India-China: back to basics

The Narendra Modi-Xi Jinping handshake in Kazan provides the right opportunity to ask the most basic question: what is our longterm perspective on India-China relations?

The question was, in fact, raised and settled back in 1950. In a famed letter to Jawaharlal Nehru, deputy prime minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel set out his concerns over China’s increasing belligerence towards any kind of pretence to independence by Tibet.

Nehru decided to take the issue to cabinet instead of leaving it as a bilateral difference of opinion between himself and his deputy. He had every reason to believe that Sardar Patel would be present at the cabinet meeting. Tragically, the Sardar remained bedridden and died within three weeks of Nehru detailing his counter-argument to all members of the cabinet through his note of November 18, 1950.