The cataclysm of India’s Partition left caustic wounds that would inform and shape the patterns of international relations in the region for decades after formal independence had been achieved. The situational difficulties of India between two Pakistans haunted Indian strategic thinkers; these fears had, after all, been twice actualised by wars in 1947 and 1965 over the contested Kashmir region. In each instance, Indian planners were deeply wary of the logistical challenges involved in fighting a two-front war. Amongst the midsummer monsoons of 1971, calls for Bengali liberation grew as protests and demonstrations raged across East Pakistan, generating an influx of refugees into neighbouring India.[1] Amidst this turmoil, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi saw an opportunity to permanently reconfigure the strategic geography of the subcontinent to India’s favour – to do so, she went searching for a hegemonic ally. From her designs and diplomacy came the Indo-Soviet Treaty of Peace, Friendship, and Cooperation. The Treaty reflects ideological ties and South Asian geopolitical realities in the summer of 1971, and provided a framework for India and the Soviet Union to declare “enduring peace… sincere friendship… and comprehensive cooperation”.[2] The exigencies and rivalries of national actors in Asia, and the nature of the greater global hegemonic struggles culminated in this unique partnership, representing the apogee of superpower involvement in the Indian subcontinent during the Cold War.
The 1971 Indo-Soviet Treaty illustrates a concerted effort to rebalance great power relations in the Indian subcontinent, formally completing the strategic realignment of South Asia and furthering the rift between China and the Soviet Union. Indira Gandhi wished to take advantage of protest sentiments and the refugee crisis in East Pakistan, believing that with decisive military action she would be able to cleave Pakistan into two separate nations,[3] thus ending the threat of a two-front war and heavily reorienting the regional balance of power in India’s favour. A natural enmity existed between India and Pakistan, of course, but a series of border conflicts and the Indian government’s unflinching commitment to the cause of independent Tibet had soured relations with neighbouring China as well.[4] From their mutual animosity towards India, China and Pakistan gradually developed into ‘all-weather allies,’ ensuring that any Indian threats to splinter East and West Pakistan would be met by swift reproach from the People’s Liberation Army. This understanding had been precariously maintained until two new developments in the 1960s changed the established equation: China was moving away from the USSR, and the American President Nixon was moving towards China.[5] Indian conflagrations with the People’s Republic in 1962 and the Islamic Republic in 1965 further undergirded the seismic regional reconstitutions of the novel 1970s.
In a bid to exploit the Sino-Soviet divide and to get closer to China, Nixon appealed to Pakistan; to counter the developing US-China-Pakistan axis, the Soviets publically strengthened ties with India. Tellingly published in Hindi, Russian, and English by their respective foreign ministries, the text of the agreement was purposefully intended for an international audience. Perhaps more important is not what was, but what was not explicitly stated in the terms of the Treaty. Chinese, American, and Pakistani diplomats likely inferred that Indo-Soviet aims to “preserve and strengthen peace in Asia and throughout the world” would have implications and repercussions on their own strategic planning.[6] With the adoption of the treaty, India had, for the first time since Independence, departed from its signature conception of non-alignment – particularly the tenets of “abstention from power politics” and the “refusal in advance of military commitments to another country”.[7] This break from Nehruvian policy completed the rebalancing of South Asia’s geopolitical equilibrium, centred on competing pacts that would last up to and beyond the end of the Cold War.
The lexicon of the 1971 Indo-Soviet Treaty provides detailed insight into the national and personal objectives of the leaders of India and the Soviet Union at this time, and points to the forging of a genuine multilevel relationship between the two states. Segments of the Treaty built upon previous trade agreements, and furthermore “[attach] great importance to economic, scientific, and technological cooperation”.[8] The scope of these people-to-people cultural connections go farther yet, into realms as varied as “art, literature, education, public health, press, radio, television, cinema, tourism, and sports”.[9] It appears that both sides wanted to make legitimate good on the provisions and stipulations of according one another “most-favoured-nation treatment”.[10] Even within the anodyne syntax of the official document, it is possible to see the expression and articulation of the respective political goals of India’s Prime Minister and the Soviet Union’s Premier Leonid Brezhnev. Alliance with India – leader of the Non-Aligned Movement and symbol of democratic decolonisation – bolstered the Soviet Union’s anti-colonial credentials. While Nixon abandoned his predecessors’ ‘hearts and minds’ approach to the developing world in favour of strict Realist doctrine,[11] Brezhnev spoke to a rapt Third World through his Treaty with India, repeatedly and deliberately “[condemning] colonialism and racialism in all forms and manifestations”.[12] Indira Gandhi, a proponent of socialism and centralisation, used the Treaty as a means to move India into the Soviet sphere of ideological influence in exchange for the arms and diplomatic support needed to realise her military ambitions.[13] Superpower backing granted greater operational and strategic freedom to conduct Indian foreign policy. In the instance of an attack against either nation, the treaty stipulates that India and the USSR will “enter into mutual consultations in order to remove such threat and take appropriate effective measures to ensure peace and the security of their countries”.[14] With the Soviet Union acting as hegemonic counterweight to the United States and a restraint on Chinese aggression, Indira Gandhi was free to pursue military involvement in East Pakistan by December of 1971 without fear of exogenous interference.
That the 1971 Indo-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Peace, and Cooperation was signed under the auspices of Sardar Swaran Singh and Andrei Gromyko, two immensely respected plenipotentiaries and the highest-ranking diplomats of their respective nations, speaks volumes as to the importance accorded to this text by the Soviet and Indian governments. Making full use of the Soviet protection guaranteed by this Treaty, Indian forces were able to rout the Pakistani military in a mere thirteen days, eliciting the creation of independent Bangladesh and setting the stage for India’s undisputed preeminence as the premier great power in South Asia. Vestiges of the 1971 Indo-Soviet Treaty echo throughout a landmark accord signed between India and Bangladesh in the following year, employing a vastly similar style and rhetoric. The Treaty cemented India’s place in the Soviet strategic imagination, while future Indian leaders embraced the move into the Soviet sphere until the dissolution of the USSR and India’s subsequent economic liberalization in 1991.[15] The de facto departure from Jawaharlal Nehru’s principled non-alignment marked a significant turning point in the history of independent India’s foreign policy, and the 1971 Treaty still forms the basic framework for the ‘special relationship’ that persists between India and the Soviet Union’s successor state, the Russian Republic, to this day.
Anvesh Jain is a student pursuing an Honours Bachelor of Arts at the University of Toronto – St. George, with a specialisation in International Relations. He is actively involved both on and off campus in Toronto, as well as back home in Calgary, Alberta. Anvesh has worked as a Constituency Assistant in the Parliamentary Riding of Calgary Forest Lawn, and as a Program Editor for the NATO Association of Canada. His research interests include topics in Canadian and South Asian international relations, with particular regard for questions of grand strategy and diplomatic history. His work has been published by the Mackenzie Institute, the Southern California International Review, and the Literary Review of Canada, and he is an avid follower and player of Cricket.
Bibliography
Chiriyankandath, James. “Realigning India: Indian foreign policy after the Cold War.” The Round Table 93, Issue 274 (2004): 199-211.
“Intelligence Memorandum: Indo-Soviet Relations.” Secret issue December 4th, 1972. Declassified November 18th, 2008. General CIA Records. https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP85T00875R001100130127-2.pdf.
Kapur, Ashok. “Indo-Soviet Treaty and the Emerging Asian Balance.” Asian Survey 12, no. 6 (1972): 463-474.
“Memorandum of Acting Secretary of State Irwin to President Nixon.” August 9th, 1971. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976, Volume XI, South Asia Crisis, 1971. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v11/d116.
Norbu, Dawa. “Tibet in Sino-Indian Relations: The Centrality of Marginality.” Asian Survey 37, no. 11 (1997): 1078-1095.
Rajan, M.S. “The Indo-Soviet Treaty and India’s non-alignment policy.” Australian Outlook 26, Issue 2 (1972): 204-215.
Singh, S P. “Indo-Soviet Treaty — A Critique.” Proceedings of the Indian History Congress 40 (1979): 1055-1061.
“Treaty of Peace, Friendship, and Cooperation.” Proclaimed August 9th, 1971. Ministry of External Affairs Media Center: Bilateral/Multilateral Documents. https://mea.gov.in/bilateral-documents.htm?dtl/5139/Treaty+of+.
[1] S P. Singh, “Indo-Soviet Treaty — A Critique,” Proceedings of the Indian History Congress 40 (1979): 1056.
[2] “Treaty of Peace, Friendship, and Cooperation,” proclaimed August 9th, 1971, Ministry of External Affairs Media Center: Bilateral/Multilateral Documents, Article I, https://mea.gov.in/bilateral-documents.htm?dtl/5139/Treaty+of+.
[3] “Intelligence Memorandum: Indo-Soviet Relations,” secret issue December 4th, 1972, declassified November 18th, 2008, General CIA Records, 4-5, https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP85T00875R001100130127-2.pdf.
[4] Dawa Norbu, “Tibet in Sino-Indian Relations: The Centrality of Marginality,” Asian Survey 37, no. 11 (1997): 1092-1093.
[5] “Memorandum of Acting Secretary of State Irwin to President Nixon,” August 9th, 1971, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976, Volume XI, South Asia Crisis, 1971, Document 116, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v11/d116.
[6] “Treaty of Peace, Friendship, and Cooperation,” Article II.
[7] M.S. Rajan, “The Indo-Soviet Treaty and India’s non-alignment policy,” Australian Outlook 26, Issue 2 (1972): 204.
[8] “Treaty of Peace, Friendship, and Cooperation,” Article VI.
[9] Ibid., Article VII.
[10] Ibid., Article VI.
[11] Ashok Kapur, “Indo-Soviet Treaty and the Emerging Asian Balance,” Asian Survey 12, no. 6 (1972): 467.
[12] “Treaty of Peace, Friendship, and Cooperation,” Article III.
[13] “Intelligence Memorandum: Indo-Soviet Relations,” 5.
[14] “Treaty of Peace, Friendship, and Cooperation,” Article IX.
[15] James Chiriyankandath, “Realigning India: Indian foreign policy after the Cold War,” The Round Table 93, Issue 274 (2004): 199.
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