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Times have changed, situations have changed, but the basic nature of superpower geo-politics remains the same and so also India's diplomacy -- call it non-alignment, strategic autonomy or neutrality; it all depends on the time scale, observes Rup Narayan Das.
At a time when Indian diplomacy is subjected to trying times in Ukraine jostling for a fine balance between two strategic rivals, the United States and Russia, it is instructive to revisit India's diplomacy in the Korean peninsula and Indo-China in the 1950s when the two superpowers were entangled in the Asian theatre to maintain their spheres of influence.
First let's revisit the Korean peninsula. Immediately after its birth in October 1949, Communist China was embroiled in a major war with the United States in the Korean peninsula.
Fearful of the domino effect from Communist China, the US was determined to contain communism.
A major crisis loomed large bringing the world to the cusp of yet another world war with the US on one side and Russia and China on the other.
Circumstances impelled India to engage in diplomatic parleys as a peace mediator between China and the US, even though India had just started taking baby steps as an independent nation.
Earlier, in February 1948, India's ace diplomat Ambassador K P S Menon was unanimously elected as the first chairman of the United Nation's Temporary Commission on Korea (UNTCOK).
Menon was against the division of the Korean peninsula.
Later the United Nations General Assembly created a new UN commission on Korea to replace UNTCOK with the task to devise a formula to realise the goal of one Korea.
Yet another feather in India's cap was that the country was bestowed with the honour to be the chairman of the Neutral Nations' Repatriation Commission (NNRC).
As chairman of the commission India was the umpire between two adversaries, the US and China. India mediated between China and the US with regard to the unfolding geo-political scenario in the Korean peninsula at a time when the two didn't share diplomatic relations.
India had taken the position that the 38th Parallel, which divided North and South Korea, should not be crossed until efforts at a negotiated settlement had been made.
Ambassador K M Panikar, in Peking, viewed that crossing the 38th Parallel risked bringing Communist China into the war and that several members of the UN shared India's concern.
Since a number of resolutions were drafted and moved in both the General Assembly and the UN Security Council, effective coordination among different stakeholders was of critical importance.
India's skilful diplomacy, objectivity and neutrality amidst various pulls by powerful countries such as the US, USSR and China enhanced India's profile in the comity of nations.
The 60th Indian Field Ambulance also rendered yeoman service. The ambulance unit worked under tremendous odds in the freezing cold, without heating, and attended to wounded soldiers evacuated from the fronts.
Perhaps taking a cue from India's earlier experience, New Delhi gifted four mobile hospitals to Ukraine during Prime Minister Modi's visit to the war ravaged country last week.
As soon as the North Korean forces invaded South Korea on June 25, 1950, the Indian government issued a policy statement on 29th June 1959.
Soon after, the Lok Sabha was convened to discuss the matter on July 31, 1950.
President Rajendra Prasad said that Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had written to Soviet leader Josef Stalin and US Secretary of State Dean Acheson to exert their authority to localise the armed struggle in Korea.
India wanted to break the deadlock in the UN Security Council over the admission of the People's Republic of China so that the international tensions could might be eased and the way opened to a solution of the Korean problem by discussion in the Security Council.
Although Stalin was favourably towards India's stance, Acheson was not convinced. He explained in correspondence with Nehru why the United States disagreed with the Indian approach.
The exchange of correspondence indicated American interest in using K M Panikkar, India's ambassador in China, as a channel to the Chinese Communists.
Although Washington regarded Panikkar with suspicion, he was the only non-Communist envoy with good access to the Chinese leadership.
The UN Security Council's refusal, under US pressure, to admit the People's Republic of China, led to the Soviet Union walking out of the council. This further precipitated the Korean crisis.
While the crisis was unfolding in the Korean Peninsula, its echo was heard in our Parliament.
The Lok Sabha in a motion moved by Prime Minister Nehru, who was also in charge of the external affairs ministry, on August 3, 1950 deliberated on the Korean crisis.
'We have a tremendous responsibility,' Nehru said. 'Not that India, as she is constituted today, can play or does play a very important part in world affairs. Those countries which have big battalions or economic and money power play a big part. We have neither big battalions nor money power.'
'So we do not play any big part and we do not claim to play any big part. But whether we play a big part or a small part, inevitably we have to play a part and in that totality of circumstances that arise even that little part may count, and I believe it does count,' Nehru added.
'Therefore, it becomes important for us what we do in these circumstances. To some extent our relations with some of our neighbouring countries of Asia are close.
'They are situated as we are, and we take counsel together, and, therefore, the part taken by us and the action we indulge in has certain wider significance also.'
Arguing further he said, '...As a result China not being admitted into the United Nations and the representative of the old Kuomintang regime being there, the House knows that the USSR and some of their friendly countries, more or less, walked out of the various organs of the United Nations, more specially from the Security Council.'
Recalling the circumstances in which India got involved in the peace process in the Korean peninsula, Nehru said, 'One of the sponsors of this resolution on Korea in the United Nations at that time in 1947 was India.'
'Later on when the Commission was being set up there, I might inform the House, we were not anxious to serve on it, simply because of our desire not to interfere too much in other countries affairs ... but when we were told that 'your representative was one of the sponsors of this Resolution, so you must undertake this responsibility'.'
'So one of our representatives was put on the Korean Commission, and little later that commission chose him as its Chairman, so that for many months the Korean Commission had one Indian for its chairman... he is at present moment our foreign secretary here.'
'We have had the advantage during all these days of his intimate personal knowledge of Korean situation which he acquired as chairman of this commission.'
The commission convened in Seoul under India's chairmanship in January 1948. The commission tried to get in touch with North Korea, but North Korea did not reach out to the commission.
In the meanwhile the two governments on the either side of the 38th Parallel consolidated their position militarily.
In May 1948, elections were held in South Korea under the auspicious of the UN Commission. As a result of these elections the Republic of Korea was proclaimed in South Korea.
The government in the north claimed to represent the whole of Korea and so there were two governments of South Korea and North Korea, each claiming some kind of mystical domain over the other.
Yet another area that witnessed India's skilful diplomacy was in Indo-China.
The Geneva Conference on Indo-China took place from May 9 to July 21, 1954, a day after the decisive defeat of the French at Điện Biên Phủ.
Then French premier Mendes France realised that France could no longer hold Indo-China in bondage.
Britain and USSR played the role of catalytic agents and overcame the opposition of then US secretary of State John Foster Dulles.
Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai stole the limelight at the conference.
In spite of India's significant role, India was not invited to the conference, which peeved Prime Minister Nehru.
He, however, deputed his confidant V K Krishna Menon to render informal assistance to the Conference.
Nehru lamented that 'We didn't stand on dignity, we just stood on the doorstep and tried to be helpful'.
A significant contribution made by Zhou Enlai during the Conference was the proposal for the composition of the International Commission for Supervision and Control (ICSC) in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.
The issue had become a sticky one since then Russian foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov had raised it earlier on May 14, 1954.
India was invited to be the chairman of the ICSC in the hope that she would be able to hold the balance.
The Soviet delegation proposed four neutral nations as members: Poland, Czechoslovakia, India and Pakistan.
But the non-Communists were opposed to it.
Then British foreign secretary Anthony Eden suggested five Colombo Plan nations, which Moscow's interlocutor Molotov rejected.
South Vietnam suggested the United Nations, which Communist China rejected.
Both sides stubbornly disagreed with each other.
Until July 17, no agreement was reached, and a solution seemed elusive.
On July 18, Zhou Enlai proposed India, Poland and Canada as the members.
The proposal was accepted unanimously. In negotiating the proposal, the Chinese delegation acted in the sense of compromise.
This was obviously Zhou's stand in Geneva, a position which the Chinese strongly urged other participants to share.
The Geneva Accords were the ray of hope in the dark clouds that overshadowed the Conference.
The presence of ICSC represented the interest of the international community and was a symbol, albeit a weak one, of peace.
But the International Commission was soon inflicted with the atmosphere of the Cold War that prevailed between the Great-Power blocs.
Canada usually took a pro-western stance while Poland adopted a pro-Soviet posture.
India's task as the chairman was unenviable. Pressure from all sides was mounted to use the Commission as tools for one side or the other and for propagating the Cold War.
India appointed T N Kaul as the ICSC chairman.
When Kaul met Nehru prior to his departure to Vietnam, the prime minister told Kaul about India's close ties with the countries of Indo-China.
He emphasised the fact that the people of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia were first and last, nationalists and patriots.
Vietnam had resisted feudal China's domination for more than a thousand years.
He further told Kaul that under Ho Chi Minh's leadership Vietnam would not submit to foreign domination.
Nehru alerted Kaul that India's position as chairman of the ICSC was important and delicate and that he hoped Kaul would discharge the onerous responsibilities impartially in accordance with the letter and spirit of the Geneva Accords.
India welcomed the birth of Vietnam as an aspect of resurgence Asia and also the Geneva Accords.
Prime Minister Nehru participating in a discussion on the demands for grants of the ministry of external affairs on 31st March, 1955, ahead of the Bandung Conference, said 'It had become a regular practice for the affairs of Asia to be determined by certain great powers in Europe or sometimes in America, and the fact that people of Asia might have any views about those subjects was not considered a matter of very great importance.
'It is true that some importance is attached to those views now, because they cannot be ignored; nevertheless, it seem to be the high privilege of countries outside Asia to carry the burden of Asia on their shoulders, and repeatedly things happen and decisions are made affecting Asia in which Asia has little say.'
India viewed the birth and liberation of Vietnam in the larger context of freedom and peace for the people of Asia and Africa.
Elucidating further Nehru added, '...Freedom for them (the people of Asia) is much more important than to those who have been used to freedom for a long time past. Therefore, there is the passionate desire for peace and opportunity for progress in these countries and that is a common bond.'
Times have changed, situations have changed, but the basic nature of superpower geo-politics remains the same and so also India's diplomacy -- call it non-alignment, strategic autonomy or neutrality; it all depends on the time scale.
It is rebranding the recalibration of diplomatic engagement.
True, it is an oddity to compare cheese and chalk.
Dr Rup Narayan Das is a former senior fellow at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses and also the Indian Council of Social Science Research. The views expressed are personal.
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com