The Biography of Famous Personalities of India will tell you about the controversies, the dark sides of a person that you may have never heard of.
Pakistan & Kashmir Issue and Foreign Policy of Foreign Policy
The Pakistan And Kashmir Issue
Nehru’s ancestors were Kashmiri Pandits. They became ecstatic whenever they saw the natural beauty of the place. After partition, the Maharaja of Kashmir King Hari Singh could not decide whether to merge with India or with Pakistan. Kashmir is situated exactly between India and Pakistan. The King of Kashmir could have easily joined hands with any of the two nations, but he chose to stay independent. The rulers of Pakistan did not like this.
They lost their patience and sent an army of their soldiers stealthily into Kashmir and spread a lot of terror there. Many people were massacred. The scared king wishing to rid his people of this terror, requested Nehru and Sardar Patel to send the Indian army to his aid. When the king agreed to merge with the Indian Union, our leaders sent the Indian army to help him and drive the Pakistani soldiers out of Kashmir. Pakistan declared that the infiltrators were terrorists. They had no connection with their army.
But after a short time, the Pakistani army started helping the infiltrators. A situation where India and Pakistan would go to war was created. In 1948, Pakistan made a futile effort of capturing Kashmir by force. Nehru took this issue to the Security Council of the United Nations (UN). Sardar Patel did not support this decision. The Kashmir issue always proved to be a problem during Nehru’s tenure as Prime Minister and its solution has not been obtained till date.
Foreign Policy
Nehru was not only the first Prime Minister of independent India; he was also the Foreign Minister. He remained Foreign Minister until the very last. Nehru was an extremely intelligent and justice-loving person. He was quite familiar with world politics and was the creator of India’s foreign policy. He had travelled the whole world and was eager to establish friendly, peaceful as well as progressive relations with the countries of the rest of the world.
Nehru was highly influenced by Gandhiji’s school of thought. He also gave tremendous importance to truth and non-violence. He laid the foundation of the policy of non-alignment and gave the world the principles of ‘Panchsheel’. He firmly believed that the solution to international complaints must be brought about only through peaceful negotiations. He had strongly opposed military alliances like ‘NATO’.
On Nehru’s recommendation, India continued to be a member of the United Nations. However, the word ‘British’ was not used anymore as a prefix to India. The English King’s name was continued as the head just for the sake of it. This was a wise decision of Nehru’s. Both India and England profited by it. To make the ‘Gnited Nations’ an institute that represented people of various colours (nations) and castes, Nehru gave a lot of assistance and cooperation to Mr Clement Attlee the then Prime Minister of England.
Opposition of institutionalism was an important factor of Nehru’s foreign policy. Besides this, there was compassion for the freedom struggle going on in some of the Asian and African countries. Nehru played an important role in gaining independence for Indonesia.
Nehru had a policy of cooperation with all the Islamic nations. Therefore, India used to vote against Israel in the Gnited Nations. But later on Nehru realised that the policy of supporting Islamic nations in all their issues must be reconsidered. After this, India gave recognition to Israel.