The Last Phase (3)

World War II The Congress Develops a Foreign Policy

The National Congress, like all other political organizations in India, was for long entirely engrossed in internal politics and paid little attention to foreign developments. In the 1920s it began to take some interest in foreign affairs. No other organization did so except the small groups of socialists and communists. Muslim organizations were interested in Palestine and occasionally passed resolutions of sympathy for the Muslim Arabs there. The intense nationalism of Turkey, Egypt, and Iran was watched by them but not without some apprehension, as it was secular, and was leading to reforms which were not wholly in keeping with their ideas of Islamic traditions. The Congress gradually developed a foreign policy which was based on the elimination of political and economic imperialism everywhere and the co-operation of free nations. This fitted in with the demand for Indian independence. As early as 1920 a resolution on foreign policy was passed by the Congress, in which our desire to co-operate with other nations and especially to develop friendly relations with all our neighbouring countries, was emphasized. The possibility of another large-scale war was later considered, and in 1927, twelve years before World War II actually started, the Congress first declared its policy in regard to it.

This was five or six years before Hitler came into power and before Japanese aggression in Manchuria had begun. Mussolini was consolidating himself in Italy but did not then appear as a major threat to world peace. Fascist Italy was on friendly terms with England and British statesmen expressed their admiration for the Duce. There were a number of petty dictators in Europe, also usually on good terms with the British Government. Between England and Soviet Russia, however, there was a complete breach; there had been the Arcos raid and withdrawal of diplomatic representatives. In the League of Nations and the International Labour Office, British and French policy was definitely conservative. In the interminable discussions on disarmament, when every other country represented in the League, as well as the U.S.A., were in favour of the total abolition of aerial bombardment, Britain made some vital reservations. For many years the British Government had used aircraft, for ‘police purposes’ it was called, for bombing towns and villages in Iraq and the North-West Frontier of India. This ‘right’ was insisted upon, thus preventing any general agreement on this subject in the League and later in the Disarmament Conference.

Germany—the Weimar republican Germany—had become a full member of the League of Nations, and Locarno had been hailed as a forerunner of perpetual peace in Europe and a triumph of British policy. Another view of all these developments was that Soviet Russia was being isolated and a joint front against her was being created in Europe. Russia had just celebrated the tenth anniversary of her revolution and had developed friendly ties with various eastern countries—Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, and Mongolia.

The Chinese revolution had also advanced with great