791.5 MSP/10–2852

The Ambassador in India ( Bowles ) to the Secretary of State

secret
official–informal

Dear Dean : For several weeks by cable and airgram we have been striving to reach agreement with the various interested groups in the [Page 1669] State Department and with MSA on the Indian Aid program for the next fiscal year.

For several reasons our progress so far has been frustratingly slow. Some members of the Department are still clinging to the mistaken belief that the Indian economic problem can be largely solved by technical assistance. Others, who see the problem more clearly, are reluctant to make recommendations which in their judgment the new Congress might not accept.

Still others insist that the Indian government must produce precise figures on its future economic needs which we would find difficult to provide in our own country. And behind the whole confused situation there seems to lay a lack of awareness of the seriousness of the political situation here in India and an unwillingness to face what we believe to be a clear-cut crisis in Asia.

What we need and need urgently is a top level political decision on the following two points:

1.
Am I correct in my assumption that a free India is vitally important to world stability and to our future security?
2.
Am I correct in my assumption that steady economic progress in the next few years is essential to the survival of a free India?

If the Department feels that I am wrong, I should be told that I am wrong, and my proposals for economic assistance should be modified on the basis of that decision. But if it is agreed that my analysis is reasonably correct we should proceed to build a program that will fit the requirements of the situation. In other words, I believe that the time has come either to reject my views or to act upon them.

Over a period of many months I have presented my thoughts on India at considerable length in cables, letters, and in personal communications. At no time has the substance of the analysis been seriously challenged.

Let me sum up this analysis as briefly as I can, with the earnest request that you and others who are responsible for high level policy examine it carefully, come to a decision, and then communicate that decision to those who make up the budget.

As I see it, the choice in India is between the present democratic government and Communism. There are no other political forces of any importance. The failure of a democratic government in India, followed by a Communist triumph, would be catastrophic to America. More than one-sixth of the world’s people live in India. They are intelligent, quick to learn, and adaptable to modern methods. They have shown in two wars their capacity as soldiers under competent leadership.

In World War II India provided the allied cause with an army of some 3,000,000 men. Although a good part of this army was kept in [Page 1670] India to maintain order, Indian forces probably turned the tide in Africa during a decisive phase of the war. A Communist India would provide the USSR with large forces which could readily dominate Southeast Asia.

In addition to this human potential, India possesses some of the richest and most strategic mineral resources in the world which are of growing importance.

The strategic location of India is obvious from a glance at the map. If India fell, the only air entry to East Asia from Europe and Africa would be lost, since Russia blocks the direct routes. An alternative sea lane around Africa and the Cape would remain but it is a poor second best compared to the Suez Canal and the Indian Ocean.

Although the disappearance of India behind the Iron Curtain would be profoundly dangerous in itself, the secondary results would be potentially even more far reaching. As the implication of India’s loss to the free world became fully understood, Communist prestige would soar while ours would hit an all time ebb.

Tens of millions of people, now on our side, would become convinced that they had bet on the wrong horse. It is difficult to see how the countries of Southeast Asia could be kept out of Communist hands. The ferment in the Middle East would be intensified. The confidence of European peoples which has been gradually increasing would be undermined. The neutralists and the Bevanites would be in the driver’s seat.

Thus, it is my considered opinion that the fall of India would set in motion a chain of ugly events which might readily jeopardize our hopes for the free world and eventually our own ability to defend ourselves. The continued existence of India as a free and friendly nation is second only in importance to the survival of a free Western Europe, and indeed it is wholly possible that these two great strategic areas may stand or fall together.

This leads us squarely to the second question, “What are the chances of India remaining free and what are the factors which will effect the final determination?”

Paul Hoffman once said, “India stands in 1952 where China stood in 1946”. Although Paul himself would probably agree that this is an oversimplification, the comparison has been made so frequently that it may be useful to examine the Indian situation against this background. There are some factors in India which are decidedly more favorable than those present in China in 1946. But there are others which seem at least equally ominous.

First let me state the favorable features as they now appear to us here in India.

1.
Most Indian officials are of high integrity and of more than usual experience. Among them are some individuals of outstanding [Page 1671] ability. India has a civil service which has been built up over a period of years and which is capable of providing the country with perhaps the best administration in Asia, with the exception of Japan.
2.
Most Indian government leaders were educated in the West and practically all of them in the Western tradition. Without exception, they are non-Communists and rapidly becoming more sophisticated in their understanding of the cold war struggle.
3.
Among Indian leaders there is an Anglo-Saxon respect for law and order. The army is efficient and free from politics.
4.
Nehru, as the unquestioned leader of the Congress Party, has the greatest mass support of any political leader in free Asia. A substantial majority of the people respect his integrity and his accomplishments. He is identified in the public mind with liberal convictions and with a desire to better the life of the common man.
5.
The Indian Five Year Plan offers a competent program for India’s economic betterment and growth. Many of the projects, notably the river valley developments, are already well under way.
6.
Because the Indian economy has been so long bound by tradition, major advances, particularly in agriculture, are possible in a relatively brief period of time.
7.
In the last seven years, the United States Government has come to a better understanding of Asian peoples and their problems. Our information work in India has steadily improved and is substantially more effective than a year ago.

On the negative side of the ledger there are many unfavorable factors to balance the above list of advantages. Some of these factors are as follows:

1.
There is considerable graft among the minor politicians, which is seized upon and magnified by the Communists.
2.
The older Congress Party leaders, who won independence, are growing old and tired, and are inclined to retreat from present problems into the memories of past accomplishments. Some younger leaders, convinced that the Congress Party offers them no future, have drifted into the Communist ranks. Once the unifying strength of Nehru is removed the party is likely to splinter and to become less and less effective.
3.

The present dominance of the Congress Party over the Indian political scene tends to cover up some inherent weaknesses in the administrative structure of India. The central ministries are in effect staff operations concerned with overall planning. The responsibility for administrative action lies almost entirely in the hands of the States.

Today Nehru, as head of the Congress Party, is in a position to crack the whip and the chief minister of nearly every state will respond. Once Nehru dies or his position becomes less dominant, this cohesive factor will be seriously weakened and strong state governments moving in different directions will tend to undermine the effectiveness of central policies.

4.

Although Nehru talks constantly about the need for reform, there are strong influences which prevent him from actually pressing forward with the programs which are so desperately needed if Communist influence in the rural areas is to be checked. Land reform programs [Page 1672] are for the most part paper accomplishments, and where they exist they are largely unenforced. The load of rural debt is overwhelming in many parts of India and it is common for landlords to receive 60 percent or more of the crop.

The villagers are breaking loose from old traditions and developing a new political consciousness. In most sections, there is a fast-growing conviction that the economic and social patterns of the past are unjust and on their way out.

Although this movement is still largely without direction, the Communist Party is steadily expanding the extent and effectiveness of its work in the rural areas. The Communists win many converts by their willingness not only to tackle the problems of the villagers but also to share their day to day life, a political technique that the Congress party members, with few exceptions, have long since abandoned in favor of an easier existence.

Wolf Ladejinsky, who has worked closely with the land reform programs in Japan and other Asian countries, is now on an assignment in New Delhi. Following a recent trip to South India he told me: “As I listened to the talk in the villages, I closed my eyes and found it easy to imagine that I was in China in 1946. There was the same growing bitterness of the peasants; the same stubborn insistence of the landlords that the status quo must be maintained; the same reluctance of the government to grapple with the basic problems and to win the support of the people”.

5.

An Indian government public relations effort to tell the people of its accomplishments is practically nonexistent. India’s river valley developments are among the most ambitious ever undertaken, yet even people in the government are almost totally unfamiliar with what is being done.

When Communists and fellow travellers sing the praises of the “new regime” in China and its alleged reforms and accomplishments, it is rare indeed that anyone raises his voice to remind the people of India’s progress in the last five years. This helps to foster a sense of pessimism, and an acceptance of the ultimate victory of Communism in Asia, even among Indians who are ardently on our side.

6.
India’s highly classical educational system seems almost designed to turn out frustrated, cynical young people, ill-prepared for the task of building a new country, and easy prey for Communist propaganda. The attitude of many students in India today is similar to that of Chinese students in the 1930’s.
7.
Although the disabilities of the scheduled castes are disappearing in the cities, they are still strong in the villages. The Communist appeal to these “second-class citizens” is increasingly effective.
8.
Although most Indian leaders were educated in the West and all of them know the West well, they are psychologically conditioned by 200 years of colonialism to an almost psychopathic suspicion of western intentions, and to deep resentment of our prejudices towards the colored races. In these troubled waters, the Communists fish with great skill.
9.
The Chinese and Indian Communists, fellow travellers and Chinese visitors have done a disturbingly effective job of selling China as a new land of milk and honey, which, it is alleged, has solved its problems through Communism in three years’ time. The fact that [Page 1673] Communist China is an Asian nation modifies Indian resentment against the world Communist movement. Unfortunately, most Indians are still convinced that Russia’s influence in China is unimportant.
10.
The Soviet Union, blocked temporarily in Europe, is likely to concentrate heavily on Asia in the next few years and India is its logical number one target. The propaganda efforts of the Soviet Union, backed by ample funds and with increasing skill in dealing with Asian nations, are likely to be at least as effective as in China immediately following the war.
11.
The goals of the Five Year Plan, although certainly modest, cannot possibly be achieved without substantial assistance from the United States, and so far there is no assurance that aid on a sufficient scale is likely to become available. We have been told bluntly that if we are unable to provide considerably more assistance, it will be impossible to start many of the projects included in the Plan, and much of the present work will be slowed down or abandoned.

The target date for completing the Five Year Plan is the spring of 1956, and the success or failure of the Indian government’s effort to accomplish its clearly stated objectives will be the principal issue at stake when Nehru and the Congress Party go to the polls to request another five years of governmental responsibility at the end of that year. The failure of this widely heralded effort will be no less than disastrous.

To sum up these positive and negative factors, it may be said that India’s ability to survive as a free nation will be determined by the way in which the following questions are answered in the next five years.

Will Nehru and his government move boldly ahead with the necessary village reforms, particularly land tenure and the easing of rural debt, before the Communists have the chance to expand their present organization and take advantage of the growing political consciousness of the villagers? Or will he and the Congress Party become still further removed from the people and less and less willing to face up to their problems?

How well can the Indian administrators of the Five Year Plan at all levels learn that while it is vitally important to build dams and schools and to prevent malaria, it is equally important that these advances be achieved in a way which will give the people, and particularly the younger people, a dynamic sense of participation and purpose?

Will Indian universities continue to turn out ready made material for Communist party cells or will the long needed redirection of the Indian educational system take place before it is too late?

Will the world situation enable us to maintain the kind of patient, moderate policies in South Asia which will make it possible for the situation here gradually to move in our direction if other factors are favorable?

[Page 1674]

Can we continue to improve our efforts to present American policy and the American people to Asia in sympathetic understandable terms and in a way that will gradually increase their confidence in us?

Finally, will sufficient financial resources be made available by the United States to enable India to reach the objective laid down in the Five-year Plan?

Some observers may wish to add new factors to either or both sides of the ledger, or to modify or expand the questions which I have posed. But I believe that most thoughtful observers will agree that this sobering analysis is at least reasonably valid.

What are the chances for India’s survival as an independent and free country? In my opinion, the odds are slightly better than 50–50. The most optimistic estimate that you will get in New Delhi might be two to one in our favor, and the most pessimistic at least two to one against us. This means that the range of judgments is remarkably small, and that even the most optimistic among us believes that there is one chance in three that India will disappear behind the Iron Curtain within the next few years with profound repercussions throughout the free world.

What exactly can we do about it? I believe we must recognize at the outset that regardless of what we do we cannot by our own efforts wholly control the situation. Even though we follow the most patient and intelligent policies, and provide India with all the economic assistance that she can constructively use, Indian democracy may still fail because of some of the inherent weaknesses which I have described above. In other words, we can do our part to the hilt and still see India disappear behind the Iron Curtain in the next few years.

Our responsibility, however, seems clear. Regardless of the cost in time, resources and energy, we must make sure that we have done everything within our power to maintain India as a free, democratic and friendly nation.

We must send Americans to India and other Asian countries who understand the importance of this particular part of the world, and who, with their wives, are willing and able to win the confidence of the Indian people both in and out of government. We must continue by our example and by our counsel to urge broader participation of the Indian people in their own economic development.

Above all, we must here and now boldly face the facts on economic development. Let me say again with the greatest possible emphasis that the present Nehru government, which is our best assurance of free, democratic government in India, cannot maintain the necessary working majority in the next election unless the Five Year Plan is a success, and the Five Year Plan is doomed to tragic, explosive failure unless we are willing sharply and immediately to increase our assistance.

[Page 1675]

A great many people both in the administration and in Congress have been fervently hoping that this crucial situation would simply go away. But it is a life and blood crisis which will only respond to hard headed, intelligent planning and action.

Such action will cost money, but unless I am profoundly wrong in my analysis, the cost, whatever it may be, will be cheap indeed if it lessens the odds of a Communist victory in India with the ugly after-math which would surely follow in many other parts of the world.

In 1947, you were one of the first to understand the disaster that the Western World would face if Greece and Turkey slipped into Soviet hands. In 1947, you, General Marshall, the President and others understood clearly the grave danger to our whole position in the world if Europe stumbled into an economic collapse and if the Communists took over in Italy and France. Thanks to the boldness and imagination which we displayed through the Greek–Turkish program, and later the Marshall Plan program, the Communist threat to Europe and Turkey was stopped, and this strategic area gradually stabilized.

It is our considered opinion that we face a similar threat in India today, and I believe it must be faced with equal imagination, equal intelligence and equal boldness. What India needs is what Europe and Turkey needed in 1947, a guarantee (or as close as any Congress can come to giving a guarantee) that American resources will be available in sufficient quantities to give the Indian government the opportunity to reach its Five Year Plan objectives before the next election, and thus to build a solid political and economic foundation for the future.

Sir Chintaman Deshmukh, the Indian Minister for Finance and one of the most competent men in the present government, believes that a total of $1 billion, part in foreign exchange and part in commodities which can be turned into rupees, will be required in the fiscal years 1954, 1955, and 1956 to assure the success of the Five Year Plan. Sir Chintaman has presented a lucid and sobering case for this amount.

I have strongly recommended that the President should propose to the 83rd Congress a three year program, with an appropriation of $250 million for the next fiscal year ($150 million in commodity grants which can be turned into rupees here in India and $100 million in foreign exchange).

No one can tell you the exact three year cost for an Indian aid program any more than you knew the exact cost of Greek-Turkish aid when you and Loy Henderson presented that emergency situation to the President in 1947; or any more than you, General Marshall and Paul Hoffman knew what it would cost to stabilize the economies of western Europe between 1947 and 1951.

The total cost of the Marshall Plan was in the neighborhood of $12 billion. When we consider that the Second World War cost $100 billion a year, in addition to endless misery and suffering, any sensible [Page 1676] man must agree that the stabilization of western Europe which this program made possible would have been justified if the price had been ten times as great.

The dollar cost of helping France and Viet Nam to stop Communist aggression in a shooting war in French Indo-China approaches $500 million annually, or double my estimate of India’s needs for the next fiscal year. If we wait until the Indian situation really begins to fall apart, Congress will undoubtedly vote any sum that we request. But by that time it will be too late for effective action.

There are several reasons why it should be easier now to give India our assurance of full economic support than it was in the historic year of 1947 to take the bold decisions on Europe, Greece and Turkey. First, the investment which seems likely to be required is actually less than what was spent for economic assistance in Greece alone between 1947 and 1951.

Second, we have learned a great deal since that time about handling economic aid.

Third, the Indian Government, unlike several European countries in 1947, has demonstrated its willingness to make very great sacrifices in its own behalf.

Fourth, the Indian economic situation is definitely not a bottomless pit. If the Five Year Plan is successful, our aid can be sharply reduced by 1957. Once India becomes self-supporting in food and cotton (a goal which the Five Year Plan reasonably assumes can be reached by the end of 1956) more than $600 million in foreign exchange which now must be used each year to buy wheat, rice and cotton abroad can be put to work in building Indian industry and opening up her resources.

Fifth, both our political parties have been outdoing each other in this election to express their concern about Asia and their determination to face up to Asia’s problems.

Thus, I strongly recommend that we present to Congress a three-year program, based on the experience of the Marshall Plan, with an assurance to the Indian Government that we shall fill the gap in their own financial resources necessary to enable them to reach their Five Year Plan objectives. I propose that we offer our best estimate for the total overall program with a specific figure for the first year. The economic specialists can then work out the details of the program with the Indian government, with the clear understanding that no funds will be authorized except for carefully planned and urgently needed projects.

By and large the record of the present Administration in foreign affairs is a record in which all Americans take pride. The tide of Communism has begun to recede in Europe and the danger of a military attack has lessened. We have faced up to the challenge of Korea and [Page 1677] there is a fast-growing awareness of the importance of India and Southeast Asia to our global strategy and to the maintenance of the free world.

In a little more than two months, a new Administration will take over. I know you are anxious that we turn over our responsibilities to that Administration on the most solid possible basis. In my opinion this calls for a firm, clear recommendation to Congress and to the new Administration that the crucial problem of India must be faced as boldly as we have faced equally difficult problems in the past.

Let me emphasize again that we cannot assure the success of democracy in India regardless of what we do or how much money we spend. Much will depend on what the Indian government itself does or fails to do.

But it is clear that without our assistance the establishment of a stable, secure democratic government in India verges on the impossible. Our willingness to meet India’s urgent economic need plus our ability to win India’s understanding and friendship may readily determine the future of free Asia. And regardless of the outcome we will always have the satisfaction in knowing that we met this crucial situation squarely at an important period in history.

May I add one final word. This lengthy letter has dealt necessarily with the implications of a Communist India, and with what I believe we must do to help prevent this catastrophe. The positive side of the situation should be readily obvious.

A dynamic, stable India and a friendly Japan can provide two crucial anchors for the whole vast territory from South Africa to the Aleutians. Democratic India with her 360 million people linked to the United States by a common stake in a free and prosperous world can provide the essential bridge between East and West. The balance of power and influence would be tipped sharply in our direction. The stabilization of Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa and the isolation of the Communist world without war would be brought immeasurably closer.

My proposals obviously call for the highest level policy decision. For this reason, I am enclosing three copies of this letter which you may wish to send to Bedell Smith, Averell Harriman and Bob Lovett.1

With my warmest regards.

Sincerely,

Chester Bowles

P.S. My heartiest congratulations on your magnificent speech before the General Assembly.2 I have just mailed a copy to Nehru.

  1. On Nov. 18, Assistant Secretary of State Byroade sent copies of Ambassador Bowles’ letter to Secretary of Defense Lovett (110.11 AC/1852), to Director of Central Intelligence Smith (891.00 TA/11–1952), and to Director for Mutual Security Harriman (891.00 TA/11–1852).
  2. The reference is to Secretary of State Acheson’s speech before the UN General Assembly at New York on Oct. 16, 1952. The text is in the Department of State Bulletin, Oct. 27, 1952, p. 639.