Targeting Congress for its foreign policies, External Affairs Minister (MEA) S Jaishankar claimed that country’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru wanted to make sure China got a place in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) ahead of India.
“When it was offered to us, Nehru’s position was ‘we deserve the seat but first China should get it,” the MEA said in his address at the Gujarat Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Ahmedabad on Tuesday.
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He said during his discussion with India’s first deputy prime minister and home minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel over a permanent seat at the UNSC in 1950, Nehru wanted to make sure China got a place in the forum ahead of India.
The EAM said Sardar Patel cautioned Jawaharlal Nehru against China. ”Sardar Patel said that today, we are facing a situation on two fronts – Pakistan and China – which for India has never happened in our history before. He also said that whatever the Chinese are saying, he feels that their intent is not good and therefore let us take precautions, let us build a policy around this. Nehru’s position was…he was completely dissenting,” Dr Jaishankar said.
“Nehru told Patel that he was unduly skeptical about the Chinese,” Dr Jaishankar said, adding that the first prime minister of India thought it was impossible for anybody to attack India across the Himalayas.
”A few years later, there was a debate about the UN, should India be given a UN seat at that time? So, Nehru’s position at that time was he said, ‘we deserve a seat, but first we must ensure China gets a seat’. ”
The minister pointed out that ”today we are talking of India first. There was a time when the PM of India talked about China first”.
He reiterated the position of Sardar Patel of not taking the Kashmir issue to the United Nations. ”The Centre, over the last decade, has been dealing with “many issues inherited from the past,” the minister added.
On Monday, Dr Jaishankar claimed that the Congress government led by Indira Gandhi gave away the Katchatheevu island to Sri Lanka in 1974 and kept this ”hidden”.
