India and the Kennedy years: How Washington and New Delhi came close to a clinch

[Kyusuibu Honbu]

WASHINGTON: The United States mourned the death and celebrated the life on Friday of arguably its most charismatic President who was cut down by an assassin's bullet 50 years ago in the prime of his life — at a time he had elevated US-India ties to heights that were never achieved before and did not approach till recent years.

Largely unsung and all by forgotten in New Delhi, John F Kennedy, or simply JFK to generations, came to India's help when it was receiving a drubbing from China in 1962, funnelling billions of dollars of aid to New Delhi in the years before and after. But for the cussedness of the Indian establishment then in thrall of "non-alignment," Kennedy wanted to forge an even closer relationship with a county he adored.

He also detailed to India two of America's most brilliant minds — Chester Bowles and John Kenneth Galbraith — who as ambassadors ensured that ties with New Delhi received top billing in Washington. Both had direct access to Kennedy and Nehru, as did Indian ambassadors in Washington. Kennedy, who would have been 96 if he were alive, once called the Indian deputy chief of mission to the White House to deliver a message.

Indeed, while much of India remembers and recoils at the American bullying during the Nixon Presidency with the nuclear carrier USS Enterprise in the midst of the 1971 Indo-Pak war, less well recalled is the same aircraft carrier was dispatched to the Bay of Bengal during the Sino-Indian conflict ''to steady Indian nerves,'' according to diplomatic historian Dennis Kux.

There was little recall of all this — much less the massive developmental aid that began in the Kennedy years — in the Indian diplomatic community or the New Delhi commentariat this week as a whole generation of Americans pined and ached over the ''swinging sixties'' - a decade that not only promised to put the Cold War in deep freeze but also take on rampant racism and sexism. All that was disrupted and delayed for years with the bullet Lee Harvey Oswald fired into Kennedy's head in Dallas; also dislocated was a Kennedy drive for a closer embrace of India after it had been lacerated by China and led down by the Soviet Union during that conflict.

In his study of the Kennedy years in the context of India, Kux writes about Kennedy's great regard and affection for India starting from his days as a Senator when he took the initiative to sponsor a resolution urging more economic aid for India, ''although his personal contact with Nehru was less than sparkling.'' The Prime Minister showed little interest in talking with the young Massachusetts representative when he visited in India in 1951, says Kux, writing that ''Nehru's preachy neutralism put Kennedy off somewhat.'' But he respected the prime minister as one of the great political leaders of the 20th century and praised the ''soaring idealism of Nehru'' in his first state of the union address in 1961.

But it was in the economic and developmental sphere that Kennedy really stepped on it, committing nearly $1 billion annually (a massive amount those days and one that made India the largest recipient of US aid) to an often ungrateful basket case whose defense minister frequently twitted Washington at the U.N. Even Nehru was gratified by the gesture, and in a letter to Kennedy, thanked him effusively, writing: ''Our task, great as it is, has been made light by the goodwill and generous assistance tht has come to us from the United States. To the people of the United States, and more especially to you, Mr President, we feel deeply grateful.''

Among the signature US projects in India -- besides food aid -- that emerged from the Kennedy years was the Tarapur nuclear plant; IIT Kanpur, styled after MIT; the Nagarjun Sagar Dam in Andhra Pradesh; and the Premier automobile factory in Mumbai.

All efforts by Kennedy went into vain than to Nixon. However good thing Indo-American ties have improved now.

 

[anant_s]

India's Soviet leaning stand was one big reason why in decades of 60s, 70s and 80s US never had any faith in India despite being a democracy. Nixon administration and Henry Kissinger too made relations with India even more strained and 1971 war and Pohran 1 test were watershed events in the history of Indo-US relations.
Just to think that the relations started to improve only in mid 90s (after economic liberalization and fall of USSR) is itself baffling.