The British Labour Party, led by Keir Starmer, won a landslide victory in the General Elections held in July 2024 winning 412 out of a total of 650 seats in the House of Commons, thereby ending the 14-year long Conservative rule in Britain. After congratulating Mr. Starmer, who became the Prime Minister of Britain and discussing with him the road map for the development of Indo-British relations, Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote in ‘ X’ (formerly Twitter): We remain committed to deepening Comprehensive Strategic Partnership and robust India-Great Britain economic ties for the progress and prosperity of our peoples and for global good. In response, the newly-elected British Prime Minister assured PM Modi of his commitment to deepening the strong and respectful relationship between the two countries.

Even outgoing Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, while in office, expressed similar sentiments and Prime Minister Modi lauded his active contribution to deepening India-UK ties. For a number of reasons, Indians came to look upon Labour as being more favourable to India than the Conservative Party. It was the Labour Party which had long campaigned for India’s independence, and many of its members were actively associated with the India League. After its electoral victory in 1945, the Labour government reopened negotiations with Indian leaders which ultimately led to the transfer of power in 1947.

Ideologically, Nehru and many of the Congress leaders were closer to the Fabian Socialists in Britain, and radicals in the Congress during the 1950s were influenced more by the ideas of Harold Laski than those of the Marxists. Both Jawaharlal Nehru and V.K. Krishna Menon, the two leading ideologues of India’s foreign policy in its formative years, were educated in Britain and had developed an intellectual affinity with leading Labour Party leaders. Nehru was a regular reader of the New Statesman while Krishna Menon, who was India’s first High-Commissioner to London (1947-1952)) and later became a member of Nehru’s Cabinet, first as a Minister without portfolio (in 1956) and later as the Defence Minister (1957-62), was a member of the British Labour Party before India’s independence.

He had developed friendly relations with many Labour leaders, including Clement Attlee and Aneurin Bevan. Both Attlee and Bevan were committed social reformers and in post War Britain, the government sought to expand the contours of the Welfare State by extending unemployment insurance benefits to virtually the entire male labour force, following the recommendations of the Beveridge Report (1942), at a time when the British economy was ravaged by the War. The Labour Government also introduced legislation for establishing the National Health Service (NHS) in 1948 to provide free medical care to all British citizens, nationalised the Bank of England, the railways, coal mining and oth – er heavy industries, although nationalisation of the steel industry was criticised as it was a profit-making industry.

The Indian government’s economic policy, as depicted in the formulation of the Second Five Year Plan, particularly the creation of a large public sector for controlling the ‘commanding heights’ of the economy clearly showed the influence of the Labour Government’s decisions in the second half of the 1940s, when it was in power. The left-wing of the Labour Party in Britain had long admired Nehru and on many issues took their cues from his policies and actions. On 29 June 1956, for example, Jennie Lee wrote an article in the Tribune (London) paying a handsome tribute to Nehru and his Government’s socialist policies, particularly the declaration that the achievement of a socialist pattern of society was the objective of the Government’s economic policy. It was not only Nehru’s commitment to socialism that won the praise of the left-wing of the Labour Party. As Professor S.E. Finer pointed out, In adulating India, pacifism, socialism, democracy and anticolonialism find common ground; and these form the syndrome of the ‘Left’.

Within the Parliamentary Labour Party, there were many backbenchers who supported Nehru’s policy of opposition to colonialism, his emphasis on peaceful settlement of international disputes, and his plea for non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, and disarmament. In 1955, when the British Government was equivocal in their attitude towards the Indo-Portuguese dispute over Goa, a group of Labour MPs formed a Goa Committee in association with the Movement for Colonial Freedom to support the demand of the Goans for self-determination. They sponsored a resolution in the British Parliament asking the government to mediate in the dispute so as to create conditions under which Goans could ‘decide their own future’. On 17 November 1955, three Labour MPs wrote a letter to The Times urging the British Government to try to bring about a settlement of the dispute between India and Portugal. What is more, some of the anti-colonialists within the Labour Party, especially those belonging to the Left, shared Nehru’s ambivalent attitude towards the Soviet Union which was clearly demonstrated during the Hungarian crisis of 1956.

On 12 November 1956, a motion was tabled in the British Parliament which, while welcoming the decision of the Government to withdraw British forces from Egypt, and deploring the continued use of violence by Russian forces in Hungary, ended with the suggestion that the Government should invite Nehru to use his good office secure withdrawal of Russian military force from Hungary, and to use his influence to effect a reconciliation between Russia and the Western Powers…. This suggestion came at a time when Nehru was being severely criticised in the West for his ‘double standards’ as his criticism of the Anglo-French invasion of Suez was instantaneous, while his response to the brutal suppression of the Hungarian nationalist movement by the Russian forces was ambivalent. The Suez and Hungarian crises broke out at a time when the Conservative Party was in power in Britain and criticism of India’s double standards in foreign policy was not entirely unexpected, especially because a section of the Conservative Party ~ the right-wing ~ was very critical of Nehru and his policies. But even the policies of successive Labour Governments have not necessarily been favourable towards India as became clear during 1945- 50, and again in 1965.

One of the principal causes of strains in Indo-British relations, right from the time of Indian independence, had been the British Government’s attitude towards the India-Pakistan dispute over Kashmir. It is true that India’s membership of the Commonwealth, even after its decision to adopt a republican constitution, enjoyed bi-partisan support. But the British Government’s declared policy of neutrality in a dispute between India and Pakistan ~ both members of the Commonwealth was not necessarily corroborated by its actions. Take, for example, the role of Philip Noel Baker, the Commonwealth Secretary, in the UN Security Council during the initial phase of the dispute.

The Government of India referred the Kashmir dispute to the UN on 1 January 1948 in a bid to prevent the escalation of the war with Pakistan that had ensued following Pakistan’s attack on the Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir. In a letter addressed to the President of the UNSC, the Indian government alleged that a situation existed between India and Pakistan which was likely to endanger international peace and security. Such a situation arose because of the aid the Pakistani invaders ~ consisting of Pakistani military personnel not in uniform, and the tribal invaders from the NWFP ~ had received for operations against the State of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), which became a part of India after Maharaja Hari Singh decided to accede to India. The Indian government, therefore, requested the UNSC to ask the Government of Pakistan,

(i) to prevent Pakistani government personnel, both civil and military, from participating in or giving any form of assistance to those involved in the invasion of the State of J&K, and

(ii) deny the invaders use of Pakistani territory for aggression on India. The letter also made it clear that once the soil of the State of J&K was cleared and normal conditions were rest or ed, ‘its people would be free to decide their future by the recognised democratic method of a free and impartial plebiscite or referendum which, in order to ensure complete impartiality, might be held under international auspices.’ (Italics added). This assuran – ce by India was quite consistent with the commitment that India had made when Lord Mountbatten had accepted the Instrument of Accession signed by the Maharaja. India made a grave mistake by referring the J&K issue to the UN under Article 35 of the Charter, instead of referring the issue under the provisions of Chapter VII that deals with acts of aggression and Pakistan took full advantage of this.

The Pakistan government, in a letter from their Foreign Minister addressed to the Secretary-General of the UN, denied that Pakistan had aided the tribal invaders, though admitting that a number of independent tribesmen and persons from Pakistan were helping the ‘Azad (Free) Kashmir Government’ as volunteers. Pakistan also denied that its territory was being used for military operations against India, and denied the legality of Kashmir’s accession to India as it was secured through ‘violence and fraud’. What is more, the Pakistan government brought to the attention of the UNSC, under Article 35 of the Charter, to the existence of other disputes between India and Pakistan and requested that appropriate measures be taken to resolve these disputes for restoration of friendly relations between India and Pakistan, thus attempting to widen the issues to be considered by the UNSC, although India’s reference was limited to Kashmir only, ‘the territory which had been invaded, its towns and villages sacked, its people massacred and its women abducted.

’ The UNSC, instead of giving more importance to the cessation of hostilities between India and Pakistan and the withdrawal of Pakistani nationals and tribal invaders from Kashmir, as requested by India, became busy with the determination of the procedures for holding the plebiscite. Surprisingly, the British Government’s stand in the UNSC was similar to that of Pakistan, that the cessation of hostilities must be preceded by guarantees for a fair and impartial plebiscite that had already been promised by India. As Mr. Noel-Baker said in the UNSC, whatever the Council did … must also seem fair to the Government of Pakistan, to the insurgents, to the tribesmen, to the Government of India, to the other inhabitants of Jammu and Kashmir and to the outside world. In Noel Baker’s list of priorities, India’s claim to be treated fairly came far below that of Pakistan, and even below the claims of the invaders and the insurgents

(The writer is Professor (Retired) of International Relations and former Dean, Faculty of Arts, Jadavpur University)