origins of the Paramountcy system, identifying two distinct phases between which the watershed was the 1857 revolt, following the interpretive model already employed in The Introduction. In the first phase, the protagonist was the East India Company which, starting from a situation of inferiority with respect to the Indian powers, had managed to establish itself initially as one among them and later as the largest state in the subcontinent. Panikkar wanted to show that, in this first phase, relations between the Crown and the states had been relations between sovereign and independent entities. His contemporary situation was the result of a gradual extension of the rights of the British Indian government imposed by force relatively recently, but without legal sanction. In this reconstruction, Hastings’ Ring Fence System policy—i.e. the series of alliances with neighbouring princes under which the Company undertook to defend them, at their expense, thus also defending its own territories—would not have affected the sovereignty of the princely states in internal affairs, as Hastings’ own reprimands to the Awadh resident, responsible for excessive interference, showed.7

4 ‘Note by J. B. Glancy’, undated, Crown Representative, Political Department Indian States Records 1880–1947, R/1/1/1714, IOR. 5 Panikkar, An Autobiography, 79. 6 Chamber of Princes, The British Crown & the Indian States. An Outline Sketch Drawn

up on behalf of the Standing Committee of the Chamber of Princes, (London: King & Sons, 1929). 7 Ivi, 14.

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Certainly, the state of Mysore, for instance, had had to accept a treaty that explicitly recognised the right of the British to intervene in its internal affairs after a series of wars in the last decades of the eighteenth century.8 But it was an exception that needed to be specified in the text, indirectly demonstrating that when the British recognised the complete internal sovereignty of the princes they did not do so simply as a form of courtesy.9 The system of subordinate alliances had thus taken shape. Subsequently it had been extended and refined, but not changed in substance. The second phase, however, was characterised by more insidious dangers: interference beyond the limits defined by treaties grew through the training and education of heirs to the throne, the control of regencies in the case of younger rulers and greater economic integration. The states were forced to transfer their sovereignty over railways to the British Indian government, to cede their monopoly on salt and opium, and to relinquish their right to coin money. Out of a desire for uniformity, the British governors general had increasingly tried to impose the same model everywhere. The theory of Paramountcy, like other theories used to justify British rule over states, was, according to Panikkar, built on a historical fallacy. He opposed the idea of a ‘feudal’ relationship, the idea of a descent of the prerogatives of the British Crown from the Mughal empire, the idea of a Paramountcy that was itself the source of rights for the government of British India. All these ideas assumed that there was a uniform relationship between the Crown and the various Indian states in which it, due to its superior position, enjoyed certain rights regardless of the terms of individual treaties. On the contrary, in the course of time and each to a different degree, the states had ceded only some of their prerogatives but had, legally, retained the powers that had not been explicitly alienated. Panikkar’s text thus highlighted the British non-compliance with the treaties: it was history and law that condemned the interference of the British Indian government. The solution, however, could not be an impossible return to the past, with the restoration of the treaties and a return to the original relationship. Rather, Panikkar proposed to explore a new possibility, namely a federal system:

8 On Mysore see Sekhar Bandyopadhyay, From Plassey to Partition. A History of Modern India, (Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 2004), 33–5, 51–3. 9 Chamber of Princes, The British Crown, 29.

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The states and their rulers are loyal to the King, the Empire and India, and are ready and willing to cooperate in building up a successful and united India within the Empire – if only these are given the opportunity, by the institution – in consultation with them, of appropriate federal machinery, to play their rightful part.10

The idea that India could transform itself into a federal state was not entirely new: it had already been envisaged in the conclusions of the report that had formed the basis of the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms of 1919, but it was indicated as a very distant prospect and difficult to realise, to the extent that no concrete steps of any kind were proposed. The princes themselves had been decidedly hostile to a development that could have integrated their states more closely with the rest of India.11 For Panikkar, on the other hand, federation was an immediate possibility and he aimed to present it to the princes as an opportunity that could benefit them, as well as give them credit for being able to contribute to the unification of the nation. Hints of a federal solution to the problem of a constitution suitable for India and, in particular, the states, had been present in his writings since 1919. Now, however, employed by the princes and involved in the affairs of the Chamber and the Butler Committee, these plans deepened and took shape. The whole subsequent period up to 1939 was thus marked by reflection on the idea of a federation uniting the princely states and British India. This was the instrument with which Panikkar thought of giving the princes a new role in Indian politics and making them a fully national force. Moreover, it was the instrument to bequeath a unitary state to independent India and avert the danger of political fragmentation after the withdrawal of the British. The federal idea thus represented the project of an independent India in which national unity and the preservation of the variety of political and social institutions could coexist.

3.2

Local Episodes of a Unique National History

If the categories of the historical analysis of the relations between centre and periphery had served to investigate the problems posed by the relations between the princely states and the British Crown, in this period 10 Ivi, 98. 11 See Copland, The Princes of India, 80.

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Panikkar broadened its scope to a reflection on India in general. He thus began to address various local history issues as part of a broader ‘national’ history, questioning the relationship between the different levels. Panikkar was, that is, in search of those characters who, in various regions, had made India great through their valour and ability to stand up to ‘foreigners’. One of these ‘heroic’ characters had already been Harsha, the protagonist of the book written during his time at Aligarh University.12 In Malabar and the Portuguese of 1929, however, it was the Zamorin of Calicut who was presented as a ‘heroic’ character who, at the time of the arrival of the first Portuguese ships, was trying to politically unify the Malabar region and who later opposed the foreigners with all his might.13 In outlining the situation in the region on the eve of the arrival of the Portuguese, Panikkar took up the model of the ongoing transition from fragmentation to unification used for the Harsha era. There were in fact numerous states and there was a lack of royal authority: only three princes were fully independent (Calicut, Cannanore and Travancore), while the others recognised, more or less vaguely, the suzerainty of a major ruler, without this preventing them from facing each other in continuous wars or placing a real limit on the autonomy of the nair aristocracy. But the situation was evolving: the Zamorin of Calicut was strengthening his power, foreshadowing a possible confederation of Malabar under his aegis.14 Another parallel with the book on Harsha was to be found in the description of the political organisation of the Calicut state in which the meagre centralisation was also presented positively as a guarantee against autocracy.15 In a situation in which political integration was taking place, trade was flourishing, religious tolerance was absolute and life was thriving and happy, albeit politically isolated and ‘primitive’, the arrival of the Portuguese introduced a new variable and interrupted ongoing developments. 12 Panikkar, Sri Harsha of Kanauj. 13 K.M. Panikkar, Malabar and the Portuguese. Being a History of the Relations of the

Portuguese with Malabar from 1500 to 1663, (Bombay: Taraporevala Sons & Co., 1929). See also the book’s review by the renown historian Jadunath Sarkar, ‘Malabar and the Portuguese’, The Modern Review, 47: 1, 1930, 72. 14 Ivi, 25. 15 Ivi, 11–2.

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Panikkar tended to downplay the significance of the discovery of a sea route to the Indies and, more specifically, the voyage of Vasco Da Gama who, it was pointed out, had been guided in his explorations by Arab pilots. Relations between the Malabar region and the West were very old, dating back to the time of trade with the Phoenicians, Egyptians, Greeks and Romans. In medieval times, trade with Malabar had passed into the hands of Muslim merchants and, by the time the Portuguese arrived, long-distance trade was controlled by Egypt and Venice. The real importance of the discovery was therefore not in establishing trade contact—which already existed—but in breaking previous monopolies and, for India, entering into a direct relationship with a major European maritime power. Panikkar thus drastically downplayed the intrinsic merits of Portuguese expansion: this was due more to exogenous factors, such as the fall of Egypt to the Ottomans and their lack of attention to maintaining naval supremacy in the Indian Ocean. Moreover, the Portuguese had brought with them only cruelty and religious bigotry, draining wealth from the subcontinent instead. If, therefore, his assessment was very negative, Panikkar emphasised here for the first time the theme of naval power, destined to be more and more central in his later geopolitical reflections: accustomed to considering only land-based threats, the Indian potentates would have underestimated the Portuguese danger.16 The decisive element for the Portuguese to assert themselves had been technological superiority rather than the value of arms, as demonstrated by the success enjoyed throughout the sixteenth century by the Kunjalis, the captains of the Zamorin fleet of Calicut, considered pirates by European historiography on the basis of an exclusive right of navigation that the Portuguese had self-assigned to themselves.17 The presence of the Portuguese maritime power in the region, however, had had a particularly negative consequence for India: it had interrupted the process of unification and centralisation already underway. Having failed to impose themselves on the territorial powers of the Malabar, the Portuguese had limited themselves to supporting the feudal

16 Ivi, 198, 211–2. 17 Ivi, 143.

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lords of the Zamorin of Calicut who wanted to become independent, thereby fostering political fragmentation.18 A similar national mythopoetic reflection was made by analysing the story of Gulab Singh. The Maharaja of Kashmir was described as a selfmade man in the context of the Anglo-Sikh wars to the point of being recognised as the independent ruler of Jammu and Kashmir. Starting from a position as a low-ranking officer, thanks to his skills as an administrator, leader and diplomat, he thus shed light on an Indian nineteenth century that had otherwise been devoid of historical achievements.19 In opposition to the Orientalist stereotype, Gulab Singh was presented as an intelligent and dynamic ruler.20 Two aspects were most important according to Panikkar. On the one hand, the conquest of Ladak, Baltisan and western Tibet, described as an expansion of India’s own borders.21 On the other, the ability to maintain a relationship of equals with the British, as evidenced by his refusal to have a resident appointed to his court. These conclusions, of course, came through the punctilious defence of Gulab Singh’s conduct against the accusation that he had opportunistically jumped on the winner’s bandwagon and thus compromised the Sikh cause in the war of 1845–46.22 Moreover, it was now the British expansion in India itself that took on an ambivalent significance for Panikkar. On the one hand, it represented a positive path of unification; on the other hand, he insisted on all the moments when the ‘greats’ of Indian history had succeeded in effectively opposing it. In a series of lectures at Calcutta University in 1929, he stated that the British unification drive amounted to “the pressure of irresistible currents of history”.23

18 Ivi, 162. 19 K.M. Panikkar, Gulab Singh, 1792–1858, Founder of Kashmir, (London: Hopkinson,

1930). 20 Ivi, 140. 21 Ivi, 151. 22 Ivi, 90–8. Historiography has considered Gulab Singh’s rule on Kashmir as a quid pro quo for the help given to the British during the first Anglo-Sikh War: see Bawa Satinder Singh, ‘Raja Gulab Singh’s Role in the First Anglo-Sikh War’, Modern Asian Studies, 5: 1, 1971, 35–59. 23 K.M. Panikkar, The Evolution of British Policy towards Indian States, 1774–1858, (Calcutta: Calcutta University Readership Lectures, 1930), ix.

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On the other hand, reworking themes he had already addressed, Panikkar went on to emphasise how, between the mid-eighteenth and mid-nineteenth century, the East India Company had only gradually acquired supremacy, while relations with many states, particularly the Marathas, Mysore and Hyderabad, had long remained on an equal footing.24 Research into local history thus served Panikkar to legitimise a revisionist interpretation that Indian history was not a hopeless web of fragmentation and anarchy. There were epitomes of national history, personalities who, at least locally, had been able to recover the unity of the state and make it modern and centralised, thus able to defend itself against external interference. In the case of the conflicts that affected the Kerala region in the modern era, Panikkar explicitly resorted to terms that referred to the category of nationality. The alliance between the Zamorin of Calicut—the protagonist of Malabar and the Portuguese—and the Dutch, for instance, was described as a betrayal of the national cause and an abdication of one’s historical role.25 The Dutch were treated less severely than the Portuguese. Certainly, Panikkar pointed out the narrowness of their territorial possessions and the fact that they were essentially merchants, able at best to control a few minor local rulers.26 Their policy, however, had not been as aggressive and intolerant as that of the Portuguese, and had indeed contributed to the development of Malabar civilisation. Panikkar thus added new material to a more nuanced—and consequence-rich—reading of the relationship between India and the Europeans.27 Following the interpretative model analysed so far, once Calicut’s leadership in the struggle against foreigners had disappeared, its role had been taken over by Travancore. The concept of nationality, however, became problematic in this case. Travancore was, in fact, to all intents and purposes a Kerala state but, in developing its modernisation policy and suppressing the rebellions of its feudal lords, Maharaja Martanda Varma had relied on a mercenary army and a ‘foreign’ bureaucracy. Here,

24 Ivi, 37. 25 Ivi, 25. 26 Ivi, 45. 27 Ivi, 131.

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however, the term ‘foreigner’ referred to other Indians coming from the Tamil-speaking eastern regions: [Martanda Varma] wished to find an autocratic state […]. The conception was entirely foreign. The instruments used for its realisation were equally foreign being the mercenary army of Maravars recruited on the East Coast.28

While Travancore was undoubtedly the standard-bearer of the nation’s defence against the Dutch, Panikkar was more ambiguous when describing the clash between Martanda Varma and the small local kingdoms or the nair nobility of Cochin.29 Moreover, the invasion of Kerala by Haidar Ali, ruler of Mysore, was also described as the threat of a foreign power. Martanda Varma, after successfully opposing the Dutch, thus saw the failure of his own attempt to unify Malabar.30 Travancore’s choice to turn to the British, turning itself into a subordinate ally, had been the inevitable choice between two foreign powers. The opposition between ‘national forces’ and ‘foreigners’ proved to be a particularly problematic interpretative grid in this case. All the sovereigns investigated by Panikkar served to demonstrate the historical existence of political skills and governing abilities in the deployment of unifying forces, as well as the effort to oppose ‘foreigners’. Tensions and conceptual ambiguities remained between the local plane of historical analysis and the national plane of mythopoeia, but these reflections constituted Panikkar’s attempt to develop his ideas on the relationship between centre and periphery, nationalism and regionalism, centripetal and centrifugal forces that the problem of the princely states urgently confronted him with.

28 Ivi, 62. 29 Ivi, 70, 85. 30 Ivi, 149.

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3.3 Princely States and the Federation: An Experience in Intra-Indian Diplomacy The conclusions of the Butler Committee, instructed, in 1927, to investigate the relationship between the power of the British Raj and that of the Indian princely states, dashed expectations. Indeed, the Committee reaffirmed that the British government, due to its position as Paramount Power, enjoyed certain rights that went beyond the constraints of the treaties. Moreover, as Panikkar noted, these rights remained undefined, to the benefit of the British: “to the demand of the princes that Paramountcy should be defined, the Committee replied that ‘Paramountcy must remain paramount’”.31 The political situation, however, was changing rapidly. The boycott of the committee tasked with assessing the effects of the MontaguChelmsford reforms, entirely composed of British members, had led the Viceroy, Lord Irwin, to call for the convening of a Round Table Conference in London in which representatives of the British government and political parties would participate together with those of the Indian states and Indian political parties to discuss the necessary reforms, thus seeking an outlet for the growing national sentiment.32 This was, for Panikkar, a great opportunity. The reforms formally concerned only British India, but the princely states could not be unaffected, given the ambiguity of their position. Theoretically, they were linked directly to the Crown, but their relations passed, de facto, through the British Indian government. The Butler Committee had ruled out that the relationship between the princes and the Crown could be transferred to an autonomous Indian government without the consent of the states themselves. It was not clear, however, how the multifaceted congeries of commitments between the princes and the Crown could be maintained when India gained self-government. Consequently, it was in the states’ interest to actively participate in the process if they did not want to risk being overwhelmed by it. Thus, in preparation for the conference, the Maharaja of Patiala, Chancellor of the Chamber of Princes, appointed an Expert Committee under the leadership of Kailash Narain Haksar in 31 K.M. Panikkar, His Highness the Maharaja of Bikaner. A Biography, (London, Oxford University Press, 1937), 322. 32 Sumit Sarkar, Modern India, 1885–1947 , (Madras: MacMillan India, 1983), 261–84; Torri, Storia dell’India, 544–7; Ramusack, The Indian Princes, 245.

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which Panikkar participated as secretary.33 Both with direct contacts with the national movement, they drew up a federalist proposal that was to be surprisingly approved by the first Round Table Conference. The report on the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms had hinted at the hypothesis of a federation, but proposed it as a remote goal and one to be approached with extreme caution.34 Panikkar and Haksar, on the other hand, believed that it should be the princes who promoted the idea of federation, thus moving closer to the demands of the nationalists, or at least the more moderate nationalists, and strengthening the positions of those who demanded that India be granted self-government within the British Empire as soon as possible. The non-participation of the Congress made an understanding between the princes and the more moderate nationalists easier, while the British could consider the former an important ally.35 The princes, however, remained hostile to a federation that, in their view, would have tied them even more closely to encroaching British India.36 In preparation for the work of the conference, Panikkar drew up a project of a federation between the princely states and British India that was circulated among the members of the Indian States Delegation on the eve of the conference and then published under the title Federal India.37 As Panikkar himself provocatively reported to the Conservative MP Robert Stopford, the book aimed at gaining the consensus of the princes by emphasising the benefits they could obtain. We discussed the book Federal India which Haksar and Panikkar have just produced. Panikkar described it as a “deceitful book” and said that it had

33 On the role of Bhupindar Singh, Maharaja of Patiala, see Kunwar Natwar Singh, The Magnificent Maharaja, (New Delhi: Harper Collins Publishers India, 1998), Chapters 9 and 13. 34 Report of the Indian Statutory Commission Presented by the Secretary of State for the Home Department to Parliament by Command of His Majesty, (London: HMSO, 1930), 195. See also. Richard Ashton, British Policy towards Indian States, (London: Curzon, 1982), 130. 35 Copland, The Princes of India, 77; Torri, Storia dell’India, 447–8; Sarkar, Modern India, 281–3. 36 Copland, The Princes of India, 80. 37 Kailash Haksar—K.M. Panikkar, Federal India (London: Martin Hopkinson, 1930).

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been written in an attempt to persuade the Princes to accept federation and consequently emphasized all the sweets and omitted the sacrifices.38

The federal project, however, was to reconcile unity and autonomy, the need for modern constitutional reforms and the defence of traditional forms of government. In order to push the princes to adhere to this project, Panikkar emphasised that the conclusions of the Butler Committee had confirmed that the princely states were free, at least theoretically, to bind themselves to the government of British India or maintain their ties with the Crown. By giving their consent to the granting of dominion status to India and the transfer of their relations from the British Crown to the new dominion, the princes could then set conditions. A direct participation in the reform process would have also allowed them to make the most of their position. In this process, by making concessions to the princes, it would have become possible for Indian nationalism to realise a united India from the outset. The people of British India have no rights of Paramountcy over the states. A self-governing British India with responsible government would have to be content with formal and friendly relations with the neighbouring Indian States. If such a position be deemed to be satisfactory it would not be necessary to examine our suggestions. If, on the other hand it be desired to unite India into a single and progressive Commonwealth, the two parts of India must be united in one common organization.39

The princes had to be given two guarantees. First, the federation was not to imply a central power that could interfere any more than the British Crown already did. Secondly, their states were to be defended against the encroachment of democratic drives. The first guarantee was essentially the elaboration of an institutional form in which centrifugal and centripetal forces were in balance. Based on his reflections on the history of India, Panikkar argued that British assertion had already created a semblance of federal government, in that the central power exercised foreign policy, powers of defence and powers of coercion over the states. What was needed was a constitutional set-up that guaranteed the autonomy of the 38 ‘Note of a Conversation with Mr. Panikkar’, 25 November 1930, Stopford Papers (hereafter SP), MSS EUR E346/9, IOR. 39 Haksar—Panikkar, Federal India, 153.

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states, leaving the central authority with sufficient power to hold the federation together and engender a sense of national belonging. As a guarantee of the modernity of such a structure, the reference models were all Western, in particular the United States (whose constitution ensured that residual powers remained with the states) and the Bismarckian Reich, an important precedent of national federation between regional states with enormous disproportions of population, territory and power.40 More difficult to resolve was the question of ensuring a nottoo-pronounced democratisation. Indeed, the attempt to reconcile his personal conviction of the need for social reform with the need to win the consensus of the princes led Panikkar to devise a complicated system in which democratic institutions and personal governments could coexist. Basically, he argued that developments in a democratic direction should arise from the people of the states themselves and not be imposed by the central government.41 This made it possible to maintain democracy as a possibility, perhaps little perceived at present, but one that could mature under the pressure of the transformations that Indian society was undergoing: If the states entering the Indian Union are to have the right of maintaining their own forms of constitution it follows that they must possess the right to alter, modify or change those forms. The claim which the Princes now put forward that the Crown is pledged to the maintenance of the existing forms of government in the states, would vanish if this principle were accepted. The people of each state would therefore be entitled to demand of their own ruler (as even now they are entitled to do) that changes should be introduced in the constitution of the state.42

However, this system had the disadvantage that it resulted in a complex institutional alchemy. In order to maintain personal governments in the states, the lower house with universal suffrage was to be flanked by a senate in which the representatives of the provinces of British India would be elected directly or by the provincial parliaments, while those of the states would be appointed by the princes according to the specific form of government of each. In this way, a representation of the peoples of 40 Ivi, 5, 60–1. 41 Ivi, 21–2. 42 Ivi, 84–5.

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the states would only exist in the lower house, which would still remain subordinate to the senate. The parliamentary principle was thus sacrificed to the guarantees offered to the princes.43 Panikkar defended the proposal by arguing that this only concerned the federal level, whereas the national movement would have achieved its goals in British India, where there would have been a fully parliamentary institutional set-up and where parliament would have elected two-thirds of the senators centrally.44 Aiming to combine the interests of the princes, the British and the national movement, Panikkar and Haksar’s federalist propaganda achieved unexpected success: Slowly […] the intensive lobbying and the frenetic shuttle diplomacy of the pro-federation ministers (and especially of the suave Panikkar) began to bear fruit. As regards the princes, what had at first seemed strange and threatening began to appear, as the mechanics of federalism were explained to them by the ministers, logical and compelling […].45

On October 11, 1930, the Indian States’ Delegation met for the first time in London. Not only was there a lack of overall agreement on the federalist option, but the federalists themselves were divided on the form to be given to their plans. All the more remarkable and unexpected, therefore, was the fact that when the conference began the following month, all converged on the hypothesis of an All-Indian Federation.46 Upon returning to India, the idea of the federation encountered renewed strong opposition within the Chamber of Princes, of which Panikkar had meanwhile become secretary in February 1931.47 The princes were thus divided between the supporters of the federation, led by the Maharaja of Bikaner, and its opponents, whose reference was the Maharaja of Patiala. The latter, convinced that the growing integration between the states and British India posed a danger to the princely 43 Ivi, 31. 44 Ivi, 40. 45 ‘Note of Conversation with Mr. Panikkar’, 25 November 1930, SP, MSS EUR E346/9, IOR. 46 Panikkar, His Highness the Maharaja of Bikaner, 338; Copland, The Princes of India, 80–91. 47 Panikkar, An Autobiography, 85.

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order, began to gather around him the ultra-conservative states and the numerous small entities that would have no representation in the federal institutions. In June 1931, Patiala sent the other princes a note On Federation and the Indian States in which he argued that the federation project was contrary to the interests of the princes. Far from being a mere formal ratification of existing conditions, the federation would not resolve the issue of Paramountcy and would not provide guarantees against the gradual extension of central government prerogatives, condemning the smaller states to disappear.48 As an alternative, a ‘confederation’ project was launched. It envisaged that the federation of the provinces of British India would be joined by a confederation created among those princely states that decided to join. The two parties would then merge into an institution with limited powers concerning only a few defined subjects, and federal legislation would have to be ratified by the individual states. The latter would collectively elect their representatives to the federal parliament, while their subjects would not acquire a new federal citizenship.49 In this context, at the request of the Maharaja of Patiala, Panikkar wrote a confidential document, entitled An Alternative Scheme, in which he emphasised that the failure of the federal project would leave the content and spirit of the treaties with the British as the only basis for the claims of the princes. This, however, would not have stopped the gradual ceding of powers to British India, while the princes would only have been able to safeguard those rights that were explicitly enshrined.50 A compromise between the two sides was found with the so-called ‘Delhi Pact’ on March 11, 1932. Bikaner, Bhopal and Patiala agreed on the distribution of posts in the Chamber of Princes and set up a committee of ministers, which Panikkar joined, in order to reconcile the projects laid on the table as much as possible.51 The committee’s conclusions sought to reconcile federation and confederation, the interests of

48 ‘Note on Federation and the Indian States’, June 1931, and ‘Statement Explanatory of Memorandum on Federation and the Indian States’, file 14, basta 29, Punjab State Archives (hereafter PSAP), Patiala. 49 ‘Revised Proposals for a Confederation Scheme’, 8 February 1932, file 2, basta 29, PSAP. 50 ‘Panikkar to Patiala’, 22 July 1931, file 28, basta 31, PSAP. 51 ‘Delhi Pact’, 11 March 1932, file 7, basta 29, PSAP.

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the larger states and the fears of the smaller ones through a cumbersome institutional system fraught with safeguard clauses.52 Panikkar and Haksar opposed this approach, but the majority of those present voted in their favour. The pact was approved by the Chamber on April 1, 1932, enshrining the newfound unity around the idea of federation in exchange for more guarantees.53 The most politically sensitive issue was the fear of the princes towards democratisation. Some of them did not want to be associated in any way with a state that was on its way to becoming a democracy with grant of responsible government to British India approaching. These fears were only heightened by the new attitude of a section of the Congress: in fact, some leftists like Jawaharlal Nehru were critical of the autocracy of the princes and, from the 1930s, began to support political activists in the states. Nehru responded to a letter from Patiala—who had asked for his opinion on federation—by stating that it would only be acceptable if it took the form of a union of peoples based on democratic principles.54 The official position of the Congress Party, however, remained one of non-intervention, leaving claims to the princes to the initiative of the local populations. All-India affairs were also beginning to exert a growing influence on the internal politics of the states. From the point of view of the politicisation of the peoples of the states, the evolution was quite rapid during the 1930s and Panikkar was very keen to grasp this change. Ever since the first Round Table Conference, he had advocated an understanding on reforms between the states and the nationalists of British India. In 1932, Patiala and Bikaner even considered the creation of a Federal Party specifically for this purpose.55 Now, however, it was no longer only the politicians of British India who had to be considered, but also the people of the princely states themselves who were becoming players in the political game. Hence, the renewed effort of analysis that Panikkar lavished on research in this period. In 1932, he published Indian States and the Government of India, a revised and expanded edition of An Introduction to the Study of the 52 ‘Report to His Highness the Chancellor’, undated, file 7, basta 29, PSAP. 53 ‘Information conveyed by Mir Maqbool Mahmood on phone from Delhi’, 16 March

1932, file 2, basta 29, PSAP. 54 ‘Nehru to Patiala’, 16 September 1931, file 17, basta 30, PSAP. 55 ‘Panikkar to Bikaner’, 23 June 1932, file 2044, MGSTA. ‘Patiala to Bikaner’, 17

July 1932, file 3, basta 29, PSAP.

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Relations of Indian States with the Government of India of 1927. The revision of the text highlighted a radical change in perspective that had taken place in those five years: he now presented public opinion within states as pivotal. Nationalist ideas were spreading everywhere because the states were not (and could no longer see themselves as) separate entities from British India, but as the mere product of historical accidents.56 What was taking place here was a parable of Panikkar’s political thought starting from his continuous confrontation with Indian history. Unification was described as a totally positive factor for India as a whole because it had transformed it from a conglomerate of independent states into a single entity. Even the meddling policies of the British Indian government, though contestable, had had positive unifying effects. The real change from the recent past was the much greater attention paid to the peoples of the states who would, by now, have developed, according to Panikkar, the “feeling of a common Indian citizenship”.57 The balance had thus shifted significantly and now the federation was also described as a way of responding to the demand for political unification by the peoples of the states. This change in perspective naturally also affected the proposed solutions. In Federal India, Panikkar had assumed that the representatives of the states in the federal senate would be chosen according to the order in force in each state and, consequently, be, for the most part, appointed by the princes. This assumption was now called into question because the political connection between the people of the states and the members of the federal senate had to be guaranteed. In addition, the central government was to be accountable to the bicameral parliament, while the guarantees demanded for the princes in 1930 were severely curtailed: The problem of the States can no longer be envisaged as constituted only of two factors, the Paramountcy of the British Crown and the sovereignty of the States. There are two other factors, the people of British India and the people of the Indian States.58

56 K.M. Panikkar, Indian States and the Government of India, (London: Hopkinson, 1932), 46. 57 Ivi, 49. 58 Ivi, pp. 176–7.

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Even the princes, therefore, could not escape the course of events and would have to resign themselves to associating local populations more closely with their governments. Democracy was now described as a factor of modernity, progress and social integration: the only way for India to become a strong nation and protagonist in international life, the only possible direction of development.59 However, an extremely delicate question remained. If the noninterventionist policy of the Congress could help to soften the opposition of the princes, in the mid-1930s, the latter were still very sensitive about it and did not fail to draw conclusions about the future of democratic regimes from what was then happening in Germany.60 Meanwhile, Panikkar’s career with the princes had also progressed. He entered the direct service of the Maharaja of Patiala as Secretary of Ministerial Rank and, in February 1934, replaced Maqbool Mahmud as Foreign Minister.61 He thus found himself involved in the last round of negotiations that would lead to constitutional reforms in the dual role of Chamber Secretary and representative of the influential state of Patiala, whose Maharaja had emerged as one of the princes not only most active in all-India politics, but also most vocal in his views on federation and democracy.62 The Westminster Parliament formed a Joint Selected Committee that met from April 1933 to October 1934 to evaluate the reform projects. Panikkar, therefore, had to travel to the United Kingdom on behalf of the Chamber Standing Committee as advisor to the delegation to speak on behalf of the princes. The Committee’s conclusions were favourable to the states: their membership was to be voluntary and to take place through negotiation with the Crown; a large upper chamber was enacted to allow for individual representation of many states; a tax structure was approved that left a larger share of customs revenue to the states. Commenting on the outcome for the Maharaja of Patiala, Panikkar stated that the guarantees thus provided to the states were more than satisfactory.63

59 See K.M. Panikkar; Caste and Democracy, (London: L.&V. Woolf, 1933). 60 See Ashton, British Policy towards the Indian States, 150. 61 ‘Ijlas-I-Khas’, file 1504, basta 114, PSAP. 62 Panikkar, An Autobiography, 96. 63 ‘A further note on safeguards’, undated, file 26, basta 31, PSAP.

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Having overcome the final hurdles in the preparation of the text, not without recourse to threats of retaliation from the British side, the Government of India Act finally came into force in August 1935.64 It established, at federal level, a Legislative Assembly and a Council of State, of which one-third of the members would be elected by the princely states, even though they comprised just 24% of the Indian population. The Viceroy would rule with the help of ministers representing the parliamentary majority, but would continue to be answerable only to the Crown, enjoy special powers in matters of finance, defence, foreign and religious affairs and, in case of emergency, be able to dissolve the chambers, ruling alone.65 In Patiala, the Maharaja, always dubious about the federation, appointed a committee to evaluate the bill, of which Panikkar, by then the state’s foreign minister, was a member.66 The committee, relying on a memorandum from Panikkar, emphasised its consistency with the proposals of the Chamber of Princes, recommending to focus on the negotiations that would define the conditions of accession for each state.67 In 1936, Panikkar went to London again at the initiative of the Standing Committee, still chaired by the Maharaja of Patiala.68 The Standing Committee had initially chosen John Hartman Morgan, an English lawyer close to the most conservative right-wing positions and hostile to federation, as legal advisor to the Chamber of Princes. Panikkar had, however, succeeded in getting the Chamber to also hire William Wadhams, a federalist, arguing that they had complementary skills and obtaining that Wadhams be the principal advisor with Morgan his subordinate.69

64 ‘Hydari to Glancy’, 21 February 1935, file 36, basta 32, PSAP. See also Copland, The Princes of India, 140–1. 65 See Torri, Storia dell’India, 561; Masselos, Indian Nationalism, 185–98; Suntharalingam, Indian Nationalism, 336–44. 66 ‘Draft Summary of the Proceedings of the Conference Held at Motibagh Palace, Patiala, at 3 pm on the 27th January 1936’, file 29, basta 31, PSAP. 67 ‘Report of the Committee appointed by HH Patiala to examine the Government of India Act, 1935’, January 1939, file 29, basta 31, PSAP. 68 ‘Chamber of Princes, serial no. 436’, file 303, basta 70, PSAP. 69 Copland, The Princes of India, 147.

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The machinations of the anti-federalist current in the Chamber of Princes succeeded, however, in calling the Act into question to such an extent that, in the summer of 1936, the British broke off negotiations pending clarification. Further deliberations through ad hoc committees again concluded that the federation project was constitutionally viable and financially acceptable. The Chamber formally approved these conclusions in February 1937. This was a major victory for Patiala, who also returned to the chancellor’s post he had previously had to abandon, and for the federalists. In fact, Wadhams became the only legal adviser, while Morgan—who had been included in the mechanism of ad hoc committees to scuttle the federation project—was removed.70 As Frank Brown, a prestigious columnist for The Times and a profound connoisseur of Indian affairs, noted, it was not simply a political victory for the Maharaja, but above all a triumph for his foreign minister and his federalist ideas: “You turned the Morgan bombshell into a mere damp squib”.71 Panikkar, in short, had been magna pars in achieving a result not to be taken for granted in the complex diplomacy of the Indian princely states, as Wadhams himself acknowledged.72 A second step of great delicacy was the visit of officials from the Political Department of the India Office, the purpose of which was to ascertain without mediation the position of the princes regarding the federation. Panikkar, on “special duty”,73 was instructed to negotiate the special exceptions that the state of Patiala demanded with respect to matters that were to become the responsibility of the federal government. These included, in particular, the right to coin money, no longer used but never formally ceded; the right to have its own communications system and two railway lines, although these services were operated by British India; the possibility of importing a certain amount of chara (concentrated cannabis) and opium without customs duties; agreements for the use of water for agricultural purposes; the legal status of areas administered by British India, but under the sovereignty of the Patiala state, such as those ceded for the construction of railways or military cantonments. 70 ‘Resolutions. Informal Conference of Princes, Bombay, 30 October 1936’, file 34, basta 32, PSAP. See also ‘Report of the Constitutional Committee of the Chamber of Princes. 25 January–6 February 1937’, file 34, basta 32, PSAP. 71 ‘Brown to Panikkar’, 19 March 1937, FP, NMML. 72 ‘Wadhams to Panikkar’, 28 November 1936, file 31, basta 32, PSAP. 73 ‘Raja Hari Kishen Kaul to HH’, 27 August 1936, file 36, basta 32, PSAP.

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In short, all those aspects that substantiated Patiala’s claim to sovereignty politically and economically.74 This is even more significant when one considers that in talks with India Office officials, the representatives of the other states demonstrated an overall inadequate knowledge of the subject matter in relation to the ongoing negotiations. Very few were willing to anticipate their response to the federation application, including those who, like Bikaner, had been at the forefront in supporting the project.75 Thus, in March 1937, Panikkar circulated a memorandum in which, echoing what had been done, he urged the princes to concretise their decisions, acting quickly to capitalise on their achievements: The problem has been cleared of many of the misunderstandings and irrelevancies that had crept into [the discussion] as the result of uncoordinated action by different groups. […] What is important now is that the essential points that have emerged from these discussions should be taken up for negotiation with the Government of India or His Majesty’s Government as the case may be, and the matter finally decided.76

However, the outlook was destined to change radically with the offensive that the Congress conducted in the princely states between 1937 and 1939. The party achieved a spectacular victory in the February 1937 elections in British India and, after lengthy discussions, decided to form the new provincial governments where it had obtained a majority.77 A 1937 note sent on Patiala’s behalf to the Viceroy, Lord Linlithgow, but extensively reworked by Panikkar, emphasised the concern of the princes and the need to come to terms with all-India nationalist political forces. 74 ‘Special reservations of Patiala’, undated, file 35, basta 32, PSAP. See also: ‘Patiala

State Memorandum on the Instrument of Accession and Connected Matters’, undated, vol. I, part I, file 36, basta 32, PSAP; ‘Panikkar to the Prime Minister’, 24 August 1936 and ‘Patiala to Wilberforce-Bell, 23 November 1936’, vol. I, part I, file 36, basta 32, PSAP; ‘Panikkar to Patiala’, 15 December 1936 and ‘Secret note for personal information and consideration of Your Highness’, undated, file 35, basta 32, PSAP. 75 Panikkar also expressed misgivings in the wake of the Chamber’s meeting of February

1937. Despite Patiala’s success, he noted a growing undercurrent against the idea of federation. See Copland, The Princes of India, 154–5. 76 ‘The Next Step’, undated, FP, NMML. 77 See Masselos, Indian Nationalism, 188–9; Suntharalingam, Indian Nationalism,

338–46. On the success of the Congress in 1937 see Judith Brown, Modern India: The Origins of an Asian Democracy, (Delhi Oxford University Press, 1985).

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Indeed, the composition of the provincial assemblies would inevitably influence the balance of the Federal Assembly. From this point of view, the victory of the Congress, whose clout would probably increase in the following years, added an ominous uncertainty.78 The agitations promoted by the Congress in the states, starting with Mysore in October 1937 and culminating with the satyagraha in Rajkot and Jaipur in 1939, were interpreted as an attempt to impose democratisation on the princes and, in this way, to succeed in gaining control of the ministry and the Legislative Assembly of the future federation.79 In a November 1938 letter to the Maharaja of Bikaner, Panikkar explained the extent of the turnaround in the Congress’ attitude towards the princes: the peoples of the states were being called upon to organise themselves in order to force the rulers, through the instrument of civil disobedience, to agree to their political demands: The right to rebel is therefore exalted as a fundamental right. [….] the object which the people of the states should work for is nothing short of Responsible [Government] that is the surrender of the power of the Ruler to the people.80

In short, it was a question of reflecting again on the relationship between sovereign and subjects and on the role of the state. To these issues, brought to the forefront by the Congress challenge, Panikkar dedicated Origin and Evolution of Kingship in India, a study of the monarchical principle in Indian political thought. The nationalist historian asserted that the latter had a richness and depth that was in no way inferior to that of Europe. Thus, contrary to the Orientalist stereotype of an India incapable of elaborating a rational political theory and, consequently, condemned to a ‘natural’ despotism, the problem for Panikkar was, if

78 ‘Patiala to Linlithgow’, undated, and ‘Note revised by K.M. Panikkar’, 7 September 1937, file 71, basta 35, PSAP. 79 Ashton, British Policy towards the Indian States, 169. Others tend to downsize the role of the Congress: see Sarkar, Modern India, 365–70 and Ramusack, The Indian Princes, 216–20. Anyway, the fact that both Gandhi and Patel took part to the Rajot satyagraha was an unmistakable sign that the Congress’ attitude towards the princes had changed: see Chandra, India’s Struggle for Independence, 360–5. 80 ‘Panikkar to Bikaner’, 10 November 1938, file 2044, MGSTA.

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anything, how to reconcile an ancient theory of monarchy with the demands of the modern state.81 The theory that Panikkar presented was contractual in nature. Before the formation of a state, the ‘Law of Fish’ had been applied, according to which the bigger fish would eat the smaller one. The state was thus founded for the protection of society and, consequently, the powers of the sovereign were not absolute: the moment it failed in its duty to protect, its subjects would have the right to rebel. Another limit to the ruler’s power had to be the maintenance of the dharma, which no king had the power to alter by interfering, for instance, in caste society. In principle, it created a sphere completely removed from state power and barred the way to monarchical absolutism.82 Panikkar also denied that Hindu political theory was based on the principle of divine right, unlike the European tradition. He not only rejected the fact that kings were ever considered deities, but also opposed the idea that their authority had any divine source.83 The princes could not, therefore, claim absolute powers by referring to tradition. Resuming a tried and tested pattern of interpretation, Panikkar concluded that the idea of an all-powerful state and the related autocratic conception of power were the result of contact with Europeans and the Indian reaction to that contact. The fundamental difference between the Indian and European systems lay in the fact that, in the former, there were inherent limits to the extension of the powers of the state, whereas the latter defended freedom and individuals through laws and institutions. In Indian culture, the idea of the protection of the individual was absent, so to introduce the Western principle of the omnipotence of the state without also importing the institutional forms of guarantee was to open the way to absolutism.84 The historian concluded by inviting the rulers of contemporary India to make appropriate use of the powers of the modern state, even accepting those guarantee institutions that had been created in Europe:

81 K.M. Panikkar, Origin and Evolution of Kingship in India, (Baroda: Baroda State Press, 1938), 1, 11. 82 Ivi, 153. 83 Ivi, 69. 84 Ivi, 119–20, 154.

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[…] it is necessary to emphasise that without the institutional counterpart maintaining good government and liberty, the omnipotent State would only lead to a lessening of human values and to a corruption of Dharma.85

As consistent as Panikkar’s conclusions might have been with his thinking—in particular with a ‘progressive’ conception of federation—the 1937–39 unrest left a deep furrow. Democratisation had always been the most sensitive issue and now the princes realised how quickly things could fall apart. Certainly, the intervention of British troops had proved decisive in restoring order, but there had been no lack of delays and worrying hesitations.86 Thus, when the ministers of states met in Bombay in April 1939 to consider the British request for federation, though considering it the only viable solution, they called for the reopening of negotiations. The prospect of a new major European conflict, the granting of complete autonomy to the provinces of British India and the emergence of organised movements in the states were all factors that prompted them not to immediately accept the British offer.87 Panikkar, at this point, resigned, surrendering to the failure of the project that had engaged him so much over the previous ten years.88 He had drawn up his federation proposal at a time of particular turmoil when there were different and conflicting plans for the future of India and its relations with the British Empire. Originally a nationalist’s attempt to broaden the consensus base in support of the national movement by bringing it closer to the princes, the federal hypothesis had then become a blueprint for India’s future, aimed at safeguarding the balance between centre and periphery. The federation would have preserved both the unity achieved, the spaces of local autonomy, the fundamental elements inherited from tradition and the new factors of renewal and modernisation. The growth of popular movements in the states, however, had radically changed the political context and closed any room for manoeuvre: the princes did not seem to realise that their last chance of survival was 85 Ivi, 158. 86 Copland, The Princes of India, 170–1. 87 ‘Report of the Proceedings, Committee of States’ Ministers, Bombay, 12th, 13th

and 14th April, 1939’, vol. V, part B, file 36, basta 32, PSAP. 88 Copland, The Princes of India, 176–7.

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at stake.89 The deadline for the princes’ response had been extended to September 1, 1939, but Lord Linlithgow announced the suspension of all negotiations due to the outbreak of war in Europe. The federal perspectives were thus permanently shelved and it was clear that, when discussions resumed, they would be on a completely different basis.

3.4

Foreign Minister of a Princely State: The Need for Partition

On March 23, 1938, the Maharaja of Patiala, Bhupinder Singh, died and Panikkar moved to Bikaner, where he had hitherto refused to take up service for fear of less freedom to manoeuvre under the energetic ruler Ganga Singh.90 On April 12, Panikkar took up the post of Foreign and Political Minister in a general political stalemate: the federal negotiations had been suspended and Ganga Singh was now firmly against federation.91 Moreover, the ruler tended to have a personalistic and patrimonial conception of the state. Arthur Lothian, resident for Rajputana, noted that he was never able to meet ministers except in the presence of the ruler.92 The prospects for any possible all-India action seemed closed for the time being. Consequently, Panikkar concentrated on the internal affairs of the state of Bikaner where, from May 1939, he also was handed the portfolios of Health and Education. If the allocation of these portfolios to the foreign ministry might have seemed rather curious, the choice testified to the special esteem Ganga Singh attributed to Panikkar’s abilities.93 Panikkar’s activity was thus absorbed by the state administration of which, from March 1941, he also became vice-president of the Council.

89 Panikkar, An Autobiography, 119. 90 ‘Notification regarding appointment of Major K.M. Panikkar’, 2 May 1939, file XX/

1939, MGSTA. 91 ‘Fortnightly Reports, Resident for Rajputana’, undated, file 40(5), p(sec)/39, acc. n.

72, Copies of Crown Representative Records (hereafter CRR), National Archives of India (hereafter NAI), New Delhi. 92 ‘Lothian to Glancy’, 1 December 1939, file 210(17), p(s)/39, acc. n. 153, CRR,

NAI. 93 ‘Order of Maharaja of Bikaner re: appointment of Mr. Panikkar’, 2 May 1939, file 7204/1939, GSTAB.

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In this context, he became convinced of the need for institutional, administrative and economic modernisation and the implementation of social policies that would raise living conditions to the level of the largest Indian states. Moreover, despite the turmoil that had affected princely India, the situation in Bikaner remained calm: the geographical isolation of the state still protected it from the popular awakening that was manifesting itself elsewhere in Rajputana, where associations and parties were spreading, working in collaboration with the Congress and the States’ People Conference demanding reforms.94 While, on the political front, Bikaner was an oasis of tranquillity, there remained social and economic problems and a linguistic and religious composition that could, in the longer term, have represented a potentially fertile breeding ground for the feared ‘agitators’ from British India. The famine that struck the state in 1939 was viewed with apprehension by the British authorities.95 The living conditions of the peasants were very harsh, both in the khalsa lands, managed directly by the state, and in the areas entrusted in jagirdar to local nobles. The irrigated area in the north known as the ‘Canal Colony’ was richer and more fertile, but populated by immigrants from the Punjab who had close cultural ties with the adjacent areas of British India and felt no attachment to the ruler. It was, therefore, desirable to eliminate any possible cause for discontent by improving living conditions.96 However, there seemed to be no urgent need for radical political reforms.97 The peculiar conditions of the wartime context emphasised the role of the princes and made their position appear more secure, thus reducing the perceived urgency for change. Panikkar, for his part, was becoming increasingly convinced of the need for the Indian states, on the one hand, to move closer to the Congress, which would sooner or later take over the government of British India, and, on the other hand, to implement

94 ‘Fortnightly Reports, Resident for Rajputana’, undated, file 40(5), p(sec)/39, acc. n. 72, CRR, NAI. 95 ‘Fortnightly Report to the India Office on the Political Situation in Indian States in the year 1940, First half of January 1940’, undated, file 71(5), p(s)/40, acc. n. 153, CRR, NAI. 96 ‘Intelligence Bureau’, undated, file 6(57), p(sec)/39, acc. n. 89, CRR, NAI. 97 ‘Lothian to Fitze’, 17 January 1942, file 261(45), p(sec)/40 vol I and II, acc n. 78,

CRR, NAI.

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profound changes within themselves, promoting a different self-image as factors of modernity and, indeed, change. The first of these two convictions found cautious expression in a note written for the Maharaja of Bikaner in 1941, shortly after the Muslim League, meeting in Lahore, had approved the Pakistan Resolution. Panikkar, comparing the policy proposals of the Congress and the League, concluded that the latter posed a much more serious danger to the princely states. Certainly, the Congress supported the idea of a unitary India with a strong central government that met the democratic majority criterion. However, the position now taken by the Muslim League, in favour of the creation of ‘independent states’ in Muslim-majority areas, was even worse because it denied the possibility of a central government. Above all, it would have become possible, for example, for the North-West Frontier Province to ally itself with Afghanistan to attack the Maharaja of Kashmir. Furthermore, inter-religious clashes would have increased, the transport and communication system would have fragmented and the rupee would no longer have any value throughout India.98 The existence of a central government was becoming increasingly important to Panikkar and he believed that even the princes should recognise this as a necessity in the face of the Muslim League’s disruptive action. The historian had come to believe that a division between India and Pakistan would be preferable to an extremely weak form of federation. In a letter to Syed Mahmud, an important Congress leader and future Indian foreign minister, Panikkar wrote: I’ve, for a long time, now, been a Pakistanist. Without separation of Pakistan, a central government will not be possible in India. The fear of Hindu majority at the centre, whatever safeguards you may create and whatever pacts you may work out, will drive the Muslims to unreasonable madness. I have no terrors about even exchange of populations. But the “two eyes” theory now called the “two nations” theory, and a central government cannot work together. So let us, my dear Mahmud,

98 ‘The Political Outlook for the States by K.M. Panikkar’, undated, file 7204/1939, MGSTA.

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foreswear our past. Consider ourselves failures for having dreamed of a United India.99

Faced with these dynamics, the princely states had to put aside their independentist ambitions and embark on a rapid course of reforms to prepare themselves to enter the new India in contact with the Congress. Parliamentary institutions, greater administrative efficiency, fairer taxation as well as a more modern legal and judicial system had to be introduced. In addition, smaller states with no resources for such reforms would inevitably have to join with each other or with larger states in so-called ‘cooperative groups’.100 If the young nationalist of the 1920s had described the princely states as islands where political and social tradition could be preserved, they now had to prepare to enter a new independent India and, to do so, they had to modernise and catch up with the rest of the nation. For Panikkar, the preservation of tradition remained a merit attributable to the states, but more important were the innovations and development that originated and could originate from them. The abolition of untouchability in the orthodox Hindu state of Travancore, the establishment of a university using an Indian language, Urdu, in Hyderabad, the industrial policy followed by Mysore were examples that demonstrated the commitment to finding new solutions to common problems. Chakravarthi Rajagopalachari, a prominent member of the right wing of the Congress and future governor general of independent India, wrote to Panikkar congratulating him on his reflections, but urging him to also draw their conclusions, namely that democratic regimes should also be introduced in the states that would guarantee the same rights and duties enjoyed elsewhere in the country.101 However, the general situation did not seem to favour a rapprochement of the princes to the idea of internal reforms. With the Japanese now in Burma and the failure of Stafford Cripps’ mission to revive negotiations on Indian autonomy, the Congress launched the Quit India Movement which, between August and September 1942, before being suppressed, probably proved to be the

99 ‘Panikkar to Mahmud’, 13 July 1941, Syed Mahmud Papers (hereafter SMP), NMML. 100 K.M. Panikkar, Indian States, (London: Oxford University Press, 1942). 101 ‘Rajagopalachari to Panikkar’, 24 August 1942, file 7204/1939, MGSTA.

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most serious threat to British control since the great uprising of 1857.102 The princely states, on the other hand, remained on the whole quiet, allowing the police and Crown troops to concentrate on crisis areas.103

3.5

Prime Minister in Bikaner: The Rush for Reforms

In this context, Panikkar was asked to join propaganda initiatives in favour of the states. In agreement with Vangal Thiruvenkatachari Krishnamachari, chief minister of the state of Baroda, he obtained the Maharaja’s consent to publish an article for the influential American journal Foreign Affairs.104 In this way, he intended to rehabilitate the autocratic and reactionary image of the Indian princes, widespread in the United States, claiming that at least some of them had implemented more advanced social policies than those experienced in British India.105 In December 1942, Panikkar was invited to Canada to participate in the Institute of Pacific Relations Conference and he later visited the United States, holding a series of public meetings on the subject of the states. The purpose of these activities, which projected Panikkar’s action outside the sphere of the British Empire, was to counter the anti-states campaign carried out by Congress sympathisers, realising the crucial role the United States would play in international affairs once the war was over.106 While he was still in the United States, he received a telegram informing him that Maharaja Ganga Singh’s health was seriously impaired.107 He tried to hurry back to India, in light of the old ruler’s bad relations with the heir to the throne, Maharajkumar Sadul Singh Bahadur. As the British resident noted, it was expected that the rise of 102 Suntharalingam, Indian Nationalism, 404–12. See also Chandra, India’s struggle for Independence, 457–70. 103 Copland, The Princes of India, 185–6. 104 ‘Panikkar to Bikaner’, 7 July 1942 and ‘Bikaner to Panikkar’, 11 July 1942, file

7204/1939, MGSTA. 105 K.M. Panikkar, ‘The Princes and India’s Future’, Foreign Affairs, 21: 3, 1943, 571–3. 106 ‘Craik to Bikaner’, 2 September 1942; ‘note by Panikkar to Bikaner’, September 1942; ‘Panikkar to Bikaner’, 1 December 1942, file 7204/1939, MGSTA. 107 Mandhata Singh to Panikkar, 31 January 1943, file 7204/1939, MGSTA.

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the new Maharaja would lead to the exclusion of his father’s collaborators.108 Stranded in London, Panikkar only managed to reach Bikaner in April.109 He then tendered his resignation, as was customary when a new maharaja ascended the throne.110 Contrary to all expectations, Sadul Singh reappointed him in his duties. Panikkar succeeded in establishing a very close working relationship with the new ruler, who, while showing his father’s characteristic tendencies towards prominence and control, increasingly trusted his minister and granted him a freedom of movement hitherto unthinkable for him. On May 31, 1944, Panikkar was appointed Prime Minister.111 Despite the inevitable celebratory emphasis, at the banquet held in Panikkar’s honour, the speeches delivered by the Maharaja and by the new Prime Minister himself give an idea of the way the climate was changing: reforms, improvements, development plans and reconstruction had become accepted and welcome buzzwords.112 In fact, a five-year development plan had been drawn up that included a series of “nation building activities”.113 A Development Department, which had already been able to launch a number of initiatives to promote sheep farming and wool production, had been set up and a City Improvement Committee was established to create better and healthier living conditions in the cities. Also, a scientifically based survey of the state’s mineral resources and the possibilities of hydroelectric power production was planned; new industries were to be promoted; an education reform was initiated and scholarships were created to send local young people to Indian and foreign universities; a Child Welfare and Maternity Department was

108 ‘Impressions of Bikaner, 7–9 March 1943, by Gillan, Resident for Rajputana’, file 5(5), p(s)/43, CRR, NAI. On the deteriorating relations between father and son see ‘Note by Resident, Rajputana’, 17 December 1940; ‘Lothian to Wylie’, 5 June 1941; ‘Lothian to Fitze’, 17 January 1942, file 422, p(sec)/41, acc. n. 77, CRR, NAI. 109 ‘Panikkar to Sadul Singh’, 30 March 1943, file 7204/1939, MGSTA. 110 ‘Panikkar to Sadul Singh’, 22 April 1943, file 7204/1939, MGSTA. 111 ‘Order by H.H. the Maharaja’, 31 May 1944; ‘Sadul Singh of Bikaner to Panikkar’,

27 June 1944, file 7204/1939, MGSTA. 112 ‘Speech by His Highness the Maharaja of Bikaner at the dinner held at Lallgarh in honour of Mr. K.M. Panikkar, Prime Minister, Bikaner State on the 24th July 1944’, undated, and ‘Mr. K.M. Panikkar’s speech’, undated, file 7204/1939, MGSTA. 113 ‘Panikkar to Sadul Singh’, 30 April 1943, P.M. diaries, file 4182, MGSTA.

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funded by a donation from the Maharani and a Public Welfare Fund with a similar donation from the Maharaja was created.114 Panikkar devoted himself and gave strong impetus to these initiatives, focusing on the aspects of modernisation and administrative reform.115 Although hampered by the difficulty of finding equipments and the scarcity of labour, development projects were pushed forward between 1944 and 1945116 : dispensaries were built117 ; the production of sugar, glass, cement and fertilisers was started118 ; the production of wool and carpets was encouraged119 ; and new roads were laid.120 The initiative that most attracted Panikkar’s attention was the relative democratisation project announced on November 10, 1944. The powers of the assembly were enlarged and it could enjoy a majority of 29 elected members out of a total of 51, an elected vice-president, greater power to move interpellations and motions on matters of public importance and to vote on certain parts of the state budget (health, public works, welfare).121 These were certainly significant achievements, but they could not hide the fact that many areas of the budget remained outside the powers of the assembly, that the government was only accountable to the sovereign and that suffrage was still very restricted. However, in a 1945 article, Panikkar

114 ‘Mr. K.M. Panikkar’s speech, held at the dinner held at Lallgarh in honour of Mr. K.M. Panikkar, Prime Minister, Bikaner State on the 24th July 1944’, undated, file 7204/ 1939, MGSTA. 115 ‘Panikkar to Sadul Singh’, 3 June 1944, file 7204/1939, MGSTA. 116 ‘Meeting on Five Years Development Scheme’, 17 March 1945, file 55–58, basta 48,

Prime Minister Office (hereafter PMO), Rajastan State Archive (hereafter RSAB), Bikaner. ‘Reconstruction, Development and Welfare. Prime Ministe’s Survey of Government Activities in Legislative Assembly’, Bikaner Bulletin, November 1945, 9–12. 117 ‘Panikkar to Sadul Singh’, 1 June 1945, P.M. diaries, file 4182, MGSTA. 118 ‘The Private Secretary to H.H. the Maharaja of Bikaner to Panikkar’, 7 December

1944; ‘Panikkar to the Private Secretar’y, 13 December 1944, file 7204/1939, MGSTA. ‘Panikkar to Sadul Singh’, 8 June 1945, P.M. diaries, file 4182, MGSTA. 119 ‘Points noted during the P.M.’s tour’, 7 November 1945, file 682–685, basta 50,

PMO, RSAB. 120 ‘Meeting on Five Years Development Scheme’, 17 March 1945, file 55–58, basta 48, PMO, RSAB. 121 ‘More Intimate and Active Association of the People with the Administration of the State. Text of the Proclamation by His Highness the Maharaja’, Bikaner Bulletin, November 1944, 3–4.

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presented these advances made by Bikaner as part of a general advancement that concerned all the major Indian states. They showed that they could set an example to the rest of India on the road to modernisation and development, even more than the provinces of British India.122 While emphasising these achievements in an attempt to put forward a progressive image of the Indian princes, Panikkar realised their limitations and the need for further and more radical interventions, which, however, could only be realised within the national all-India framework. On the contrary, his hostility towards small states became more pronounced. As the views expressed to the secretary of state for India on his return from the United States in 1943 already showed, the cautions employed at the time of his association with the Chamber of Princes had already been overcome: In his view, the whole pressure for cleaning up the smaller units will have to come from the Crown Representative. The Chamber of Princes was, he thinks, a mistake, in so far as it includes much too large a proportion of little States who are definitely obstructive to reform.123

Many of the figures who, like Panikkar, had animated the princes’ season of political prominence and who had supported the federal proposal in the 1930s, had withdrawn from the all-India scene during the war, either retiring to private life or confining themselves to the internal administration of the states. This left the princely leadership even more unprepared to face the great changes that were brewing. In 1943, the British government had approved the Attachment Scheme that annexed over 400 small states of Kathiawar and central India to neighbouring major states. For the first time, the rule that the British Parliament had no authority to legislate for the states had been broken. The princes, worried by the assertion that the British could intervene to cancel the existence of a state, asked for reassurances, but got no response. When the new legislative assembly was

122 K.M. Panikkar, ‘The Indian States, Adjusting to Changing Times’, The Commonwealth and Empire Review, 79–80, 1945, 31–5. 123 ‘Amery to Linlithgow’, 20 January 1943, in Nicholas Mansergh et al. (eds.), Constitutional Relations Between Great Britain and India: The Transfer of Power, 1942–1947 (hereafter TOP ), vol. III: Reassertion of Authority, Gandhi’s Fast, and the Succession to the Viceroyalty, 21 September 1942–12 June 1943 (London, HMSO, 1971), 526.

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inaugurated in Bikaner in June 1945, Panikkar clearly perceived that the position of the princes was increasingly precarious.124 Indian and international political conditions were changing radically and rapidly, which necessitated equally rapid and radical action on the part of the princes if they were to find their position in the new India. Attending the Commonwealth Conference held in London on February 9, 1945, Panikkar gained the impression that the princes had to act with extreme urgency: One thing was clear to me during this London visit. The World War was drawing to a close. It was beyond question that immediately it ended, the British would withdraw from India. Whatever then happened, whether Pakistan came about or not and whether India remained in the British empire or left it, it was certain that the Indian princes would not count for much in an independent India.125

The Nawab of Bhopal, Chancellor of the Chamber of Princes, convened an emergency meeting in Bombay which established the immediate need to introduce democratic reforms, with the approval of written constitutions and representative institutions with elective majorities. In addition, a Negotiating Committee was set up to maintain contact with Indian and British leaders, in which Panikkar and a small patrol of ministers who were in favour of collaborating with the Congress, despite the Chancellor’s opposition, joined.126 In 1946, the new Labour government sent the Cabinet Mission to India to solve the constitutional problems that were delaying the granting of independence. The Attlee government was now convinced that it was not possible to maintain a link with the princely states after British India’s independence, but there was a reluctance to state this openly. With the convening of the Constituent Assembly, the debate among the princes now centred on the question of accession: the states had to decide whether to participate and the two Negotiating Committees,

124 ‘Panikkar to Sadul Singh’, 1 June 1945, P.M. diaries, file 4182, MGSTA. See also Copland, Princes of India, 192–3. 125 Panikkar, An Autobiography, 142. 126 ‘Biographical Sketches’, undated, file 1293, Panikkar Papers (hereafter PP), NAI.

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of the princes and the Assembly, would have to meet to determine the modalities and forms of accession.127 In this last phase, Panikkar tried to push the princes to finally accept an agreement with the Congress and join the Constituent Assembly, also banking on Nehru’s statements regarding the possibility of retaining monarchy as a form of government in the states.128 Unfortunately, in parallel with the deterioration of relations between the religious communities in the rest of India, communal divisions were also beginning to overlap with political ones among the princes. Many princes, even earlier, had supported, economically and politically, places of worship, religious groups and associations, but now religious affiliation became a reason for hostility and suspicion.129 When the princes met in Delhi on January 28, 1947, the Nawab of Bhopal proposed a confederation of states called ‘Rajasthan’ that would not be part of either India or Pakistan. Panikkar accused him of wanting to favour Muslims by “vivisecting Hindu power”,130 The Muslim League, in fact, had kept itself out of the Constituent Assembly and Panikkar also accused Bhopal of wanting to keep also the princes out, hence further weakening the representativeness of the assembly. This would have strengthened the accusations of those who claimed that the assembly was only the mouthpiece of the Hindu parties and not of the entire Indian nation.131 The Chamber of Princes, therefore, failed to reach an agreement. Bhopal’s confederation project was shelved, but the Chancellor succeeded in getting the Chamber of Princes to approve a series of conditions for accession, including a guarantee of the preservation of the monarchy, the right of secession for the states should India become a republic and the recognition of existing borders. These conditions were unacceptable since the Constituent Assembly had already voted, in principle, for republic status.132

127 See file 33, r(s)/46, acc. n. 214 and file 14, R(s)/47, acc. n. 214, CRR, NAI. 128 See Copland, Princes of India, 240. 129 Ramusack, The Indian Princes, 272. 130 Panikkar, An Autobiography, 149. See also Copland, Princes of India, 240–1. 131 ‘Biographical Sketches’, undated, file 1293, PP, NAI. 132 Idem.

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A group of dissidents led by Sadul Singh, Maharaja of Bikaner, then sought direct contact with Congress representatives, as Panikkar had wished. During a meeting at Bikaner House in Delhi, Nehru again reassured the group that state borders would not be changed and monarchical governments would be allowed.133 Thus, on April 28, Cochin, Patiala, Baroda, Jaipur, Rewa, Jodhpur and Bikaner entered the Constituent Assembly, but the unity of the princes had been broken for good.134 Not surprisingly, in his speeches to the Constituent Assembly, Panikkar would, on the one hand, emphasise that the participation of the states was a symbol of unity and not the result of coercion; on the other hand, he would defend the principle that they were left with residual prerogatives, if the latter were not included in the federal items or in the concurrent legislative list.135 Panikkar explained the reasons for this to the Viceroy: Mountbatten sent for me after his interview with the leaders and asked me why I had advised the Princes to join immediately without waiting for the rest to make up their minds. I gave him a full and frank reply, explained to him the tactics that Bhopal was following and how whatever the interests of other states may be, the position of the states in what I called the ‘tension area’ required immediate action in support of the Constituent Assembly.136

The escalation of communal conflicts was, therefore, a further reason for urgency in favour of reform: states such as Patiala, in Punjab, and Bikaner or Jodhpur, on the border between India and Pakistan, feared chaos more than they feared the Congress. Even in traditionally isolated and quiet Bikaner, grounds for conflict had begun to emerge. The introduction of the Revenue and Tenancy Bill and the start of a land census 133 Idem. 134 ‘Lead Given at Chamber Meetings Receives Country-Wide Acclaim’, Bikaner

Bulletin, April 1947, 2. 135 Constituent Assembly Debates, vol. 3, 28 April 1947, §17.16–9 and vol. 5, 25 August 1947, §41.57–8. 136 ‘Biographical Sketches’, undated, file 1293, PP, NAI. A description of the meeting is available also in ‘Record of interview between Rear-Admiral Viscount Mountbatten of Burma and Sardar K.M. Panikkar’, 5 May 1947, TOP, vol. X: The Mountbatten Viceroyalty; Formulation of a Plan, 22 March–30 May 1947 , (London, HMSO, 1981), 623–4. See also ‘Sadul Singh to Moutbatten’, 3 April 1947, TOP, vol. X, 107–114.

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had triggered discontent among the local lords.137 The jagirdar areas were in fact burdened with higher taxes than the khalsa areas, which were managed directly by the state, and by a number of other obligations and burdens. Instead, the new law aimed to introduce more uniform rents and taxes. The clashes between jagirdars and peasants had also taken on a caste value since the jagirs were generally in the hands of rajput caste, while the cultivators were mainly jat caste. The speeches and resolutions passed by the rajput assemblies expressed resentment towards the ruler who would deprive them of their rights, taking measures that ultimately destabilised the monarchy.138 Clashes and incidents ensued both in Bikaner and in the neighbouring areas of the states of Jaipur and Jodhpur, where the caste structure and forms of agrarian ownership were similar.139 This was compounded by the activities of the Praja Parishad, the local nationalist organisation collateral to the Congress. In an attempt to contain the unrest those reforms that Panikkar had continued to deem necessary in the 1930s were finally granted.140 The growing unrest in late 1945 convinced the Maharaja to act. He asked his astrologer to give him the best date for an important announcement to the press, which was then published on June 21, 1946: The object I have in view is the establishment of a form of government which, under the aegis of the Ruler, will be responsible to the people, thus fully associating them with the administration of the State within a specified time, taking into due consideration the conditions and circumstances existing in the State.141

137 ‘Panikkar to Sadul Singh’, 1 June 1945, P.M. diaries, file 4182, MGSTA. 138 L.S. Rathore, Maharaja Sadul Singh of Bikaner: A Biography of the Co-Architect of

India’s Unity, (Jodhpur: Book Treasure, 2005), 233–4. 139 ‘Rajputana, Fortnightly report 1–15 January 1944’, undated, file 6(6), p(sec)/44,

acc. n. 68, CRR, NAI. 140 See Vishnu Dayal Mathur, States’ People Conference. Origins and Role in Rajasthan, (Jaipur Publication Scheme, 1984) and Ranjana Kaul, Constitutional Development in the Indian Princely States, (New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1998). 141 ‘Statement by His Highness the Maharaja of Bikaner’, 17 June 1946, file 162, MGSTA.

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In addition to the press, ministers from other states and government offices, Panikkar sent a copy of the announcement to all the most important leaders of the new India with whom he had resumed closer contact in the context of the negotiations for the states to join the Constituent Assembly: Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and Sarojini Naidu.142 Promising responsible government to be implemented within a defined period was indeed a huge step forward and the Maharaja was convinced that he could anticipate the spread of a strong democratic movement at the local level. However, the time for change was becoming increasingly pressing.143 Almost all Congress leaders complimented the ruler but asked him to speed up. Moreover, the repression of dissident political organisations could not go unnoticed.144 On June 17, 1946, Raghalwar Dayal Goel, leader of the local Praja Parishad who had been expelled from the state, wrote to the Maharaja to announce his return and reject the reforms: The reforms of [1946] are too short to meet our minimum of demands. The present situation in Bikaner is even worse than what it was in British India […] where ordinary civil liberties, freedom of press, freedom of association is denied, the municipal board districts boards and legislative assemblies are but a mockery.145

He was arrested on June 25, on his return, causing hartal (strikes) of protest.146 On June 30, 1946, clashes occurred in Raisinghnagar between the police and protesters who had tried to carry the Indian tricolour flag

142 “Coming at this juncture His Highness has every hope that this historic decision will give a lead to all the States of India. I hope you will read the statement and also give us your blessings.”‘Panikkar to Gandhi’, 17 June 1946, file 162, MGSTA. 143 ‘Patel to Panikkar’, 20 June 1946, and ‘Sarojini Naidu to Sadul Singh of Bikaner’, 20 June 1946, file 162, MGSTA. 144 ‘Bikaner main shaasan sudhaar’ [Constitutional Reforms in Bikaner], Vishwamitra, 23 June 1946, file 162, MGSTA. 145 ‘GoelS to Sadul Singh’, 17 June 1946, file 24, All-India States’ People Conference Papers (hereafter AISPC), NMML. 146 ‘General Secretary, Bikaner Rajya Praja Parishad to Nehru’, 28 June 1946, file 24, AISPC, NMML.

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in demonstration. One of the injured later died in hospital.147 On July 30, Sadul Singh announced that he wanted to shorten the transition by immediately associating two ‘popular’ ministers in his government with the charge of Civil Supplies and Rural Reconstruction.148 But the problem that proved most intractable was the growth of communal tensions. The demonstrations following the arrest of Goel had, in fact, been accompanied by riots between Hindus and Muslims, which, according to the latter, were caused by their refusal to join the protests. The Praja Mandal of Bikaner State observed hartal on the arrest of Mr. Raghbar Dayal, the President of the Mandal. The Musalmans of the state were also asked by the Hindus to observe hartal but they declined to join due to the fact that the Mandal is purely a Hindu organisation which cannot claim to have even a single Muslim member on its roll.149

Parallel to the escalating violence in the rest of India, the state of Bikaner, on the border between the two planned dominions of India and Pakistan, was also caught up in the spiral of clashes. Mountbatten was convinced that a rapid withdrawal and the creation of two separate states was inevitable. For the Congress Party, however, the separation from Pakistan would have been less traumatic if it had been compensated, in a sort of exchange, by the accession of the princely states to the Indian Union. The new Viceroy, therefore, strove to push the princes to join one of the new states. The princes thus became the instrument to make the Congress accept Partition. Once it was announced that the handover of power would take place on August 15, 1947, a States Department was created in the central government under Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel towards the end of June 1946 for matters concerning princely states. The princes were asked to sign an Instrument of Accession by which they ceded control over defence, foreign relations and communications to the dominion they acceded to, India or Pakistan. The princes quickly accepted. What they ceded was extremely limited. There were no fiscal or economic commitments, but 147 ‘Report, Foreign and Political Minister, Bikaner to Political Agent, Western Rajputana States’, 15 July 1946, file 249, p(sec)/46, acc. n. 68, CRR, NAI. 148 ‘Orders and Notes, Sadul Singh’, 30 July 1946, file 7204/1939, MGSTA. 149 ‘Copy of Representation by Bikaner State’s Muslims addressed to Nawabzada

Liaquat Ali Khan Saheb’, 16 July 1946, file 249, p(sec)/46, acc. n. 68, CRR, NAI.

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it was the feeling that they had now been abandoned by the British that convinced the most reluctant. Before the date set for independence, except for the few states destined to become part of Pakistan, almost all had signed accession to India: only Junagadh, Hyderabad and Kashmir remained autonomous for the time being.150

3.6

Endgame for Princely India

Panikkar’s last months in Bikaner were marked by inter-religious violence. The partition had also had its effects on the state, which found itself border territory overnight. Muslim refugees from the Indian Punjab had gathered in Hanumannagar in the north of the state and Rajgarh in the east to try to cross into Pakistan from Bikaner. Communal opinion in the state mounted to a fury and I was being openly accused of helping the Mussalmans. The concentration of refugees caused fear to the neighbouring villages. I came early to the conclusion that the only method was to carry the refugees to Bahawalpur by train, as the distance was over 300 miles.151

Moreover, unrest in neighbouring Punjab threatened to upset the already delicate communal balance in the state: there was no shortage of violence against local Muslims and attacks on refugees trying to cross into Pakistan, while the massacres in the neighbouring state of Bahawalnagar produced a reverse flow of Hindu and Sikh refugees to Bikaner. Sikh mobs invaded the Bikaner trains going to Bhatinda, pulled out Muslims and openly murdered them. The Gang Canal Colony – an area of 1000 square miles bordering on the Punjab and wholly populated by Punjabee cultivators Hindus Muslims and Sikhs immediately reacted to the situation across the border. But I had taken ample precautions, sent a strong but mobile military force to the colony, which kept the area safe from riot […]. Suddenly, however the situation worsened. Across the

150 Ashton, British Policy towards Indian States, 205–6. On Hyderabad, see Taylor Sherman, ‘The Integration of the Princely State of Hyderabad and the Making of the Postcolonial State in India, 1948–56’, Indian Economic and Social History Review, 44: 4, 2007, 489–516. 151 ‘Biographical Sketches’, undated, file 1293, PP, NAI. See also ‘Panikkar to Sadul Singh’, 8 May 1947 and 16 June 1947, P.M. diaries, file 4182, MGSTA.

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border the Muslim Pakistan state of Bahawalpur, in the Canal area adjacent to ours, the Muslim mobs, with the help of the troops put the Hindu population of Bahawalnagar to the sword. Night over refugees began to pour in.152

Vappala Pangunni Menon, Secretary to the Ministry of the States, visited the affected areas and refugee camps with Panikkar and, in his report for Minister Patel, promoted the work of the Bikaner government: In Bikaner the State authorities are fully alive to the dangers of the present situation and are doing their best. But we must help. I must express my thanks for all the help rendered to me by the Bikaner Government and their officials. I have visited all the refugee camps in the State and the people are of good cheer, and appreciated very much my visit to their camps. The wounded refugees, both Muslims and non-Muslims are being well looked after by the Bikaner Government.153

The situation normalised with time and, before he left the state, Panikkar was able to concentrate on completing what was closest to his heart: the constitutional reforms that were to introduce responsible government had been postponed due to unrest but, in the end, it was decided that they should be enacted by the end of 1947. In June 1947, Panikkar wrote to the Maharaja to inform him that as soon as the new law came into force, he would resign: In six months’ time from today Your Highness will be opening a new and, as I fervently believe, a more glorious chapter in the history of Bikaner. It is obviously necessary to give the Reforms the best possible chance and for this purpose your Highness should be able to reconstitute your Ministry. With this object in view, I desire most respectfully to vacate the high office to which your Highness has called me, and which I have now held for 3 full years. I request the as soon as possible after the new Reforms have been brought into force, Your Highness may be pleased to relieve me.154

152 ‘Biographical Sketches’, undated, file 1293, PP, NAI. 153 ‘V.P. Menon to Patel’, undated, Patel Papers, NMML. 154 ‘Panikkar to Sadul Singh’, 1 June 1947, file 7405/1947, MGSTA.

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The Government of Bikaner Act was passed in December 1947.155 It created a bicameral legislative assembly to which the Council would be accountable. It comprised an upper chamber, the Raj Sabha, of 32 members, of which only three would be appointed by the sovereign, and a lower chamber, the Dhara Sabha, of 55 members. There would be no separate electorates or special interests, but reserved seats for Muslims and Sikhs. The transition period was to last no longer than two years. In the event of an emergency, the ruler could claim power for up to six months.156 The suffrage had been enlarged and Panikkar publicly declared that the Assembly would have the power to demand a further enlargement to universal suffrage.157 Panikkar, therefore, resigned and left Bikaner on March 14, 1948, after almost twenty years in the service of princes. Conditions in India had radically changed and the position of states had been revolutionised. When the history of the very critical days which preceded the declaration of India’s independence on the 15th August comes to be written the glorious part His Highness Maharaja Sadul Singhji played in integrating the whole of India into one great motherland of ours will be a shining page in the History of India.158

However, the Maharaja of Bikaner soon had to realise that neither the agreement with the Congress nor the reforms he had granted could save his state any longer. On March 19, 1948, the provisional government took office, but elections were never held. Planned for September, they were boycotted by the Praja Parishad, which demanded the state’s

155 ‘Responsible Government for Bikaner’, Bikaner Bulletin, December 1947, 1–9. 156 ‘Government of Bikaner Act Summarized. Two Chamber Legislature: Greatly

Widened Franchise with Joint Electorates. Automatic Attainment of Responsible Government’, Bikaner Bulletin, December 1947, 10–3. 157 ‘Prime Minister Elucidates Constitutional Reforms. Meeting of Different Political Parties’, Bikaner Bulletin, January 1948, 10–2. 158 ‘Speech by His Highness the Maharaja at the farewell dinner at Lallgarh, Bikaner, on the 13 March 1948, in Honour of Mr. K.M. Panikkar’, undated, file 7405/1947, MGSTA.

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accession to the union of Rajasthan. The elections, eventually, had to be cancelled under pressure from the Ministry for States.159 Immediately after independence, pressure had in fact begun from the government of independent India to recover certain Paramountcy rights that, in theory, could not be ceded, such as the sending of residents who now took the name of ‘regional commissioners’. There was also pressure for the merger of some states with each other or with the provinces and, in parallel, for a rapid process of democratisation: the new units of Rajasthan, Patiala and East Punjab States Union (PEPSU), Matsya Union were formed. In 1948, the Instrument of Accession was renewed by the governors of the new units ceding much greater powers to the central government than the three simple and minimal areas by which access to the Indian Union had been obtained. The Maharaja of Bikaner, who was finally forced to accede to the state of Rajasthan, lived out his few remaining years consumed by resentment at what he considered a betrayal of the Indian government.

159 Panikkar hoped until the end that Bikaner’s democratisation process would have preserved the state in the Indian Union. ‘Mr. Panikkar’s draft’, 28 August 1948, file 7405/1947, MGSTA.

CHAPTER 4

Independent India and the World

4.1 What Place for the New India? A Geopolitical Proposal During the war, from his vantage point in Bikaner, Panikkar had witnessed the unfolding of Indian and international events: the failure of the federal proposal, the Japanese advancing in south-east Asia, the crisis of the Empire and the achievement of independence. These events had prompted him, in parallel with his engagement with the princely states, to cultivate broader interests. Panikkar had, thus, begun to systematically deal with foreign policy, India’s geopolitical position and its future role in Asia in an increasingly intense manner from the 1940s onwards. The Future of South-East Asia was written by Panikkar following his participation in the eighth conference of the Institute of Pacific Relations in Mont Tremblant, Quebec, in 1942.1 The following year, in London, Panikkar gave a private lecture at Chatham House on imperial relations and the future of Anglo-Indian links. Between 1944 and 1945, he collaborated with the essayist Guy Wint, an expert on Asian and Middle Eastern affairs, in the activities of a group of intellectuals and politicians from Britain, India, Australia and South-East Asia at whose meetings memoranda 1 K.M. Panikkar, The Future of South-East Asia, (London: Allen & Unwin, 1943).

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Elli and R. Paolini, Indian National Identity and Foreign Policy, Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36425-9_4

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on various issues arose, ranging from India’s foreign policy (its relations with China, South-East Asia and the Indian Ocean), the need for an Anglo-Indian treaty, the promotion of Indian culture abroad to the study of Sanskrit. Panikkar wrote several of these memoranda that were circulated both among the members of the group and the state administration in London.2 He participated in the informal British Commonwealth Relations Conference organised by the Royal Institute of International Affairs in 1945 with a paper on the need for a defensive organisation that would bring together the countries that were part of the Empire. Out of this, and another series of lectures and speeches, would come the book India and the Indian Ocean, also published in 1945.3 The significance of Panikkar’s presence and his intellectual contribution is evidenced by the fact that his stay was reported to the War Office in London directly by Claude Auchinleck, Commander-in-Chief in India: Panniker [sic] is a moderate nationalist with important links with circles in Congress prepared to work within Commonwealth framework. Series of papers by him on Foreign Policy and Defence which show unusual grasp of realities have attached much notice here. His ideas deserve careful study and cordial relations with him may pay dividends.4

As Peter Brobst has pointed out, the success of Panikkar’s ideas, especially among those who were in search of a new geopolitical vision for India in anticipation of its independence, caused the British authorities to secretly take steps to expedite the publication of India and the Indian Ocean in the face of the difficulties generated by wartime rationing of raw materials.5 2 ‘Biographical Sketches’, undated, file 1293, PP, NAI. 3 K.M. Panikkar, India and the Indian Ocean. An Essay on the Influence of Sea Power

on Indian History, (London: Allen & Unwin, 1945). “It was in one of those discussions connected with Malaya and Burma that I put forward one of my favourite themes that it was India’s historic role to have prevented the expansion of China to the south of Annam, that it was Indian sea power which for a thousand years had withstood the pressure of Chinese population movement in South-East Asia.” ‘Biographical Sketches’, undated, file 1293, PP, NAI. 4 ‘C. in C. in India to War Office’, 15 February 1945, L/WS/1/1343, IOR. 5 Peter Brobst, ‘India and the Indian Ocean: An Essay on the Influence of Sea Power

on Indian History by K. M. Panikkar’, Defence Analysis, 15: 1, 1999, 99–105.

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Even General Mosley Mayne, Military Secretary of the India Office, concluded that the work of the Bikaner minister was certainly prolific and original, although he tended to get a little carried away.6 I thought his papers on Siam and Indo-China were interesting from the political aspect but in his other papers I thought he ran rather wild and was very wide of the mark. Those of the staff at the War Office who have read his papers think the same as I do, though they agree with me that Panikkar is certainly a big thinker and a constructive one.7

One of the very first problems that naturally caught Panikkar’s attention was the future relationship between Britain and India. Once colonial ties were severed, could India continue to rely on the British for its defence? Indian independence was certainly a necessary precondition for any project, but Panikkar emphasised that strategic interests would not change substantially after it was achieved.8 If anything, from this perspective, independence was indispensable so that India could best organise its defence, something that a colonial-type government and economy would not be able to guarantee.9 Panikkar emphasised that, in any case, even after independence, British and Indian interests in the East would remain inextricably linked and that, consequently, it would also be in the interest of the former colonisers to support the newly independent country internationally.10 From the indissolubility of interests descended, as a logical consequence, the indissolubility of the defence of the two countries. The question of British interests in the East is very gravely involved in the activity of India and on the other hand the defence of the Suez Canal, Aden and the Persian Gulf may be of the most vital importance to India 6 ‘Mayne to Sinclair’, 17 February 1945, L/WS/1/1343, IOR. 7 ‘Mayne to Cawthorn’, 22 February 1945, L/WS/1/1343, IOR. 8 K.M. Panikkar, ‘India’s Policy towards the States of the Indian Ocean Area. Lecture

delivered on October 27th, 1945’, undated, file 7204/1939, MGSTA. 9 Panikkar, The Future of South-East Asia. 10 “Britain’s policy is India’s policy and there is, so far as one can see, no ground

for conflict or rivalry. Again it is clear that, without Britain’s cooperation and support, no adequate defence machinery can be organised.” Panikkar, ‘India’s Policy towards the States of the Indian Ocean Area. Lecture delivered on October 27th, 1945’, undated, file 7204/1939, MGSTA.

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herself, the security interests being so mutually bound. We have to consider that Burma, for example, with her fifteen or seventeen million people with no development and very little army, would not be in a position to defend her frontiers by herself. So that with the independence of Burma it should be possible to create a commonwealth in which Britain would be given a guarantee of her interests in the East.11

This ‘commonwealth’, of course, had nothing to do with the neoimperial projects of the inter-war period, in the context of which a non-autonomous India could at best aspire to legal equality within the British ecumene.12 The Commonwealth in which independent India could participate would be cemented not by sacrifice and sense of duty, but by the convergence of interests.13 For this reason, British support was also to cover India’s economic and productive development, not out of philanthropy or humanitarianism, but because this was necessary for a more effective defence, which would be not only in India’s interest to achieve.14 The solution to India’s defence problems, therefore, had to be found in two directions: cooperation with Great Britain on the one hand and the creation of regional organisations on the other. Burma and Ceylon were to become politically independent but form, with India, a single defence organisation. This involvement would have made it possible to reinsert areas of strategic interest, but singularly too backward or demographically insignificant, into the Indian defence structure without reproducing forms of imperial domination over them, as was implicit in the works of those nationalists who identified this entire area as ‘Greater India’.15 In a broader framework, Indonesia, China, Indochina (whose independence was seen as inevitable) and the Philippines were also to be 11 K.M. Panikkar, ‘A New Approach to Indian Problems’, Private Discussion Meeting, 25 January 1943, 8/907, Royal Institute of International Affairs (hereafter RIIA). 12 Vineet Thakur, ‘Traves in Diplomacy: V.S. Srinisava Sastri and G.S. Bajpai in 1921– 1922”, The International History Review, 44: 4, 2022, 874–91. 13 See Lion Curtis, The Problem of the Commonwealth, (London: Macmillan, 1915). 14 “There is also the question concerning the development of India in regard to

industry. This requires the close cooperation and friendship of a country in a position to understand her problems and partake in the responsibilities.”Panikkar, ‘A New Approach to Indian Problems’, Private Discussion Meeting, 25 January 1943, 8/907, RIIA. 15 See for example Kalidas Nag, Greater India, (Bombay: The Book Centre Private Ltd., 1960).

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included in common defence institutions. This design would have allowed for a manageable post-imperial order, to avoid—in short—dangerous centrifugal pushes determined by the changes to the international order that the war was bringing about. Less straightforward, however, was to identify the adversary against whom these defensive structures were intended to be used, given the strong fluidity that characterised this moment of transition from war to peace.16 The most original part of Panikkar’s reflections can be found in his analyses of maritime power in Indian history and the future role of the Indian Ocean in post-independence foreign policy. Just like the analytical look at South and South-East Asia was considered a precursor to the Look East Policy debate of the 1990s,17 the historical review of India’s maritime vocation has recently been seen as a missed opportunity to reflect on the country’s geopolitical legacy because it was not seriously considered among the priorities of the newly independent state.18 In India and the Indian Ocean, Panikkar tackled the topic of maritime power by recovering some of the concepts and ideas he had expounded in his work on the relations between Kerala and the European powers and by assuming that historians had generally underestimated the importance of the sea in Indian history, as their views tended to reflect Muslim chronicles written from Delhi. There have been invasions and conquests of India from the land side on many occasions. But such invasions and conquests have either led to transient political changes, or to the foundation of new dynasties, which in a very short time became national and Indian. In fact, it may truly be said that India never lost her independence till she lost the command of the sea in the first decade of the 16th century.19

Panikkar’s image of the Indian Ocean was that of a sea sailed since antiquity on which Hindu rule was unchallenged, to the point of establishing colonies in South-East Asia: 16 Panikkar, The Future of South-East Asia. 17 Amitav Acharya, ‘India’s “Look East” Policy’, in David Malone - Raja Mohan -

Srinath Raghavan (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Indian Foreign Policy, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 556–72. 18 David Scott, ‘The Indian Ocean as India’s Ocean’, ivi, 573–87. 19 Panikkar, India and the Indian Ocean, 7.

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The control of the Indian seas belonged predominantly to India till the 13th century A. D. […] The idea that the Hindus had some kind of a ceremonial objection to the sea, while perhaps true in respect to the people of North India, was never true in respect of the people of the south. Peninsular India was maritime in its traditions.20

The ocean had then continued to be open to the navigation of all peoples, even when control had passed to the Arabs.21 The real turning point had been the arrival of the Europeans: the Portuguese had been the first to question the principle of freedom of the seas. Vasco da Gama was described, also in this text, as a real pirate: “in the history of piracy it will be difficult to find a parallel to the barbarism of this Portuguese hero”.22 The challenges of the newcomers from Europe continued to involve dominance over the sea and, even for the final British victory over the French, control of the ocean would be decisive. Thus the strategy of Albuquerque found its culmination and Britain, the sole power in the Indian Ocean since the Treaty of Vienna, with her authority firmly established at all strategic points and an Empire in India created on these pillars in the sea, ruled the Indian Ocean as a British Lake.23

Only the Japanese advance in South-East Asia had temporarily challenged this situation, but it had also, in its own way, reaffirmed the importance of maritime power for the defence of India. The entry of Japan into the Indian Ocean demonstrated clearly the entire dependence of the security of India on the mastery of the seas. […] The whole question of Indian defence has, as a result to be reconsidered, both in the light of history and of recent events. The era of protected sea

20 Ivi, 28–9. 21 According to Panikkar, it did exist an international law of the sea of a kind in

the Indian Ocean: “The period of Hindu supremacy in the Ocean was one of complete freedom of trade and navigation. While the pirates where extirpated and the routes kept open, there was no interference of any kind with trade which was open to ships of all nations”. Ivi, 35. 22 Ivi, 41. 23 Ivi, 71.

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communications has ended for India, and the question of the control of Oceanic seas surrounding India stares us now in the face.24

The defence of independent India was, therefore, to hinge on the development of a naval power commensurate with its historical and geopolitical role. The aspect of land security, however, remained the other side of the coin. The issue was addressed by Panikkar only a few years later, with a two-part contribution in The Indian Quarterly, significantly titled ‘The Himalayas and Indian Defence’.25 Again, he started with an analysis of India’s history and asserted that the mountain range’s centuries-old role had been to isolate it from China and protect it from too violent and destructive invasions: Properly examined it will be seen that India is one of the least invaded countries in the world. […] In fact only when the north-western area has been organized into a powerful state as in the time of Seleucos […] or 1200 years later at the time of Mahmood of Ghazni, or again in the time of Babar, there has been a regular invasion of India. […] The essential point would appear to be that even these ‘conquests’ and ‘invasions’ were at long intervals and not of a character or size which uprooted the social conditions or modified in any sudden manner the structure and pattern of Indian life.26

On the one hand, this had had the effect of guaranteeing the continuity of Hindu culture and, consequently, of the Indian nation itself—an aspect always dear to Panikkar’s heart. On the other, however, India had begun to feel secure and invulnerable, cultivating an unwarranted sense of superiority over other nations that had effectively isolated it from international society. While it will be true to hold that Hinduism and the Hindu people have been saved by the Himalayas, there have been other results from the impenetrability of these ranges which have not been so advantageous. In the first place it gave the Hindus and Indians in general a sense of contempt 24 Ivi, 81. 25 K.M. Panikkar, ‘The Himalayas and Indian Defence’, The India Quarterly, 3: 2,

1947, 127–35, and 3: 3, 1947, 233–8. 26 Ivi, 133.

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for the foreigner, which is the inevitable result of isolation. […] In the second place, it gave them a false sense of security […]. Thirdly, India never developed a proper system of international relations.27

The country had thus missed out on fertile direct contact with other cultures. The contact of cultures which renovates and revives the free association of different peoples, which give rise to an international outlook, and the interplay of political factors on a wider scale which helps a nation to understand the strength and weakness of different peoples, were conspicuously absent in India.28

Contemporary India had to ask itself whether the Himalayas were still an impenetrable barrier. Panikkar’s view was that considering its height but, above all, its extent, the Himalayas remained a formidable obstacle even at a time when air power had manifested its devastating potential. The Tibetan plateau would have constituted an immense space without bases and refuelling points for aircraft. But there remained a note of caution: technological developments could alter this situation quickly. Overall, therefore, Panikkar was not entirely absorbed in diplomacy and state administration between 1943 and 1947. Rather, he demonstrated his ability to deal with issues of India’s defence and geopolitics with competence and insight, influencing the debate on the relationship between geography and strategy half a century later.29 Between the idea of India as a land power and as a maritime power, Panikkar tended to favour the latter, emphasising its relations with SouthEast Asia and the Indian Ocean, even going so far as to disturb the ancient Hindu navigators whose traditions would have to be revived. These ideas were also well in the mind of Nehru, an attentive reader of Panikkar’s texts. He recognised the latter’s role in emphasising the practical, symbolic and psychological importance of maritime power, if only

27 Ivi, 135. 28 Ivi, 132. 29 See the much-debated work by George Tanham, Indian Strategic Thought: An Interpretative Essay, (New York: RAND, 1992). See also Shrikant Paranjpe, India’s Strategic Culture, (London: Routledge, 2020), 1–11.

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to emancipate independent India from an eminently land-based strategic approach produced by its place within the British Empire.30 It must be strongly emphasised, however, that Panikkar’s ideas cannot be expunged from his reflections on India and its future. Firstly, he believed that the ruling classes and the Indian people as a whole should set aside those pacifist prejudices that did not suit an independent nation that needed to have the strength to defend itself. Our vision has been obscured by an un-Indian wave on pacifism. Ahimsa is no doubt a great religious creed but that is a creed which India rejected when she refused to follow Gautama Buddha. The Hindu theory at all times, especially in the periods of her historic greatness was one of active assertion of the right, if necessary with the force of the arms.31

Already in his conversation at Chatham House in 1943, Panikkar had significantly stated: “Pacifism is personal to Mr. Gandhi”.32 In his memoranda to the War Office, he had proposed not only the abandonment of pacifism but also an active militarist propaganda among the Indian civilian population, also by encouraging youth organisations that promoted discipline, physical drills and pre-military training, such as scouting movements or ‘aviation clubs’ in universities.33 This was a very clear-cut position, apparently far removed from the internationalist nationalism that Nehru had developed in the anti-colonial movement between the two World Wars and more evocative, instead, of Hindu nationalism.34 This is because it explicitly emphasised the ineliminability of violence from the international dimension and the consequent need for a rediscovery of the martial character of the people.35

30 ‘Nehru to Katju’, 22 September 1955, Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru (hereafter

SWJN ), s. 2 vol. 30, (New Delhi: Nehru Memorial Fund, 2002), 346–8. 31 Ivi, 16. 32 Panikkar, ‘A New Approach to Indian Problems’, Private Discussion Meeting, 25

January 1943, 8/907, RIIA. 33 K.M. Panikkar, ‘Memorandum on Defence and National Efficiency’, 1945, L/WS/ 1/1343, IOR. 34 Priya Chacko, ‘The Internationalist Nationalist’, in Robin Shilliam (ed.), International Relations and Non-Western Thought, (London: Routledge, 2011), 178–96. 35 See, for example, the address to the 22nd Session of the Akhil Bhartiya Hindu Mahasabha held at Madura in 1940: Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Hindu Rashtra Darshan:

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Panikkar’s reflections on foreign policy and defence contributed to the reformulation of his ideas on domestic policy. Having now abandoned the federal perspective, he found in the defence requirements a further reason to support that centralism in the name of which he had very early on accepted the separation of India and Pakistan as an inevitable event. India needed a strong central government if it was to defend itself and manage its foreign policy independently. And it would never have been possible to give Muslims sufficient guarantees that they could feel secure in a democratically elected Hindu-majority state. As he had already made it clear in the Chatham House meeting: If we get a federation there is a reasonable apprehension which the Moslems can entertain that a government consisting predominantly of Hindus will encroach upon the provinces in which they are in a minority. If we are thinking in terms of security and developing India from the viewpoint of industrial possibilities, defences, etc. then a central government will have a greater power than federation can give. If you want a strong central Government in India to reconstruct society in India what you require would be to reintegrate India on a more equitable basis, and it is necessary that there should be a separation by which the Moslems would find themselves in a position of equality. Then you would get two really strong centralised governments with the possibility of the organization of India into a modern government.36

Reflections on geopolitics were decisive in arriving at these conclusions even if, of course, they went hand in hand with other experiences: the failure of the federal negotiations in the 1930s had demonstrated the difficulty of holding different and unruly units together; the deterioration of communal relations strengthened the centralist views that wanted a strong government; the violence and unrest that accompanied independence and partition made him definitively lean towards a unitary government that could oppose centrifugal forces. Accepting the creation of Pakistan became inevitable, for him, to save India from a fate as a weak federation that would have condemned it to irrelevance or disintegration. A Collection of the Presidential Speeches Delivered from the Hindu Mahasabha Platform, (Bombay: Khare, 1949), 78–110. 36 Panikkar, ‘A New Approach to Indian Problems’, Private Discussion Meeting, 25 January 1943, 8/907, RIIA. The same argument is quoted also in Narendranath, Sardar Panikkar, 139.

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Indian-ness at Independence

The value Panikkar attributed to unification reflected the climate of the period since, after independence and the experience of partition, it was precisely the unity of India that appeared as an inalienable achievement, albeit one that was continually put to the test. Even the choices made by the Constituent Assembly were conditioned by this political climate. The 1950 Constitution while retaining the federal structure, had the centralisation of powers as its dominant feature.37 Significantly, the name Indian Union and not Indian Federation was chosen for the new state. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, one of the ‘fathers of the Constitution’, explained this choice as follows38 : The use of the term ‘Union’ is deliberate […] to make it clear that though India was to be a federation, the federation was not the result of an agreement by the states to join a federation and that the federation not being the result of an agreement, no state has the right to secede from it.39

In a memo for the Union Constitution Committee of the Constituent Assembly Panikkar wrote: Federation is a fair-weather constitution and in the circumstances of India it is likely to be a dangerous experiment leaving the national government with but limited powers, weak and consequently incapable of dealing with national problems.40 37 In general, see Sujit Choudhry - Madhav Khosla - Pratap Bhanu Mehta (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Indian Constitution, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016); and Madhav Khosla, India’s Founding Moment, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020). On the wider ethic and political issues, and the involvement of the civil society, see Ornit Shani, ‘The People and the Making of India’s Constitution’, The Historical Journal, 65: 4, 2022, 1102–23; Rohit De, A People’s Constitution, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018); and Rajeev Bhargava (ed.), Politics and Ethics of the Indian Constitution, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). 38 See Ananya Vajpeyi, Righteous Republic. The Political Foundations of Modern India, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012), 208–42. 39 In Amarjit Narang, ‘India: Ethnicity and Federalism’, in Bhagwan Dass Dua Mahendra Prasad Singh (eds.), Indian Federalism in the New Millennium, (New Delhi: Manohar Publishers, 2003), 73. 40 K.M. Panikkar, ‘A Note on Some General Principles of the Union Constitution’, May 1947, in Benegal Shiva Rao (ed.), The Framing of India’s Constitution: Select Documents, vol. II, (New Delhi: Indian Institute of Public Administration, 1967), 534.

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The enthusiasm for gaining independence was accompanied by uncertainty, concern and violence. The federation, previously seen as the instrument to enhance diversity and particularity, now seemed to pose an unacceptable risk to national unity. Even from the perspective of historical reconstruction, Panikkar shifted the emphasis decisively to the precious value of the unification finally achieved. Particularism had now become, for him, the greatest of dangers. Thus, the princely states, which he had defended during his political career and through his historical works, now became only one aspect of this particularism, which had to be opposed. Upon the achievement of independence, Panikkar published a text that traced the history of India from antiquity to the end of the British Empire. In A Survey of Indian History, he described it as a millenary process in which a constant aspiration for political unification clashed with disintegrating forces, the last example of which was the princely states.41 India was still described as a nation characterised by a peculiar mixture of elements of variety and cohesion. The theory of ‘unity in diversity’, however, tended to skew towards the first of the two elements in this 1947 version. While the country had been enriched by diverse contributions, its culture remained formed by an unchangeable core: Hinduism. Even if other elements had been added and had ended up becoming permanent in India, what was specifically Indian was, for Panikkar, also Hindu: Indian Muslims would have been part of a broader Islamic culture, not specifically linked to India. Instead, those cultural aspects that had developed from the interaction of Islam with Hinduism would have been specifically Indian. The fundamental continuity in the history of India was thus the continuity of Hindu civilisation itself, which, despite its ups and downs, would be preserved over the centuries. Panikkar’s narrative began, in fact, with the development of a Hindu civilisation from the fusion of the Dravidian (Indus civilisation) and the Aryan culture and its spread from Punjab throughout the subcontinent between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries BC to the assimilation of the local tribes into the caste system. The key and unifying element of the subsequent narrative was the quest for unification: the history of India was one of progressive unification both culturally and politically.

41 K.M. Panikkar, A Survey of Indian History, (Bombay: Meridian Books, 1947).

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At the same time, Panikkar recovered his maritime concerns: he noted, on the one hand, the autonomous development, in the south, of a Dravidian civilisation linked by sea to Mesopotamia, Egypt and Palestine, which was only slowly absorbed into the cultural orbit of the neo-Aryan north, and, on the other hand, the establishment of cultural links between India and the rest of Asia with the sending of Buddhist missionaries to China and Ceylon, with the expansion of Indian culture into Central Asia through the Kushana kingdom and into South-East Asia by sea. The emphasis on the sea was thus combined with a reaffirmation of the importance of South India in the building of the nation. The Muslim invasions caught the Hindu kingdoms unprepared because, self-confident and isolated from the world, the Indian people had ceased to grow. External vigilance which is the price of freedom had weakened to a vanishing point and the Hindus of the seventh to the eleventh century had, as a result, lost completely the sense of patriotism and national honour which grows up only under the stimulus of danger from outside. […] Another consequence of the absence of any external threat was the consuming arrogance of the Indian people. […] There is nothing more dangerous for a country than the feeling that it was ordained by God to remain safe: that no foreigner could reach it. Such a feeling of peace will necessarily weaken the springs of national greatness, the rigidity of discipline, the desire to work together for upholding what is of value, the subordination of material interests to the idea of general good.42

The categories of ‘national forces’ and ‘foreigners’ were now applied not only to the invasions and resistance of local potentates but also to the new kingdoms that formed at a later stage. If the Delhi sultanate was unhesitatingly described as a foreign kingdom, Panikkar was more possibilistic about the Muslim courts that emerged from its break-up: they had indeed been places of cultural synthesis. In fact […] the representative Muslim dynasties of India where no longer in Delhi. Muslim civilization was represented not by the weak and dissipated kings who followed Firoz Tughlaq, but by the Sultans of Bengal, Jaunpur, Gujerat and Malwa. Indian Islam in the 15th century in the courts of the

42 Panikkar, A Survey of Indian History, 105–6.

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rulers of these states began to disclose characteristics which evidenced the synthesis of culture that was going on beneath the surface.43

Panikkar, concerned about the modernisation and exchange of ideas produced by the contact between different civilisations, wondered whether the encounter with Islam had been fruitful for India. The answer was ambivalent: it had certainly had profound effects on India’s society, culture and history and some of these effects had been positive, but, at least at this early stage, India had only come into contact with a rather backward part of Islamic culture represented by the Turkish and Afghan populations. The great culture of Islam could hardly be represented by the Turks and the Afghans who entered India in the wake of Mohammed Ghori. They no doubt represented the religion of Islam, but the civilization associated with the Muslim empires of Baghdad or Cairo or Cordova found no echo in the hearths of the Turkish Maliks in whose hand the political power was vested. The religion of Islam was itself the main contribution of these dynasties of Delhi. Apart from its doctrinal aspect, Islam also introduced into India a conception of human equality, a pride in one’s religion, a legal system which in many ways was an advance on the codes of the time.44

A true Islamic national force arose only with the Mughal Empire beginning with Akbar’s reign: Hindus were admitted to the highest ranks of the Mughal nobility and positions of responsibility, the Jizya (per capita levy on non-Muslims) was abolished, and the Rajputs were among the emperor’s most loyal allies.45 With Aurangzeb, however, the national state ceased to exist as its Islamic character was reaffirmed, attracting opposition from both the Rajputs and, above all, the Marathas and Sikhs. Attempts at unification thus failed and India found itself once again fragmented and facing a new challenge: the growth of European powers that based their strength on the sea and that, from the mid-eighteenth century, began to intervene in the wars between the new states that arose from the dissolution of the empire. This dissolution, however, did not put an end to the imperial idea: 43 Ivi, 122. 44 Ivi, 130. 45 Ivi, 154.

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The poor emperor in Delhi counted for nothing; but the tradition of Akbar, the idea of the national State had survived, so that the head of the Maratha confederacy which ruled without question most of Hindustan as an independent sovereign power and who held the person of the emperor as a prisoner, was honoured to accept a title from him, and the people of Mysore who had never been the subjects of the Moghul empire felt that a wrong had been righted when the kutba was read in the emperor’s name. The empire by ceasing to be a fact had become an accepted idea.46

This idea was, paradoxically, realised by the British, involuntary instruments of history. From the Indus to the Brahmaputra, from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin, in the whole of the traditional territory of Bharata Varsha, the Union Jack flew in unquestioned supremacy. The unity of India which the sacred writings of the Hindus had postulated centuries before Christ, but which neither Asoka nor Akbar was able to achieve, and which the Marathas had not even conceived, had in fact come into being. The doctrine of the national State which the mind of India had accepted in the eighteenth century was realized through the force of British arms.47

Unification was described as a positive fact and there was no trace, in this text, of a defence of the Indian states subject to the Paramountcy of the government of British India: A conscious process of unification was set afoot, the object of which was not merely to secure the effective exercise of British authority in Indian states, but weld the whole of India into one country. Railways, posts and telegraphs, currency, salt administration - these were the main external forms through which this unity was achieved. The doctrine of paramountcy by which the Central Government claimed over-riding powers over the States as also the authority for the Crown over the rulers was the method and machinery by which this far-reaching change was effected.48

In order to regain its independence, however, it was necessary for Indian civilisation—which, for Panikkar, meant its Hindu core—to face and 46 Ivi, 186. 47 Ivi, 202. 48 Ivi, 211.

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overcome the crisis it was going through by means of an enormous religious and social reform, a great effort at political organisation, a slower economic recovery and a cultural, literary, artistic and scientific renaissance. By the end of the century Hinduism stood erected before the world, fully conscious of its own greatness and powers and ready, if necessary, to challenge the teachings of rival religions. The sense of Hindu greatness was also awakened and fortified by the recovery of Indian history.49

It was these political, religious and social developments that generated the national movement. According to Panikkar, nationalism had, therefore, been prepared and filled with meaning by the religious revival, but the Congress had never turned into a sectarian movement: The period of cooperation with the Muslim League and the interlude of the Khilafat agitation should not blind us to the fact that the strength of the Congress lay primarily in the Hindu revival and in an integrated nationalism based on the Hindu masses. The Mahatma himself embodied in his person certain aspects of Hindu spirit. […] Under him, though in a different way, the Congress represented the resistance of Hinduism as a whole to alien domination, though the political purpose of the Congress and its general outlook in regard to the future of India was entirely not sectarian.50

On the other hand, Indian Muslims went through a parallel process of ‘integration’ into a cohesive and separate community. The loss of political power and, later, the prospect of a Hindu-majority government had led them in this direction.51 Islam, therefore, was not defined as a necessarily anti-national force but, in fact, the separation of India and Pakistan was presented as an inevitable result of Muslim fears. It is not to be understood that alongside with the great movement for Islamic unification, there was no spirit of national Indian awakening among the Muslims. From the beginning of the Congress movement there have 49 Ivi, 217. 50 Ivi, 221. 51 Ivi, 225.

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been many Muslim leaders of standing associated with it. […] But broadly speaking Islamic opinion after the mutiny was dominated by a sense of political fear and was organised for protection.52

The relationship between the ‘Indian’ nation and ‘Hindu’ culture was thus rather complex. While Panikkar attributed a fundamental value to continuous progress stimulated also by contact with other civilisations, he remained convinced that it was necessary not to deny one’s roots and to maintain the continuity of the nation’s core unchanged over the centuries.53 The pivot of this continuity was, precisely, Hinduism, and this guaranteed it hold both a privileged position in the definition of a modern Indian nation and a leading role in the reconstruction of ‘national’ history. Indian history is of necessity predominantly the history of Hindu people, for though other and potent elements have become permanent factors in India, the Hindus still constitute over eighty per cent of her population. Besides what is distinctly Indian has so far been Hindu. Islamic contribution is not specially related to India and is a part of a world culture to which Indian Muslims belong. To the extent it is Indian, as in the case of Moghul painting or Indo-Saracenic architecture, the differentiating characteristic is the interaction of Islamic and Hindu cultures. In essence therefore, the history of Indian effort towards the building up and the maintenance of a specially Indian civilisation has to be the history of Hindu mind and its achievements.54

A Survey of Indian History, therefore, presented itself as a comprehensive re-reading of Indian history, made possible by the fact that independence had brought one era to an end and opened a new one, full of opportunities, but also of uncertainties and dangers.

4.3

Ambassador to China

Panikkar left Bikaner on March 13, 1948, to start a new career in the international arena. Sent as a delegate to the UN General Assembly, shortly after his return to India, Panikkar learned of Nehru’s intention

52 Ivi, 230. 53 Ivi, 237. 54 Ivi, 235–6.

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to send him to China as an ambassador. Being chosen for such an important post surprised him. In his autobiography, apart from the suspicion that Sarojini Naidu might have suggested his name, Panikkar correctly surmised that the Prime Minister had read his books and that he liked those that dealt with India’s international standing.55 More generally, one must bear in mind the difficulties and limitations involved in creating a new diplomatic corps. In fact, it was necessary to draw from the ranks of the Indian Civil Service, but this meant that these officials would most likely have perpetuated traditions and mindsets of the British period that would have served little purpose in the new course that Nehru intended to impart to the foreign policy of independent India. Panikkar, who took part in the selection of candidates for the Indian Foreign Service in 1950, was very impressed by the fact that they showed a good knowledge of European history, an uncertain familiarity with Indian history and a profound ignorance of Asian history, concluding that the problem was the absence of an ‘All-India mind’.56 To overcome this difficulty, Nehru chose for the most important diplomatic posts people he trusted and who came from the world of politics. These people, like Panikkar, were of such stature that they had a direct line to the Prime Minister, with the risk of creating a diplomacy that was ‘other’ and not necessarily consistent with that of the Ministry of External Affairs.57 Indeed, India was entering the international arena and Nehru was about to put into practice the ideas on foreign policy that had been elaborated during the independence struggles. Since the 1920s, in fact, the Indian National Congress had begun to systematically deal with international affairs in the name of anti-imperialism. This line had culminated in the participation in the League against Imperialism and for National Independence—of which Nehru himself was a member of the Executive

55 Panikkar, An Autobiography, 177–8. 56 ‘Note to the Secretary-General, the Foreign Secretary, the Minister for Home Affairs

and the Cabinet Secretary’, 20 April 1954, SWJN , s. 2 vol. 25, (New Delhi: Nehru Memorial Fund, 2000), 260–1. 57 For a rather critical appraisal, not least of Panikkar’s record in China, see Amit Das Gupta, The Indian Civil Service and Indian Foreign Policy, 1923–1961, (London: Routledge, 2021). In general, see Pallavi Raghavan, ‘Establishing the Ministry of External Affairs’, in Malone - Mohan - Raghavan (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Indian Foreign Policy, 110–25.

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Council for a certain period—and in the elaboration of the project of a future, variously declined, of solidarity between the liberated nations that would guarantee peace and development. On the one hand, the Second World War created the conditions for India to be a candidate for the role of a regional power. On the other hand, it oriented the national movement more decisively in the last phase of the struggle for independence towards a new international order consisting of a world federation of free nations.58 In a famous speech in the autumn of 1940, Nehru stated that the small states, but probably also the larger ones, no longer had a place in the changing world.59 The latter was, thus, a march towards the creation of a ‘One World’ characterised by the international culture of humanity and anchored in the institutional experience of the United Nations—a process in which India had the advantage of having historically absorbed other cultures while preserving its own distinctiveness, in line with the historical works of Panikkar.60 With the emergence of the Cold War, Nehru—by then the acting vicepresident of the government—became convinced that it was necessary for India to keep itself out of conflict and constitute an area of peace, an alternative to the confrontation between the blocs.61 Non-alignment was not empty idealism, but an active choice to counter the dangerous power dynamics of the Cold War, as well as support for disarmament, mediation in case of conflict, peaceful coexistence and the continuation of the anti-imperialist struggle. The new India, therefore, had to formulate a 58 Michele Louro, Comrades Against Imperialism: Nehru, India, and Interwar Internationalism, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018); Srinath Raghavan, India’s War: The Making of Modern South Asia 1939–1945, (London: Allen Lane, 2016); S. Kalyanaraman, ‘Nehru’s Advocacy of Internationalism and Indian Foreign Policy, in Kanti Bajpai - Saira Basit - V. Krishnappa (eds.), India’s Grand Strategy. History, Theory, Cases, (London: Routledge, 2014), 151–75; and Karuna Mantena, ‘On Gandhi’s Critique of the State: Sources, Contexts, Conjunctures’, Modern Intellectual History, 9: 3, 2012, 535–63. 59 ‘The Eastern Federation’, 28 October 1940, SWJN , s.1 vol. 11, (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1978), 191–2. 60 Jawaharlal Nehru, The Discovery of India, (Calcutta: Signet Press, 1946), 190. 61 In his first radio message as vice-president of the Interim Government, Nehru stated:

“We propose, as far as possible, to keep away from the power politics of groups, aligned against one another, which have led in the past to World Wars and which may again lead to disasters on an even vaster scale.” Jawaharlal Nehru, ‘Free India’s Role in World Affairs’, Broadcast over All India Radio on 7 September 1946, in Surjit Mansingh (ed.), Nehru’s Foreign Policy Fifty Years on, (New Delhi: Mosaic Books, 1998), 21.

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foreign policy that was also conceptually new, capable of reaffirming and promoting the globalist instance of the ‘One World,’ even in the changed international circumstances.62 Not least because the establishment and strengthening of an area of peace was a necessary precondition for that internal development without which independence risked turning into a mere legal statement of principle.63 Asia had been a major focus of interest from the outset. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, in fact, the idea had begun to spread that Asia somehow represented a homogeneous space, endowed with its own peculiar characteristics, which justified an aspiration for unity not only based on common hostility to European imperialism.64 The affirmation of the projects of an Asian political federation, supported in the inter-war period by various Congress leaders and others, was accompanied by an emphasis on the ‘special relationship’ that united India and China historically and psychologically, despite their respective experiences of political weakness and territorial fragmentation. Experiences such as Rabindranath Tagore’s trip to China in 1924 had contributed to making Sino-Indian unity a fundamental element of Asianism, all the more so since the 1930s, when in the face of Japan’s aggressive militarism, the Congress organised a boycott of Japanese goods. Nehru himself visited 62 See Andrew Kennedy, ‘Nehru’s Foreign Policy: Realism and Idealism Cojoined’, in Malone - Mohan - Raghavan (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Indian Foreign Policy, 127–39; Swapna Kona, The Nehru Years. Indian Non-Alignment as the Critique, Discourse and Practice of Security (1947–1964), Ph.D. Dissertation, (London: King’s College, 2016); Manu Bhagavan, India and the Quest for One World. The Peacemakers, (London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2013); Srinath Raghavan, War and Peace in Modern India: A Strategic History of the Nehru Years, (New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2010). On India and the early Cold War, see Raudra Chaudhuri, Forged in Crisis: India and the United States since 1947 , (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014); Paul McGarr, The Cold War in South Asia: Britain, the United States and the Indian Subcontinent, 1945–1965, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013); Robert McMahon, The Cold War on the Periphery: The United States, India, and Pakistan, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994). 63 David Engerman, The Price of Aid. The Economic Cold War in India, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2018); Benjamin Zachariah, ‘The ‘Nehruvian’ State, Developmental Imagination, Nationalism and the Government’, in Ranabir Samaddar - Suhit Sen (eds.), Political Transition and Development Imperatives, (New Delhi: Routledge, 2012), 53–85; Francine Frankel, India’s Political Economy, 1947–2004: The Gradual Revolution, (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005), 3–292. 64 Carolien Stolte - Harald Fischer-Tiné, ‘Imagining Asia in India: Nationalism and Internationalism (ca. 1905-1940)’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 54: 1, 2012, 65–92.

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China in 1939, establishing contacts with the Kuomintang and Chiang Kai-shek reciprocated the visit in 1942 and publicly supported the cause of Indian independence.65 Relations with nationalist China seemed to be on a good footing and it is no coincidence that the writings of K.P.S. Menon, general agent between 1943 and 1948, and those of Panikkar, his successor as ambassador of independent India, offer probably the most empathetic description of the enormous challenges—not so dissimilar to those of India, with the important exception of the civil war—that the country faced.66 Now that independent India was taking the management of foreign policy into its own hands, it was intended to build on the good relations that had been created between the national movements by picking up the threads of pan-Asian solidarity through the organisation of a major conference in New Delhi.67 The management of the event was thus entrusted to the Indian Council for World Affairs, a think tank close to the Congress, which would thus, incidentally, assert itself against the Indian Institute of International Relations, which was an expression of Chatham House and was supported by the Viceroy and the Muslim League.68 The Asian Relations Conference was supposed to shake the countries of the continent out of the isolation into which the colonial experience had plunged them and to represent the start of an institutionalisation of the pan-Asian solidarity that had been reflected upon in the previous period, thus placing a

65 Kamal Sheel, ‘India-China Correctedness’, in Tansen Sen - Brian Tsui (eds.), Beyond Pan-Asianism. Connecting China and India, 1840s–1960s, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021), 155–85; Tansen Sen, ‘Relations between the Republic of China and India, 1937–1949’, in Kanti Bajpai - Selina Ho - Manjari Chatterjee Miller (eds.), Routledge Handbook of China-India Relations, (London: Routledge, 2020), 63–86. 66 Madhavi Thampi, ‘Window on a Changing China: Diplomatic Musings of India’s Envoys to Republican China, 1943–1949’, China Report, 50: 3, 2014, 203–14; Prakash Nanda, Rediscovering Asia. Evolution of India’s Look-East Policy, (New Delhi: Lancer, 2003), 105. 67 Carolien Stolte, ‘“The Asiatic Hour”: New Perspectives on the Asian Relations Conference, New Delhi, 1947’, in Natasa Miskovic - Harald Fischer-Tiné - Nada Boskovska (eds.), The Non-Aligned Movement and the Cold War: Delhi – Bandung – Belgrade, (London: Routledge, 2014), 57–75. 68 Raphaelle Khan, ‘Disrupting the Empire and Forging IR: The Role of India’s Early Think Tanks in the Decolonisation Process, 1936–1950s’, The International History Review, 44: 4, 2021, 836–55.

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first step towards the goal of world federation in contrast to the logic of the Cold War.69 The invitation of a Tibetan delegation and the presence as a backdrop in the conference hall of a map of Asia showing Tibet as an independent country, however, aroused the lively protests of the Chinese delegates.70 Beyond the overall historical evaluation of the initiative, it can be said that the Asian Relations Conference clearly revealed the deterioration of relations between the Chinese and Indian nationalist governments, on the basis of which was the question of Tibet’s status and the demarcation of the Sino-Indian border.71 Panikkar, as soon as he assumed his new role as ambassador, was able to observe how the Chinese attitude towards India showed a certain sense of superiority: It did not take me long to discover that the Kuomintang attitude towards India, while genuinely friendly, was inclined to be a little patronizing. It was the attitude of an elder brother who was considerably older and well established in the world, prepared to give his advice to a younger brother struggling to make his way. Independence of India was welcome, but of course it was understood that China as the recognized Great Power in the East after the war expected India to know her place.72

However, the nationalist government was now seriously threatened by the advance of the communists. India’s position in the events of the civil war was one of strict neutrality and Panikkar himself was convinced of the need to avoid any outside intervention. He spoke out, for example, against the idea of UN mediation in the civil war because it would 69 See Amitav Acharya, ‘Will Asia’s Past Be Its Future?’, International Security, 28: 3,

2003, 149–64; Angadipuram Appadorai, ‘The Asian Relations Conference in Perspective’, International Studies, 18: 3, 1979, 275–85. 70 See contemporary documents and accounts: Asian Relations: Being a Report of the Proceedings and Documentation of the First Asian Relations Conference, New Delhi, March– April, 1947 , (New Delhi: Asian Relations Organization, 1948); J.A. McCallum, ‘The Asian Relations Conference’, The Australian Quarterly, 19: 2, 1947, 13–7; Nicholas Mansergh, ‘The Asian Conference’, International Affairs, 23: 3, 1947, 295–306. 71 For two differing evaluations, see Vineet Thakur, ‘An Asian Drama: The Asian Relations Conference, 1947’, The International History Review, 41: 3, 2019, 673–95; Tansen Sen, India, China, and the World. A Connected History, (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017), 338–47. 72 Panikkar, In Two Chinas, 26–7.

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have given the impression of wanting to deprive of their victory the communists, with whom he had tried to establish contact not without difficulty.73 Panikkar believed that communism would not be the sole characteristic of the Chinese revolution; alongside it, the affirmation of the national cause also played an important role.74 Although it was uncertain which of the two elements would ultimately predominate, it was possible to expect that the new China would do its utmost to regain control over all the territories of the old empire, in continuity with the policy already initiated by Chiang Kai-shek and that it would seek to extend its influence and reassert its prestige. It can be assumed with practical certainty that the policy of a Communist China will be intensely nationalist. As the Soviet policy is the inheritor of the dreams of Peter the Great, the ambitions of Catherine and the conquest of the later Czars, the policy of Mao Tze Tung will combine the claims of all previous dynasties from the Hans to the Manchus and will not voluntarily accept any diminution of territory, claims or interests which China has inherited.75

This put Tibet, which was in a particularly uncertain situation, in the spotlight. Since the fall of the Manchu Empire, in fact, the region had enjoyed complete de facto autonomy but remained, theoretically, subject to the suzerainty of Beijing. The Kuomintang government had continued to insist that the region was an integral part of its territory and the protests at the Asian Relations Conference simply confirmed this position.76 India, on the other hand, had inherited an ambiguous attitude from colonial times. In 1914, in fact, a conference had been convened in Simla to define British India’s relations with Tibet and China. Here 73 “I have been able to maintain unofficial and indirect contact only with Chu Mo, the Communist spokesman in Hong Kong. The Communist leaders have had some kind of misunderstanding about your personal attitude towards them.” ‘Panikkar to Nehru’, 12 February 1949, file 825/CJK/49, Archive of the Ministry of External Affairs (hereafter MEA), NAI. 74 Idem. 75 K.M. Panikkar, ‘When China Goes Communist’, 22 November 1948, FO 371-

75798, The National Archives of the United Kingdom (herafter NAUK), Kew Gardens. 76 See Tsering Shakya, The Dragon in the Land of Snows. A History of Modern Tibet since 1947 , (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999).

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the Tibetans had sought recognition of their independence, which the Chinese were absolutely unwilling to grant. The British plenipotentiary, Henry McMahon, had thus proposed the division of Tibet into a part under Chinese control and an independent part under the rule of the Dalai Lama. The Beijing government had, however, refused to ratify these conclusions, finally reasserting its authority over the whole of Tibet. Following the failure of the conference, the British reserved the right to deal with Tibet without turning to China, if necessary, and thus concluded trade treaties directly with Tibetan representatives. They continued, however, to recognise the Chinese suzerainty, provided that Tibet was considered an autonomous region.77 In this way, the British obtained extraterritorial rights directly from the Tibetan government, which were then passed on to independent India. These included the presence of an Indian government agent in Lhasa, the existence of trade agencies in Gyantse and Yatung, post and telegraph offices on a trade route to Gyantse and the presence of a small military escort to protect this route. Now, while the Indians intended to maintain their relations with Tibet, they did not wish to jeopardise their relations with China for this, not least because it would have been indefensible— politically and ethically—to maintain rights that were the fruit of the age of imperialism. In 1947, the Mountbatten government, with Nehru as vice-president, had declared as follows: The conditions in which India’s well-being may be assured and full evolution be achieved of her inherent capacity to emerge as a potent but benevolent force in world affairs, particularly in Asia, demand not merely the development of internal unity and strength but also the maintenance of friendly relations with her neighbours. To prejudice her relations with so important a neighbour as China by aggressive support of unqualified Tibetan independence […] is therefore a policy of few attractions. It follows that while the Government of India are glad to recognise and wish to see Tibetan autonomy maintained, they are not prepared to do more

77 Rajesh Kadian, Tibet, India and China. Critical Choices, Uncertain Future (New Delhi: Vision Books, 1999), 82–96.

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than encourage this in a friendly manner. They are certainly not disposed to take any initiative which might bring India into conflict with China on this issue.78

Another delicate issue concerned the borders between India and Tibet, which were not clearly defined. The Simla Convention drew the eastern border along the so-called McMahon Line, but, as already mentioned, this had not been ratified by China.79 In the western sector, Indian maps indicated an ‘undefined’ border, which, however, from 1945 began to be represented with a coloured band that included the extensive but uninhabited Aksai Chin plateau in Indian territory.80 Immediately after India’s independence, the Chinese Kuomintang government had clearly shown that it wanted to re-discuss the consequences of the Simla Convention, which it did not recognise. Panikkar summarised the situation as follows in the spring of 1948, pointing out how it had come about through unilateral actions on the British side that had taken advantage of China’s weakened condition: […] India recognises Tibet to be under the suzerainty of China; equally she recognises the autonomy of Tibet and claims the right to conduct direct negotiations and to maintain a diplomatic mission in Lhasa. She has also special trade and commercial rights by agreement and generally Tibet is treated as a semi-independent state. In fact it was the official policy of the British Government that the recognition of the suzerainty 78 Quoted in Karunakar Gupta, Sino-Indian Relations, 1948–1952: Role of K.M. Panikkar, (Calcutta: Minerva, 1987), 57. 79 The issue had been settled directly between the representatives of Tibet and British India by imposing a demarcation line along the Himalayan watershed, that is the McMahon Line. By the 1930s Indian official maps began showing the McMahon Line as a definite boundary, while the 1938 edition of volume XIV of the Aitchinson’s Treaties (a collection of documents of the British India’s government) conveyed the impression that China, not having ratified the Simla Convention, had lost any right on Tibet. See Kadian, Tibet, India and China and the revisionist Neville Maxwell, India’s China War, (London: Cape, 1970). 80 Since 1897 different hypotheses had been formulated regarding this boundary, generally showing more restraint on the part of the India Office and more assertiveness on the part of the British Indian government. By 1954 official maps by the Survey of India stopped showing the caption “undefined” on the western sector of the boundary, so including almost the whole of Aksai Chin – which was strategically crucial for Chinese control on Tibet – in Indian territory. See Stephen Hoffmann, India and the China Crisis, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990).

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of China was conditional on China’s acceptance of Tibet’s autonomy in which India claimed to have a special interest. […] The collapse of the Chinese authority was utilised by the Indian Government to consolidate its position. The present relationship with India may be said to be based on agreements concluded between 1914 and 1919, the period of China’s extreme weakness. But even in 1914 China never resiled from her thesis that Tibet was a part of Chinese territory, no doubt autonomous, but all the same, from the international point of view, Chinese.81

However, this did not prevent Panikkar from understanding how India’s real interests were at stake and how changing the status quo could generate potentially threatening ripple effects. If by peaceful means China could bring Tibet within her framework India may not perhaps object. If China tries to reduce Tibet by a military campaign, India cannot sit back for two reasons: in the first place, there are certain obligations which have come to her as a successor Government. Though India may not interpret those obligations in the same manner as Britain did, she cannot without dishonour withdraw from commitments to Tibet: to support her diplomatically in the maintenance of her autonomy; to supply her with arms and equipment; to train her officers.[…] It has also to be remembered that an effective Chinese Government or even influence in Lhasa will mean the immediate revival of claims against Nepal, Bhutan and Sikkim and also the denunciation of the McMahon Line.82

Panikkar’s concern for Tibet was unrelated to the political regime established in Beijing. At a time when it was still unclear what the fate of the civil war would be, he professed himself certain that—once hostilities were over—China would regain control over the region within a few years. If anything, the communist victory could have accelerated this process and increased the stakes. For this reason, when a few months later such a victory appeared imminent, in the famous memorandum When China Goes Communist of November 1948, Panikkar put forward the proposal, which remained without any outcome, to recognise Tibet’s independence. Information available here points to the conclusion that if the Kuomintang Government falls, Tibet will make a public declaration of her independence 81 ‘Panikkar to Stevenson’, 21 May 1948, L/PS/12/1340, IOR. 82 Ivi.

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and request recognition from India, Britain and the United States. The British position has always been in favour of recognising the independence of Tibet and in the changed circumstances America may not also hesitate. If Outer Tibet’s claim to independence is recognised by Britain, America and India there may be some hope of keeping the new Chinese Communist State away from the Indian border.83

In addition to Tibet, a communist victory could decisively change things in another area that Panikkar saw as a potential conflict zone: South-East Asia. He argued that the Kuomintang had lost credibility by refusing to support national movements in these countries and that this had benefited the communists. Their victory in China would certainly have strengthened this trend. The communist flood will therefore overflow and submerge the Countries of South-East Asia, unless there is outside guarantee. If a line is drawn on the Siam border and the area to the South of it including Burma and Malaya brought under effective organization, it may be possible to stem the tide. The importance of South-East Asia not only to the security but also to the economic life of India need not to be emphasised. What India’s policy should be in relation to these countries is a matter for the most careful consideration.84

It was precisely this need for consolidation, shared by the Western countries in the interests of anti-communist containment, that gave rise to Panikkar’s proposal to create a consultative mechanism uniting Asia and Western countries, from which the negotiation of the Colombo Plan, the Commonwealth Development Aid Mechanism, would later derive.85 The diplomatic representations had refused to follow the retreating Kuomintang government to Canton, but Western ambassadors were soon withdrawn. Panikkar saw them leave and he was left with a strong impression: China was finally freeing itself of the burdens imposed by a 83 K.M. Panikkar, ‘When China Goes Communist’, 22 November 1948, FO 371-

75798, NAUK. 84 Idem. 85 Panikkar, In Two Chinas, 55–6. On the Colombo Plan, see Daniel Oakman, Facing

Asia. A History of the Colombo Plan, (Canberra: ANU Press, 2010); Shigeru Akita et al. (eds), The Transformation of the International Order of Asia. Decolonization, the Cold War, and the Colombo Plan, (London: Routledge, 2014).

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semi-colonial regime and was regaining its place among the great nations of the world. The birth of the People’s Republic of China on October 1, 1949, forced the whole world to look at the country in a new way. And this was all the more true for India, whose recent independence, unstable internal situation, formidable economic and social difficulties and tension with Pakistan converged to make managing the consequences of the communist revolution very problematic.86 Against this backdrop, having returned to India for consultations, Panikkar participated in the intense debates to establish the foundations of the policy towards the new China.87 Unlike the Kuomintang, for the Chinese communists, India, with its dominion status, membership of the Commonwealth and privileged relations with Britain, was not a truly independent state. Nehru’s visit to the United States in October 1949 helped to reinforce the impression that India could be used by the Western bloc as a counterweight to Communist China in Asia.88 Significantly, Mao responded to the congratulations of the Indian Communist Party by wishing that soon India too could be free from the “yoke of imperialism and its collaborators”.89 Nehru thus set out to show the Chinese that a non-aligned position was possible and that it was not a way to cover up one’s subordination to the West. The Prime Minister believed that India had some priorities: to preserve its independence and to embark on rapid economic development. Aligning itself with a major power would have meant giving up, at least in part, its hard-won independence while over-investing in defence would have implied diverting resources from the needs of development.90 It was precisely the fight against underdevelopment that could have represented a common ground, diluting Chinese radicalism and serving as a dynamic element in a relationship that, by avoiding the PRC’s isolation, 86 In general, see Bipan Chandra - Aditya Mukherjee - Mridula Mukherjee, India Since Independence, (New Delhi: Penguin Books India, 2008), Chapter 12. 87 ‘MAE to Indian Embassy, Nanking’, 3 October 1949, file 170/CJK/49, MEA, NAI. 88 Gupta, Sino-Indian Relations, 53–4. 89 ‘Mao Tse-tung to the Communist Party of India’, 16 October 1949, in Stuart Schram (ed.), The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung, (New York: Praeger, 1969), 379. 90 See Michael Brecher, Nehru: A Political Biography, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956); Baldev Raj Nayar - T. V. Paul, India in the World Order, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).

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would have been functional to the One World project on the one hand and would have pushed it to respect a certain autonomy for Tibet and not be excessively dependent on the Soviet Union on the other. It should also be noted how, for the Chinese leadership, Indian friendship was a promising tactical choice in the face of its own internal consolidation needs and the American policy of containment. In this sense, it was important to at least make people believe in the real possibility of cooperation, hiding dislike for a development model that was considered an enemy of the revolution and for a government considered an ally of imperialism.91 The first question to be addressed was that of recognition of the new Chinese government. During his visit to the United States, Nehru asked the Foreign Secretary, K.P.S. Menon, to send him a summary of Panikkar’s views and recommendations on China.92 They were summarised as follows: a. The new Government in China has come to stay. b. The present Chinese revolution is essentially an Asian upheaval, a revolt of the Chinese masses. c. The USA, however, regards it merely as a projection of Soviet expansionist communism and will try to avoid recognition of the new Government as long as possible. d. The UK, which is more realistic and has large commercial interests, would like to accord early recognition. They may, however, have to enter into preliminary negotiations and seek clarification of a number of points […]. e. India, which has NO such interests and only wants good neighbourly relations, will do well to accord recognition at the proper time without waiting for recognition by European Powers.93

Panikkar was convinced that gestures of openness towards the new China were necessary. Even before the proclamation of the People’s Republic, he had already suggested that the Indian government publicly wished for

91 Anton Harder, ‘Promoting Development without Struggle. Sino-Indian Relations in the 1950s’, in Manu Bhagavan (ed.), India and the Cold War, (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2019), 153–77; Hu Xiaowen, ‘The 1950s in ChinaIndia Relations’, in Routledge Handbook of China-India Relations, 87–104. 92 ‘Nehru to K.P.S. Menon’, 11 October 1949, file 710/CJK/49, MEA, NAI. 93 ‘K.P.S. Menon to Nehru’, 12 October 1949, file 710/CJK/49, MEA, NAI.

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“the possibility of good neighbourly relations”,94 believing that Mao’s regime should be officially recognised immediately after the Kuomintang authorities had withdrawn from the mainland.95 In theory, Nehru accepted this position. After all, notwithstanding different approaches within the Foreign Ministry and the cabinet, it was difficult to deny the desirability of recognition. K.P.S. Menon noted that: To display a hostile attitude towards the new Government in China, or to delay recognition unduly after that Government has announced itself as the legal Government of China will be merely to throw the Chinese Government into the hands of Russia and to destroy whatever slender hope there may be of the emergence of what may be called a NationalistCommunist Government of China.96

But even the Secretary General of the Foreign Ministry, G.S. Bajpai, considered a supporter of the ‘hard line’ towards communism, came to the same conclusion, judging the American refusal to recognise the new government as “anti-communist hysteria […]. China is too big to be bullied or ignored; either attitude would only drive its communist masters deeper into the arms of the USSR”.97 Differences of opinion concerned, if anything, the timing of recognition and the advisability of coordinating with other Commonwealth countries. In fact, right-wingers in the Congress, such as Sardar Patel and Rajagopalachari, pressured Nehru to postpone the recognition of the PRC to a later date, in agreement with Britain and the Commonwealth. For instance, still in December 1949, Patel, then Deputy Prime Minister, wrote to Nehru asking him to stall: It seems your intention is to recognize China soon after the UNO session ends, even if it means that others are not ready by then or are prepared to do so. My own feeling is that we do not stand to gain anything substantial by giving a lead in the matter and that, while recognition must come

94 ‘Note by K.P.S. Menon’, 25 August 1949, file 710/CJK/49, MEA, NAI. 95 Panikkar, I n Two Chinas, 67. 96 ‘Note by K.P.S. Menon’, 25 August 1949, file 710/CJK/49, MEA, NAI. 97 ‘Note by G.S. Bajpai’, 25 August 1949, file 710/CJK/49, MEA, NAI.

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sooner or later, if we are somewhat late in the company of others, it would be worthwhile delaying a bit.98

While contact with the Commonwealth was important to Nehru, it was crucial that India demonstrate that it had its own autonomous foreign policy. Returning from the United States, he had consulted his chief advisers, including Ralph Stevenson, the British diplomat who was Panikkar’s friend and colleague in Nanjing and he came to this conclusion: Both Panikkar and Stevenson are anxious that recognition should be given as early as possible. They think that delay might be injurious. Panikkar further thinks that our recognition should not follow the Commonwealth Foreign Ministers’ Conference but should precede it. He has laid stress in China, as I have done in public and private, that our decision will be our own, though of course we shall consult others. For us to take any action in the wake of Foreign Ministers’ Conference, apart from the delay involved, would also mean that we could not act independently. This might well affect our position in China.99

Opponents of early recognition, in particular Bajpai, pointed out that premature recognition could generate negative international repercussions on the very eve of the UN Security Council discussion of the Kashmir dispute: If we recognise before even the U.K. and Canada have decided to do so, we run the risk, and it is a real risk, of an unfriendly approach to our point of view on Kashmir, not only by the permanent Delegate of China but by all others who consider our recognition of the new regime to be premature. The countervailing advantage of recognition is, I confess, not clear to me.100

98 ‘Patel to Nehru’, 6 December 1949, in Durga Das (ed.), Sardar Patel Correspondence 1945–1950, vol. 8, (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 1973), 86–7. 99 ‘Note by Nehru’, 17 November 1949, file 170/CJK/49, MEA, NAI. Nehru replied to Patel along these lines: ‘Nehru to Patel’, 6 December 1949, in Das (ed.), Sardar Patel Correspondence, vol. 8, 87–8. 100 ‘Note by G.S. Bajpai’, 18 November 1949, file 170/CJK/49, MEA, NAI. On the issue, see Rakesh Ankit, The Kashmir Conflict: From Empire to the Cold War 1945–1966, (London: Routledge, 2016); Ganguly Sumit, Conflict Unending: India-Pakistan Tensions Since 1947 , (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002), Chapter 1.

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However, Nehru felt that—given the need for recognition—India would have to face the consequences sooner or later anyway. It was therefore better to give the new China a positive signal immediately, in line with Panikkar’s suggestion.101 India thus recognised the People’s Republic of China on December 30, 1949, second among the non-communist countries after Burma and a couple of weeks before the planned conference of the Commonwealth Foreign Ministers. Moreover, it immediately started demanding that the government in Beijing be given China’s seat at the UN and the UN Security Council, still occupied by Kuomintang representatives, so that the Soviet Union could also cease its boycott of the UN bodies, which it had abandoned in protest against the non-admission of the Maoist regime.102 Recognition, meanwhile, had paved the way for the exchange of ambassadors between the two countries and Nehru proposed a return of Panikkar to China. Panikkar’s first impressions gave a very different image of the country compared to the one of an aggressive communist power to be feared and isolated. He argued, first of all, that the new government was a coalition in which, certainly, the communists were prevalent, but which implemented a common programme worked out together with other national forces.103 The agrarian reforms were a significant example of this: far from the collectivisation of the land, they had actually allowed the formation of a class of smallholders who would most likely be opposed to any such action in the future.104 Naturally with a mixed economy as its immediate objective and a Coalition Government as its present machinery, New China resents being labelled Communist. It claims to be a new democratic state preparing itself for 101 ‘Note by Nehru’, 17 November 1949, file 170/CJK/49, MEA, NAI. 102 Amit Das Gupta stressed that the policy of friendly engagement with the PRC was

originally intended as a component of a more comprehensive China policy including the development of the frontier areas and defensive military preparations. The fact that the focus was then laid almost exclusively on the first component turned the whole policy inconsistent. See Amit Das Gupta, ‘Foreign Secretary Subimal Dutt and the Prehistory of the Sino-Indian Border War’, in Amit Das Gupta - Lorenz Lüthi (eds.), The Sino-Indian War of 1962, (London: Routledge, 2017), 51–2. 103 ‘Panikkar to Nehru’, 17 June 1950, file 770 (3)/CJK/50, MEA, NAI. 104 ‘Report of talk with General Roshin’, 17 June 1950, file 770 (3)/CJK/50, MEA,

NAI.

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socialism. [...] The revolution that has taken place in China can only be considered as a national democratic revolution.105

His first meetings with China’s new rulers also gave him the impression that it would be possible to build friendly relations between the two countries, given that President Mao himself was going back to the panAsian strand of the centuries-old history of good neighbourly relations and to the more recent common goal of getting rid of the consequences of imperialism.106 I am fully satisfied that the desire which the Chinese leaders (including Mao Tse-tung and Chu Teh […]) express in not merely a formal expression of goodwill. They are really sincere, for they have in the first place a deeper feeling of Asian solidarity than the Kuomintang and secondly they realise the similarity of the problems facing Asian countries as a result of the withdrawal of European influence. The communist leaders are anxious to develop good relations with India if they can do so, without compromising their special relationship with the Soviets.107

Thus, even the alliance with the Soviets was presented as a somewhat forced choice, induced more by Western hostility than by a real commonality of interests and perspectives. I am inclined to think that what led the People’s Government to make a firm alliance with Moscow was the fact that the Kuomintang had during the civil war the active sympathy and support of U.S.A. In fact the Peking authorities look upon the support now being extended to Taiwan as a form of aggressive intervention by the Americans. The ill-concealed designs of American strategists on the Asian coast of the Pacific, including the support to the South Korea regime and the discussion of bases in Japan and assistance to Bao Dai, also left the Peking regime with no option but to tie itself up definitely with Moscow.108

105 K.M. Panikkar, ‘A Preliminary Analysis of the Problems of New China’, note to Nehru, 1 July 1950, file 771/CJK/50, MEA, NAI. 106 ‘Indian Embassy, Beijing, to MAE’, undated, file 170/CJK/49, MEA, NAI. 107 ‘Panikkar to Nehru’, 17 June 1950, file 770 (3)/CJK/50, MEA, NAI. See also

‘Panikkar to K.P.S. Menon’, 15 June 1950, file 770/CJK/50, MEA, NAI. 108 Panikkar, ‘A Preliminary Analysis of the Problems of New China’, 1 July 1950, file 771/CJK/50, MEA, NAI.

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Nehru himself emphasised that although China had chosen the path of communism, it would defend its independence and never become a Soviet satellite. Rather, this danger stemmed from its isolation and the aggressiveness of the United States. Only today I received a letter from Panikkar together with a report on present-day China. […] Here also you will see an entirely different world with its own way of thinking on problems. What a vast difference there is between this and the U. S. view of China as a stooge of Moscow! [It] is a complete misunderstanding of the China situation to imagine that they function like a satellite State of Russia. Only one thing will push them in that direction to some extent. And even than this cannot go far. That one thing is isolation from the rest of the world. The US policy is the one policy which will make China do what the US least want.109

The Sino-Indian honeymoon was destined to continue and deepen in the following years. Still in the autumn of 1951, thus after the military occupation of Tibet by the Chinese, Panikkar assured a delegation of the India-China Friendship Association visiting Beijing that Tibet’s autonomy was protected by the Seventeen Point Agreement signed by the latter with the communist government and that the PRC had no aggressive territorial aims.110 One of the accusations levelled at Panikkar was that he had, out of cynicism or superficiality, credited a falsely reassuring image, acting as a megaphone for communist propaganda.111 It was noted, however, how the increasing difficulty of obtaining reliable information through traditional intelligence channels in the border regions, allowed a certain optimism to be maintained, which not only affected politics in New Delhi but which was translated, in the early 1950s, into a prevalence, in Indian publications on China, of stylistic features taken from the 1930s and 1940s: the unity of the two countries, cemented by historical relations

109 ‘Nehru to Vijayalakshmi Pandit’, 30 August 1950, SWJN , s. 1 vol. 15 part 1, (New Delhi: Nehru Memorial Fund, 1993), 380–3. 110 Pandit Sunderlal, China Today. An Account of the Indian Goodwill Mission to China, September–October 1951, (Allahabad: Hindustani Culture Society, 1952), 53–7. 111 See Minoo Masani, Against the Tide, (New Delhi, Vikas Publishing House, 1981), 44; Raja Hutheesing, The Great Peace, (New York: Harper: 1953), 9.

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and the common struggle against imperialism, as a concrete advancement towards the realisation of universal brotherhood.112 But the Indian vision of the new China would be shaped above all by reference to two important international dynamics: the Korean War and the Chinese occupation of Tibet. Precisely in the face of these two fundamental events, the Indians developed their own Chinese policy and tried to set their relations with their neighbours on a good footing.

112 Sen, India, China and the World, 361–95.

CHAPTER 5

The Chinese Experience

5.1

Korea

For Nehru, the outbreak of the Korean War was a cause of great concern for the stability of Asia, but also an opportunity to test the idea of non-alignment that he had elaborated. Indeed, India was presiding over the UN Security Council when North Korean troops crossed the 38th parallel on June 25, 1950, and its representative, Benegal Rao, voted in favour of the resolution condemning Pyongyang. The Indian government, however, soon differentiated its attitude, presenting itself as an impartial country able to mediate between the parties. In this way, India became a protagonist endowed with a prestige far beyond its material resources—a prestige that could be employed in support of a diplomacy radically alternative to that of the bipolar world.1 In this context, reporting on the Chinese point of view from Beijing, Panikkar provided a very different perspective to that prevalent in the West and especially in Washington. By ignoring the American decision-makers the complex interactions between Moscow, Beijing and

1 Waheguru Pal Singh Sidhu, ‘The Accidental Global Peacekeeper’, in Bhagavan (ed.), India and the Cold War, 79–99.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Elli and R. Paolini, Indian National Identity and Foreign Policy, Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36425-9_5

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Pyongyang, the Korean War, in fact, crystallised a more rigid and militarised declination of anti-communist containment. Through this interpretive lens, North Korean aggression was the opening move of an escalation by a communist world monolithically controlled by Moscow and fanatically bent on extending its dominance. The PRC was therefore irreparably a Soviet satellite, with which it was impossible to think of recovering a relationship, however limited, but which, on the contrary, had to be politically, economically and militarily isolated.2 Writing a few days before the outbreak of hostilities, Panikkar reported a radically different analysis: I feel satisfied that, if there was a conspiracy against peace, Peking was not a party to it. […] In fact the Chinese government seems to have been taken totally unaware by the sudden and extraordinary developments in the Pacific. What has come to them as a great shock is the American decision about [asking the 7th Fleet to prevent an invasion of] Taiwan. Whether the Korean issue is localised or not, it is certain that American action in the Pacific has made any approach between China and the Western powers absolutely impossible. […] The worsening of the relationship with Britain is certain to affect, at least in some measure, the Chinese relations with us and they are likely to keep us at arm’s length.3

China, therefore, was not described as pursuing a deliberately aggressive policy, let alone as an appendage manoeuvred by Moscow. On the contrary, Panikkar strongly emphasised that Beijing’s fear was that the Western powers were trying to regain control over Asia: only by reassuring China in this regard would it be possible to defuse the dangerous escalation that was taking place. So far as the international situation is concerned, the Chinese attitude is dominated by fear of America directly intervening against her. That is the one concern of the Chinese Government. As long as that fear is not allayed,

2 See Samuel Wells, Fearing the Worst. How Korea Transformed the Cold War, (New York: Columbia University Press, 2020); Paul Heer, Mr. X and the Pacific. George F. Kennan and American Policy in East Asia, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2018), 151– 82 and Simei Qing, From Allies to Enemies. Visions of Modernity, Identity, and U.S.–China Diplomacy, 1945–1960, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005), 143–68. 3 ‘Panikkar to Bajpai’, 29 June 1950, file 761/CJK/50, MEA, NAI.

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the tension in the Pacific will continue, for, whatever happens, China will not permit a resurgence of American or Western influence in this country.4

The conclusion, therefore, was that the policy followed by the United States was wrong and counterproductive. Writing in July 1950 to Stalin, to the Secretary of State Dean Acheson and to the British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, Nehru pointed out that, in the Asia of decolonisation, the effective ideology was nationalism. In China too, communism would gradually be shelved when it proved incompatible with nationalism. The best thing to do to manage the ongoing crisis was therefore to dialogue with the PRC and involve it in international institutions, giving it the permanent seat in the UN Security Council still occupied by the Taiwanese government and thus also allowing the return of representatives of the Soviet Union. This would have been a first step towards an agreement on the Korean question.5 India thus placed itself in the position of interlocutor between the parties in the Korean crisis, insistently trying to push the United States and the PRC to reassure each other as a concrete measure to contain the conflict. The attempt failed and, indeed, it had the effect of worsening relations between Washington and New Delhi. The United States, in fact, disagreed with Nehru’s analysis of Chinese communism as an instrument of a nationalist project and was convinced, in the wake of the appeasement experience of the 1930s and the Second World War, that threats had to be dealt with decisively and uncompromisingly.6 Nehru’s analysis was certainly not a mere reflection of Panikkar’s reports, which, moreover, had not failed to emphasise the communist leadership’s fanatical desire to transform the existing reality.7 On the other hand, it is difficult to underestimate the influence of the reports from Beijing in encouraging the Prime Minister to commit himself fully to the policy of non-alignment

4 ‘Note by Panikkar’, 1 September 1950, file 770/CJK/50, MEA, NAI. 5 ‘Nehru to Stalin and Acheson’, 12 July 1950, SWJN , s. 2 vol. 14 part II, (New

Delhi: Nehru Memorial Fund, 1992), 347–8; ‘Nehru to Attlee’, 14 and 21 July 1950, ivi, 348–9, 353–6; ‘Nehru to Acheson’, 29 July 1950, ivi, 358–60. 6 See Tanvi Madan, Fateful Triangle. How China Shaped U.S.-India Relations during the Cold War, (Washington: The Brooking Institution, 2020), 15–47. 7 ‘Letter from Embassy of India in China, Nanking, to Foreign Secretary’, 7 September 1949, in Avtar Singh Bhasin (ed.), India-China Relations 1947–2000. A Documentary Study, (New Delhi: Geetika Publisher, 2018), here after ICR, 134–144.

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and in providing arguments and observations that confirmed and fuelled it. India was able to play the role of mediator and point of contact between the opposing parties. The climax of this dynamic occurred in the early hours of October 3, 1950, when Chou En Lai suddenly summoned Panikkar to tell him that US-led military operations north of the 38th parallel would force China to intervene directly in the conflict. The purpose was to send an unequivocal warning to the United States and Britain via India, after similar indications in the preceding weeks had prompted the New Delhi government to oppose—the only one among Commonwealth countries—the British draft resolution at the UN General Assembly that would essentially mandate troops under General McArthur to occupy North Korea.8 Panikkar told Nehru about the meeting and India brought the matter to the attention of Washington and London. Despite the fact that the head of the China Desk at the State Department emphasised that the Chinese choice of using a confidential channel together with other information coming from the Dutch government did not warrant assuming that Chou’s statements were a bluff, India came up against Acheson’s total unwillingness and MacArthur was allowed to enter North Korea.9 President Truman’s retrospective comment on this watershed moment is well known: […] the problem that arose in connection with these reports was that Mr. Panikkar had in the past played the game of the Chinese Communists fairly regularly, so that his statement could not be taken as that of an impartial observer. It might very well be no more than a relay of Communist propaganda.10

This distrust of the Indian ambassador’s trustworthiness must have been quite widespread and it is difficult to avoid the impression that it was at 8 ‘Cable to Panikkar’, 4 October 1950, SWJN , s. 2 vol. 15 part II, (New Delhi: Nehru Memorial Fund, 1993), 409. See Robert Barnes, The US, the UN and the Korean War, (London: Tauris, 2014), 54–6. 9 ‘Memorandum by Oliver E. Clubb’, 3 October 1950, 1950 Korea (Jun-Oct), MS Chinese Civil War and U.S.-China Relations: Records of the Office of Chinese Affairs, 1945–1955 Collection, National Archives (USA), in Gale Archives Unbound. 10 Harry Truman, Years of Trial and Hope, (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1956),

383.

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least partly determined by the emotional reaction that Panikkar was able to arouse. Walter McConaughy, the former American Consul General in Shanghai who was asked to give an assessment of what was going on, stressed that he was convinced—although he had no intimate knowledge of it—that Panikkar was so consumed with anti-colonial sentiment that he considered Chinese communism to be a declination of the Asian resurgence in an anti-imperialist key and had developed an aversion to the Western world that made him lean towards pro-Chinese sympathies. The American diplomat concluded his lengthy examination with a sketchy, but significant hint: “Panikkar’s Mephistophelian quality is not limited to his spade beard”.11 Commenting, in a telegram to Panikkar, on the American refusal to consider Chinese threats, Nehru wrote: All this, of course, does not affect our policy in the slightest. It only confirms it, and shows the immaturity of American judgement […]. I’m supposed to have ‘sold out’ to Mao through your bad influence. Panikkar is referred to as ‘Panicky’. It really is amazing how great nations are governed by very small people.12

While this judgement of the Prime Minister confirms the deep political harmony and special personal relationship with the ambassador in Beijing, it also risks underestimating the impact of the personal impressions that Panikkar’s temperament might arouse. McConaughy’s mention of Panikkar’s Mephistophelean character brings to mind a very private and personal comment written in his diary by Subimal Dutt, India’s future foreign secretary, according to whom Panikkar was “a man without moral compass”.13 Triloki Nath Kaul, an Indian career diplomat destined to become foreign secretary as well, while showing great respect and admiration for Panikkar’s patriotism and intellectual stature, points out in his memoirs that Bajpai had orally instructed him to keep an eye on the ambassador in Beijing, who allegedly had a

11 ‘Memorandum by Walter McConaughy’, 12 October 1950, Records of the Office of Chinese Affairs, 1945–1955 Collection in Gale Archives Unbound. 12 ‘Nehru to Panikkar’, 25 October 1950, SWJN , s. 2 vol. 15 part II, 443. 13 Quoted in Amit Das Gupta, Serving India: A Political Biography of Subimal Dutt

(1903–1992), India’s Longest Serving Foreign Secretary, (New Delhi: Manohar, 2017), 234.

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tendency to be excessively pro-Chinese.14 Even more significantly, Kaul, Panikkar’s aide at the embassy since September 1950, portrays him as actually open-minded and pragmatic, but deliberately provocative and fond of theatrics, who derived pleasure from diverting Western diplomats—considered “a bunch of fools”—who came to enquire after his talks with the Chinese leadership. If one adds to this the intellectual acuity with which he argued the peculiarity of Mao’s thought in relation to Marxism to support the thesis of the functionality of the Chinese revolution with respect to the awakening of Asia,15 it is difficult to avoid the idea that a personal element did also play a role in the failure to prevent the escalation of the conflict in October 1950. While it was certainly not decisive in determining the outcome of those dynamics, Panikkar’s temperament did not play in favour of a different outcome. This is all the more discouraging in view of the fact that being a spokesman for the Chinese point of view and seeing Chinese actions primarily as a reaction to what Beijing perceived as aggression did not prevent Panikkar from taking a clear-eyed and concerned look at Chinese pro-war propaganda,16 which was spreading a veritable ‘war psychosis’.17 During the last two and a half months I have been noticing a very considerable change for the worse in China’s attitude to external problems. There has been a mounting feeling in favour of war with America, which in terms of current propaganda is called ‘strengthening the will to resist’ American aggression. Every method open to a very powerful organised propaganda machine had been turned on to create the feeling in China that America is determined to force a conflict on China.18

After the Chinese intervention, Nehru continued to call for a cease-fire and again offered himself as a mediator, particularly when it came to

14 Triloki Nath Kaul, Diplomacy in Peace and War, (New Delhi: Gyant, 2016), 28–36. 15 Ivi, 45. 16 ‘Memorandum by Panikkar’, 1 September 1950, file 770/CJK/50, MEA, NAI. 17 K.M. Panikkar, ‘War Psychosis in China’, 1 November 1950, file 770/CJK/50,

MEA, NAI. 18 ‘Panikkar to Nehru’, 1 November 1950, file 770/CJK/50, MEA, NAI.

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the issue of the repatriation of prisoners of war, which seemed to be the biggest obstacle to reaching a compromise.19 On the basis of Panikkar’s interlocutions with Chou En-lai, there seemed to be a readiness on the part of the PRC to open negotiations as soon as there was a willingness on the part of the West to deal with all the issues, including that of the American withdrawal from Taiwan. For this reason, Nehru supported Bevin’s proposal at the Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Conference in January 1951 to combine a cease-fire, admission of the PRC to the UN and the question of sovereignty over Taiwan. However, these attempts clashed with the refusal of Washington, which insisted on a UN resolution qualifying China as an aggressor country and making negotiations conditional on a cease-fire. Similarly, on the issue of prisoners of war, Indian attempts at mediation had the result of further increasing mutual frustration between New Delhi and the United States, as well as attracting criticism also from China. Again, Nehru acted perceiving the possibility of an opening by Beijing on the basis of Panikkar’s contacts, but both Acheson and the new British foreign secretary Antony Eden doubted Chinese sincerity and Panikkar’s reliability.20 Even when Panikkar left Beijing and became ambassador to Egypt, he continued to be a constant point of reference for Nehru’s Korean policy. Not only does it appear that his successor did not enjoy the same access to the highest levels of the Chinese leadership, with all that this could imply in terms of the effectiveness of Indian action, but it is especially significant how the Prime Minister continued to seek Panikkar’s advice on the complex tactical issues of the armistice negotiations, technically outside the remit of the ambassador accredited in Cairo. The fact that a favourable opinion from Pannikar was considered a confirmation of the

19 On this specific issue, see Monica Kim, The Interrogation Rooms of the Korean War. The Untold History, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019). 20 See Vineet Thakur, ‘India’s Diplomatic Entrepreneurism: Revisiting India’s Role in the Korean Crisis, 1950–52’, China Report, 49: 3, 2013, 273–98; Barnes, The US, The UN and the Korean War, 80–153 and Tanvi Madan, With an Eye to the East: The China Factor and the US-India Relationship, 1949–1979, Ph.D. Dissertation, (Austin: University of Texas, 2012), 71–91.

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soundness of the chosen course is very indicative of the special political relationship with Nehru.21

5.2

Tibet

The events of the Korean War were intertwined with that of the Chinese occupation of Tibet. Although, when compared to the shock waves that the Korean crisis sent through the world, the occupation of Tibet slipped into the background, from the Indian point of view it was, in all likelihood, the most important of the open issues with China that needed to be resolved if friendly relations were to be established. As Panikkar wrote: I knew, like everyone else, that with a communist China cordial and intimate relations were out of the question, but I was fairly optimistic about working out on area of co-operation by eliminating causes of misunderstanding, rivalry, etc. The only area where our interests overlapped was in Tibet, and knowing the importance that every Chinese Government, including the Kuomintang, had attached to exclusive Chinese authority over that area I had, even before I started for Peking, come to the conclusion that the British policy (which we were supposed to have inherited) of looking upon Tibet as an area in which we had special political interests could not be maintained. The Prime Minister had also in general agreed with this view.22

It was precisely the contents of Panikkar’s book that were used for a very harsh attack against him in Parliament, when Sino-Indian relations had by then been severely compromised by the Chinese suppression of the Tibetan uprising in 1959: “[…] the Indian Embassy in Peking had betrayed the best interests of India in Tibet […]. It is a pity and a shame that today that gentleman has been appointed by the President as the representative of the Indian people [in the Rajya Sabha]”.23 Panikkar’s suggestions to Nehru on Tibet were criticised. Panikkar’s role was said to be renunciatory and pro-communist: by ignoring the fact that Tibet 21 ‘V. Pandit to Nehru’, 4 December 1952, Vijayalakshmi Pandit Papers, NMML. ‘Nehru to Raghavan’, 23 August 1953, SWJN , s. 2 vol. 23, (New Delhi: Nehru Memorial Fund, 1998), 522. 22 Panikkar, In Two Chinas, 102. 23 Lok Sabha Debates, 2nd series, vol. XI, col. 6312.

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had been practically independent since the fall of the Manchu Empire; by renouncing the rights that India had inherited from the British Raj; by recognising, finally, Chinese sovereignty over Tibet. The Indians had avoided raising the issue of Tibet while recognising the new Chinese government. There were in fact two schools of thought in New Delhi. On the one hand, those who maintained that India should rely on the Simla Convention of 1914 (i.e. recognising only a very vague Chinese suzerainty over Tibet) and the frontier demarcated by the McMahon Line. On the other hand, those like Pannikar recalled the Chinese failure to ratify what was established in Simla directly with the Tibetans and, consequently, the need to refer to the Anglo-Chinese Convention of 1906. The latter, together with the 1908 Trade Regulation, subordinated Tibet to the Chinese and committed the British not to negotiate with the Tibetans without China’s participation.24 With the proclamation of the People’s Republic, the idea of a conditional recognition of the new government was put forward, provided that Beijing would undertake to respect the pre-existing treaties tout court, or through a formula whereby it was assumed that those pre-existing treaties would continue to be valid. The idea was eventually discarded in favour of a simple recognition, the Indians knowing full well that trade, diplomatic and military rights in Tibet had been obtained thanks to China’s weakness.25 Panikkar was convinced that a diplomatic understanding was necessary. The illusion that Tibet could be maintained as a kind of buffer state or that its geography would put it away from conquest was contrary 24 See Melvyn Goldstein, A History of Modern Tibet, 1913–1951. The Demise of the Lamaist State, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 634–8. For further details about British India’s position in Tibet and the McMahon Line, see Alastair Lamb, Tibet, China and India 1914–1950. A History of Imperial Diplomacy, (Hertfordbury: Roxford Books, 1989); Alex McKay, Tibet and the British Raj: The Frontier Cadre, 1904– 1947 , (Richmond: Curzon Press, 1997) and Alastair Lamb, ‘The McMahon Line’, in Alex McKay (ed.), The History of Tibet, vol. 3: The Tibetan Encounter with Modernity, (Richmond: Curzon Press, 2003), 101–26. 25 ‘Note by C.S. Jha’, 15 October 1949; ‘The British High Commission in India to K.P.S. Menon’, undated; ‘Note by K.P.S. Menon’, 9 November 1949; ‘Note by C.S. Jha’, 10 November 1949; ‘Note by Panikkar’, 11 November 1949, file 170/CJK/49, MEA, NAI. On the peculiar commercial networks of this frontier area, see Tina Harris, Geographical Diversions. Tibetan Trade, Global Transactions, (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2013), 27–51 and Wim van Spengen, Tibetan Border Worlds. A Geohistorical Analysis of Trade and Traders, (London: Routledge, 2000), 173–83.

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to historical evidence and only served to distract from the only viable solution to the issue.26 While there was more reluctance at the Foreign Ministry to give up the special relationship with Tibet, K.P.S. Menon noted: I doubt whether anything will be gained by seeking clarification whether the new Government would be prepared to honour its international obligations vis-a-vis India, flowing from treaties between India and China. These treaties between China and India were originally treaties between China and Great Britain; we have inherited them as the successors Government in India. The Chinese Government may be inclined to take the view, as the Kuomintang Government themselves of many treaties in the 19th Century, that they were ‘unequal treaties’. The treaties which really concern us are those relating to Tibet. The provisions of many old treaties with China regarding Tibet have been superseded by the events since 1910 and by the tripartite convention of 1914, which India and Tibet have ratified but not China. Any attempt to have the position clarified will lead to endless controversy.27

The notion that a margin of ambiguity could favour India was therefore not just Panikkar’s idea. On the other hand, he was aware that the Chinese statements about the ‘liberation’ of Tibet in a very short time were not empty words. According to the ambassador in Beijing, it had to be taken for granted that China would not give up the region, but throughout the summer of 1950, he continued to think that it would not resort to military action except as an extreme measure. If, however, it had resolved to act unilaterally, Panikkar pointed out, it would not have behaved substantially differently from the Indian government’s decision to occupy the princely state of Hyderabad two years earlier.28 26 ‘Note on Tibet Policy’, 4 November 1949, ICR, vol. 1, 164–70. 27 ‘Memorandum by K.P.S. Menon’, 17 October 1949, file 170/CJK/49, MEA, NAI.

See also ‘Note by K. Zachariah’, 24 October 1949, file 170/CJK/49, MEA, NAI. 28 ‘Panikkar to MEA’, 22 May 1950, ICR, vol. 1, 285; ‘Panikkar to MEA’, 22 August 1950, ivi, 324–6. Hyderabad was a large political entity with a population by 85 per cent Hindu but its administration was controlled by Muslims. The ruler, nizam Mir Usman Ali, aimed at independence, threatening to accede to Pakistan had India pressed too much. Against the prospect of an entity cutting off India’s north from India’s south, New Delhi eventually ordered troops to enter Hyderabad on 13 September 1948. See Ramachandra Guha, India After Gandhi. The History of the World’s Largest Democracy, (New York: HarperCollins, 2019), 80–5 and Rhagavan, War and Peace in Modern India, Chapter 3.

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Nehru reiterated that India recognised Beijing’s suzerainty, but demanded that Tibet be left with its traditional autonomy; in any case, the issue had to be resolved through negotiation with the Tibetans. Military action, the Prime Minister emphasised, would have undermined India’s efforts for the PRC to find its place internationally and accentuated tensions already made acute by the war in Korea. In reality, however, the aide-mémoire of August 24, 1950, delivered to the Chinese contained the formula: “legitimate Tibetan claim to autonomy within the framework of Chinese sovereignty”.29 Only later, in two telegrams to Panikkar, did Nehru ask to point out to the Chinese that the word ‘sovereignty’ had been used in error and that, in any case, ‘the concept, when combined with ‘autonomy’, was equivalent to that of ‘suzerainty’. Panikkar was accused of altering the text of the telegram: A telegram was sent to Panikkar authorising him to formally communicate to the Chinese Government India’s recognition of Chinese suzerainty over Tibet. Panikkar changed the world into ‘sovereignty’. Later, when questioned, Panikkar took shelter behind the familiar excuse of corruption in transmission of the cypher telegram.30

It was pointed out that this accusation was unlikely to be true and that the situation had been brought about by the somewhat misguided way in which the matter had been handled in New Delhi. If anything, Panikkar had remarked that, since the damage was done, it was futile to insist with the Chinese to try to repair it, as this would have corroborated the suspicion that India was obeying outside influences.31 Certainly, Panikkar argued that any interference in the Tibetan issue would provoke a bitter reaction from China. As regard to Tibet, the Chinese attitude from the beginning has been that this is a purely internal matter and that no country has the right to say how is should be settled. […] They still profess that their desire is to settle the Tibetan question by peaceful negotiations, but they reject the idea that the

29 ‘MEA to Indian Embassy, Peking’, 24 August 1950, ICR, vol. 1, 329–30. 30 Mathai, Reminiscences of the Nehru Age, 168. 31 See Avtar Singh Bhasin, Nehru, Tibet and China, (New Delhi: Penguin, 2021), 116–20.

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course of negotiations or their outcome is a concern to any other country. The urgency of settling this problem from their point of view is to ensure the security of their frontiers. They are convinced that in case of a general war, the Americans will create trouble in Tibet.32

When the Chinese army entered Tibet on October 7, 1950, at the same time as South Korean troops crossed the 38th parallel, the Indian reaction was one of strong protest because assurances of a peaceful solution to the dispute had not been respected.33 Panikkar argued that the Chinese decision had to be understood in the context of the more general Chinese perception of its own vulnerability, bearing in mind the escalation in Korea, the tensions in Manchuria and the Taiwan issue.34 The frustration in New Delhi, however, was very strong. Echoing the arguments of the Foreign Ministry, which accused the ambassador in Beijing of not having employed the necessary vigour in interlocutions with the Chinese government, Nehru sent an unusually harsh message to Panikkar: […] your representation to the Chinese Government was weak and apologetic. In fairness to the Chinese Government as well as to ourselves, our views regarding the threatened invasion of Tibet and its probable repercussions should have been communicated to them clearly and unequivocally. This has evidently not been done.35

In the face of China’s harsh reaction, which accused its neighbour of undue interference and imperialism, India agreed to treat the Tibetan issue as an internal affair. After all, the special interests in Tibet were imperial legacies that the new India had neither the intention nor the resources to support. As Mullik, then head of Indian intelligence, recalled: Panikkar […] said that extra-territorial rights had no place in the relationship between two independent countries in modern times and India would put herself entirely in the wrong by insisting on the continuance 32 ‘Panikkar to Nehru’, 1 November 1950, file 770/CJK/50, MEA, NAI. 33 Indian protest notes and the relevant Chinese replies were first published in

Parshotam Mehra (ed.), The North-Eastern Frontier. A Documentary Study of the Internecine Rivalry Between India and China, Vol. 2: 1914–1954, (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1980). 34 ‘Indian Embassy, Peking, to MEA’, 26 October 1950, ICR, vol. 1, 397. 35 ‘MEA to Embassy, Peking’, 27 October 1950, ivi, 407–8.

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of the right which the British had forcibly extorted from Tibet. In any case China would not agree to their continuance and there was no way by which India could enforce them except by the force of arms which India was not in a position to employ. […] Panikkar’s views were shared by the Government of India.36

The hypothesis of a military intervention in favour of Tibet was unrealistic, as the military itself confirmed. Warmer protests would only have strained relations without achieving anything, just as—in hindsight—it would have made little difference if Panikkar had pounded his fists on the table in the preceding months.37 More positively, Nehru considered the relationship between India and China too vital for the future of Asia to allow it to be irreparably compromised. Here again, Panikkar’s influence was significant. Indeed, already in his letter to the Chief Ministers on November 1, the Prime Minister used the argument of Beijing’s perceived vulnerability that had generated so much opposition a few days earlier.38 India therefore reserved the right to resolve the open issues through negotiation, facilitated by the apparent willingness of the Chinese to foster a friendly relationship. Even a professional diplomat more attentive to the demands of political realism like Subimal Dutt recalled Mao’s extraordinary attendance at the reception organised by Panikkar to celebrate the first anniversary of the Indian Union in January 1951. Mao spoke of the millennia of Sino-Indian friendship and wished that Nehru would visit the PRC soon.39 In fact, the combined effect of the disastrous consequences of the earthquake in Assam in August 1950 and the Chinese occupation of Tibet were pushing India towards a more assertive policy in the Himalayan border areas. In February 1951, Indian troops occupied the Tawang district and an administrative reorganisation took place with the creation of the North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA). The aim was to consolidate the presence of the Indian state’s civil administration in areas that, 36 Bhola Nath Mullik, My Years with Nehru. The Chinese Betrayal, (Bombay: Allied Publishers, 1971), 147. 37 See Bhasin, Nehru, Tibet and China, 132. 38 ‘Nehru to Panikkar’, 25 October 1950, ICR, vol. 1, 389–94. Madhav Khosla (ed.),

Letters for a Nation: From Jawaharlal Nehru to His Chief Ministers 1947–1963, (London: Penguin, 2015), 246–9. 39 Subimal Dutt, With Nehru in the Foreign Office, (Calcutta: Minerva, 1977), 83.

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until then, had enjoyed little political visibility at the national level. This state-building exercise was supposed to prevent, through the development of local populations, the infiltration of Chinese influence and strengthen Indian control south of the watershed.40 The belief that it was possible and that there was no alternative to a peaceful settlement led New Delhi to reject the Tibetan request to raise the issue at the UN. The fear was that doing otherwise would have fuelled Chinese accusations of being an instrument of Western imperialism. In other words, doing so would not have solved the Tibetan problem, but instead would have damaged the prospects for Sino-Indian friendship.41 After the Tibetan government had ratified the 17-Point Agreement with Beijing, India was willing to abandon those preferential rights inherited from the British period. When Chou En Lai raised the issue of ‘unequal treaties’ against China in June 1952, Panikkar proposed to start negotiations that would settle all disputes and usher in a new phase of bilateral relations. Chou En Lai took the opportunity to demand that the Indian Political Agency in Lhasa be turned into a consulate general; Beijing would in turn open one in Bombay. Accepting the proposal, the military escorts were withdrawn and the trade agencies incorporated into normal consular relations. In this way, the Indian government normalised relations with Tibet by effectively recognising Chinese sovereignty over the region.42 There remained one issue, however, that the Indians decided not to discuss: that of borders. Nehru declared in Parliament and to the press that the borders between China and India were perfectly defined and there were no unresolved issues.43 Since the Chinese did not object, the Indians maintained this position. Beijing’s silence was seen as tacit acquiescence that could be contented with; raising the issue, on the other hand, risked pushing China to question a border that was seen as a

40 Bérénice Guyot-Réchard, Shadow States. India, China and the Himalayas, 1910– 1962, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 95–126. 41 Shakya, The Dragon in the Land of Snows, 83–123. 42 ‘Indian Embassy, Peking, to MEA’, 15 June 1952, ICR, vol. 2, 721–2. See Bhasin,

Nehru, Tibet and China, 166. 43 “The frontier from Bhutan eastwards has been clearly defined by the McMahon line which was fixed by the Simla Convention of 1914. The frontier from Ladakh to Nepal is defined chiefly by long usage and custom.” Lok Sabha Debates, 20 November 1950, SWJN , s. 2 vol. 15 part II, 348.

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product of British imperialism. This decision was later seen as one of the main mistakes on the Indian side that would lead to war with China in 1962, and serious responsibility was attributed to Panikkar. Mundapallil Oommen Mathai, Nehru’s private secretary at that time, went so far as to speak of appeasement towards China, regretting that Nehru had not repudiated his own ambassador.44 In the face of Chinese reticence on the subject, Panikkar was instructed in the spring of 1952 to also address the border issue as part of an overall settlement of bilateral disputes, but he suggested to Nehru that Chou En Lai’s silence should be regarded as acquiescence since the Indian Prime Minister himself had publicly stated that he considered the McMahon Line the Indian border. Raising the issue now would have been counterproductive because it was tantamount on the Indian side to showing doubt in the position held so far. Nehru, previously convinced that clarification was needed, accepted Panikkar’s suggestion.45 This juncture was regarded as a critical moment in the development of Sino-Indian bilateral dynamics, attracting criticism from both political and historiographical perspectives.46 In fact, while there were those who pointed out the desirability of clarification, this remained the policy of the Indian government. On the one hand, this shows how Panikkar continued to exert an important influence even after leaving Beijing. Indeed, even in the autumn of 1953 from his new home in Cairo, he went on to suggest to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that it should refuse to discuss the border issue in bilateral negotiations, at the cost of breaking off the talks, stating that—after the challenging Korean phase—China would not allow itself to antagonise India, at least in the short term.47 On the other hand, as Pannikar did not fail to emphasise several times, the approach based on 44 Mundapallil Oommen Mathai, Reminiscences of the Nehru Age, (New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1978), 168–9. 45 ‘Indian Embassy, Peking to MEA’, 17 June 1952, ICR, vol. 2, 724–5; ‘Cable to Panikkar’, 16 June 1952, SWJN, s. 2 vol. 18, (New Delhi: Nehru Memorial Fund, 2001), 474–5; ‘Cable to Pannikar’, ivi, 475. See Raghavan, War and Peace in Modern India, 236–7. 46 Still recently Amit Das Gupta has stressed that Panikkar, as an Indian government’s ambassador, was not entitled to ignore instructions from New Delhi asking for the border issue to be dealt with, even irrespective of any assessment of the consistency of India’s China policy. See Das Gupta, Serving India, 273–4. 47 ‘Panikkar to Bajpai’, 4 August 1952, ICR, vol. 2, 746–7; ‘Letter from Panikkar on the Forthcoming Negotiations with China on Tibet’, 31 October 1953, ivi, 965–9.

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the notion of acquiescence had now become an integral part of Nehru’s policy of fostering Sino-Indian friendship and promoting the integration of the PRC into the international system. In this sense, the Panchsheel agreement of 1954 was silent on the border issue, but on Nehru’s own directive, Indian cartography began to show the northern and northeastern border as clearly defined. As Beijing had no objections, the border was to be considered as such and greater efforts were to be devoted to the development of those areas, always with a view to state-building and at the same time interdicting possible Chinese penetration.48 In reality, China interpreted Indian public diplomacy on the border as a ploy to legalise unilateral actions such as the occupation of Tawang and, more generally, New Delhi’s increasing activity south of the McMahon Line. In turn, however, Beijing played on the misunderstanding, seemingly endorsing the policy of acquiescence. For years, in fact, it did not question Indian claims, even in the western sector of the border where it was building the Aksai Chin Road. Also before the Tibetan uprising, however, China had begun to produce maps that ascribed to the PRC this area to the west and large areas of NEFA to the east. To Indian remarks, Chou En Lai replied that the Sino-Indian border had never been formally defined and the temporary maintenance of the status quo was intended to avoid incidents. The real turning point was, however, the Tibetan rebellion of March 1959 and its consequences. On the one hand, Beijing became convinced that the time had come to take action against what it considered to be irreducible class enemies, both in Tibet and India. In the latter case, according to Mao, the reactionary forces were blocking the more progressive ones, i.e. the Nehruvian experience could be used to corroborate the Soviet theories of peaceful transition and competitive coexistence with which China was entering a collision course. On the other hand, Nehru became convinced of Beijing’s aggressive intentions and lost political room for manoeuvre as the democratic debate accentuated Indian national sentiment.49

48 See Lorenz Lüthi, ‘India’s Relations with China, 1945–74’, in The Sino-Indian War of 1962, 29–32 and Raghavan, War and Peace in Modern India, 240–3. 49 Srinath Raghavan, ‘A Missed Opportunity? The Nehru-Zhou Enlai Summit of 1960’, in India and the Cold War, 100–25; Dai Chaowu, ‘From Hindi-Chini Bhai-Bhai to International Class Struggle Against Nehru’, in The Sino-Indian War of 1962, 68–84; Jeremy Friedman, Shadow Cold War. The Sino-Soviet Competition for the Third World, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015), 1–59 and Eric Hyer, The Pragmatic

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This was, in fact, a point of no return. After the border clashes at the Kongka Pass in the autumn of 1959, the Indian government accelerated its efforts to consolidate its control over these areas, now also militarily, and to gather historical-archival evidence in support of its position.50 Meanwhile, the entire policy that had been pursued up to that point came under attack, forcing Nehru onto the defensive. In particular, the Prime Minister intervened at the Rajya Sabha in December 1959 to support the choices he had made, in line with and at Panikkar’s instructions, claiming consistency.51 Nehru was in fact paraphrasing Panikkar’s intervention of December 8, who, as a member of the Rajya Sabha, had responded to the controversy by emphasising that action had been taken on the basis of what had been plausibly foreseen. While for the purposes of the parliamentary debate, Panikkar emphasised that the government’s choices had not been based on the illusion of the impenetrability of the Himalayas, he stressed above all the epochal character of that moment: The eastern boundaries were dead boundaries. The Himalayas were more than a dead boundary, because they constituted a rampart which nobody could pass. All that situation suddenly changed, changed not because of anything that we did, but changed because of historical evolution and because of the great revolutionary changes that had come over Asia. […] all that could have been foreseen, all that could have been done, was done in order to make that boundary a live boundary for us also. […] we have also to think of the future. It is for the first time a great power has come to our border. […] a power which is increasing its strength and is being organized as a power-conscious State coming near our border; we also for the first time after many hundreds of years have become united, have become a power State in a small way organising our own economic life, organizing the strength that is in us. So what we see here is the juxtaposition of two States, both great, both capable of putting forward considerable strength. […] We cannot get away from that, these two countries living together, one with 600 million people and the other with 400 million, both contemporaries in history from very early days and the idea that they

Dragon: China’s Grand Strategy and Boundary Settlements, (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2015), 39–66. 50 See Paul McGarr, ‘The Long Shadow of Colonial Cartography: Britain and the Sino-Indian War of 1962’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 42: 5, 2019, 626–53. 51 ‘In the Rajya Sabha: India-China Relations’, 9 December 1959, SWJN , s. 2 vol. 55, (New Delhi: Nehru Memorial Fund, 2014), 303–18.

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can be permanently hostile to each other is something which we cannot for one moment imagine.52

Overall, therefore, the policy towards Tibet, especially on the border issue, was dictated, in a way, by an awareness of its own weakness and by the fear that, in an open debate, India would have to give in to preserve the overriding objective of good relations with its neighbour.53 However the attitude of Nehru’s advisers towards the Chinese revolution was also informed by a sincere admiration for what China was showing it could achieve.

5.3

Competing Revolutions

Panikkar saw in Communist China a ‘resurgent’ country and the hope that Asian nations, finally freed from Western imperialism, could regain their rightful place in the world. As he wrote in In Two Chinas, the autobiographical account of his years between Nanjing and Beijing: All my training has been in the liberal radicalism of the West and consequently, though I was in some measure familiar with the economic doctrines of Marx, I had no sympathy for a political system in which individual liberty did not find a prominent place. But against all this, I had a deep feeling of sympathy for the Chinese people, a desire to see them united, strong and powerful, able to stand up against the nations which had oppressed them for a hundred years, a psychological appreciation of their desire to wipe out the humiliations which followed the Western domination of their country and to proclaim the message of Asia Resurgent.54

This was not cosmetic optimism or camouflaged pro-communism. His admiration for the Chinese Renaissance was also evident from the reports

52 ‘Rajya Sabha Debates, India and China’, 8 December 1959, cols. 1813–7. 53 Rita Paolini, ‘India’s Policy Toward China in the Early Cold War: The PLA Entry

in Tibet in 1950 from a Southern Himalayan Perspective’, in Dumitru Preda (ed.), ACTA—La gestion des crises internationales depuis 1919 jusqu’a present. The Management of International Crisis Since 1919 up Today, (Bucharest: Editura Cavallioti, 2013). See also Dawa Norbu, ‘India, China and Tibet’, in Kanti Bajpai - Amitabh Mattoo (eds.), The Peacock and the Dragon. India-China Relations in the 21st Century, (New Delhi: Har-Anand, 2000), 275–97. 54 Panikkar, In Two Chinas, 72.

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he periodically sent to New Delhi. The leaders of the new China were described as skilled politicians who had managed to achieve spectacular results in a short time. One of the areas where success was most evident was, for Panikkar, the re-establishment of national unity and sovereignty with the end of the restrictions imposed by imperialism.55 He was also very impressed by the speed, enthusiasm and efficiency with which the new China was tackling the enormous problems it faced: “the spirit here is something magnificent and it will be of the greatest benefit to us, if some of our younger politicians could come and see what is happening in China”.56 He described with admiration the reconstruction and revitalisation of the economy: the reclamation of abandoned land, the drainage and canalisation works, the restoration of the railways and the stabilisation of prices.57 But the most important revolution was taking place at the social level. The social revolution in China is a major fact. There can be no going back on it. It is a qualitative change, an absolute break with the past that has taken place and the evidence of it is available wherever you look.58

The revolution had, according to Panikkar, become the interpreter of the deep aspirations of the Chinese population who, although not predominantly close to the ideas of communism, recognised that the new government had given voice to the needs of the nation. The Chinese revolution has three primary motivations; the expulsion of the European, the desire of the Chinese peasant for the land and the elimination of the Confucian basis in society. Communist leadership only capitalised on these three basic motivations. The leaders know that except in the higher ranks of the party there is no understanding or appreciation of communism as such: hence, being realists, the Communists have been content to work immediately for the realization of these three objects, 55 K.M. Panikkar, ‘A Preliminary Analysis of the Problems of New China’, Panikkar to Nehru, 1 July 1950, file 771/CJK/50, MEA, NAI. 56 ‘Panikkar to Nehru’, 17 June 1950, file 770 (3)/CJK/50, MEA, NAI. 57 Panikkar, ‘A Preliminary Analysis of the Problems of New China’, 1 July 1950, file

771/CJK/50, MEA, NAI. 58 ‘Report of Talk with General Roshin’, 17 June 1950, file 770 (3)/CJK/50, MEA,

NAI.

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creating at the same time conditions favourable for a socialised economy. It is these three things which they have successfully accomplished – the elimination of the foreigners, the distribution of land and the changing social conditions.59

This admiration, however sincere, was not devoid of a certain ambiguity. Panikkar was aware that China, now powerful again, was returning to the international scene and, having regained control over Tibet, was approaching the Indian border. This could also pose new problems. India, indeed, would find itself with a formidable neighbour and it was also necessary to strengthen its defences. As he wrote in his autobiography: As soon as it was apparent that China would enter Tibet, I began pressing our government that our army should proceed to the McMahon Line and secure our frontiers. But this was easier said than done. […] If the Chinese entrenched themselves in Tibet, our north-eastern borders would be weakened and this was why I advocated strengthening of our defences there.60

His geopolitical texts of the 1940s had mainly focused on maritime defence, while he had considered possible threats from land to be less dangerous. These books and articles had, however, been written before the Chinese occupation of Tibet. Previously, he had considered the Tibetan plateau an effective defence61 ; but now, although it was still somewhat of an idea in New Delhi, the creation of an effective military power in the region changed the assumptions of his analyses. In 1953, Panikkar brought out a new edition of his book on the Maharaja of Kashmir, Gulab Singh.62 The text did not undergo any major changes but took on new significance in the light of recent events. In it, in fact, there was now ample space for the wars conducted by the sovereign that would add an area to India’s borders: Ladak and Western Tibet. In several international law journals, Panikkar’s text on Gulab Singh was

59 Panikkar, ‘A Preliminary Analysis of the Problems of New China’, 1 July 1950, file 771/CJK/50, MEA, NAI. 60 Panikkar, An Autobiography, 237. 61 Panikkar, The Himalayas and Indian Defence. 62 K.M. Panikkar, The Founding of the Kashmir State. A Biography of Maharajah Gulab

Singh, 1792–1858, (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1953).

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cited to prove the existence of a recognised border between India and China in the western sector before the British conquest. In particular, Panikkar used treaties that he transcribed in full or in large part: the treaty between Gulab Singh and the Lhasa government after the conquest of Ladak in 1852; the new treaty with China, in his position as suzerain; and finally, a new agreement signed in 1852 following further border disputes, between the Maharaja and the Dalai Lama.63 The Tibetan border was not the only area where Panikkar foresaw the possibility of conflict between India and China. As he had written even before the revolution, South-East Asia had always been an area of interest for both countries. In The Strategic Problems of the Indian Ocean in 1944, he wrote: A renovated and triumphant China with her population irresistibly moving south from Tonkin to Singapore may become a greater menace to the Indian Ocean than even Japan with her lines of communication extending so far from the sources of her power.64

Again, the communist revolution was therefore merely renewing ancient aspirations. Panikkar did not believe that the new China had expansionist aims65 and he considered it unlikely that it would be able to mobilise significant resources at a time when many other and more pressing problems plagued it. Nevertheless, he was convinced that the Chinese would support communist movements in the region with arms and supplies66 : “New China has a sense of mission in South-East Asia”.67

63 See Alfred Rubin, ‘The Sino-Indian Border Disputes’, International and Comparative Law Quarterly, 9: 1, 1960, 96–125; K. Krishna Rao, ‘The Sino-Indian Boundary Question and International Law’, International and Comparative Law Quarterly, 11: 2, 1962, 375– 415; Surya Sharma, ‘The India-China Border Dispute. An Indian Perspective’, American Journal of International Law, 59: 1, 1965, 16–47 and Alastair Lamb, ‘Treaties, Maps and the Western Sector of the Sino-Indian Boundary Dispute’, The Australian Year Book of International Law, 1965, 37–52. 64 Panikkar, The Strategic Problems of the Indian Ocean, 9. 65 “I do not think that it will be right to say that China has aggressive intentions in

regard to the countries in that region.” Panikkar, ‘A Preliminary Analysis of the Problems of New China’, 1 July 1950, file 771/CJK/50, MEA, NAI. 66 Ivi. 67 Ivi.

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Panikkar’s concern for China was also expressed in another way. He tended, both in his books and in his reports for Nehru, to continually compare what was happening in the two countries to assess the success of the two Asian ‘revolutions’. The Chinese certainly had advantages over India: they had the PLA’s huge labour reserve that they could exploit in manufacturing activities; a notable strength was the organisation of the Party; the government was much more centralised than in India.68 However, they started from a disadvantage: their economy was in shambles; there was no real administrative machinery comparable to India’s; and technicians and scientists were insufficient in number.69 Industries were also few, concentrated in a limited number of areas and electricity production was inadequate. The greatest difficulties, due to the war, plagued agriculture, but China was potentially self-sufficient in foodstuffs when it had cultivated the available land. India, on the other hand, despite the huge gaps and imbalances in its industrial sector, infrastructure and transport and energy production, had more experience. The education system, moreover, was more developed.70 According to Panikkar, however, the most important area in which the confrontation between the two countries would play out was the social one—a theme that he placed at the centre of The Indian Revolution, published in 1951 under the pseudonym of Chanakya, reportedly the adviser to the founder of the Mauryan empire and author of Arthashastra, or ‘The Science of Material Gain’, arguably the most important Indian treatise on the art of politics.71 In this text, he presented the great changes taking place in India as an aspect of the global Asian ‘revolution’ of which the other fundamental face would be the Chinese revolution. However, they represented very different models that could compete and spread to other countries on the continent. In describing the upheavals in Indian society, Panikkar’s aim was a comparison with China and the very description of Indian independence as a ‘revolution’ was intended to contrast it with Chinese events. 68 ‘Panikkar to Nehru’, 17 June 1950, file 770 (3)/CJK/50, MEA, NAI. 69 Ivi. 70 Panikkar, ‘A Preliminary Analysis of the Problems of New China’, 1 July 1950, file 771/CJK/50, MEA, NAI. 71 Chanakya (pseud. K.M. Panikkar), Indian Revolution, (Bombay: National Information & Publications, 1951).

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Asia has been witnessing the simultaneous consummation of two revolutions. Her most ancient communities, India and China, have during the last three years transformed themselves through revolutionary processes. […] The world-wide significance of both these movements cannot be doubted. More important are the possibilities of reactions of these two revolutions on each other, and their influence on the other peoples of South-East Asia.72

Certainly, the revolution in India had been anticipated and prepared for by a long process of renewal and reform. First, the reform of Hinduism: The spiritual foundations of modern India are laid deep in Indian religion and tradition. Hinduism, reformed and vivified through the operation of many forces, external and internal, continues to be the bed-rock of the new society. It should be remembered that though India is a secular State and contains many religions, no less than 85 percent of its people owe allegiance to Hinduism. The vital forces that have shaped modern India in the immediate past and are shaping her now are therefore related to the main body of Hindu thought, though over a hundred and fifty years of contact with Europe have profoundly modified it in many aspects. Christianity, Islam, European civilization, Marxian thought and even the recovered tradition of Buddhism have added richness and content to Indian life and strengthened its foundations.73

This reform was exemplified by the new interpretation given to the Bhagavad Gita not as a sanction of caste division and the philosophy of accepting one’s fate, but as a call to action.74 If the dharma had to be re-established in every age and all institutions were doomed to decay, it became legitimate and necessary to renew them with revolutionary changes: “no stronger weapon could have been put in the hands of those who desired to reshape Indian society and give it purpose and vitality”.75 Hindu society at the beginning of the nineteenth century was, according to Panikkar, in a phase of profound decadence since it had been subjected to Islamic political power for centuries and then threatened by

72 Ivi, 186. 73 Ivi, 16. 74 Ivi, 21–2. 75 Ivi, 25.

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the conversion campaigns of Christian missionaries.76 Both the Muslim rulers and the British had been unwilling—or unable—to implement real social reform: The Muslim State had no legislative machinery, and when for the first time India was united under the British and the entire Hindu community lived under a common administration, the authorities of the East India Company after a first effort at social reform, withdrew under the pretext of religious neutrality, from activities which they thought might cause popular upheaval. Perhaps it was a wise step, as the motive force of large-scale social reform must come from the people themselves and legislation can only give statutory sanction to principles which have already gained wide acceptance. The reformation of Hindu religion was therefore an essential prerequisite of social legislation. It was only after the first Great War that the legislating state came into existence in India.77

However, the mentality had also been renewed through contacts with the outside world, with other religions and with other cultures. Islam and Christianity also, at least indirectly, transmitted to Hinduism the sense of solidarity within the community.78 Hindu communal organisations such as, for example, the Hindu Mahasabha, were for him merely a reaction to the opposite organisation by Muslims who, from the very beginning, aimed at the independence of the religious minority.79 But, in this context, he attached great importance to the ability of the Congress to maintain its secular beliefs. The Muslim communal organisations brought into existence counterparts among the Hindus. The Hindu Mahasabha was the reply of the Hindus to the Muslim League. […] The National Congress held firmly to its ideal of a non-communal and all-embracing political organisation opened to all Indians without regard to religion or sect. Through all the difficult days of communal animosity it successfully adhered to this doctrine which was soon to blossom into the idea of the Secular State.80

76 Ivi, 31. 77 Ivi, 41. 78 Ivi, 48. 79 Ivi, 51. 80 Ivi, 52.

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The other religions had thus represented a challenge to which Hinduism had responded with a movement of renewal. Contact with Europe, however, had also made more direct contributions to the new India. The European merchant economy had created new urban classes who had been the first protagonists of the national movement before the awakening of both peasant and urban masses in the Gandhian movements and the demands of the untouchables and women made it fully popular. Many European ideas—democracy, secularism, gender equality—had also found fertile ground in the subcontinent.81 From contact with the West, Hindu society had emerged strengthened: the absorption of Western ideas had not created a radical break with the past, but it had taken the form of a process of gradual adaptation that did not deny its own culture and tradition. The incompatibility of the system of caste with democracy, of secular thought with a mode of life dominated by religious rituals, of equality of sexes with women in purdah and subjected to social and legal restrictions, all these which at one time seemed to stand permanently in the way of westernisation, gave way to the pressure of ideas without a revolutionary upheaval. India emerged by a peaceful revolution as a modern society mainly because the gradual penetration of ideas was through education spread over a fairly large and representative class.82 […] The intellectual temper of modern India is international and cosmopolitan, no doubt partly as a result of her European inheritance, but mainly from her own tradition of leadership which stamped the peoples of South Asia with her civilisation and culture.83

For example, it was the Europeans who rediscovered Indian history, but it was now up to the Indians themselves to rewrite and reinterpret it, as Nehru had done in his Discovery of India.84 The final result of this cultural encounter was defined by Panikkar as India’s ‘new humanism’.

81 Ivi, 62. 82 Ivi, 99. 83 Ivi, 119. 84 Ivi, 108.

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What are the basic ideas of this new humanism? They can be briefly described as a modern Indian interpretation of liberty, equality and fraternity. They are modern because the economic movements of the nineteenth century have given a new content to these ideas. They have taken an Indian form because liberty, for example, means in India not merely the acquisition of political independence, but the emancipation of women, freedom for the suppressed classes, liquidation of feudal elements within the country and many other things, which ceased to have significance in Europe. In the same way equality is a dynamic and revolutionary conception in India, as society had always been organised on the basis of inequality of caste and untouchability. Fraternity has also a different significance in India, for […] the practical experience of the subordination of the non-White races and the prevalence of discrimination by European people have given to Indian thought on this subject its colour and temper. It is the fraternity of the oppressed which is always in the mind of modern India.85

The culmination of the renewal process had been reached with independence, when the new India had finally become the architect of its own destiny. And the principles on which the new state was founded were derived from this peculiar history: territorial integrity, a written constitution, secularism and democracy.86 The princely states had been integrated and India was finally presenting itself as a unitary state87 ; the constitution—although federal in structure—was based on centralised institutions, thanks to the fact that the separation of the provinces with a Muslim majority had made the need for regional autonomy less pressing.88 Secularism was a choice derived directly from the Indian tradition of religious coexistence.89 Both China and India, therefore, had achieved independence and territorial unification and both faced the problem of developing their unbalanced economies and backward societies, in which anachronistic customs were defended because they were identified with their own civilisation. They were, however, based on different and, in many ways, antithetical principles: in a century of British rule, India had been able to

85 Ivi, 115–6. 86 Ivi, 125–6. 87 Ivi, 128. 88 Ivi, 132. 89 Ivi, 144.

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assimilate much of European culture, strengthen itself as a state, experiment with democracy and reform its social structures. This allowed the country to introduce changes and reforms based on consensus, whereas in China the same changes had to be imposed by force. Asia […] is witnessing two rival experiments to solve the same problem. The objectives in the broadest lines are the same, the establishment of modern communities in the admittedly backwards countries of Asia, on a socialist basis, by the eradication of ‘feudal’ elements in their societies, by a rapid industrialisation under national ownership, by a break with the past in social traditions and by the creation of a new and popular culture to replace the archaic civilisation inherited from the past. China has chosen the path of realizing these objectives by the use of force, by the technique of the science of revolution. India has opted for a policy of ‘gradualism’, of changes brought about by legislation and consent, by the methods of parliamentary democracy. The lesser countries of Asia, especially those which are or have been until recently under colonial authority are watching with interest the outcome of these experiments.90

Panikkar pointed out, however, that this risked translating into an advantage for China in the competition to export its modernisation model to other Asian countries. Indeed, India’s experience showed that the democratic model would not be as simple and replicable as the communist one. Democratic Government on a parliamentary basis is undeniably a Western experience. Its transplantation into Asia requires considerable preparation of ground, manuring of soil and introduction of machinery in use of which people have to be trained. In brief, without a considerable Westernisation of mind, the democratic experiment through parliamentary institutions has but little chance of success. By long association with England extending over a century and a half India has had the necessary minimum of Westernisation. As we have noted earlier, the spread of liberal ideas and the growth of democratic conceptions took place at the time when India was most closely connected with Britain, and to a certain extent India, from the beginning is an inheritor of these ideas. Also Western education started officially in India in the first half of the nineteenth century and has over a hundred years of history behind it. These factors are notably absent in

90 Ivi, 222.

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Burma and the other countries of South-East Asia and therefore parliamentary democracy must remain foreign to their experience at least for a time.91

5.4

Asia and the West

Due to his wife’s health problems, after three years in China, Panikkar asked to be transferred to warmer climates. Thus, he returned to India in 1952, only to be sent as ambassador to Egypt. Witnessing the Chinese revolution had been an extremely significant event for Panikkar and had given him the feeling that an era was over. This idea was the origin of what is still the best known of his books, both in Asia and Europe, to which—according to the testimony of T.N. Kaul—he had devoted more time than to routine embassy work while in Beijing92 : Asia and Western Dominance. It was in December 1925 that, moved by a natural curiosity to know more about the history of the coast of Malabar, my original home in India, I visited Lisbon and spent some time studying the records of the early Portuguese voyages to the East. There on the beach of Belem, from where Vasco da Gama set out on his historic voyage, the idea came to me of writing a history of European relations with Asian countries during the long era inaugurated by that voyage. In 1949 I was in Nanking when the European warships evacuated their bases on the mainland of China and a few months afterwards I travelled in the company of the diplomatic representatives of the European nations who left Shanghai after the People’s Republic had been proclaimed in Peking. In the interval I had also participated (from 1930) in the political discussions between India and Britain which led finally to the withdrawal of British authority from India. The idea which had lain dormant for twenty-five years and had so far found expression only in three limited studies (Malabar and the Portuguese, Malabar and the Dutch and India and the Indian Ocean) then seemed capable of realization.93

91 Ivi, 227. 92 Kaul, Diplomacy in Peace and War, 35. 93 Panikkar, Asia and Western Dominance, 11.

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Indeed, relations between Asia and Europe had been at the centre of his interests since his first contacts with Indian nationalism and his first articles. Now, however, the epoch of imperialism seemed to be closing forever and it became possible to look back on it as an accomplished historical process. Relations between nations were entering a new epoch and history could now consider the story of colonialism and nationalist struggles from a different point of view, one that overturned the Euro-centric bias that had dominated up until then. Investigating the fundamental unity of the problem of contact between Asia and Europe, Panikkar emphasised Asia’s sense of unity and the existence of a common history of Asian nations. The fundamental thesis on which the text was built was the unity of the period between Vasco da Gama’s arrival in Calicut in 1498 on the one hand and Indian independence and the Chinese revolution on the other: a historical epoch defined by common features. The first of these was the domination of maritime power over the Asian continental masses. The oceans also returned as protagonists in this text. By controlling the seas, Europeans would impose a commercial economy on Asia from the establishment of the Portuguese spice monopoly to modern large-scale capital exports. Politically, the consequence was the domination of the West which brought with it the doctrine of racial superiority, attempts at conversion and the solidarity of European peoples against Asians. Panikkar emphasised four phases in which contact had become increasingly close and oppressive to the point of reaction and he based his book on them. A two-and-a-half-century period of European expansion in which contact remained rather limited (1498–1750) had been followed by a period of conquest (1750–1858), one of domination (1858–1914) and, finally, one of retreat and Asian revival (1918–39). The European challenge marked a discontinuity in Asian history as it had put into question, at different levels, the social and religious organisation, the ideologies and the political and economic systems.94 The first phase—that of expansion—had seen the affirmation of European dominance on the sea and in trade. This success, however, did not correspond to any political power on land in any of the great areas of Asian civilisation—neither in India, China or Japan. Drawing on his earlier writings, Panikkar reiterated the description of the Indian Ocean as an area where trade was open to all nations and the idea of sovereignty over

94 Ivi, 11–9.

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the seas did not exist before the arrival of the Portuguese. The Portuguese maritime power, however, was not able to overpower the local states on land. It therefore represented a secondary local entity except, of course, on the sea, where its authority was undisputed.95 The Portuguese were later joined by others: the Dutch in Indonesia and Ceylon and in trade with China and Japan; the British and the French in India. However, it was the internal conditions of the Asian countries that determined the degree of penetration of foreign influence. In China, for example, the transition from the Ming dynasty to the Manchu empire strengthened the country at a crucial moment, allowing it to regain control over peripheral areas such as Sinkiang and Tibet and, indirectly, over kingdoms such as Korea and Cambodia. In succession, the Portuguese, the Spanish, the Dutch and the British had tried to establish relations with China but, if they had succeeded in establishing trade, diplomatic and political relations had been much more difficult. In Japan, too, a strengthening of central authority—with the assertion of the shogunate over feudal anarchy—had been matched by a closure towards foreigners.96 Until the mid-eighteenth century, therefore, all the European nations that had succeeded one another in Asia had been unable to establish themselves as territorial powers. The previous experiences of the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British had shown that the European nations were not yet in a position to enforce their claims even against minor rulers. The Dutch came up against the Raja of Travancore in 1739, and though their power in neighbouring Ceylon was considerable, the battle ended in a disaster for the Netherlanders, whose landing party, including over a hundred Europeans, had to surrender ignominiously. The attempts of the British to extend their authority to the villages near Madras had led to their forcible eviction by the local authorities at the beginning of the century. Even on the sea, as late as 1722, Kanoji Angria had defeated and put to flight a combined attack of the British and the Portuguese.97

95 Ivi, 60. 96 Ivi, 68–90. 97 Ivi, 94.

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From the middle of the eighteenth century, however, things began to change. Starting in India, the Europeans were able to gain territorial and political dominance. To explain this shift, Panikkar took into account not so much the changes taking place in Europe as the internal situation in Asian countries. In India, the conquest was thus attributed to the divisions and wars that had shattered the Mughal empire and given the French and the British trading companies the opportunity to insert themselves into local conflicts. The old landed nobility had meanwhile weakened in favour of commercial classes enriched by contact with foreigners. For the British, India conquered during a century of wars, was the starting point for expansion into Asia.98 British rule over India continued unchallenged from 1858 to 1919 and it was during this period that its worst features took hold: the sense of racial superiority, pomp and imperial ceremonials that—it was thought— would impress Indian subjects. At the same time, however, an essential change took place: Starting from the status of a ‘possession’ and a colony, British India, by slow stages, developed into an ‘empire’, no doubt subordinate to the authorities in London, but claiming to be heard in its own right, and often forcing the home government into policies with which it was not in entire agreement. […] This transformation, which of course had but little to do with the people of India, during the period of imperialism became in the succeeding period, when Indian nationalism began to assert itself, a highly significant fact in the shaping of the new Asia.99

The British had in fact created an Indian army, with British officers but local troops, they had established a central government that also indirectly controlled the princely states and, above all, they had created a strong administrative structure. The Civil Service bureaucracy had been, according to Panikkar, the first and most important responsible for India’s transformation from ‘possession’ to ‘empire’.100 The two great Asian civilisations thus faced the same challenge, namely Western imperialism, but their experiences were very different. The government in India—at the centre of an imperial political system that 98 Ivi, 95–107. 99 Ivi, 143–4. 100 Ivi, 145.

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extended its influence in Asia from Afghanistan to Persia, Burma and Tibet—began to behave according to its own judgements and interests, despite the British government’s reassertion of its authority over the country. In China, meanwhile, the indirect influence of foreigners and the humiliation of the country grew through various means: control over river routes, European settlements and concessions, extraterritoriality rights, the right of protection towards Christians and attacks on tributary states. Even in China, however, during the very heyday of imperialism, a reaction was felt. The defeat in the Sino-Japanese war and the scramble for concessions was followed by the Boxer revolt and then the more modern and Westernised revolt that led to the establishment of the republic.101 The Japanese experience was, at the same time, similar and different. In the mid-nineteenth century, Japan also experienced the humiliation of a forced opening to Western trade and of unequal treaties. But from the very beginning, the Meji Restoration aimed to re-establish national dignity: the Japanese sought to appropriate Western technology and, above all, science; they reformed their political system and strengthened their military apparatus.102 Already in the period of triumphant imperialism, therefore, the seeds of a reaction by the Asian peoples were visible. But the real turning point in relations between Asia and Europe was, according to Panikkar, the First World War, which he described as the ‘European civil war’. The conflict had broken the solidarity between Westerners in Asia and Asians had been engaged in the conflict, bringing back new ideas. Significant changes were expected, while Europe itself seemed to have lost confidence in its own superiority and its prestige in the eyes of Asians was shaken.103 In India, China and Japan, national movements grew stronger and the emancipation process came to fruition after the Second World War. Outside this general framework, however, the author introduced two further chapters devoted to particular topics that had evolved alongside these events. And it was these two sections of the text that caused the greatest stir and the most heated criticism. They dealt with, respectively, the Christian missions and relations between Russia and Asia.

101 Ivi, 187–99. 102 Ivi, 205–13. 103 Ivi, 259–66.

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Christian proselytism was described as a particularly odious aspect of Western culture. Missionaries were presented, except in the first short period, as arrogant people, incapable of a true understanding of local cultures and willing to resort to all sorts of compromises and dishonesty in order to gain the favour of those with political power and thus be able to spread Christianity. Moreover, they had been an instrument of imperialism and they had been favoured by the growth of the political clout of the European powers.104 This extremely negative view did not go unnoticed. Kenneth Ballhatchet, professor of Indian History at SOAS and a pioneer of the renewal of historical studies in the field, described Panikkar as a radical nationalist, hostile to foreign influences. It is the attitude of the extreme nationalist who is suspicious of the supra-national loyalties that foreign missionaries may evoke, and who is resentful of their claim to a higher apprehension of spiritual truth than his own countrymen have achieved. It is also the attitude of the Hindu who considers that all religions have their value and that none has a monopoly of truth.105

This aversion to Christian proselytism had, however, been a feature of Panikkar’s outlook since 1916 and it was intimately linked to his conception of the nation. Conversions appeared to him as a threat to Indian identity itself because they attacked its fundamental core: Hindu philosophy and religion. As long as this centre remained stable, India could afford to absorb the most diverse external influences without losing its identity, but Christian preaching challenged the very core of its culture. Its exclusivism did not allow for adaptation: the acceptance of Christianity would mean a radical break in India’s cultural identity, the end of the nation’s continuity. The other topic dealt with separately was that of Russian imperialism. Panikkar decided to devote a separate chapter to it because it appeared to him to be qualitatively different from the others. Firstly, it was a 104 Ivi, 375–456. On this topic, see comments in Pasquale D’Elia, ‘Le missioni cattoliche in Asia viste da un diplomatico indiano’, Civiltà Cattolica, 106: 6, 1955, 49–56, 266–81, 523–40 and Jerome D’Souza, Sardar Panikkar and Christian Missions, (Dindigul: Doraiswami, 1957). 105 Kenneth Ballhatchet, ‘Asian Nationalism and Christian Missions’, The International Review of Missions, 46: 182, 1957, 202.

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land expansion and not a maritime one. Secondly, the worst and most humiliating features of European expansion were absent: the Russians had refrained from intervening in wars with China for the opening of its markets, from the opium trade, from the forced export of Chinese labour on plantations, from religious proselytising, from acts of vandalism. This reconstruction—although rather questionable—enabled Panikkar to explain the origin of the influence of the Bolshevik revolution in Asia.106 The effects of the Russian Revolution on Asian nationalist movements had been enormous, but the internal situation of individual countries came to the fore. While communist ideas did circulate in all countries, they had different effects depending on the strength of the social structure. [The Russian Revolution] affected different people differently. In countries like India, where social reorganization had to some extent taken place and the old tradition broken down as a result of a hundred of years of reform, the message of the Russian Revolution did not have the same force as in China, and Indo-China where, […] the West had only helped to undermine the old society without helping to build anything to take its place. […] In countries like Iran and Afghanistan, where the social structure, however reactionary, had held together and was not subjected to the same pressures as in China and in India, its direct influence has been even less. […] The case of Japan stands in an entirely different category. The October Revolution instead of raising any hopes in Japan caused it the greatest alarm. Japan had joined the ranks of ‘aggressors’ […].107

Undoubtedly, in this book, Panikkar described Russian policy in Asia in a particularly rosy light. He was, therefore, accused of reflecting the vision of the Chinese communist government, which was trying to build its own alliance with the Soviets. Reviewing the book, the influential Yale philosopher Filmer Northrop commented: Russia’s conquest of northern Asia up to the Bering Strait, Vladivostok and the islands off the coast of Japan does not seem to be an instance of European domination. […] Clearly this is an account of the relation of Western

106 Panikkar, Asia and Western Dominance, 231–47. 107 Ivi, 253–4.

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nations to China seen, not merely through Ambassador Panikkar’s Asian eyes, but also through Chairmain Mao’s Communist Chinese eyes.108

From Panikkar’s point of view, there was nothing surprising if a people under the rule of another people embraced communism as the path to their own liberation—he undoubtedly saw the world through Mao’s eyes in this regard. On the other hand, however, this chapter cannot be isolated from the rest of the book. It is in the continuous comparison between the experiences of India and China—as in The Indian Revolution—that it finds its place and, again, it is there that Panikkar’s clear preference for the path chosen by his country emerges. India and China had indeed been protagonists of the Asian rebirth but in different ways. The gradual process of reform and adaptation, as had happened in India, was certainly, for Panikkar, the best solution, even if it had not been possible everywhere. It made it practicable to maintain one’s own identity, but also to integrate the best aspects of European culture and to modernise and reform institutions and society.109 A note of optimism emerged, however, with the hope that the different paths taken by the two largest Asian countries could somehow converge: despite the diversity of local situations, Panikkar saw a feeling of ‘Asianism’ spreading. The concept was described as the perception of having something in common and a necessary Asian solidarity. The basis on which it was founded would be of two types: an ancient basis—social and spiritual—of traditions and culture that existed long before the arrival of the Europeans; and a more recent basis, political, resulting from the common experience of European imperialism. Undoubtedly there is much that is common in the tradition of non-Islamic Asia, in religious approach, social organization, art, and so on. […] The idea that there is no common social or spiritual background for an attitude of Asianism to develop is therefore not wholly correct. In any case, if it did not exist, the common experience of a hundred of years has created a political background. […] The racial arrogance of the European, their

108 Filmer Northrop, ‘Asia and Western Dominance by K. M. Panikkar’, The FarEastern Quarterly, 14: 2, 1955, 262–3. 109 Panikkar, Asia and Western Dominance, 315–38.

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assumed attitude of intellectual and moral superiority, and even the religious propaganda to which all the Asian countries were subjected, gave rise to a common political outlook.110

The idea of ‘Asianism’ also aroused quite a few doubts, especially among the Western critics of his book, which, however, enjoyed great success. It appeared to many an empty word whose supposed remote cultural basis was too weak and whose recent political basis was purely negative—opposition to European domination. As Percival Spear, another prominent historian of India who had spent a long phase of his academic career in New Delhi in the inter-war period, commented in his review: Another of Mr Panikkar’s favourite ideas is Asianism. Some mysterious force is sweeping Asia giving a sense of unity as against Europe and America. That there is a common sentiment against non-Asian intervention and control which till recently has meant European control is certain and very natural. For the suggestion that it is anything more, no evidence has been produced. A common positive sentiment requires a community of ideas and values such as exists in Europe and India. But there is no such community of ideas in Asia. There are three separate civilizations in Asia which have, on the whole, kept remarkably distinct. The one big contribution which India has made to China (Buddhism) is an element of Chinese culture about which the new China is far from enthusiastic.111

There was, for example, no mention of the existence of areas of conflict between Asian countries. It is not only that, as Mr. Panikkar partly admits, the Moslem, Hindu, Buddhist and Confucian civilisations are different from one another as any of them is from the Christian civilisation of Europe and America. It is also that the interests of the great Asian Powers have conflicted, do conflict, and are likely in the future to conflict.112

110 Ivi, 493–4. 111 Percival Spear, ‘Asia and Western Dominance by K. M. Panikkar’, Asian Review,

50: 182, 1954, 166. 112 Hugh Seton-Watson, ‘Asian Nationalism’, Encounter, 1, 1953, 76.

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The weakness of this ideal gives the impression that it was more of a wish than a reality for Panikkar. He hoped that the feeling of a common experience would cement friendly relations between the newly independent states and give an ideological basis to the effort of Nehru and his non-aligned foreign policy in Asia. In another review of the book written by Guy Pauker, a Romanianborn scholar of South-East Asia at Berkeley and a contributor to the Rand Corporation, the author echoed many of the accusations already reported: Panikkar’s vision of Russian expansionism, for instance, was allegedly built on a series of fabrications, many of them drawn from Chinese propaganda. However, Panikkar was also attributed—albeit in a negative sense, accusing him of opportunism—a role as a non-alignment ideologue: his opportunism translated into giving an image of the communist countries that would appeal to Asian public opinion. His book is much more interesting if one examines it as a purposive effort to write, or perhaps to rewrite, history in accordance with the expectations of a certain Asian audience – namely those who have been too deeply moulded by the West to cast away its heritage, but who are craving for a rationale which would make it easier to adjust the power situation in Asia as they see it now.113

113 Guy Pauker, ‘ Panikkarism, the Highest Stage of Opportunism’, World Politics, 7: 1, 1954, 162.

CHAPTER 6

From Indian History to the History of Civilisations

6.1

Twilight of a Political Career

Upon his return from China, Panikkar was assigned to another country that was important for Indian foreign policy in promoting non-alignment: Egypt. The country was facing a deep crisis. In the mid-1930s, Italian aggression against Ethiopia had set the conditions for the return of the Egyptian monarchy to constitutional rule and for an agreement with Britain. The Anglo-Egyptian treaty of August 26, 1936, was essentially a military pact that guaranteed London’s strategic interests, but it also accepted the prospect of full Egyptian sovereignty. Under this compromise, the capitulations regime was ended, and Egypt could apply for membership in the League of Nations, thus resuming an autonomous foreign policy for the first time since 1882. After the end of the Second World War, Egypt’s unsuccessful attempts to renegotiate the 1936 treaty with London in order to free itself from British encumbrances, coupled with serious internal problems, fuelled a crisis that would end in the military coup of July 1952.1

1 See Selma Botman, ‘The Liberal Age, 1923–1952’, in Martin Daly (ed.), The Cambridge History of Egypt, vol. II: Modern Egypt, from 1517 to the End of the Twentieth Century, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 285–308 and Reem

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Elli and R. Paolini, Indian National Identity and Foreign Policy, Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36425-9_6

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The main aim of Indian diplomacy towards Egypt was, then, to create a bridge to Muslim countries by bypassing Pakistan’s hostility. As Panikkar wrote: There were some special reasons for my posting to Egypt. Apart from the Sudan, my diplomatic assignment extended also to Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Libya. All of them were Muslim States and Pakistan was conducting vigorous anti-Indian propaganda there. At the time, India had little influence in the area. The principal aim of our diplomacy was to consolidate our position in that region.2

New Dehli’s relations with the area that, from the Indian point of view, was designated West Asia were historically complex. On the one hand, there was the legacy of the imperial projection of the British Raj; on the other, the dense network of relations between the different national movements—Arab, Turkish, Jewish and Indian—especially in the inter-war period, which profoundly influenced the formulation of Indian policy.3 Panikkar, while still in the service of the princes, had played a significant role in contact with the Jewish Agency to obtain technical assistance in the area of dry farming.4 Inviting to Bikaner the philosopher Hugo Bergmann, Head of the Jewish delegation to the Asian Relations Conference, Panikkar handed him a memorandum on a possible development of relations between the new India and the Zionist movement. In it, he hypothesised that, after Partition, Hindu public opinion would look with natural sympathy on the suffering of the Jewish people and the government in New Delhi, freed from the political conditioning of the Muslim minority, would take a more favourable stance towards Zionism.

Abou-El-Fadl, ‘Early Pan-Arabism in Egypt’s July Revolution: The Free Officers’ Political Formation and Policy-Making, 1946–54’, Nations and Nationalism, 21: 2, 2015, 289–308. 2 Panikkar, An Autobiography, 243. 3 See Robert Blyth, The Empire of the Raj: Eastern Africa and the Middle East, 1858–

1947 , (London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2003) and Richard Ward, India’s Pro-Arab Policy: A Study in Continuity, (New York: Praeger, 1992), 1–15. 4 For an overview of agricultural development in Israel since the early twentieth century, see Alon Tal, ‘To Make a Desert Bloom: The Israeli Agricultural Adventure and the Quest for Sustainability’, Agricultural History, 81: 2, 2007, 228–57.

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A Zionist Palestine, according to Panikkar, would have been more functional for India’s defence policy and, with European support, could have acted as a counterweight to the Muslim countries in the region.5 This prediction failed to materialise, at least because the Muslims in India remained a sizeable and influential minority, whose support it was important to maintain in order to substantiate the secular credentials of the Congress against the Hindu nationalists.6 However, the lack of Egyptian support on the Hyderabad issue and personal contempt for King Farouk convinced Nehru of the need to show that Indian support for the Arab position on Palestine was not a foregone conclusion. The consequent recognition of Israel in 1950 did not, however, change the substance of Indian policy: still in September 1953, in a private meeting with the Israeli ambassador in London, Panikkar stated that Nehru’s instructions to him in Cairo had been to endeavour to prevent the Arab countries from making an axis with Pakistan.7 Already in 1950, Panikkar wanted to be sent to Egypt. Writing to Ralph Stevenson—his friend and former colleague in Nanjing, the British ambassador in Cairo between 1950 and 1955—the Indian diplomat was convinced that the solidarity of the Islamic peoples was not a decisive political factor. He drew the conclusion that it was possible to look at relations between India and Pakistan with optimism: Essentially the Indo-Pakistan troubles in international matters is the quarrel of co-wives about the alleged neglect of the husband. There is no difference in their foreign policy. Pakistan made a half-hearted attempt to align herself with the Islamic countries. But she discovered that while Islam is still a force to be reckoned with, as a positive policy an Islamic alliance is not a possibility. So if we can get our ‘domestic’ problems settled – and I do not despair of a settlement – there will be working cooperation between India and Pakistan in foreign policy, for India realises that her external defence is bound up with Pakistan and Pakistan realises that her support

5 P.R. Kumaraswamy, India’s Israel Policy, (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010), 64, 82–3. 6 Ivi, 266. 7 Ivi, 168–70; Sarvepalli Gopal, Jawaharlal Nehru. A Biography, vol. II: 1947–1956,

(New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1979), 169.

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in any crisis must come from India. It will take another two or three years before these ideas seep into the minds of the ordinary politicians.8

Here too, the analysis proved inadequate, not so much because of an underestimation of Islam as a mobilising factor, but rather because of an overconfidence in the rationality of political action. Certainly, the logic of comparative advantages had an incisive influence on relations between India and Pakistan during that period, generating virtuous bilateral dynamics.9 However, Pakistan’s foreign policy would soon turn towards alignment with the United States, seriously jeopardising—in Nehru’s eyes—the possibility of keeping the Cold War away from the subcontinent. Panikkar read in this dynamic the moment of a more general tendency on the part of American power to supplant Britain in West Asia. Again influencing the Prime Minister’s thinking, he believed that the Anglo-American antagonism could be turned to India’s advantage.10 In the immediate future, however, Panikkar proposed to take advantage of Pakistan’s proximity to the Western camp to create a bridge between India and the Arab countries, particularly Egypt, which was at that time engaged in a showdown with the British over two issues: the Anglo-Egyptian condominium over Sudan and the question of the Suez Canal Zone. Sudan had been conquered by Muhammad Ali Pasha in the 1820s and administered as a colony by the new bureaucracy that was being formed with the transformation of Egypt into a dynastic dominion. Control of Sudan represented a significant item of Egyptian indebtedness, which helped open the door to European imperialism. The double shock of the British occupation of Egypt and the loss of Sudan represented a fundamental point of reference in the thoughts of Egyptian nationalists, who aimed to analyse British culture and society in order to understand its success. Britain’s historical experience could be a lesson for both achieving self-determination and regaining an empire. Thus, by 1919, the unity of

8 ‘Panikkar to Stevenson’, 5 May 1950, FO 371/83021, NAUK. 9 See Pallavi Raghavan, Animosity at Bay. An Alternative History of the India-Pakistan

Relationship, 1947–1952, (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2020). 10 See Zorawar Singh, Power and Diplomacy. India’s Foreign Policies During the Cold War, (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2019), 101–5 and Paul McGarr, The Cold War in South Asia, 16–25.

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the Nile Valley had become a crucial and established point of Egyptian nationalism.11 Concretely, since 1899, after the defeat of al-Mahdi, Sudan was administered according to the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium formula: there was a governor-general, on whom all Sudanese administration depended, who was formally appointed by the Khedive of Egypt, but was chosen by and answered de facto to the British; the costs of administration were borne by the Egyptian treasury. When, after the Second World War, the Egyptian government wanted to renegotiate the 1936 treaty with London, the fate of Sudan proved to be an unresolvable issue. Although the principle of Sudanese self-government was accepted, for the British it was a step towards independence, while for the Egyptians it was a temporary measure pending the full unification of the Nile Valley. Given the resonance of the issue in public opinion and among Egyptian political parties, its non-resolution led to a radicalisation of anti-British and antiWestern sentiments. Faced with London’s refusal to recognise Egypt’s sovereign rights over Sudan as a precondition for negotiating British withdrawal and the future of the Suez Canal base, in 1951, the Egyptian government unilaterally abrogated the 1936 treaty and began fomenting anti-British boycotts in the Canal Zone.12 Panikkar, therefore, began his mission to Cairo in this situation of increased tension. He was accredited as ambassador to Faruok I, King of Egypt and Sudan, as the Egyptian government expected of all representatives of the diplomatic corps, while Nehru made it clear that this was not meant to be a stance in the dispute. India certainly supported Egyptian sovereignty over the Canal Zone, but did not intend to sacrifice the Sudanese people’s right to self-determination. Retrospectively, Panikkar added nuance to this position.13 Nehru accepted my argument that as Egyptian sovereignty over the Sudan was unquestioned, the formal acknowledgment of this in the Letter of

11 See Eve Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism. Egypt, Great Britain, and the Mastery of the Sudan, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003). 12 Rami Ginat, Egypt and the Struggle for Power in Sudan: From World War II to Nasserism, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 98–184. 13 Najma Heptulla, Indo-West Asian Relations: The Nehru Era, (New Delhi: Allied Publishers, 1991), 177.

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Accreditation to the King would not result in any abridgment of British authority.14

The harmony of this argument with Stevenson’s recommendations to his superiors in London should be noted. Indeed, the British ambassador argued that it was not possible to support Sudanese separatism to the detriment of the Egyptian government because Britain had responsibilities under the 1899 Convention and the 1936 treaty. It was therefore necessary to reach an understanding on the self-government of Sudan that would, however, guarantee the close interdependence of the two Nile Valley countries.15 The Free Officers’ coup of July 23, 1952, radically changed the situation. In place of the monarchy, a secular nationalist regime was to be established that could not only be used to stem Pakistani attempts to leverage pan-Islamic solidarity in an anti-Indian key, but with which there was also a significant ideological affinity.16 In this context, Panikkar wrote that he had frequent contacts with Salah Selim, Minister of State for Sudan Affairs at the Command Council of the Revolution, with whom he insisted that the new regime abandon nationalist claims on Sudan. Rather, the new Egypt was to present itself as a supporter of complete Sudanese independence, because this would prevent the British from supporting local nationalists and force them to leave the area.17 This advisory and mediating role played by the Indian ambassador is confirmed in Stevenson’s correspondence with the Foreign Office: Although Panikkar talks a great deal and although his ebullience and rather impish sense of humour are liable to cause him to be misunderstood and misquoted, I am sure myself (though I may be starry-eyed about him) that the advice which he gives to the Egyptians is on the whole pretty sound, particularly when he is talking about their relations with Great Britain.18

14 Panikkar, An Autobiography, 243. 15 Ginat, Egypt and the Struggle for Power in Sudan, 187. 16 See James Jankowski, Nasser’s Egypt, Arab Nationalism, and the United Arab

Republic, (Boulder: Rienner, 2002) and Avraham Sela, ‘Abd al-Nasser’s Regional Politics. A Reassessment’, in Elie Podeh - Onn Winckler (eds.), Rethinking Nasserism: Revolution and Historical Memory in Egypt, (Gainsville: University Press of Florida, 2004), 179–204. 17 Panikkar, An Autobiography, 270. 18 ‘Stevenson to Bowker’, 29 January 1953, FO 371/102743, NAUK.

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Panikkar’s mediation action, in short, was not reduced to a mere interdiction manoeuvre against Pakistan, but was rather a new, coherent declination of the diplomacy of non-alignment. The fundamental objective became the liquidation of British imperialism and to put Anglo-Egyptian relations on a new and more solid footing. As William Strang, Permanent Under Secretary at the Foreign Office, commented: “For all that he is so unreliable, Panikkar is a likeable rogue, though I have no doubt that the net result of his passion for ‘helping both sides’ is anything but helpful to us”.19 In practice, the Egyptian military abandoned the negotiating approach maintained by the royal government, which required the recognition of Egyptian sovereignty over Sudan as a precondition for dealing with the British presence in the Canal Zone. By bypassing London, they reached a direct agreement with the main Sudanese political forces in which they recognised the right to self-determination through a plebiscite. The Sudanese would have chosen between full independence or association with Egypt. Having precluded a possible continuation of British control, London—faced with a fait accompli—could not refuse to sign a similar agreement on February 12, 1953. This was a major success for the new Egyptian government which—in line with Nehru’s ideas—avoided the use of force and took the legitimate Sudanese aspirations into account.20 On the day of the signing, a large delegation from the Command Council of the Revolution visited Panikkar to thank him for his help.21 The other source of tension between Egypt and Britain was the Suez Canal Zone. To a greater extent than in the case of Sudan’s future, the Egyptian government’s unilateral abrogation of the 1936 treaty opened a dangerous crisis with unpredictable outcomes. Visiting British military installations in the Canal Zone in February 1953, Panikkar realised their strategic importance and the need to reach an agreement. While the area was certainly on Egyptian territory and the country should therefore be able to exercise its sovereignty, the prospect of a complete evacuation by Britain did not seem ideal to him. Considering the strategic location, size

19 ‘Strang to Lamb’, 8 May 1953, FO 371/102757, NAUK. 20 Joel Gordon, Nasser’s Blessed Movement: Egypt’s Free Officers and the July Revolution,

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 159–72; Ginat, Egypt and the Struggle for Power in Sudan, 195–9 and Heptulla, Indo-West Asian Relations, 178. 21 ‘Lamb to Strang’, 14 April 1953, FO 371/102757, NAUK.

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and importance of the Suez base, he believed that cooperation between the two countries was at least necessary.22 Negotiations began in the spring of 1953 and, despite substantial openings on the Egyptian side, dragged on for a long time. Against a backdrop of unrest and violence in Egypt, friction between London and Washington over the management of the negotiations and the internal political tensions within the British Conservative government, especially between Churchill and Eden, an agreement was only reached in the summer of 1954.23 In these negotiations, too, India made efforts to tone things down, but Panikkar’s involvement was very limited.24 In a letter to Labour MP Woodrow Wyatt, who had participated in Cripps’ mission to India as his personal assistant, he argued that the British would have to be content with what they got since the Egyptians were in no position to make further concessions. Actually the feeling is that they have gone very much beyond what they have originally planned and they feel that, after having agreed to maintain the base, to keep a large body of British technicians and to make the base available in case of an attack on Arab countries it is really asking them too much to go further. […] Egyptian leaders are not men who take hasty decisions. But after all they represent a revolutionary sentiment, which must show itself in the claim to complete independence of their country, I wonder what is possible at this stage.25

Panikkar realistically grasped the situation, with negotiations deadlocked over whether British personnel tasked with maintaining efficient military facilities after the evacuation should wear civilian clothes or uniform. The timing was also appropriate, coinciding with Eden’s return to the Foreign Office and his action to unblock the negotiations. 22 Stevenson to Foreign Office, 28 February 1953, FO 371/102796, NAUK. 23 For different perspectives on these issues, see William Louis, ‘Prelude to Suez:

Churchill and Egypt’, in Id (ed.), Ends of British Imperialism. The Scramble for Empire, Suez, and Decolonization, (London: Tauris, 2006), 609–26 and Michael Tornhill, ‘Eden, Churchill and the Battle of the Canal Zone, 1951–1954’, in Simon Smith (ed.), Reassessing Suez 1956, (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), 35–51. 24 ‘Panikkar to B.G. Kher’, 5 July 1953, SWJN , s. 2 vol. 23, (New Delhi: Nehru Memorial Fund, 1998), 531–2. See also Heptulla, Indo-West Asian Relations, 179. 25 ‘Panikkar to Wyatt’, 7 November 1953, FO 371/102820, NAUK.

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The impression of British diplomacy, however, remained that Panikkar’s support went to the Egyptians in any case.26 His stay in Egypt was nevertheless coming to an end. After 17 months in Cairo, Panikkar returned to Delhi on February 2, 1954, a brief experience that allowed him to make contact with the reality of the Arab world, but which did not have the relevance that his stay in China had had. Back home, a new assignment awaited him to which the Prime Minister attached great importance: he was appointed as one of the three members of the States’ Reorganisation Commission. It had become necessary to rethink the internal borders of the states that made up the Indian union. They still reflected those of the provinces of British India to which the unions of former princely states had been added and thus had no connection to sub-national and linguistic identities.27 Gandhi, since the 1920s, had developed a project for the creation of language-based states and the Congress party had organised itself into regional language committees to foster political participation at the local level. The reform of the states was part of the party’s programme. After independence, however, the fear of centrifugal drives became such that Nehru preferred to postpone the project indefinitely.28 In 1951, Panikkar himself had explained in The Indian Revolution why the Congress had so far preferred not to touch the provincial boundaries: The main consideration which weighted with the Congress leaders in turning down a proposal which appeared on the face of it just, fair and logical was that provinces organised on an ethnical and linguistic basis will inevitably develop regional patriotism and undermine the hardwon unity of India. The development of regional languages had led to the growth of local national feeling in different parts of India, especially among

26 ‘Creswell to Foreign Office’, 5 November 1953, FO 371/102820, NAUK. 27 Phool Kumar Sharma, ‘Integration of Indian Princely States and the Reorganization

of States in India’, The Indian Journal of Political Science, 28: 4, 1967, 236–41 and Krishna Kodesia, The Problems of Linguistic States in India, (New Delhi: Sterling, 1969). 28 For the general context, see Guha, India After Gandhi, 177–90. On the issue of

language and sub-national divides, see Robert King, Nehru and the Language Politics of India, (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997); B.V.R. Rao (ed.), The Constitution and Language Politics of India, (New Delhi: B.R., 2003); Mahadev Apte, ‘Multilingualism in India and Its Sociopolitical Implications: An Overview’, in William- Jane O’Barr (eds.), Language and Politics, (The Hague: Mouton, 1976), 141–64.

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the Andhras, Gujeratis and Karnatakas. Create provinces on the basis of linguistic groups will be to consolidate and give political expression to that feeling of local patriotism, helping to obscure the wider patriotism, which India wants to develop.29

Increasingly insistent, however, was the demand that state borders should reflect language differences. In 1952, an activist died in Madras as a result of a hunger strike in which he demanded the creation of a new state for the Telugu-speaking population. Upon his death, violent riots broke out, prompting the Indian government to overturn the previous policy. It was now feared that excessive rigidity in opposing these demands could have even more disruptive effects. In 1953, the state of Andhra was therefore created for the Telugu-speaking population.30 In the same year, the States’ Reorganisation Commission was convened to study the problem of revising state boundaries so that language would be the discriminating characteristic. It consisted of Orissa Governor Sayeed Fazl Ali, Hriday Nath Kunzru—a member of the Rajya Sabha who had distinguished himself for his speeches on federalism and state government at the Indian Constituent Assembly—and Panikkar. The task of the SRC was to address the issue as a whole while keeping in mind the imperative of the unity of the country, its developmental needs and the economic feasibility of the proposed measures.31 The commission considered thousands of communications addressed to it by the most diverse bodies and visited the various Indian states for several months, from the north to the south of the country, to make contact with the local realities before formulating its recommendations.32 The final report was the subject of numerous analyses, including comparative evaluations.33 It envisaged the abolition of any distinction, even 29 Chanakya (pseud. Panikkar), Indian Revolution, 155–6. 30 See Phool Kumar Sharma, Political Aspects of States Reorganization in India, (New

Delhi: Mohini, 1969). 31 Brecher, Nehru: A Political Biography, 482–3. 32 Report of the States’ Reorganisation Commission, 1955, (New Delhi: Manager of

Publications, Government of India Press, 1956). 33 See Asha Sarangi, ‘States Reorganization Commission. A Critical Reading’, in Sudha Pai (ed.), Handbook of Politics in Indian States, (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2013), 40–54 and Andrea Graziosi, ‘India and the Soviet Model: The Linguistic State Reorganization and the Problem of Hindi’, Harvard Ukrainian Studies, 35: 1–4, 2017– 18, 443–71.

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formal, between the states born from the British provinces and those derived from former princely states and the reduction of the number of units from twenty-seven to thirteen, with three territories administered by the central government (Delhi; Manipur; Andaman and Nicobar Islands). The creation of three new language-based states was also proposed (Malayalam-speaking Kerala, Vidharba with part of the Marathi-speaking population and Kannada-speaking Karnataka) and two bilingual states (Bombay with the two languages Marathi and Gujarathi—enlarged to include the areas of the neighbouring provinces where these two languages were spoken—and Punjab where the two languages were to be Hindi and Punjabi—in turn enlarged to include the former princely states of Patiala and East Punjab States’ Union and Himachal Pradesh, the latter Hindi-speaking). Hyderabad was to continue as a separate state, albeit with a considerable territorial reduction, until 1961 when the assembly could vote to annex it to Andhra. These proposals aroused, however, some voices of discontent, particularly about the two bilingual states of Bombay and Punjab.34 The city of Bombay had, in fact, a Marathi-speaking majority, but was dominated by Gujarathi wealth. The protests of the Marathi-speaking population were suppressed by the Gujarathi state government. The various options that were put forward to divide the state were gradually discarded and, in the end, the original hypothesis of the Commission was returned to, but without eliminating the discontent of both components. In Punjab, on the other hand, the discontent of the Sikhs for not having their own state and for union with Himachal Pradesh, which increased the percentage of the Hindu and Hindi-speaking population, found expression. Opposed to them were the Hindu communalist organisations (RSS, Jan Sangh, Hindu Mahasabha). A compromise was therefore sought that would accommodate the Sikhs, but denied the validity, in principle, of claims that were religiously and not linguistically motivated. Himachal Pradesh was not integrated into the state of Punjab, but placed under the administration of the central government; both Hindi and Punjabi were declared official languages. Again, however, neither side was satisfied with the solution. For Panikkar, returning home, travelling across the country, experiencing the internal problems of the new India and its fragility, stimulated 34 See Mahadev Apte, ‘Language Controversies in the Indian Parliament (Lok Sabha): 1952–1960’, in William - Jane O’Barr (eds.), Language and Politics, 213–34.

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new reflections and a strong need for revision. Many texts were re-edited and updated; others grew out of previously written articles or book chapters that were reworked and expanded. In particular, he found himself rethinking the balances between centralism and autonomy, between unity and diversity, between local identities and a sense of belonging to a nation that had already characterised his previous analyses, but which now took on a different significance. The balance between these two poles had always been a crucial point in Panikkar’s reflections. The ‘horror of uniformity’ that emerged from his early writings had remained a constant feature of his thinking, but its weight had shifted and taken on different forms as personal experiences, contemporary events and new interests prompted him to revise his positions. The failure of federation, Partition, interest in geopolitics and international relations had led him to emphasise the need for unity and cohesion. The experience of the States’ Reorganisation Commission only reinforced this tendency. Regional nationalisms appeared to be a dangerous disruptive force that had to be kept under control if the unity obtained at great cost was not to be endangered. Immediately after the conclusion of the Commission’s work, Panikkar thus published a collection of speeches given in the preceding years, the common thread of which was precisely India’s quest for unity and the most suitable domestic policy to balance diversity and strengthen the young state born with independence. In a speech entitled ‘On National Unity’ in 1955, Panikkar credited the Commission—while recognising the fundamental importance of sub-national identities—with holding firm to the principle of unity and safeguarding the cohesion of the state. In the institutional balances, the demands of centralisation had to prevail: just as the princely states had disappeared, those that made up the new Indian Union were not to be invested with any particular sanctity.35 The theme of preserving and strengthening Indian unity was a common thread running through various contributions between 1954 and 1955. Occasional contributions, certainly, but which struck Western

35 K.M. Panikkar, The State and the Citizen, (Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1956), 85–6.

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readers for the coherence of the underlying scheme of thought.36 Panikkar’s reflection on the relationship between unity and diversity found its centre of gravity in the defence of the hard-won political freedom. The result was a balance more clearly in favour of centralising demands. The very demands of scientific and technological progress, modernisation and economic planning—such important themes for a newly independent country—were going in that direction, as Panikkar himself had occasion to write to Nehru.37 Thus, if Indian regional languages and literatures appeared to Panikkar as a value, they were not to become a disruptive factor.38 The only language that could play a ‘national’ role seemed to be Hindi. It was to replace the English language, to which Indians owed neither loyalty nor attachment. Despite this, however, the English language was credited with the historical merit of having been a vehicle of all-India communication, as Sanskrit had been in an earlier era.39 The role of regionalism and its relationship to the nation were addressed from a historical perspective, especially in the abovementioned speech ‘On National Unity’. Already in the 1930s, Panikkar had dealt with local history by trying to place its events in the broader all-India history. Gulab Singh’s wars against the Tibetans, for instance, had been described as an expansion of national boundaries; similarly, the Indian states engaged in struggles against the British had been put forward as spokesmen for the nation. Now Panikkar went so far as to theorise that regional histories were to be seen as a whole: each was to become the common heritage of all India. Each local history was to clarify the particular contributions that a certain area had made to the nation’s history.40 But this consideration was further enriched by an important distinction: Panikkar was now convinced that it was necessary to abandon the approach of political history that focused on the state because it inevitably

36 ‘Guide to Indian Citizenship’, The Times Literary Supplement, 9 October 1956, 610. 37 ‘Nehru to Panikkar’, 2 November 1957, SWJN , s. 2 vol. 40, (New Delhi: Nehru

Memorial Fund, 2009), 301–3 and Panikkar, ‘Technology and the Modern State’, The State and the Citizen, 63–71. 38 Panikkar, ‘The New Dynamism’, ivi, 37–50. 39 Panikkar, ‘Sanskrit in Modern India’, ivi, 124–135. 40 Panikkar, ‘On National Unity’, ivi, 82–91.

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led to a regional or dynastic conception. If the history of India was seen only in its political dimension, it was chaotic and it lacked unity, but if it was seen as the history of a people and of a cultural development, then it acquired its unitary dimension. No one would deny that this kind of history which concentrates on conquests and wars by local heroes develops strange feelings of superiority. But surely in India there is no such variation of talent, such differences in natural endowment, such clearly marked distinctions of character as to enable any region to claim a permanent superiority over others. And yet such has been the result of our studies in local history. It is time we also discarded finally this attempt to build out history on monarchs and dynasties, and viewed it from the point of view of the evolution of the Indian people.41

In his 1947 book A Survey of Indian History, Panikkar had presented Indian history as the process of the formation of a nation-state. Certainly, in his various writings since his Oxford days, cultural aspects had been cohesive elements, but they were described, in a sense, as original and constitutive factors of Indian identity from time immemorial. Instead, development and historical events concerned the laborious construction into a political unity in the succession of empires and phases of disruption. New trends in historiography now seemed to him to provide a new stimulus and a new possibility for the history of India as well. It was to be the history of a civilisation—much like what was being attempted in Europe. In his speech ‘On Historical Studies,’ delivered for the Indian History Congress in 1955, Panikkar once again gave credit to the British in terms of their contribution to Indian unity: they had been the first to write unitary histories of India, whereas hitherto only chronicles and dynastic histories had existed. There remained, however, a limitation that it was now up to Indian historiography to overcome: to replace the paradigm of political history with that of the history of civilisation. This approach of European historians suffered from a fatal defect. They could only think of history as a record of the political growth of a nation, on the analogy of Britain, France or Spain, evolving into states through

41 Ivi, 97.

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the activities of a dynasty, and not as the record of a people living as an integrated civilisation but under dispersed political power. […] The integration of Indian society and civilisation has until recent times been unrelated to political events and was certainly unconcerned with political unity. […] The unity of the civilisation, culture and society of India was assumed at all times but the unity of India as a nation is a recent concept and the attempt to read back into Indian history a permanent motivation which was not only absent, but which would have seemed to most people unnatural, is at the root of our failure in the historical field.42

Seeing things from this point of view would have made it possible, at last, to write a true unitary national history, no longer subordinate to European historiographical models. In 1955 Panikkar returned to the theme of unity and its defence with two books: Geographical Factors in Indian History 43 and Hindu Society at Cross Roads.44 Geographical Factors in Indian History included a chapter on the Himalayas that updated a 1947 article but proposed as a fundamental characteristic of Indian geography the dualism between the IndoGangetic North and the Deccan. Because of its concentration of resources and population, the Ganges valley had always been a dominant factor in the various empires that had succeeded one another, but the characteristics of the Deccan had never allowed the northern empires to conquer it in a stable manner. The far south had thus had a largely autonomous development, marked by close cultural contacts with the north but almost always politically independent. It had its own traditions among which, for Panikkar, the maritime vocation was of paramount importance. The essential problem for India was therefore to give balance to its components in order to safeguard the unity. Geography has enforced on us two vital areas in India, one which may be described Aryavarta and the other the Deccan, extending from the Vindhyan region to the tip of the Peninsula. Racially, linguistically and politically these had remained separate. Their unity has been through culture, religion 42 Panikkar, ‘On National History, 1955’, ivi, 94–5. 43 K.M. Panikkar, Geographical Factors in Indian History, (Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya

Bhavan, 1955). 44 K.M. Panikkar, Hindu Society at Cross Roads, (Bombay, Calcutta: Asia Publishing House, 1955).

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and a classical language, Sanskrit […]. Since the political and administrative unity of India has now been achieved in spite of difficulties which had been found insurmountable in the past, it is our primary duty not to lose it again and to overcome through our effort such obstacles as stand in the way of complete unification. But the lesson of both geography and history are clear here. Any attempt to impose a unification by the more populous North over the people of the South will be disastrous, for it will awaken the latent racial feelings of difference and geography will again tend to assert itself.45

The dialectics between the Indo-Gangetic valley and the Deccan was thus the inner determining element of Indian geography—and history. The Himalayas and the Indian Ocean demarcated its borders from the outside. These themes had been at the centre of Panikkar’s writings in the 1940s and had already been described as the protagonists of Indian geopolitics. Now they were rethought in the light of the events following independence, the Cold War and Chinese events. The first part of the chapter devoted to the Himalayas carried over the considerations of 1947 without major changes: it had protected and isolated India, guaranteeing the continuity of its civilisation. However, while in 1947, albeit with all due caution, Panikkar had affirmed that the Himalayan range could still be considered a defence, by 1955 he believed that these conditions had changed. Tibet was no longer a de facto demilitarised area, drawing land threats away from India. The fact that the Chinese were unable in the past to organise a strong military area in Tibet should not blind us to such possibilities in the future. It may not be a danger in the immediate future, but there is no doubt that an organised modern state in Tibet will alter the character of the Himalayan problem. […] The Himalayan boundary will no longer be the dead boundary that it has been since the beginning of Indian history.46

Similarly, the chapter devoted to the Indian Ocean took up an earlier writing, but modified some of its judgements in the light of subsequent events. Panikkar reiterated here some of his ideas on the role of the sea in Indian history and in particular that the British conquest of India was radically different from all previous invasions precisely because it did 45 Panikkar, Geographical Factors in Indian History, 90. 46 Ivi, 71.

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not occur via land. According to Pannikar, throughout the period of conquest and occupation up to 1947, the invaders had not integrated into the conquered country but remained foreigners. The threats that could come from the sea were the most dangerous even for contemporary India and, in the face of them, the only real defence appeared to be internal reinforcement. The only practical remedy to this permanent geographical weakness of India, its exposed position in regard to powers operating from the sea, is the strength of her own internal political and economic structure. Of course the best and most effective reply is to develop our own naval power, strong enough to exercise control over the waters necessary to our defence. […] But even the development of naval strength postulates a strong central government having full control of the resources of the nation, a very high level of industrialisation, a political and economic integration of the country, which would overcome the internal contradictions present in our society, an advancement in scientific research and technical application of such research as would rise us to the level of a powerful state.47

The internal cohesion Panikkar spoke of could not be achieved without a more solid social structure. He dealt with this issue in Hindu Society at Cross Roads, which took up many chapters from his Hinduism and the Modern World (1938). Panikkar reiterated his historical analysis of a defensive, closed and stiffened Hinduism. Reforms had lacked the support of a state and they had been sectarian and local. This situation had, however, disappeared with independence when the state had finally been able to sanction the changes that had taken place in society with legislative interventions.48 The absence of a national authority with powers to legislate for the vast majority of Hindus has now been remedied. For the first time in history, there is now in India an authority created by the people themselves, which

47 Ivi, 97–98. 48 See comments in Ramesh Chandra Majumdar, ‘Reviews and Notices. Indian

Doctrines of Politics by K. M. Panikkar’, India Quarterly, 12: 3, 1956, 349–50 and Richard Park, ‘Hindu Society at Cross Roads by K. M. Panikkar’, The Journal of Asian Studies, 16: 3, 1957, 462–4.

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has not only affirmed its right to legislate for the Hindus but is able to exact obedience. The Constitution of India […] not only has assumed but has proclaimed in the clearest terms its right and duty to legislate for social needs. […] What the legislature is unconsciously seeking to do is to convert the unorganised masses of Hindus into a single community.49

Panikkar argued that in India, as opposed to a country like Turkey where changes were imposed by force, a new social consciousness had already developed in the population. It was simply a matter of giving it a legislative sanction that would confer it uniformity and stability. The reasons for these changes, in addition to those already identified in the 1930s, were traced back to new and powerful factors: democracy, secularisation, the spread of communist ideology and industrialisation. The democratic system, mass participation in political activity, and universal suffrage had integrated the Hindu population and undermined the very principles on which an institution such as the caste system was founded.50 The constitution had abolished untouchability and, even though practices and certain social restrictions remained widespread, there were now legislative means to combat them: the awakening of the dalits themselves would finally put an end to them.51 Independence had also sanctioned the new role conquered by women in the course of nationalist struggles: awakened by Gandhi’s direct appeal to them, they had become, after 1947, governors, ministers and ambassadors. When independence was achieved the position that women occupied in India’s political and social life came as a surprise to the outside world accustomed to think of Hindu women, as being backward, uneducated and held down by a reactionary social order. […] But the significant thing in India is not the distinction achieved by a few women of genius but the change that has taken place in the villages, in the rural areas, among classes and castes, so far considered orthodox or backward, where also women

49 Panikkar, Hindu Society at Cross Roads, 57. 50 Ivi, 71. 51 Ivi, 29–30.

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have been released in a very great measure from the social bondage that custom and conservatism had imposed on them.52

Communist ideology, by advocating a classless society, had also posed a further challenge. This is one of the attractions of Communism to young and radical minds, which see that no other system repudiates so uncompromisingly the social principles against which they are in revolt.53

It was, therefore, modern life itself that made reform necessary: industrialisation would bring about the organisation of workers, the decadence of traditional occupations; scientific knowledge would challenge many beliefs. Overall, Panikkar was very optimistic about Hindu society’s ability to renew itself. The challenges of the modern world made it imperative that Hindus finally integrate into a single community, beyond caste, sectarian and local divisions. This, for Panikkar, was the necessary precondition for the nation to find itself. The question remained, however, as to what would remain of Hinduism once such a radical reform had been undertaken. Indeed, in the 1930s, Panikkar had stated that much of what was considered distinctive about Hindu society was destined to disappear in the face of the demands of modernity.54 However, he had not asked himself what would guarantee continuity—a fundamental element of his analyses of Indian history and culture—once Hindu social organisation had taken on a new form. If anything, it remained implicit that Hindu tradition and culture would maintain that continuity that would allow Hinduism to remain a founding and central element of the nation. Instead, Panikkar now recovered another element, indicative of a new interest and sensibility: the religious aspect, previously totally absent. Once the social organisation had disappeared, continuity would be guaranteed by the Hindu religion with its internal (i.e. philosophical) and external aspects (i.e. cults, rituals, ethics and norms of behaviour). The role and definition of Hinduism would thus be complicated by new reflections, which would place Panikkar in an autonomous and peculiar position 52 Ivi, 40. 53 Ivi, 74. 54 Panikkar, Hinduism & the Modern World, 66.

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with respect to the traditional secularism of the Congress. Nehru himself would be astonished by this development, continuing to believe that in India’s future, the religious factor would be irrelevant to cohesion.55 In the mid-1950s, therefore, as the internal dangers of disintegration and threats from outside seemed to be intensifying for Panikkar, he increasingly felt two needs: on the one hand, greater integration and the defence of unity seemed indispensable to him, and, on the other, renewal was necessary in order to face modernity. At the end of 1956, after the conclusion of the States’ Reorganisation Commission, Panikkar was given his last diplomatic assignment as ambassador to France. This was a prestigious position, but it did not really entail great responsibility and did not offer the possibility of influencing Indian foreign policy. Above all, his role as Nehru’s advisor in international policy matters had diminished. One hypothesis as to the reasons for this was that Nehru had disliked the role played by Panikkar in the work of the States’ Reorganisation Commission. The latter had, in fact, added his own dissenting note to the Commission’s conclusions in which, referring to the precedents of the United States, the Bismarckian Reich and the USSR, he proposed the division of Uttar Pradesh, Nehru’s home state, into two parts to prevent it from remaining too large in relation to the others.56 This aspect of the issue should probably not be overemphasised. Bearing in mind that someone as influential as Subimal Dutt would have preferred to get rid of Panikkar already after the end of his tenure in Egypt and insisted with Nehru that he should not be employed in diplomatic roles again, the Prime Minister would not have lacked leverage if he had wanted to exclude him from Indian foreign policy.57 Michael Brecher’s conclusion, instead, which linked the rapid decline of Panikkar’s influence to the rise of Krishna Menon as Nehru’s most trusted advisor in this field, seems more apt.58 55 ‘Report of Interview to Nehru’, 19 November 1963, SWJN , s. 2 vol. 84, (New Delhi: Nehru Memorial Fund, 2019), 7–11. 56 Report of the States’ Reorganisation Commission, 1955, 244–52. 57 See Das Gupta, Serving India, 234. 58 Brecher, Nehru, 572. It might be noteworthy that both Menon and Panikkar were Mephistophelean characters in Western eyes, as well as that both men, when young, found in their editorial work the connection point between a protean political thought and active political action. See Ian Hall, ‘“Mephistopheles in a Saville Row suit”: V. K. Krishna

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Indeed, unlike in the Chinese, Korean and Tibetan affairs, where Panikkar had remained an influential voice even after leaving Beijing, it is remarkable that Krishna Menon was the key person in the management of the Suez crisis, which nevertheless represented an important and delicate moment in India’s non-alignment policy and its complex management of relations with the Arab world.59 Panikkar, who had been directly involved in the Anglo-Egyptian disputes and who was supposed to represent India in one of the countries directly involved in the crisis, seems to have had no relevant role. He recounts that he was supposed to leave for Paris in October 1956, but that Nehru decided to delay his departure so that he arrived in France in early December when the crisis was over. Significantly, he does not mention the Suez events or the reasons for the delayed departure, speaking instead of personal and family matters.60 Similarly, Krishna Menon played a role in negotiating the treaty of cession of the French colonial enclaves in India in 1954. When Panikkar arrived in Paris, the treaty had already been signed about six months before. Ratification by the French Parliament would have had to wait until the end of the Algerian War of Independence, but at least at the level of intergovernmental relations the issue did not present difficulties.61 Panikkar described his three years in France between 1956 and 1959 as follows:

Menon and the West’, in Id. (ed.), Radicals and Reactionaries in Twentieth-Century International Thought, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 191–216, and Jack Bowman, ‘The Early Political Thought and Publishing Career of V. K. Krishna Menon, 1928–1938’, The Historical Journal, 66: 3, 2023, 641–665. 59 See Guy Laron, Origins of the Suez Crisis. Postwar Development Diplomacy and the Struggle Over Third World Industrialization, 1945–1956, (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 2013), 154–84; Magali Grolleau, ‘L’Inde et la crise de Suez’, Guerres mondiales et conflits contemporains, 243, 2011, 73–92; Sarvepalli Gopal, ‘India, the Crisis, and the Non-Aligned Nations, in William Louis - Roger Owen (eds.), Suez 1956. The Crisis and Its Consequences, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), 173–88. See also Jairam Ramesh, A Chequered Brilliance. The Many Lives of V. K. Krishna Menon, (New Delhi: Penguin Random House India, 2019), 354–60. 60 Panikkar, An Autobiography, 313–4. 61 See Jean-Baptiste Preshant More, Towards Freedom in Pondicherry. Society, Economy

and Politics under French Rule (1816–1962), (London: Routledge, 2023) and Jessica Namakkal, Unsettling Utopia. The Making and Unmaking of French India, (New York: Columbia University Press, 2021).

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At that time, France had practically no ties with India. […] My main duty was to arrange for purchase of arms and military aircraft, which was done by specialists and needed only my formal supervision. In the field of commerce also, there was a specialist to attend to details. All told my impression was that notwithstanding his prestige, the Paris embassy was a comparatively easy post.62

Excluding, therefore, ‘technical’ matters such as the purchase of fighter planes from the French Dassault, Panikkar’s most important ‘political’ contribution to Paris would have been to identify in advance the terminal nature of the crisis of the Fourth Republic caused by the Algerian war and to assess correctly De Gaulle’s subsequent return to power.63 This, moreover, without at least apparently playing a relevant role in defining the Indian position towards the Algerian question, which in the second half of the 1950s was becoming a further cause for tension with China.64 It was precisely the relations with China—which had been the highlight of Panikkar’s contribution to Indian foreign policy—that may have played a role in reducing his influence on the policy formulation. The years spent in Paris correspond to the marked deterioration of Sino-Indian bilateral relations and by 1959 the policy of friendship that had seen in Panikkar one of the most influential proponents was clearly in crisis. As tensions on the border grew and controversy began over the role played by the former ambassador in Beijing, it was perhaps inevitable that his influence would be greatly diminished. In 1959, Panikkar was forced to return to India due to health problems. For some time, he had already expressed a desire to abandon political life and devote himself to historical and literary interests. When the physicist Satyendra Nath Bose resigned from the upper house of the Indian Parliament, the Rajya Sabha, in July 1959, thus freeing up a seat, 62 Panikkar, An Autobiography, 314. 63 ‘Nehru to Panikkar’, 23 May 1958, SWJN , s. 2 vol. 42, (New Delhi: Nehru

Memorial Fund, 2010), 674–5. 64 ‘Note to Pillai and Dutt’, 27 October 1958, SWJN , s. 2 vol. 44, (New Delhi: Nehru Memorial Fund, 2012), 672–3. On India’s position regarding the Algerian war and the latter’s effects on China’s relationship with New Delhi, see Anton Harder, ‘Compradors, Neo-colonialism, and Transnational Class Struggle: PRC relations with Algeria and India, 1953–1965’, Modern Asian Studies, 55: 4, 2021, 1227–67 and Jeffrey Byrne, Mecca of Revolution. Algeria, Decolonization, and the Third World Order, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).

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Nehru accommodated Panikkar’s wish by proposing to the President of India that he be appointed as a scholar in the Malayalam language. When his health improved, he returned to full-time academic life.65

6.2

The Scholar’s Last Years

Already in the Parisian period, therefore, Panikkar devoted himself above all to studies, with the continuation of the revision work he had begun and, in particular, the development of themes related to the history of civilisation. From history understood according to the paradigm of civilisation, Panikkar was in fact moving towards the conception of a history of different civilisations in their reciprocal relationships and influences. Through this interpretative lens, he returned to analysing Sino-Indian relations and formulated an original reading of the problems of decolonisation. On the one hand, by further re-evaluating the historical contribution of the West, he eschewed any Third Worldist radicalism; on the other, by emphasising the peculiarly ‘synthetic’ character of Indian civilisation, he singled out India as a point of reference for countries of recent or very recent independence. India and China. A Study in Cultural Relations, published in 1957, took up some of the styles of pan-Asianism of the inter-war period at a time when bilateral relations were seriously deteriorating.66 Panikkar analysed the cultural contacts between the two countries in ancient times, the main fruit of which was—in his opinion—the spread of Buddhism between the first and eighth centuries AD. The fruitful meeting of the two civilisations had then been interrupted by Islamic expansion, which had blocked the communication routes through Central Asia, and by the decline of Buddhism in India, which had reduced Chinese interest in the

65 ‘Nehru to V.L. Pandit’, 5 July 1958, SWJN , s. 2 vol. 43, (New Delhi: Nehru Memorial Fund, 2011), 405–6. ‘Nehru to R. Prasad’, 15 August 1959, SWJN , s. 2 vol. 51, (New Delhi: Nehru Memorial Fund, 2014), 209. On the importance of literary activity for Panikkar since his stay in Oxford and his relevance for the Malayalam literature see P.K. Parameswaran Nair, History of the Malayalam Literature, (New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 1967), 226–7 and Karimpumannil Mathai George, A Survey of Malayalam Literature, (Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1968), 201–20. 66 K.M. Panikkar, India and China. A Study of Cultural Relations, (Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1957). On the reception of the book in the West, see James Bunyan Parsons, ‘India and China: A Study of Cultural Relations by K. M. Panikkar’, The Journal of Asian Studies, 17: 3, 1958, 462–4.

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country. Panikkar remained convinced, however, that ancient exchanges had created a common sensibility that could positively influence relations between the two countries even in contemporary times. Intimate religious, cultural and social relations existed between the two major civilizations of Asia for a period of nearly fifteen hundred years. For nearly a thousand years, from the first century B. C. to the tenth century A. D., it was one of the major facts of the world’s cultural history. Its importance in shaping the mind of East Asia, including Japan, Korea and Mongolia, is something which cannot be overrated. It created an Asian mind, a community of ideas, beliefs and traditions which even today give to non-Islamic Asia a basic unity, the importance of which is only now being recognized.67

Certainly, the basis of this ‘Asian mind’ remained rather narrow. Moreover, the cultural exchange described ended up being reduced to a one-way motion in which the influence went from India to China. Panikkar manifested a certain pride in this expansive force of Indian culture but, on the other hand, he felt the need to affirm that there must also have been a process in the opposite direction, of which he gave no examples. If, therefore, civilisations could not be impervious to each other, their contacts seemed to Panikkar to be always fruitful. This conviction was strongly reiterated when dealing with the relations between India and Europe. The role of the West had always been central to Panikkar’s analyses from his earliest writings. It had increasingly appeared to him as a modernising element. Now, in the second half of the 1950s, through the instrument of the history of civilisations, he took a further step. It was no longer just a matter of recognising the positive contributions from outside. Modern India appeared to him as a true cultural synthesis, the result of the encounter between the millenary culture of the subcontinent and the new ideas brought from the West. The reformers—Ram Mohan Roy and the Brahmo Samaj, Ramakrishna, Swami Dayananda and the Arya Samaj—had revised the Hindu tradition in the light of new ideas and made it capable of facing the modern world. Any sense of cultural inferiority had been overcome.68 67 Ivi, 65–6. 68 K.M. Panikkar, L’Inde et l’Occident. Quatre conférences, (Paris: Mouton, 1958).

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Panikkar now unhesitatingly affirmed his belief in the importance of the new system of teaching and the use of English as an all-India means of communication and the value of the new ideas that had come from Europe in the development of Indian nationalism itself.69 These factors were considered, by Panikkar, so important that he designated 1835, the year of the introduction of the Western system of education, as the turning point for modern India. Le système d’enseignement, tel qu’il fut introduit dans l’Inde en 1835, constitua un facteur qui contribua à provoquer une révolution de la pensée et de la société. Par sa nature même, il introduisit de nouveaux éléments de dissolution dans la société indienne; il donna naissance à un esprit qui remit tout en question; il fournit de nouveaux systèmes sociaux et intellectuels. Ainsi le système d’enseignement indien avait un coté révolutionnaire […].70

The entire national movement, from the founding of the Congress, to the recovery of the Hindu tradition with Tilak, to the rise of Gandhi and up to independence and the new constitution, had been characterised by this dialectics between tradition and modernisation inspired in large part by Western ideas. Panikkar concluded that India had emerged from this contact as a new civilisation, born out of synthesis. What enabled him to safeguard the need for the continuity of civilisation was the new definition he gave of Hinduism. India had not denied itself because the ability to integrate different elements and assimilate new ideas was part of its tradition and identity. Cette grande Rencontre de l’Orient et de l’Occident peut apparaître comme un grand processus de fertilisation qui a contribué à donner une vie nouvelle à un people très ancien, à le transformer et à créer une civilisation neuve et dynamique à partir de son passé. C’est la force inhérente à l’Hindouisme et à la civilisation indienne qui permit aux Indiens d’adopter et d’assimiler les idées nouvelles que leur avait apportées le contact avec l’Occident. De même, ce furent la portée et la valeur des idées, les objectifs sociaux, l’optique scientifique et les conceptions économique de l’Occident

69 K.M. Panikkar, ‘The Indian Version’, The National and English Review, 150, 1958,

194. 70 Panikkar, L’Inde et l’Occident, 44.

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qui contribuèrent à réaliser cette transformation. Nous sommes actuellement témoins dans l’Inde de la naissance d’une civilisation nouvelle, qui enfonce certes racines solides dans son propre passé mais qui est rénovée et modifiée par l’Occident, d’une synthèse qui devrait être valable pour l’ensemble du monde.71

This deep contact with the West gave India a special position in the group of African and Asian countries that had recently gained their independence. They faced similar problems: rebuilding their administrations, reforming their education systems, modernising their economies and keeping up with the latest science and technology. India was an exception because it was in a comparatively stronger position: it had a ramified administration and a large, educated class; it had embarked on economic development plans that could rely on a more advanced education system than many Afro-Asian countries.72 The Indian example could thus be essential for the choice of form of government. Many of the new states, once they had gained independence, had opted for democratic-type institutions. Often, however, these had not found fertile ground and could not be maintained because they were not rooted in the local culture.73 For democracy to be maintained, Panikkar considered a series of requirements concerning society, the mentality of the population and political development to be indispensable: majority decisions had to be accepted; opposition had to be able to express itself; the democratic process had to function at all levels and, above all, at the local level; democracy had to be nurtured with ideas through a continuous process of intellectual production. This last point was essential because, without an autonomous reflection on the needs and conditions in each country, democracy remained only an allogenic institution ready to degenerate into dictatorship.74 Only India seemed to Panikkar to be able to remain democratic due to its prolonged contact with Western ideas and its long process of

71 Ivi, 57. 72 K.M. Panikkar, The Afro-Asian States and Their Problems, (London: Allen & Unwin,

1959). 73 Ivi, 15. 74 Ivi, 27.

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social reform. The new states, therefore, should have followed the Indian example to renew their traditions. Where the newly independent country has opted for a democratic way of life, social changes become inevitable as the normal values of traditional society conflict with democratic values. Equality, individual freedom, equal status for women, protection of less advanced sections of society and similar conception are essential to a democratic way of life, and these are not always provided for in traditional societies.75

These reflections and his presence in Paris as ambassador enabled Panikkar to play a major role in one of UNESCO’s most challenging undertakings, the Project for a History of the Scientific and Cultural Development of Mankind.76 The project had had a long and troubled gestation. The original inspiration came from the British biochemist Joseph Needham, who, on the basis of his studies on the history of science and technology in China, had concluded that the most important vector for historical change was cultural interchange. Recognition of the Chinese origin of a great heritage of knowledge was considered an important contribution to international understanding: awareness of cultural interchange in a historical perspective would convey a new universalism characterised by the cooperation of all components of humanity.77 More specifically, as Needham points out in his review of Asia and Western Dominance, discovering the universal value of modern science, produced by these interchanges, would have provided a common ground for a new encounter between a resurgent Asia and a Europe abandoning its illusions of superiority.78 Scientific and cultural development could thus have been a key that would have made it possible to abandon positivistic hierarchisations and 75 Ivi, 84. 76 On UNESCO’s role in promoting a culture of peace, see Thomas Nygren,

‘UNESCO Teaches History: Implementing International Understanding in Sweden’, in Poul Duedahl (ed.), A History of UNESCO. Global Actions and Impacts, (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 201–30 and Aigul Kulnazarova, ‘UNESCO’s Role in East Asian Reconciliation: Post-war Japan and International Understanding’, ivi, 256–75. 77 Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China vol. 1: Introductory Orientations, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1954), 8–9. 78 Joseph Needham, ‘Asia and Western Dominance by K.M. Panikkar’, Cambridge Left, 1, 1954, 15–6.

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to produce a world history centred on the relations between civilisations, overcoming the cumbersome work of Arnold Toynbee. However, when UNESCO created an ad hoc international commission in December 1950, the American historian Ralph Turner, while maintaining the perspective of cultural interchanges, succeeded in hinging the plan of the work on a holistic chronological development line. The remonstrances of the French scholars linked to the Annales school, opposed to a perspective that proposed the ‘Atlantic civilisation’ as the climax of human history, were silenced by entrusting Lucien Febvre with the direction of the Cahiers d’histoire mondiale, the journal that was to serve as a forge for the preparation of the six-volume work. The Commission also accepted another of Turner’s ideas: in order to avoid national prejudices, the responsibility for the individual volumes would be entrusted to scholars who were experts in epochs that did not coincide with the heyday of their civilisation. Thus, the sixth volume devoted to the twentieth century was to be assigned to an Indian scholar.79 Panikkar’s involvement followed a rather tortuous path. In 1954, the Commission decided that, to further dilute a possible national perspective, the volume would be jointly assigned to an American, a European and an Indian scholar.80 The choice of the first two was relatively easy, falling on Caroline Ware as author-editor and Jan Romein as co-authoreditor. The former, in addition to her commitment to the New Deal, had edited an important volume in which she proposed to American historiography to shift the focus from political-institutional history to social realities, employing the category of ‘culture’ to give historical and human depth to social and economic institutions.81 Romein, at that time engaged in reflection on the discipline of history, had had an important teaching experience in newly independent Indonesia. It had served as the starting

79 Poul Duedahl, ‘Selling Mankind: UNESCO and the Invention of Global History,

1945–1976’, Journal of World History, 22: 1, 2011, 101–33. 80 ‘Mémorandum de Carneiro’, 13 April 1954, AG 8-SEC-SCHM1-2–83.24, UNESCO Archives, Paris (hereafter UNESCO). 81 Caroline Ware (ed.), The Cultural Approach to History, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1940). See Ellen Fitzpatrick, ‘Caroline F. Ware and the Cultural Approach to History’, American Quarterly, 43: 2, 1991, 173–98.

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point for a study on nationalism in Asia, later translated into English with a preface by Panikkar.82 The other position of co-author-editor was to be held by Kuruvila Zachariah, a Christian from Kerala who had held various posts in the Indian Educational Service after the First World War. At that time, he was a historical advisor to the Indian representation in London, but he died a year later.83 In his place, a scholar of ancient India, Anant Sadashiv Altekar, was chosen, but the Commission’s vice-chairman, Indian historian Ramesh Chandra Majumdar, pointed out that he was not the right person in terms of expertise and interest. The alternatives proposed by Majumdar, however, were featherweights and the choice finally fell on Panikkar.84 Significantly, the offer was made to him by Carl Burckhardt, author of an important biography on Richelieu and who had had a career between history and diplomacy in some ways similar to his own. It is in this last volume that the great ascendency of the Oriental peoples and the highly significant part they play in the modern world must be discussed, and it is this important task which the Commission would like to entrust you. […] It is felt by all members of the Commission that with your knowledge of the East as well as the West, your experience in current affairs, and your view on the present course of mankind, your active collaboration in this project would allow [to present] an original and balanced view of the course of human thought and culture in the twentieth century.85

Panikkar’s commitment was considerable and not limited to the volume he was commissioned to write. The breadth and depth of his historical reflections, as well as his vast network of contacts, allowed

82 Jan Romein, The Asian Century: A History of Modern Nationalism in Asia, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1962). See André Otto, Het ruisen van de tijd. De theoretische geschiedenis van Jan Romein, (Amsterdam: Stichting Beheer HSG, 1998). 83 ‘Mémorandum de Carneiro’, 16 April 1954, AG 8-SEC-SCHM1-2–83.24, UNESCO. For biographical sketches of Zachariah’s early life, see Sumita Mukherjee, Nationalism, Education and Migrant Identities. The England-returned, (London: Routledge, 2010), 117–8. 84 ‘Mémorandum de Métraux’, 1 September 1954 and ‘Majumdar to Métraux’, 8 September 1954, AG 8-SEC-SCHM1-2–83.24, UNESCO. 85 ‘Burckhardt to Panikkar’, 15 November 1954, AG 8-SEC-SCHM1-2-83.24, UNESCO.

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him to intervene on a chronological span starting from the ancient age, although the most articulate suggestions focused on the period of the mid-modern age. These contributions were organised around two poles: on the one hand, the refutation of Eurocentrism; on the other, the reproposition of certain typical themes such as the inconsistency of the Portuguese territorial projection or the irreducibility of India to the history of the Indo-Gangetic plain to the detriment of the south, where Hinduism would have been able to reorganise itself in an increasingly ‘national’ perspective.86 Even in the mammoth text of the volume, one can clearly discern contributions that drew from the conclusions of the historical reflection of this last phase of his life. Speaking of untouchability, for instance, he reiterated the interpretation that the creation of an independent Indian nation-state had given homogeneity and legal sanction to developments that had already matured within society since the reform of Hinduism.87 India was put forward as a prime example of those peoples who had strived for the recognition and integrity of their own culture, but again the central theme of Panikkar’s history of civilisations was reaffirmed, namely how the new dynamism of the Indian one had derived from its fertile encounter with the West. The rediscovery and reassertion of Indian culture and its dynamic integration with ideas derived from the West was the fruit of interactions during the nineteenth century of European scholarship, British administration and the work of Indian scholars, religious figures and practical leaders. […] It was the inherent strength and flexibility of Indian civilization that permitted the adoption and assimilation of ideas coming from the West. And it was the force and the value of the ideas, social objectives, scientific outlook and economic conceptions of the West which played a part in bringing about the transformation of the Indian outlook.88

86 ‘Panikkar to Métraux’, 22 February 1955, 13 June 1955 and 19 April 1961; ‘Panikkar to Carneiro’, 3 June 1957, AG 8-SEC-SCHM1-2-83.24, UNESCO. 87 Caroline Ware - K.M. Panikkar - J.M. Romein, History of Mankind. Cultural and Scientific Development, vol. VI: The Twentieth Century, (New York: Harper & Row: 1966), 1181–4. 88 Ivi, 1052, 1058.

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The life of the project was very troubled. The Soviet decision to take part in the activity of UNESCO resulted in a belated and suffocating demand for revisions by scholars from beyond the Iron Curtain, aimed essentially at pointing out the methodological incorrectness of any approach that did not employ the categories of historical materialism and, moreover, at giving greater prominence to the scientific and technological progress of the communist world.89 The climax of this battle was obviously in the sixth volume, where criticism also converged from those who, like the economist Wilhelm Röpke or the historian Hans Kohn, contested the failure to use the category of ‘totalitarianism’, to which Soviet communism could also be ascribed, and from Catholic scholars opposed to categorising religion as a transient element in the processes of social transformation.90 The book was officially completed in April 1960, by which time the counter-arguments of the Soviets and other Eastern European scholars had reached a total of about 1000 pages.91 On more than one occasion, the three authors found themselves having to raise their voices in the face of the Commission’s tendency to search, somewhat bureaucratically, for a lowest common denominator, until it was decided to provide a second tome that was to represent the Soviet-corrected alternative to the original volume.92 Panikkar believed that it was precisely these controversies that would ensure the book’s strong impact on historiography.93 Unfortunately, it did not come out until 1966, when both Panikkar and Romein had

89 See Louis Porter, Cold War Internationalism: The USSR in UNESCO, 1945–1967 , Ph.D. dissertation, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2018), 363–80 and Ilya Gaiduk, ‘L’Union soviétique et l’UNESCO pendant la guerre froide’, in 60 ans d’historire de l’UNESCO, (Paris: UNESCO, 2007), 281–5. 90 Ware- Panikkar - Romein, The Twentieth Century, XVII-XX and 37–8, notes no. 13,

14. 91 ‘Author-Editors of Vol. VI to the Bureaau’, 16 April 1960; ‘Ware to Huxley’, 29

April 1960, AG 8-SEC-SCHM1-2-83.23, UNESCO. 92 ‘Mémorandum de Perrenoud’, 7 June 1961; ‘Ware to Métraux’, 2 August 1965, AG 8-SEC-SCHM1-2-83.23, UNESCO. ‘Panikkar to Métraux’, 16 August 1960, AG 8-SEC-SCHM1-2-83.24, UNESCO. ‘Romein to Carneiro’, 20 July 1960, AG 8-SECSCHM1-2-83.25, UNESCO. 93 ‘Panikkar to Métraux’, 20 March 1963, AG 8-SEC-SCHM1-2-83.24, UNESCO.

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long since died, and elicited unflattering reactions.94 The negative reviews probably focused too much on the anodyne character of many passages, the result of an excessively protracted negotiation aimed at finding a consensus that was difficult to achieve in the ideological climate of the Cold War, while glossing over the book’s innovative aspects in terms of approach and structure.95 After 1960, Panikkar would devote himself exclusively to his studies, as a Malayalam-language scholar at the Rajya Sabha and, from 1961, as vicechancellor first of the University of Kashmir and then of the University of Mysore. These few intense years of activity saw him follow UNESCO events at a distance to devote himself, instead, to a final work of rethinking his scholarly production.96 These contributions on the one hand went back to addressing the category of nation, without however fully resolving the ambiguity generated by the conceptual tensions between the local and all-India levels of historical research. On the other hand, in the face of this difficulty, the now clearly delineated solution was that of the civilisation point of view, which simultaneously allowed for an appreciation of the heteronymy of cultural contributions to Indian history and the identification of a solid element of continuity in Hindu philosophy and religion. In Problems of Indian Defence, the starting point was the importance of technology as a military factor and the fundamental historical contribution represented by the imperial experience for the definition of a strategic vision in Indian foreign policy. An integrated conception of the defence of India, and a doctrine of Indian defence supported by a consistent foreign policy are among the two major contributions of Britain to the Indian people. Britain conceived the defence of India as a continental system. It was the strategic area around the Indian subcontinent that became the centre of Britain’s interest in safeguarding the territorial integrity of India. Any threat to India’s borders 94 See, for example, William McNeill, ‘The Twentieth Century’, The American Historical Review, 73: 5, 1968, 1479–80. 95 See Jürgen Osterhammel, ‘World History’, in Axel Schneider - Daniel Woolf (eds.), The Oxford History of Historical Writing vol. 5: Historical Writings Since 1945, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 103. 96 ‘Ware to Métraux’, 13 January 1960 and 15 June 1965, AG 8-SEC-SCHM1-283.23, UNESCO. ‘Nehru to B.G. Reddy’, 14 April 1961, SWJN , s. 2 vol. 68, (New Delhi: Nerhu Memorial Fund, 2016), 401.

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from anywhere, Britain planned to meet halfway, unlike the Indian rulers of Delhi who fought their major battles at Panipat far in the interior of India.97

Independent India, however, could not, in Panikkar’s view, be based on this legacy alone. There were new problems, generated by the withdrawal of British naval power from the Indian Ocean and the manifest impossibility of organising a common regional defence with Pakistan, which he had still thought feasible in the 1940s. Above all, Panikkar again insisted that the Himalayan region had become a live frontier for the first time in history following the Chinese revolution and the PRC’s policy towards Tibet.98 Faced with these threats, Panikkar’s response was that India had to strengthen itself internally, both by modernising its society and economy and by consolidating its national cohesion. There must be the sense of belonging to a community, the conception of a motherland, which is worthy of every sacrifice, a sound integration which makes each group feel itself a part of a wider whole. In India broadly speaking, these factors had never been conspicuously present in many parts in the past and the basic weakness of her defence could at all times be traced to this.99

Fortunately, according to Panikkar, contemporary India had developed its own cohesion, based no longer only on the historical heritage of its civilisation, but also on the new feeling of belonging to a democratic society. We are united in a democratic structure where each part of the country has an equal and honoured place. […] For the first time India is united not merely by a sense of the unity of her culture and civilization, but of the rights and privileges of her people, by the common effort towards her greatness, by the interdependence of her different areas for their own

97 K.M. Panikkar, Problems of Indian Defence, (London and Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1960), 23. 98 Ivi, 41–2. 99 Ivi, 76.

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economic welfare and for the prosperity of the whole. […] It is an egalitarian society that India today represents. […] Everyone, therefore, has an equal interest in the defence of the country.100

Political unity, laws, democratic structures and citizens’ rights were thus the new cohesive elements of contemporary India as a secular state. At the same time, the heart of Indian culture and of the nation itself remained Hinduism.101 India was therefore intact and had to cultivate this integrity, without seeking shortcuts through heterodirected and, as such, fictitious forms of cohesion. For this reason, in 1962 Panikkar refused to collaborate with the Committee on Emotional Integration, an initiative aimed at finding ways through which education could make Indians’ sense of national belonging more emotionally homogenous.102 Panikkar was the only vicechancellor in the country who did not want to be involved, causing no small amount of scandal and regret, but his inherent horror of homogeneity was combined here with a strongly negative judgement on the appropriateness of the operation.103 Panikkar also returned to local history in these years, publishing A History of Kerala in 1960.104 Precisely by dealing with his homeland, he showed the difficulty of translating into practice the principle that every local history should be seen as part of a broader national history. The first two parts of this text took up, without modification, the two books Malabar and the Portuguese and Malabar and the Dutch. The third part, on the other hand, aimed to examine the later period, thus analysing the attempts made by the rulers of Mysore—first Hydar Ali and then Tipu Sultan—to conquer the region until the establishment of British 100 Ivi, 80–81. 101 Ivi, 101. These conclusions actually overtake and supersede the standard narrative of

Indian nationalist historiography in the 1920s and 1930s. For an overview of the latter, see Gyan Prakash, ‘Writing Post-Orientalist Histories of the Third World: Perspectives from Indian Historiography’, in Vinayak Chaturvedi, Mapping Subaltern Studies and the Postcolonial, (London: Verso, 2000), 163–87. 102 Report of the Committee on Emotional Integration, (New Delhi: The Manager of Publications, 1962). 103 ‘Sampurnanand to Nehru’, 17 June 1962, SWJN , s. 2 vol. 77, (New Delhi: Nehru Memorial Fund, 2018), 812–3. 104 K.M. Panikkar, A History of Kerala, 1498–1801, (Annamalainagar: Annamalai University, 1960).

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hegemony. Panikkar, however, presented the story from the Kerala point of view, describing these attempts as foreign invasions against which an identity defence had arisen. The local rulers, in fact, despite the constant wars that pitted them against each other, had, according to Panikkar, demonstrated solidarity in the face of the invader, indicative of a feeling of common identity. For example, the princes of Malabar offered to pay Hydar Ali so that the Zamorin dynasty of Calicut could be reinstalled, including the Raja of Travancore who had refused to pay tribute in the past.105 The most important reason for these princes to offer to pay for Panikkar was cultural: Hydar Ali was a foreigner who challenged the structure of Kerala’s political system, annexing the territories of vanquished enemies instead of subjugating them by imposing his own suzerainty, as was the local tradition. Moreover, Panikkar interpreted these events through his ideas on social reform and modernisation. Thus Hydar Ali and Tipu Sultan were primarily Muslim rulers who had clashed with the peculiar Malabar social system, which they considered particularly scandalous. Their mistake, however, according to the author, was that they wanted to impose reforms by force, trying to coerce the nairs into abandoning the matrilineal system. Rather than accept this imposition, the nairs fled to the mountains or sought asylum with the Raja of Travancore, preventing the consolidation of Mysore rule.106 The same ambiguous concept of nationality can be found in the eulogy of the Dewan of Travancore, described as the greatest political figure of the time as he realised that effective power had passed to the British and that, in order to fight against Tipu, it was essential to ally with the East India Company. Panikkar seems here to gloss over the fact that, in order to avoid domination by an Indian from another region, the Travancore had entered into a subordinate alliance with the British. Rather, he emphasised that the defeat of the Mysore rulers had not safeguarded nair society which, deprived of political power, was reduced to the position of a landowning class. Apparently modernisation was unstoppable.

105 Ivi, 337. 106 Ivi, 396–397.

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The ancien régime ended and it was a new society, based no doubt on the old, but all the same on new principles of land holding and legal rights that took its place.107

Panikkar’s last books, written in the year of his death, developed the trends already encountered. The philosophical and religious categories of Hindu thought were assuming greater importance, within the framework of a further accentuation of Hinduism as an element of continuity in Indian history and as a distinctive and characterising factor of national identity. Significantly, therefore, some of these texts were published by Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, the organisation founded by Kanaiyalal Maneklal Munshi to promote Hindu values and culture. This was in fact the same publisher as The History and Culture of the Indian People, the series directed by Majumdar that had formulated a different and alternative model of Indian-ness to the secular and multicultural one proposed by Nehru.108 On the other hand, the criterion of the history of civilisations allowed Panikkar to continue to value external contacts and influences in his country’s culture. In The Determining Periods of Indian History, Panikkar proposed an analysis of three centuries that he believed had marked essential turning points. These were the integration of the Hindu people, the resistance to Islam and the encounter with the West. The century in which the integration of the Hindu people was completed was considered to be the one between 350 B.C. and 250 B.C.: with the Maurya empire, a unitary political and administrative system had evolved for the first time. At the same time, the Aryan culture had penetrated the south. The second essential period indicated was the period between 1330 and 1430 in which India—the Rajput kingdoms in the north and the Vijayanagar empire in the south—had faced the challenge of Islam. The last period was the nineteenth century, in which the defining event had been the encounter with the West, from which Hinduism had emerged reformed and ready to face modernity.109

107 Ivi, 411. 108 Vinay Lal, The History of History: Politics and Scholarship in Modern India, (New

Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005), 91–7. 109 K.M. Panikkar, The Determining Periods of Indian History, (Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1962).

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Hinduism was certainly the guiding thread here, as the history of India coincided with that of the Hindu people, and the defining moments were those in which it had overcome internal or external challenges to strengthen itself and reaffirm its identity. The basic fact in respect of Indian history is the continuity of the Hindu people since the time of their first integration the continuity is one of the marvels of history. Excepting China and to some extent Persia, in no country has a people had so unbroken an existence, an existence which gives to their history in social, religious, political and artistic spheres a unity which is truly remarkable. In each one of these spheres Hindu life remains today a development and a continuation of what it was when the Hindus were first integrate into a people.110

The comparison with China thus went on to enrich Panikkar’s thinking even in this last period. Both in India and in China, external pressures have not led to serious demographic displacement. They have therefore emerged from foreign conquest with their identity unaffected and their integration strengthened. It is these ages, when they were able to strengthen their integration, reorganize their ideas and re-emphasise their identity, that constitute the determining ages of their histories.111

If the encounter with the West continued to be considered fruitful, the accentuated focus on Hinduism in the last years of his life was reflected in a recovery of interpretative categories typical of traditional Indian thought. These were not just typically religious ideas, but rather philosophical principles and intellectual traditions. Panikkar expressed the conviction that they could prove suitable for the analysis of the modern world and that the country’s intellectuals should place them at the centre of their reflections. The Ideas of Sovereignty and State in Indian Political Thought was devoted precisely to recovering the Indian intellectual heritage in a field dominated by Western categories. It took up, to a large extent, Origin and Evolution of Kingship in India of 1938, following its analysis with a

110 Ivi, 3. 111 Ivi, 4.

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few modifications. However, what was then described as a Hindu tradition was now reclaimed by defining it as ‘Indian’. Panikkar argued that theoretical reflection on the state and its powers had come to a halt due to the absence of political authority, but was somewhat ambiguous as to when this had ceased. The fact also remained that, despite his insistence on the modernity of Indian political thought, the author admitted that the state created at independence was based on Western conceptions.112 Nevertheless, it seemed to him that some aspects of ancient political thought were still relevant and survived in contemporary India: the importance of administration, state intervention in the economy, and the system of local self-government at the village level known as panchayati raj. These elements could thus provide new stimuli for developing a new political theory based on local life and conditions. The recovery of the Indian—or Hindu—tradition thus became above all an invitation to reflect on the new problems proposed by the contemporary world, so that Indian theorists could return to the vanguard and contribute in an original way to the analysis of the problems of the state.113 The recovery of categories of traditional thought, the accentuated centrality of Hinduism, but also the recognition and appreciation of external—especially Western—contributions also characterised the book Essential Features of Indian Culture. The idea that Hinduism was a static, pessimistic religion that was irreconcilable with modern life appeared to Panikkar to be the result of misinterpretations that he set out to refute by resorting to categories typical of Hindu thought. The Hinduism that the book again placed at the centre of Indian identity was in fact a religion that was tolerant and capable of integrating different elements by making them its own.114 The result of this tolerance has been to add to the richness and variety of Indian life. The Hindu religion provides perhaps the best illustration of this fact. While the basic tenets and even the outward forms of this great religion have remained unchanged through many centuries, the interplay of force generated by the toleration of other religions has led to a continuous

112 K.M. Panikkar, The Ideas of Sovereignty and State in Indian Political Thought, (Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1963). 113 Ivi, 101–6. 114 K.M. Panikkar, Essential Features of Indian Culture, (Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya

Bhavan, 1964).

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re-interpretation of its doctrines and a readjustment of its approach to the problems of life.115

In recovering the ideas of tradition, Panikkar emphasised their modernity and invited Indian society to turn to the future—in this certainly unhindered by religion. You would all remember Macaulay’s ponderous satire about oceans of milk and oceans of honey as the extent of Hindu conceptions of geography. No doubt Indian mythology speaks of the milky ocean; but I have yet to come across someone who believed in its factual existence. […] Undoubtedly the Europeans and American world – except for a diminishing number of fundamentalists – do no try to test the scientific discoveries in the light of religious doctrines. That fortunately was the position at all times in India. While undoubtedly there was, over a long period, a lack of scientific interest in India and the scientific attitude could not be said to have been an aspect of Indian culture, it is undoubtedly true that the Indian mind provided no obstacles to the acceptance of new scientific discoveries.116

On the other hand, the value of tolerance and the ability to synthesise and integrate differences were especially expressed in those texts in which Panikkar continued to deal with contacts between India and other civilisations.117 However, a dualism was evident, between fruitful and fruitless contacts. Indeed, in his analysis of the relations between civilisations, Panikkar overshadowed the centuries-old contact between Hinduism and Islam. He went so far as to state that the Muslim influence had not been so decisive: even when they had seized political power, the Muslim conquerors did not have a more advanced culture; the economic structure of the country had not been changed; the defensive Hindu society had even become more rigid. It had been more of a coexistence than a fruitful synthesis. Very different, however, was his assessment of the relationship with the West.

115 Ivi, 6. 116 Ivi, 14–15. 117 K.M. Panikkar, Hinduism & the West; A Study in Challenge and Response, (Chandigarh: Punjab University Publication Bureau, 1964) and Id., Lectures on India’s Contact with the World in the Pre-British Period, (Nagpur: Nagpur University, 1964).

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The encounter between India and the West is something which is without parallel in history. The impact of Islam, starting with the invasions of Mohammed Ghori lasted for a longer period and in a measure is a continuing fact. But it has not had the same fundamental significance as the contact that India had with England. The dominance of Islam exercised in many parts of India was mainly political and military. Except for sporadic efforts at conversion, there were no attempt to challenge the religion, philosophy or social life of the Hindus. Their laws were left untouched. The Islamic State did not enforce an educational system. In fact the Hindus and Muslims lived as parallel societies.118

The challenge of the West had been, according to Panikkar, both secular and religious. In the secular realm, India had not only accepted, but assimilated the ideals of progress and equality. The Christian religion—he emphasised this again—had, however, been rejected. Hinduism had thus been able to emerge strengthened as the heart of a modern civilisation resulting from synthesis. The historic confrontation of two civilisations extended over 150 years ended peacefully in 1947, with the withdrawal of British power from India. Hinduism emerged triumphant, purged of its age-long accretions, strengthened by the assimilation of new ideas and purposes, its ideals universalised, and its social organisations modernised by an extensive overhauling of its laws. The honours of the encounter were not, however, wholly with Hinduism. Not only were many of the ideas for which Europe stood accepted and assimilated but what the French would call the presence occidental, that is the continuing influence of Europe in many spheres, is a mayor fact in contemporary Indian history. But with all that the Indian people have also shown that what they borrow they could assimilate and endow with specifically local character.119

118 Panikkar, Lectures on India’s Contact with the World in the Pre-British Period, 2. 119 Ivi, 52.

CHAPTER 7

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In a 1968 article, an important Italian scholar, Giorgio Borsa, placed Panikkar in a peculiar position within his proposed classification of Indian historiography. There existed a well-established ‘colonial’ current to which some common elements were attributed: these were narratives designed for Europeans and concerned with what Europeans had done in Asia, rather than with the events and problems of the Asian countries themselves. The categories applied were the same as those used for European history. These historians tended, finally, to represent the Indian present as the past of Europe, since something similar to the idea they had of ancient Europe could be found in India. This historiography, therefore, presented Asia’s ancient history as a history of timeless civilisations and modern history simply as the extra-European projection of Europe’s history, disregarding the profound upheavals that ran through Asian societies. The ‘colonial’ historians were countered by ‘nationalist’ historiography. The long series of works belonging to the first strand provoked a reaction from nationalist Indian historians, who set out to overthrow the positions of mainly British historiography and to re-evaluate various aspects of their history and civilisation. The outcome was equally one-sided and, therefore, limited. In this way, however, space remained in the research for a third current that Borsa called ‘the new Copernican historiography’. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Elli and R. Paolini, Indian National Identity and Foreign Policy, Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36425-9_7

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These new historians investigated the formation of the modern world in Asia along three lines: European expansion from a different angle; the response of Asian peoples to this expansion and the economic and social transformations associated with it; and the revision of pre-modern history to highlight the aspects of tradition that had conditioned the attitude of Asian societies towards the modern world. For Borsa, ‘Copernicans’ were those historians who, while considering the modern world in Asia as an Asian response to the Western stimulus, believed that the manner of the response was conditioned by tradition. Panikkar was included in this framework, which Borsa pointed out could recall Toynbee, without necessarily implying adherence to his philosophy of history.1 Borsa was an exception, both for the analytical potential of its outline and for being able to capture an important aspect of Panikkar’s personality. Important as it was, however, this characterisation is not sufficient to describe the distinctiveness of the Indian historian and diplomat. It would not suffice to distinguish him from a Majumdar or Needham himself, for instance; finally, it would not account for his being both a scholar and a politician. One of the main difficulties in studying Panikkar is precisely the vastness of his interests, which ranged over fields that were also very different from each other, and which still make it quite problematic to draw an overall picture of his personality. The solution cannot be onesided, i.e. to limit oneself to considering only one aspect by choosing, generally sharply, between political activity and historiographical themes. As Sunil Khilnani has written, the problem is that the Indian ruling class that gave birth to the national movement and later led the state in the first years after independence did not have an unambiguous, clear and common idea of their country. Each individual had to discover India for themselves and create their own personal way of being ‘Indian’ in modern times. They had to make themselves Indian according to their own ideas of what exactly that meant. The presence of a foreign Raj had ensured that an Indian identity could not be assumed as a natural one. But all had to make themselves out of the intimidations and possibilities posed by the West’s

1 Giorgio Borsa, ‘L’Estremo Oriente: nuovi orientamenti storiografici’, Nuove questioni di storia contemporanea, vol. II, (Milan: Marzorati, 1968), 1617–80.

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modernity. Out of this experience, they had to forge their own distinctively Indian modernity.2

This is certainly true of Panikkar. By following his life—as he travelled through different times, places and environments, and as he explored the history, society, culture and religions of his country—one can delineate a peculiar and personal path of discovery of his own nation, and it is possible to clearly see the arduous journey towards the construction of a fully modern Indian ‘identity’ that would not, however, deny its past, its heritage. The result is a portrait of a man deeply immersed in the events of his time, directly involved in many important developments and a keen observer of current events whose scope he always tried to assess on a more theoretical and historical level. There remains, however, the difficulty of formulating a concise and non-unilateral interpretation of an experience that—precisely because it is closely linked to certain fundamental dynamics of twentieth-century history—can contribute significantly to our knowledge of the broader times hinted at so far. At first sight, this experience has the appearance of a kaleidoscope: always changing, at times astonishing, but lacking any criterion other than adapting—perhaps opportunistically—to circumstances. This impression, and the objective difficulty in interpreting it, derives from the fact that Panikkar’s reflection is traversed by two fundamental antinomies that develop in a dialectical and non-oppositional manner: the antinomy past/modernity, which translates, for example, into the tension between attention to traditions and the need for reform; the antinomy unity/diversity, which can be found, among other things, in the not simple relationship between local history and national history. These antinomies form a dynamic equilibrium in a temporal perspective: the synthesis is iridescent because the relative weight of the individual elements changes, but they have all been present since Panikkar’s youth. His, in short, is not a static, merely ideological thought, but a variable geometry of certain constants. The declination of this changing geometry, from youth to full maturity and beyond, responded to the feedback given by the historical becoming of which Panikkar was a protagonist, at times a leading player. On the other hand—and it is important to emphasise this—the historical 2 Sunil Khilnani, The Idea of India (London: H. Hamilton, 1997), 8.

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reflection implemented through these categories is at the same time the interpretative lens employed by Panikkar to analyse his own present and, consequently, guide his political action. Throughout Panikkar’s life, it is therefore possible to identify certain stable elements. He was constantly engaged in an exploration of his country and his time, which unravelled from his early writings of the Oxford period to his last works of the 1960s. Both in his many activities and in his interests and studies, Panikkar can be said to have gone in search of India. In this exploration, the investigation of the relationship between modernity and tradition, between continuity and change, and between unity and diversity was a constant point of reference. India appeared to be very closely bound to its past, but at the same time, it was crossed by profound currents of renewal and projected towards modernity; it certainly presented itself as a nation, but within it, there was room for the numerous linguistic, regional, religious and political differences. These cornerstones, these central motifs, did not exclude but, on the contrary, encouraged continuous evolution. The incessant search for different ways of participating in political and social life is already a sign of this tendency: from student associations to journalism, from joining the Indian National Congress to working for the princes, from participation in the Constituent Assembly to diplomacy. This same restlessness was also expressed in his travels: he travelled from the north to the south of the country and observed the variety of Indian reality; he was also often abroad, in Europe, China and Egypt. He thus lived in different environments and occupied various positions and roles until the end of his life. The evolution of his thought thus accompanied the transformations in his life. His reflections extended to different fields: while history always remained his main interest, he felt the need to deal from time to time with law, political science and geopolitics. New themes and new interests were added to his previous ones, in a perspective that gradually included problems related to the British Empire, the condition of Indian emigrants, the question of the education and training system in India, the problems of the princely states, federalism, the relationship between local history and the national dimension, foreign policy and the country’s international position, relations between Asia and Europe, and the history of civilisations.

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Panikkar, on the other hand, in a very characteristic manner, never completely abandoned his themes, but returned to them on several occasions, perhaps at a distance of time, and grasped new shifts and nuances, as evidenced by the various new editions and versions of his works. Even in the investigation of modernity and tradition, continuity and change, unity and diversity, the balances between the various poles of his interest, thus, changed, oscillated, influenced by contemporary events, by personal experiences and by the reflections that arose from them. And, reciprocally, the various reconfigurations of the relationships between the elements of his thought were the main tool for interpreting present reality and for orienting action. It is precisely in the continual tension between all these components that a discernible, interpretable unfolding of Panikkar’s life and thought takes place. Even as a young man, Panikkar was profoundly influenced by the fact that he came from a ‘peripheral’ area, Kerala, and from a caste, the nairs, with very peculiar traditions that were, however, going through a time of great changes, both economic, social and cultural, and that were coming into forceful contact with the modernity imported from the West. It is important, therefore, to highlight in Panikkar a tension between a strong attachment to his own region, language and literary tradition, his own customs and traditions, which he never repudiated even at the height of his career, and the need his own family felt to appropriate the new ‘English’ culture in order to maintain the privileged status it enjoyed in society. For this reason, as he came into contact with the national movement at Oxford, Panikkar felt compelled to elaborate his own idea of India in a difficult balance between tradition and modernity. From the first books and articles written during his years in Britain, an idea of nationhood emerged in which aspects of tradition and the need for continuity prevailed. Hinduism, the heart of Indian identity, had to be defended against the dangers it faced; social structures preserved; the English language rejected. This traditionalism, however, was immediately complicated and enriched by different instances: the concern for the need for renewal and reform and, above all, the indispensable value attributed to the variety within the nation itself. Hinduism continued to represent throughout Panikkar’s life an element of stability and continuity, but its characterisation would go through considerable changes: from the traditionalism of the Oxford period, to the need for renewal in the inter-war period, to its function

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as a cohesive agent in the face of threats to the nation in the postindependence period. The defence of traditions never became a call for uniformity which, on the contrary, was viewed with concern and horror. After his return to India, Panikkar deepened his discovery of the country through direct participation in the national movement and a lively and active contact with the problems of the time. Panikkar was then a teacher, a journalist, Gandhi’s envoy on mission, and editor-in-chief of a newspaper. He participated in academic life, observed the debates in the newly created assemblies from the press room, collaborated in the Kerala dalit movement for access to temples and the Sikh religious reform movement that had taken on an anti-government colour. He moved from Kerala to Aligarh, from Madras to Amritsar and Delhi and witnessed the rise of Gandhi, the launching of the non-cooperation movement, its ebbing and the eruption of conflicts, especially religious conflicts, among Indians themselves. The ideas of India, of nation, of national history, advocated by Panikkar at Oxford, were tested, partly verified, partly modified and reworked in the light of these new experiences and concerns. Reflection became more complicated by delving into issues relating to the role of religions, the need for social reform, castes and family structures. The need for renewal and reform, in this context, thus became more important than ever before. His stay in Europe in 1926 and the study of law represented an important turning point in Panikkar’s trajectory. The publication of Introduction to the Study of the Relations of the Indian States with the Government of India, in fact, opened up an unexpected path for a young radical, finding employment in princely states. In this little-known and little-explored phase of his life, Panikkar participated in the elaboration of the all-India federation project that was to unite the part of the country under British control with the princely states. Again, his direct involvement in the ongoing negotiations, first as Secretary of the Chamber of Princes and then as ‘foreign minister’ of Patiala might appear incongruent with young Panikkar’s background, if not a manifestation of opportunism. Yet, the not-so-simple analysis of the surviving documentation and his output from this period shows that, on the contrary, he sincerely believed in the project and worked hard until the end for it to take shape. Reflecting on the federation and participating directly in the negotiations also stimulated a new consideration of the relationship between unity and diversity, between centrifugal and centripetal forces, in Indian

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history, culture and society. Both in the federal project and in the regional histories, it was the particularities that took centre stage, but Panikkar now aimed to find a place for them in the more general framework of the nation as a whole. The various works of local history—from Kerala to Kashmir—written in this period found their common thread precisely in the concern to connect otherwise heteronymous events into one big common fresco of the nation. This was not an easy operation and not without risks, as Panikkar’s uncertainties and ambivalences show, which ultimately left the fundamental problem of the relationship between national history and local experiences unresolved. With the outbreak of the Second World War and the failure of the federation negotiations, Panikkar concentrated on the internal affairs of the state of Bikaner. In the new India, the ‘native states’ were in danger of disappearing and, if they were to be given a future, it would become indispensable, on the one hand, to reform constitutions and administrations to bring them up to date and, on the other hand, to seek a rapprochement with the politicians of the nationalist camp, i.e. the most likely protagonists of the India of tomorrow. The years at the turn of the war represent the most important turning point. On the one hand, the attention hitherto paid to inter-state relations in the ‘Indian system’ widened to international relations, thus introducing the dimension of diplomacy in the proper sense; on the other, the accelerating pace of events made the management of modernity even more complex and stimulated in Panikkar a different synthesis, in which the elements of unity and continuity with tradition acquired renewed centrality. Independence is thus a watershed that acquires its full significance within this broader epochal turning point that involved Panikkar and India. This also implies that the events after 1947 cannot be fully understood except in a longer-term perspective. Events were unfolding rapidly: the populations of the states were going through a period of intense politicisation, protest movements were now also involving the princely states, social and religious conflicts were becoming more and more pronounced as independence approached, until the division between India and Pakistan and the integration of the states into the Indian Union. As foreign minister and then Prime Minister of a princely state, Panikkar observed all this with increasing anxiety, as the state of Bikaner suddenly found itself as a borderland and also had to deal directly with the traumatic experience of Partition.

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In the same years, also prompted by the experience of war, Panikkar had begun to worry about the future international positioning of India as a whole, devoting various writings to its role in Asia and the Indian Ocean in which increasing importance was attached to the methods and criteria of geopolitics. The combination of these foreign policy and defence concerns ended up having an important, if not decisive, influence on Panikkar’s development. The difficult relations between the princely states and the central government, meanwhile, added further cause for disquiet and, for all these reasons, Panikkar’s attitude towards the question of Indian unity ended up changing considerably. During his participation in the Constituent Assembly, he thus distinguished himself by speeches in support of a centralising approach and strong federal government control over the Union states. India’s independence seemed, in a way, to close an era of profound changes once and for all. In his book A Survey of Indian History, Panikkar, taking up and coordinating many of his themes, actually presented independence as the culmination of a millennial history. The very ancient, original cultural unity formed around Hinduism remained the element that guaranteed the continuity of the process and at the same time represented the premise for a parallel history that, little by little, through repeated contrasts, had made it possible on a political level to achieve the unification of the country. The text was a great success, editions followed one another and the Survey was even adopted as a textbook for the preparation of candidates for the Indian Administrative Service. The book undoubtedly has a special place in Panikkar’s output. Yet, even in this case, he—and this seems to us an undoubted merit—never considered it a definitive point of arrival. On the contrary, he drew from it the cue for a subsequent series of additions and reflections that led him, until his death, to an overall reconsideration of the historical problem and, above all, of the relations between cultural history and political history. Diplomatic activity, especially his experience as ambassador to China, contributed to this, giving the years after 1947 their own specific significance within Panikkar’s intellectual and political trajectory. Between 1948 and 1952, he acted in close contact with the Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, who was then implementing a new foreign policy for independent

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India, testing the criteria—and also the illusions of Asianism and progressively defining the principles of non-alignment. This role continued, albeit briefly and in a minor tone, with the diplomatic mission to Egypt. Diplomatic activity was temporally a rather limited parenthesis in Panikkar’s political life. Yet, it was an extraordinarily rich and important moment that saw him as an influential protagonist of a dynamic and nondogmatic non-alignment. In it, the arguments drawn from the reflection of pan-Asianism in the inter-war period were defined and enriched by the analysis of the problems of decolonisation. Again, the Chinese experience was extremely significant for Panikkar. It gave him a sense of a common story of the Asian nations, which, having been subjugated to Western imperialism, were now reborn and regaining their place in the world. His most famous book, Asia and Western Dominance, was precisely the immediate fruit of this experience, which led him to reconstruct a history of relations between the continent and the Western powers from the first contacts until the awakening of the Asian peoples. The need for comparison with China would remain a constant afterwards, both out of necessity imposed by the development of Sino-Indian relations, and as a means of understanding the renaissance of Asia through new schemes. The comparison between the affairs of China and India suggested, in fact, that the possible paths towards modernity were different and multiple. From this, Panikkar drew a heightened awareness of the Indian peculiarity in its democratic choice, its deep contact with the West, and its difficult relationship between tradition and renewal. In the course of the 1950s, Panikkar reworked many of his earlier studies, emphasising the need for unity and internal cohesion. The new Indian state appeared continually challenged and subjected to internal and external threats. This perception was reinforced by his participation in the States Reorganisation Commission, which was called upon to redefine the boundaries of the components of the Indian Union according to linguistic criteria. Genuine and effective national integration became, for Panikkar, an unavoidable necessity. India had to huddle itself around the fundamental core of its identity, which—much as in his youth at Oxford— remained for him Hinduism, but now passed through the filter of a series of crucial experiences. Panikkar’s interest in the paradigm of the history of civilisation can be correctly assessed in this context. It seemed to him to fit India’s richness and variety better than any other, also with reference to the

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tensions that had emerged in earlier years in the relationship between local and national histories and in the overlapping of political history with social and cultural issues. Contact with different civilisations, on the other hand, had always been an element of progress and modernity for India throughout its millennia-long history, allowing it to adapt to the times without ever losing its identity. The fundamental element of continuity in Indian history was still to be found in Hinduism, but this was now seen as a culture of synthesis, capable of integrating and making the most diverse elements its own. The last years of his life were mainly dedicated to studies and to revising or rethinking the typical themes of his reflections. The period of his stay in France as ambassador, his return to India to the upper house of Parliament and then to academic life as vice-chancellor of the universities of Kashmir and Mysore was thus, above all, a time of intense intellectual reworking, in the context of the crisis of the Nehruvian system, the fading enthusiasm brought about by independence and the war with China. The new difficulties led to a certain hardening of Panikkar’s reflections around the criteria of unity and cohesion. However, the idea of India as a synthesis of civilisations, the importance attached to internal variety and the recognition of the Western contribution never faded, in the constant oscillation between the values of unity and diversity, modernity and tradition. From the reconstruction of these events, a very interesting personal, political and intellectual journey can be outlined. Personal experience is not directly recorded in the historical works, but it is reflected there in changing interests and priorities. Similarly, national life, the political context and contemporary events also influenced the scholar’s thinking and ideas and can shed new light on his works. The scholar and the politician complement and complete each other. It is, therefore, difficult, and useful only within certain limits, to prioritise one of the two components. However, while it might be possible to imagine Panikkar the historian without Panikkar the politician, it would be impossible to do the opposite. For Panikkar, the discovery of India meant exploring the present, participating in current events and being close to the centre of events and discussions. But, at the same time, he always felt the fundamental need to analyse its past and discover its legacy, the process that had made it so:

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Even since India became conscious of her nationhood there has been a growing demand for a history of India which would try and reconstruct the past in a way that would give an idea of our heritage. Brought up in text books written by foreigners whose one object would seem to have been to prove that there were no such thing as “India” we had each to “discover” India for ourselves. I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that it was a spiritual adventure for most of us to gain in some measure an understanding of the historical process which have made us what we are and to evaluate the heritage that has come down to us through five thousand years of development.3

3 Panikkar, A Survey of Indian History, viii.

Sources and Bibliography

A---PRIMARY SOURCES - UNPUBLISHED SOURCES: (Abbreviations used in brackets) • India Office Records (IOR), British Library, London. z India Office: Political and Secret Department Records (IOR/L/PS). z India Office: War Staff Papers 1921–1951 (IOR/L/WS). z India Office Records Official Publications Series c1760–1957 (IOR/V). z India Office: Public and Judicial Department Records 1795–1950 (IOR/L/ PJ). z India Office: Information Department Records 1921–1949 (IOR/L/I). z Secretary of State for India: Private Office Papers 1858–1948 (IOR/L/PO). z India: Crown Representative: Political Department Indian States Records 1880–1947 (IOR/R/1). z India: Crown Representative: Indian States Residencies Records c1789–1947 (IOR/R/2). z MSS EUR E346. Stopford Collection: papers of Robert Jemmett Stopford (1895–1978). z MSS EUR F97. Brabourne Collection: Papers of Michael Herbert Rudolph Knatchbull, 5th Baron Brabourne (1895–1939). z MSS EUR F138. Laithwaite Collection: Correspondence, Papers and Photographs of Sir (John) Gilbert Laithwaite (1894–1986). • United Kingdom National Archives, Kew Garden (NAUK).

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Elli and R. Paolini, Indian National Identity and Foreign Policy, Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36425-9

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z Foreign Office, Political Departments: General Correspondence from 1906– 1966 (FO). • Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatam House. z Meetings, 1920–1970. (RIIA/8). • UNESCO Archives, Paris. z Secretariat Records (SEC)—International Commission for a History of the Scientific and Cultural Development of Mankind (SCHM1). • National Archives of India, New Delhi (NAI). z Copies of Crown Representative Records (CRR). z Home Department, (HD). z Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, (MIB). z Ministry of States, (MS). z Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). z Panikkar’s Papers (PP). • Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi (NMML). z All India Congress Committee Files (AICC). z All India States’ People Conference Papers (AISPC). z Federal Papers (FP). z Private Papers: Sarojini Naidu, Syed Mahmud, Rajendra Prasad, Sardar Patel, Maulana Mohamed Ali, K.M. Munshi, J.J. Singh, P. Rao Kodanda. Iswara K. Dutt, C. Vijiaraghanachariar, C. Rajagopalachari e Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit. • Gandhi Ashram, Sabarmati, Ahmedabad (GAS). z Gandhi’s Papers. Correspondence with K.M. Panikkar. • Punjab State Archive, Patiala (PSA). z Chamber of Princes Archive. z Ijlas-e-khas, Patiala State. • Maharaja Ganga Singhji Trust Archive, Bikaner (MGSTA). z Maharaja Ganga Singh. Correspondence with K.M. Panikkar. z Maharaja Sadul Singh. Correspondence with K.M. Panikkar. z Round Table Conference, Chamber of Princes, Integration of State, Constitutional Reforms. • Rajastan State Archive, Bikaner (RSAB). z Foreign and Political Department, Bikaner State. z Prime Minister Office, Bikaner State. - PUBLISHED SOURCES: Periodicals (time range consulted): - Europe (1926–1927). - Europe Nouvelle (1926–1927). - Hindustan Times (1924–1927). - Indian Review (1914–1927). - Modern Review (1914–1927). - Revue des Nations (1927–1928).

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- The Asian Review (1914–1918). - The Commonweal (1914–1919). - The Comrade (1925). - The Hindu (1922–1927). - Young India (1919–1925). Official Publications: - Report on the Indian Constitutional Reforms, (Calcutta: Superintendent Government Printing, 1918). - Report of the Committee on Indian Students 1921–22, (London: HMSO, 1922). - A Collection of Treaties, Engagements and Sanads relating to India and Neighbouring Countries, (Calcutta: Government of India, Publication Branch, 1929). - Report of the Indian States Committee (1928–1929), (London, HMSO, 1929). - Report of the Indian Statutory Commission Presented by the Secretary of State for the Home Department to Parliament by Command of His Majesty, (London: HMSO, 1930). - Indian Round Table Conference, 12 November 1930 – 19 January 1931: Proceedings, (London: HMSO, 1931). - Report of the Indian States Enquiry Committee (Financial), 1932, (Simla: Government of India Press, 1932. - Joint Committee on Indian Constitutional Reform: Report, (London: HMSO, 1934). - Bikaner Bulletin (1944–1948) - Report on the Administration of the Bikaner State for 1939–1948, (Bikaner: Government. Press, 1948). - Asian Relations: Being a Report of the Proceedings and Documentation of the First Asian Relations Conference, New Delhi, March–April, 1947 , (New Delhi: Asian Relations Organization, 1948). - Report of the States’ Reorganisation Commission, 1955, (New Delhi: Manager of Publications, Government of India Press, 1956) - Leading Events in India-China Relations 1947–1962, (New Delhi: External Publicity Division, Ministry of External Affairs, 1962). - Report of the Committee on Emotional Integration (New Delhi: The Manager of Publications, 1962). - Notes, Memoranda and Letters Exchanged between the Governments of India and China. White Papers (1954–1962), (New Delhi: Ministry of External Affairs, 1960–1967). Parliamentary Debates: - Constituent Assembly Debates. - Lok Sabha Debates. - Rajya Sabha Debate. Documents Collections:

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- The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, (New Delhi: The Publication Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, 1958–1984). - Benegal Shiva Rao (ed.), The Framing of India’s Constitution: Select Documents, (New Delhi: Indian Institute of Public Administration, 1966–1968). - Stuart Schram (ed.), The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung, (New York: Praeger, 1969). - Mansergh, Nicolas et al. (eds.): Constitutional Relations between Great Britain and India, Transfer of Power, 1942–1947 , (London: HMSO, 1970–1983). - Sarvepalli Gopal et al. (eds.), Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, (New Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund, 1972–2019). - Durga Das (ed.) Sardar Patel Correspondence 1945–1950, (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 1973). - Parshotam Mehra (ed.), The North-Eastern Frontier. A Documentary Study of the Internecine Rivalry between India and China. Vol 2. 1914–1954, (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1980). - Madhav Khosla (ed.), Letters for a Nation: From Jawaharlal Nehru to His Chief Ministers 1947–1963, (London: Penguin, 2015). - Avtar Singh Bhasin (ed.), India-China Relations 1947–2000. A Documentary Study, (New Delhi, Geetika Publisher, 2018). - Records of the Office of Chinese Affairs, 1945–1955 Collection, National Archives (USA), in Gale Archives Unbound.

B---WORKS BY PANIKKAR (in chronological order) Books: - An Introduction to the Study of the Problems of Greater-India, (Madras: Swaminathan, 1916). - Indian Nationalism: Its Origin, History, and Ideals. By K. M. Panikkar ... and an Englishman, (London: Faith Press, 1920). - Essays on Educational Reconstruction in India, (Madras: Ganesh & Co, 1920). - Imperialism in Practice and Theory, (Madras: Arka Publishing House, 1922). - Sri Harsha of Kanauj. A Monograph on the History of India in the First Half of the 7th Century A.D., (Bombay: Taraporevala, 1922). - The Ideals of Sikhism, (Amritsar: Sikh Tract Society, 1924). - An Introduction to the Study of the Relations of Indian States with the Government of India, (London: Hopkinson & Co., 1927). - Kerala Putra (pseud. K.M. Panikkar), The Working of Dyarchy in India, 1919– 1928, (Bombay: Taraporevala Sons & Co, 1928). - Malabar and the Portuguese. Being a History of the Relations of the Portuguese with Malabar from 1500 to 1663, (Bombay: Taraporevala Sons & Co., 1929).

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Index

A Abou-El-Fadl, Reem, 186 Acharya, Amitav, 115, 132 Acheson, Dean, 149, 150, 153 Ah.mad, Muh.ammad (al-Mahdi), 189 Akbar, Muh.ammad, 124, 125 Albuquerque, Afonso de, 116 Ali, Hydar (Hyder Ali), 76, 218, 219 Ali, Mir Usman, 156 Ali, Mohammad, 37, 38, 44, 52, 53 Ali, Muhammad Pasha of Egypt, 188 Ali, Sayeed Fazl, 194 Ali, Shaukat, 37, 38 Altekar, Anant Sadashiv, 213 Alvares, Claude, 4 Ambedkar, Bhimrao Ramji, 121 Amery, Leo, 99 Amma, Kochu Kunji, 15 Andrews, Charles Freer, 53 Angria, Kanoji (Kanhoji Angre), 176 Ankit, Rakesh, 141 Ansari, Mukhtar Ahmed, 53 Appadorai, Angadipuram, 132

Apte, Mahadev, 193, 195 Arnold, David, 43, 45 Arunima, G., 18 Ashton, Richard, 78, 85, 89, 106 Asoka, Emperor, 40, 125 Attlee, Clement, 100, 149 Auchinleck, Claude, 112 Aurangzeb, Muhi al-Din Muhammad, 65, 124 Azad, Abul Kalam, 104

B Babar (Z.ahir al-Din Muh.ammad), 117 Bajpai, G.S. (Girija Shankar), 140, 141, 148, 151, 161 Bajpai, Kanti, 129, 131, 164 Baker, Christopher, 44 Bal, Amandeep, 50 Ballhatchet, Kenneth, 179 Bandyopadhyay, Sekhar, 70 Banerjee, Tarasankar, 3 Banerji, Surendranath, 20

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Elli and R. Paolini, Indian National Identity and Foreign Policy, Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36425-9

263

264

INDEX

Bao, Dai Emperor, 143 Barnes, Robert, 150, 153 Basit, Saira, 129 Bayly, Christopher, 62 Belmekki, Belkacem, 38 Bergmann, Hugo, 186 Besant, Annie, 23, 25 Bevin, Ernest, 149, 153 Bhagavan, Manu, 130, 139, 147 Bhargava, Rajeev, 121 Bhasin, Avtar Singh, 149, 157, 159, 160 Bhatnagar, Shyam Krishn, 37, 38 Blyth, Robert, 186 Borsa, Giorgio, 225, 226 Bose, Satyendra Nath, 206 Boskovska, Nada, 131 Botman, Selma, 185 Bowker, James, 190 Bowman, Jack, 205 Brecher, Michael, 138, 194, 204 Brobst, Peter, 112 Brown, Frank, 87 Brown, Judith, 36, 88 Bulwer-Lytton, Victor, 22 Burckhardt, Carl, 213 Butler, Harcourt, 67 Byrne, Jeffrey, 206

C Canavero, Alfredo, 10 Carneiro, Paulo Estevão de Berrêdo, 212–215 Catherine II, Empress, 133 Cawthorn, Walter, 113 Chacko, B.J., 24, 38 Chacko, Priya, 119 Chanakya (pseud. K.M. Panikkar), 168, 194 Chandra, Bipan, 36, 89, 96, 138 Chandra, Jyoti, 23

Changla, Mahommedali Currim, 22 Chaowu, Dai, 162 Chatterjee Miller, Manjari, 131 Chatterjee, Partha, 39 Chaturvedi, Vinayak, 218 Chaturvedy, J., 2 Chaudhuri, Raudra, 130 Chelmsford, Frederic, 33 Chiang, Kai-shek, 131, 133 Choudhry, Sujit, 121 Chou, En Lai (Zhou Enlai), 150, 153, 160–162 Churchill, Winston, 192 Clubb, Oliver E., 150 Columbus, Christopher, 4 Copland, Ian, 5, 60, 61, 67, 71, 78, 86, 88, 91, 96, 101 Craik, Henry, 96 Creswell, Michael, 193 Cripps, Richard Stafford, 95, 192 Curtis, Lion, 114 Curzon, George, 65

D Da Gama, Vasco, 4, 73, 116, 174, 175 Dalmia, Vadudha, 39 Daly, Martin, 185 Das, Durga, 141 Das Gupta, Amit, 128, 142, 151, 161, 204 De, Barun, 3 D’Elia, Pasquale, 179 De, Rohit, 121 De Souza, Teotonio, 4 DeVotta, Neil, 12 D’Souza, Jerome, 179 Dua, Bhagwan Dass, 121 Duedahl, Poul, 211, 212 Dutt, Subimal, 142, 151, 159, 204, 206

INDEX

E Eden, Anthony, 153, 192 Elangovan, Arvind, 24 Elli, Mauro, 10 Engerman, David, 130 F Farouk I, king of Egypt, 187, 189 Febvre, Lucien, 212 Fischer-Tiné, Harald, 130, 131 Fitze, Kenneth, 93, 97 Fitzpatrick, Ellen, 212 Frankel, Francine, 130 Friedman, Jeremy, 162 G Gaekwad, Sayajirao, 34 Gaiduk, Ilya, 215 Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand, 8, 36–38, 42–54, 57, 89, 104, 119, 126, 193, 209, 230 George, K.M. (Karimpumannil Mathai), 207 Ghaznavi, Mahmud (Mahmood of Ghazni):, 117 Ghori, Mohammed, 124, 224 Ghosh, Durba, 33 Gillan, George, 97 Ginat, Rami, 189–191 Glancy, Bertrand, 69, 92 Goel, Raghalwar Dayal, 104, 105 Gokhale, Gopal Krishna, 20, 23 Goldstein, Melvyn, 155 Gopalan, Avilliath Kutteri, 45 Gopal, Sarvepalli, 187, 205 Gordon, Joel, 191 Gouri, Kunji Pilla, 13, 15 Goyal, Shankar, 41 Graziosi, Andrea, 194 Grewal, Jagtar Singh, 46 Grolleau, Magali, 205

265

Grover, Verinder, 46 Guha, Ramachandra, 156, 193 Gupta, Karunakar, 135, 138 Guyot-Réchard, Bérénice, 160

H Haksar, Kailash Narain, 67, 69, 77–79, 81, 83 Hall, Ian, 204 Harder, Anton, 139, 206 Hardiman, David, 40 Harris, Tina, 155 Hars.a-vardhana, 40–42, 72 Hastings, Warren, 69 Heer, Paul, 148 Heimsath, Charles, 18, 45 Heptulla, Najma, 189, 191, 192 Hoffmann, Stephen, 135 Ho, Selina, 131 Hutheesing, Raja, 144 Hu, Xiaowen, 139 Huxley, Julian Sorell, 215 Hydari, Akbar, 86 Hyer, Eric, 162

I Ikegame, Aya, 18 Irwin, Lord (Edward Wood), 67, 77

J Jaffrelot, Christophe, 12 Jankowski, James, 190 Jeffrey, Robin, 12, 13, 17, 18, 44, 45 Jha, Chandra Shekhar, 155

K Kadian, Rajesh, 134, 135 Kalyanaraman, S., 129 Katju, Kailash Nath, 119

266

INDEX

Kaul, Hari Kishen, 87 Kaul, Ranjana, 103 Kaul, Triloki Nath, 151, 152, 174 Kaye, C., 53 Keen, Caroline, 16 Keenleyside, T.A., 68 Kennedy, Andrew, 130 Kerala Putra (pseud. K.M. Panikkar), 63 Kesava Menon, Kizhakke Potta, 51 Khan, Farzana, 24 Khan, Hamidullah (Nawab of Bhopal), 82, 100–102 Khan, Liaquat Ali, 105 Khan, Raphaelle, 131 Khan, Sayyid Ahmad, 37 Kher, B.G. (Balasaheb Gangadhar), 192 Khilnani, Sunil, 226, 227 Khosla, Madhav, 121, 159 Kim, Monica, 153 King, Robert, 193 Kitchlew, Saifuddin, 50 Kodesia, Krishna, 193 Kodoth, Praveena, 19 Kohn, Hans, 215 Kona, Swapna, 130 Kossuth, Luis, 27 Krishnamachari, Vangal Thiruvenkatachari, 96 Krishna Menon, Vengalil Krishnan, 204, 205 Krishnamurthy, K., 2 Krishnappa, V., 129 Krishna Rao, K., 167 Kulnazarova, Aigul, 211 Kumaraswamy, P.R., 187 Kumar, Raj, 23 Kumar, Suresh, 44, 45, 51, 52 Kunzru, Hriday Nath, 194

L Lahiri, Shompa, 21, 22 Lal Vinay, 220 Lamb, Alastair, 155, 167, 191 Laron, Guy, 205 Linlithgow, Lord (Victor Hope), 88, 89, 92, 99 Lothian, Arthur, 92, 93, 97 Louis, William, 192, 205 Louro, Michele, 129 Lovett, Verney, 39 Lüthi, Lorenz, 142, 162

M Macaulay, Thomas Babington, 30, 223 Madan, Tanvi, 149, 153 Madhavan, T.K., 44, 45 Mahajan, Sneh, 68 Mahajan, Sucheta, 10 Mahmood, Mir Maqbool, 83, 85 Mahmud, Syed, 94, 95 Majumdar, Ramesh Chandra, 201, 213, 220, 226 Malaviya, Madan Mohan, 53, 58 Malone, David, 115, 128, 130 Mansergh, Nicholas, 99, 132 Mansingh, Surjit, 60, 129 Mantena, Karuna, 129 Mao Tze-Tung, 133, 138, 143, 151, 152, 159, 162, 181 Marx, Karl, 164 Masani, Minoo, 144 Masaryk, Tomáš, 6 Masood, Syed Ross, 37 Masselos, Jim, 23, 86, 88 Mathai, Mundapallil Oommen, 157, 161 Mathur, Vishnu Dayal, 103 Mattoo, Amitabh, 164 Maurya, Chandragupta, 65, 220

INDEX

Maxwell, Neville, 135 Mayne, Mosley, 113 Mazzini, Giuseppe, 6 McArthur, Douglas, 150 McCallum, J.A., 132 McConaughy, Walter, 151 McGarr, Paul, 130, 163, 188 McKay, Alex, 155 McMahon, Henry, 134 McMahon, Robert, 130 McNeill, William, 216 McQuade, Joseph, 68 Mehra, Parshotam, 158 Mehta, Pherozeshah, 20, 23 Mehta, Pratap Bhanu, 121 Menon, Dilip, 51, 52 Menon, K.P.S. (Kumara Padmanabha Sivasankara), 131, 139, 140, 155, 156 Menon, Vappala Pangunni, 107 Métraux, Guy, 213–216 Miskovic, Natasa, 131 Mohan, Raja, 115, 128, 130 Montagu, Edwin Samuel, 24, 33, 36 More, Jean-Baptiste Preshant, 205 Morgan, John Hartman, 86, 87 Mountbatten, Louis Francis, 102, 105, 134 Muhammad, Shan, 38 Mukherjee, Aditya, 138 Mukherjee, Mridula, 138 Mukherjee, Sumita, 213 Mullik, Bhola Nath, 158, 159 Munshi, Kanaiyalal Maneklal, 220

N Nag, Kalidas, 114 Naidu, Sarojini, 53, 104, 128 Nair, R. Krishnan, 8, 10, 15 Namakkal, Jessica, 205 Namoothiri, Parameswara, 15

267

Nanda, Prakash, 131 Narang, Amarjit, 121 Narendranath, Konniyoor R., 2, 120 Natarajan, Swaminath, 43 Natwar Singh, Kunwar, 78 Nayar, Baldev Raj, 138 Needham, Joseph, 211, 226 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 4, 8, 45, 47–49, 52, 53, 83, 101, 102, 104, 118, 119, 127–130, 133, 134, 138–144, 147, 149–154, 157–165, 168, 171, 183, 187–189, 191, 193, 197, 204–207, 216, 218, 220, 232 Nehru, Motilal, 53 Nizami, Khaliq Ahmad, 38 Norbu, Dawa, 164 Northrop, Filmer, 180, 181 Nygren, Thomas, 211 O Oakman, Daniel, 137 O’Barr, Jane, 193, 195 O’Barr, William, 193, 195 O’Connell, Joseph, 48 Osterhammel, Jürgen, 216 Otto, André, 213 Ouwerkerk, Louise, 45 Owen, Hugh, 23, 24 Owen, Roger, 205 P Pai, Sudha, 194 Pandit, Vijaya Lakshmi, 144, 154, 207 Panikkar, Ayyappa, 16 Panikkar, Eravi Kesava, 13, 14, 19 Panikkar, Govinda, 19, 20 Panikkar, Kavalam Madhava, 1–15, 17, 19–22, 24–39, 41–45, 47–59, 61–104, 106–109, 111–129, 131–133, 135–144,

268

INDEX

147–161, 163–169, 171, 173–175, 177–183, 185–235 Panikkar, Kavalam Narayana, 20 Panikkar, Puthenveetil Govinda Kerala, 14 Panikkar, P.V., 14, 19 Paolini, Rita, 8, 10, 15, 164 Parameswaran Nair, P.K., 207 Paranjpe, Shrikant, 118 Park, Richard, 201 Parsons, James Bunyan, 207 Patel, Vallabhbhai Sardar, 7, 89, 104, 105, 107, 140, 141 Patil, S.H., 34 Pauker, Guy, 183 Paul, T.V., 138 Pedaliu, Effi, 10 Perrenoud, Georges, 215 Peter I, Emperor, 133 Pillai, Kunnathur Kesavan Raman, 219 Pillai, Narayanan Raghavan, 206 Pillai, Velu Ramon, 14 Pillai, Velu, T.K., 19 Podeh, Elie, 190 Porter, Louis, 215 Prakasam . , Tanguturi, 43 Prakash, Gyan, 218 Prasad, Rajendra, 207 Preda, Dumitru, 164

Rajagopalachari, Chakravarthi, 43, 45, 95, 140 Ramakrishna (Gadadhar Chatterji), 208 Ramasami, P.E.V. (Periyar Erode Venkatappa), 45 Rama Varma, Karthika Thirunal, 219 Ramesh, Jairam, 205 Ramusack, Barbara, 5, 16, 77, 101 Rao, Benegal Shiva, 121, 147 Rao, B.V.R., 193 Rao, T. Madhava, 16 Rathore, L.S., 103 Ravindran, T.K., 45, 51, 52 Reading, Marquess of (Rufus Isaacs), 60, 61 Reddi, Ramalinga, 37 Reddy, Bezawada Gopala, 216 Resnati, Nicola, 10 Richelieu, Armand-Jean du Plessis de, 213 Robinson, Austin, 69 Robotka, Bettina, 28 Romein, Jan Marius, 212–215 Röpke, Wilhelm, 215 Roshin, Nikolai, 142, 165 Rowlatt, Sidney, 36 Roy, Ram Mohan, 208 Rubin, Alfred, 167

Q Qing, Simei, 148

S Saikia, Yasmin, 38 Saiyidain, Khwaja Ghulam, 38 Sajjad, Mohammad, 38 Salah, Selim, 190 Samaddar, Ranabir, 130 Samel, Swapna, 44 Sampurnanand, 218 Sarangi, Asha, 194 Saraswati, Dayananda, 40, 208 Saresella, Daniela, 10

R Raghavan, Nedyam, 154 Raghavan, Pallavi, 128, 188 Raghavan, Srinath, 115, 128–130, 161, 162 Rahman, Raisur, 38 Rai, Lala Lajpat, 48, 53, 58

INDEX

Sarkar, Jadunath, 72 Sarkar, Sumit, 77, 78, 89 Savarkar, Vinayak Damodar, 119 Schneider, Axel, 216 Schram, Stuart, 138 Scott, David, 115 Scott, Leslie, 69 Seal, Anil, 12 Sela, Avraham, 190 Seleucos I Nikator, 117 Sen, Suhit, 130 Sen, Tansen, 131, 132 Seton-Watson, Hugh, 182 Shah, Mahommed (Aga Khan III), 34 Shah, S.Y., 38 Shakya, Tsering, 133, 160 Shani, Ornit, 121 Sharma, Phool Kumar, 193, 194 Sharma, Ramesh Chandra, 2 Sharma, Surya, 167 Sheel, Kamal, 131 Sherman, Taylor, 106 Shigeru, Akita, 137 Shilliam, Robin, 119 Sinclair, Archibald, 113 Singh, Bawa Satinder, 74 Singh, Bhupinder (Maharaja of Patiala), 60, 77, 78, 81–83, 85–89, 92 Singh, Ganga (Maharaja of Bikaner), 57, 58, 60, 81–83, 89, 92, 94, 96 Singh, Gulab, 74, 166, 167, 197 Singh, Harbans, 46 Singh, Hari, 57 Singh, Kushwant, 58 Singh, Mahendra Prasad, 121 Singh, Mandhata, 96 Singh, Mangal, 48, 51, 58 Singh, Mohinder, 37, 46, 48 Singh, Raja, 48

269

Singh, Sadul (Maharaja of Bikaner), 96–98, 100, 102–109 Singh Sidhu, Waheguru Pal, 147 Singh, Zorawar Daulet, 188 Smiles, Samuel, 18 Smith, Brian, 12 Smith, Simon, 192 Smith, Vincent, 25, 39, 42 Spear, Percival, 182 Sreedhara Menon, Alappat, 16, 52 Sri Krishna Charitam, 16 Stalin, 149 Stevenson, Ralph, 136, 141, 187, 190, 192 Stietencron, Heinrich von, 39 Stolte, Carolien, 130, 131 Stopford, Robert, 78, 79 Strang, William, 191 Subbarayan, Paramasiva, 24 Sumit, Ganguly, 141 Sunderlal, Pandit, 144 Suntharalingam, Ramanathan, 36, 43, 50, 86, 88, 96 Symonds, Richard, 21, 22

T Tagore, Rabindranath, 53, 130 Tal, Alon, 186 Tanham, George, 118 Thakur, Vineet, 114, 132, 153 Thampi, Madhavi, 131 Tilak, Bal Gangadhar, 22, 23, 209 Tipu Sultan, 218, 219 Tirunal, Ayilyam, 16 Tirunal, Sri Mulam, 11 Tornhill, Michael, 192 Torri, Michelguglielmo, 10, 23, 24, 37, 77, 78, 86 Toynbee, Arnold, 212, 226 Troutt Powell, Eve, 189 Truman, Harry, 150

270

INDEX

Tsui, Brian, 131 Tughlaq, Firoz Shah, 123 Turner, Ralph E., 212 U Uprety, Prem Raman, 49 V Vajpeyi, Ananya, 121 Vàlyi, Felix, 59 Van Spengen, Wim, 155 Varma, Martanda, 75, 76, 176 Varsori, Antonio, 10 Venkateswara, Vavilla, 43 Vigezzi, Brunello, 10 Vivekananda, Swami, 40 W Wadhams, William, 86, 87

Wallinger, John, 58 Ward, Richard, 186 Ware, Caroline Farrar, 212, 214–216 Wellesley, Richard, 65 Wells, Samuel, 148 Whateley, Richard, 18 Wilberforce-Bell, Harold, 88 Wilson, Roland, 25 Winckler, Onn, 190 Wint, Guy, 111 Woolf, Daniel, 216 Wyatt, Woodrow, 192 Wylie, Francis, 97

Z Zachariah, Benjamin, 130 Zachariah, Kuruvilla, 156, 213 Zavos, John, 28 Zhu, De (Chu Teh), 143