HERALD TRIBUNE (International) October 18, 1971
In a time of personal diplomacy, when old molds are feeling shattered by the journeys of a Japanese emperor and the impending visits of an American President to Peking and Moscow, the arrival of President Tito in New Delhi has a traditional air. It is Tito’s fifth trip to India since 1954; St is the customary exchange of courtesies between Yugoslavia and India, leaders among the “non-aligned” nations.
But the atmosphere surrounding the meeting between President Tito and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is quite different from that which prevailed during the Yugoslav leader’s earlier journeys to New Delhi. For one thing, he comes there at a time of acute tension between India and Pakistan, when the trouble in East Pakistan have produced1 military repression which has driven millions into India, and India is actively supporting the independence movement of Bangladesh.
But the troubles of the divided sub-continent go back before the beginning of independence there, and thus appears old at least as Yugoslavia’s own independence from Moscow. More fundamental (if less immediately perilous) changes have taken place since Tito and Jawaharlal Nehru were the most outstanding representatives of non- alignment of the third world force that was to emerge from the shadows of the two super-powers, the United States and the Soviet Union.
Yugoslavia has modified its relationship with the Soviet Union, although it still maintains its absolute sovereignty India has an alliance with the Soviet Union, partly out of fear of a war with Pakistan, partly because the old rapport which Nehru once enjoyed with Chou-En-Lai (in the days when “peaceful co-existence” was their slogan) was broken by the frontier war. Non-alignment does not mean to Mrs. Gandhi what it once did to Pandit Nehru.
Moreover, the whole concept of non-alignment has altered. With the United States and the Soviet Union no longer facing one another with nuclear missiles poised, with the United States and the People’s Republic of China making pacific gestures, the outlines of the old, sharp alignment are blurred, and the space between them no longer is clear cut.
President Tito and Mrs. Gandhi will, no doubt, have much to discuss in this new context. Tito has seen acerbity diminish in Europe; Mrs. Gandhi has seen them increase in Asia. The Yugoslav President confronts a heightening communal dissension at home—a revival of the old jealousies between Croat and Serbbut his country has done well economically. Mrs. Gandhi, in addition to the troubles with Pakistan, has the deep-rooted quarrels of region and language of her complex land to face, as well as the unsolved, basic question of Indian poverty. Non-alignment is no longer the sole key to policy for either it is but one among many and will no longer open the most important locks barring access to peace and prosperity.
In a time of personal diplomacy, when old molds are feeling shattered by the journeys of a Japanese emperor and the impending visits of an American President to Peking and Moscow, the arrival of President Tito in New Delhi has a traditional air. It is Tito’s fifth trip to India since 1954; St is the customary exchange of courtesies between Yugoslavia and India, leaders among the “non-aligned” nations.
But the atmosphere surrounding the meeting between President Tito and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is quite different from that which prevailed during the Yugoslav leader’s earlier journeys to New Delhi. For one thing, he comes there at a time of acute tension between India and Pakistan, when the trouble in East Pakistan have produced1 military repression which has driven millions into India, and India is actively supporting the independence movement of Bangladesh.
But the troubles of the divided sub-continent go back before the beginning of independence there, and thus appears old at least as Yugoslavia’s own independence from Moscow. More fundamental (if less immediately perilous) changes have taken place since Tito and Jawaharlal Nehru were the most outstanding representatives of non- alignment of the third world force that was to emerge from the shadows of the two super-powers, the United States and the Soviet Union.
Yugoslavia has modified its relationship with the Soviet Union, although it still maintains its absolute sovereignty India has an alliance with the Soviet Union, partly out of fear of a war with Pakistan, partly because the old rapport which Nehru once enjoyed with Chou-En-Lai (in the days when “peaceful co-existence” was their slogan) was broken by the frontier war. Non-alignment does not mean to Mrs. Gandhi what it once did to Pandit Nehru.
Moreover, the whole concept of non-alignment has altered. With the United States and the Soviet Union no longer facing one another with nuclear missiles poised, with the United States and the People’s Republic of China making pacific gestures, the outlines of the old, sharp alignment are blurred, and the space between them no longer is clear cut.
President Tito and Mrs. Gandhi will, no doubt, have much to discuss in this new context. Tito has seen acerbity diminish in Europe; Mrs. Gandhi has seen them increase in Asia. The Yugoslav President confronts a heightening communal dissension at home—a revival of the old jealousies between Croat and Serbbut his country has done well economically. Mrs. Gandhi, in addition to the troubles with Pakistan, has the deep-rooted quarrels of region and language of her complex land to face, as well as the unsolved, basic question of Indian poverty. Non-alignment is no longer the sole key to policy for either it is but one among many and will no longer open the most important locks barring access to peace and prosperity.
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