Papers by Manish Sinha
History: Past and Present, Vol. -7 2016, ISSN: 2231-3893, 2016
Jagat Narain Lal and the National Movement
Jagat Narain Lal(1894-1966) is one of the most promi... more Jagat Narain Lal and the National Movement
Jagat Narain Lal(1894-1966) is one of the most prominent personalities of the National Movement in Bihar. Apart from being one of the foremost leaders of the Congress in Bihar, his association with the All India Hindu Mahasabha, becoming its General Secretary at its Calcutta session in 1926 makes him a very important figure of the period. Being closely associated with the Congress and the Hindu Mahasabha throughout his career, he suffered from an internal conflict over the question: “Congress or the Hindu Mahasabha”. As a devoted Congressman he was imprisoned during the Non Cooperation, Civil Disobedience and the Quit India Movements and spent a total of about 8 yrs behind the bars. He played a major role in the success of the Gaya Congress in 1922 after his release from Buxer jail, being Assistant Secretary of the Provincial Congress Committee. He became the Parliamentary Secretary of Finance in Bihar provincial ministry in 1937 after being elected to the legislative assembly on the Congress ticket, defeating the Mahasabha candidate who forfeited his deposit. At the Congress session at Allahabad in 1942 he moved a resolution with support from Nehru (Jagat Narain Lal Resolution) opposing Rajaji’s resolution which proposed the acceptance of the Cripps proposal recommendations regarding Muslim majority states. Ultimately Rajaji’s proposal was defeated with only 15 for it and 115 against it. Consequently Rajaji resigned from the Congress committee. He was also one of the Congress representatives to the Constituent Assembly from Bihar and later MLA and minister in the Congress ministry in Bihar.In this paper I shed light on the life and times of Jagat Narain Lal.
New Frontier, International Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, ISSN No-2394-8221., 2018
Abstract
Gandhi and the Strategy... more Abstract
Gandhi and the Strategy of Conflict Resolution
__________________________________________________________
The objective of the paper is to examine and analyze the elements of the Gandhian strategy of ‘Conflict Resolution’ in his Nationalist philosophy which enabled him to forge a massive national movement encompassing all sections of the Indian society based on a broad consensus inspite of a multitude of differences amongst the participants. Nationalist Movement before the advent of Gandhi was a politics of studied limitations and was a movement representing the classes as opposed to the masses. Nationalist politics before Gandhi’s arrival was participated by only a small group of western educated professionals whose newly acquired skills had equipped them to exploit the opportunities offered by the British Raj. These people belonged mainly to certain specific castes, communities and linguistic groups and were described by some as the underlings of the British Raj. In fact the colonial government comforted itself that the Congress was being run as a closed shop by a microscopic minority.
Abhilekh Bihar, 2020
The Working of the Provincial Government in Colonial Bihar -1937-1939
Abstract
Here I propose to... more The Working of the Provincial Government in Colonial Bihar -1937-1939
Abstract
Here I propose to discuss the formation and working of the provincial government in Bihar, which was formed after the elections of 1937. It was a most momentous and remarkable event as it was for the first time that the Congress had broken with its conventional opposition to participation in the structures of Government under colonialism. Now it had to cope simultaneously with challenges of running the government in the provinces, being in opposition at the centre and keep on waging the anti imperialistic struggle. Sumit Sarkar writes "There were inevitable paradoxes of a party committed to Pura Swaraj and bitterly critical of the 1935 Constitution working within its framework, with powers limited by official reservations and safeguards as well by restricted financial resources, and having to implement decisions through a civil service and a police with which its relations had so long been extremely hostile.” The British who had hoped to "destroy the effectiveness of Congress as an all India instrument of v revolution", by way of deceptive provincial Autonomy. Linlithgow wrote in 1936, 'our best hope of avoiding a direct clash is in the potency of Provincial Autonomy to destroy the effectiveness of Congress as an all- India instrument of revolution..
Reflection on Research Methodology in Social Sciences ( ISBN No: 978-81-926605-1-6, 2019
Historical Writing: Challenges and Perspectives
The writing of History has become a m... more Historical Writing: Challenges and Perspectives
The writing of History has become a most challenging task indeed. The notion that History describes events as they happened and that the Historian is a writer of facts, is most contested today. There is no unanimity on the premise that ‘Historians write about facts, to be clearly distinguished from fiction and myth.’ The question which confounds a lay reader and history writer is whether it is possible to have a history according to Ranke, ‘finding how it was and not imagining how it might have been.’ In this paper I attempt to understand and share some of the challenging issues in contemporary history writing.
The Bengal Famine of 1943 was a colossal human tragedy of not only the Second World War, but also... more The Bengal Famine of 1943 was a colossal human tragedy of not only the Second World War, but also of the entire human history in which more than three million were starved to death in the midst of the War when the world faced its greatest crisis. The scale of the man-made tragedy that occurred in Bengal in 1943 and 1944 exercises the imagination of modern scholars. Despite good rice harvests in 1943, an estimated 3.5 million Bengalis died of starvation and its accompanying epidemic diseases in the latter half of 1943 through early 1944. That figure is in the midrange of estimates for the number who died and is similar to the numbers who died of the same causes in two comparable events of the mid-twentieth century: the estimated 3.3 million Soviet prisoners of war who died of starvation and disease while in German custody from 1940 to 1945 and the estimated 3.2 million peasants who died in the 1932–33 famine in Ukraine and southern Russia
The Cyclone of great force which struck Bengal in October 1942 and most importantly the loss of Burma to the Japanese, (the principal rice exporting country to India) imperiled India’s food security. The situation was worsened by the British policies of denial by removing the essential items from the impending zone of enemy attack in eastern India and also continued to export large amount of rice to feed British troops stationed in the Middle-East. Paul Greenough attributes the massive death toll during the Bengal Famine to official incompetence in managing food supplies and providing relief. Sugata Bose argues that British authorities in India were culpable because enforced a military strategic ‘policy of denial’ that withdrew rice and local transport from the eastern and coastal districts of Bengal in preparation for a possible Japanese landing and then failed miserably in providing relief once the scale of the famine became evident. Amartya Sen in his book’ Poverty and Famines: An Essay in Entitlement and Deprivation’ has pointed out that one of the factors which created shortage of food and consequently the rise in prices was the British military acquisition. It was not long before Bengal was in the grip of the most severe famine of the twentieth cent which was being enacted out in the open with many starved collapsing to death in the streets of Calcutta. Bengal was overcome with a tragedy which has few parallels in the history of the World. During the summer months of 1943 the residents of Calcutta were distressed to notice an increasing no of destitute people in the streets most of whom were women and children in an advanced state of deprivation.
However the International Community, and most prominently the United States largely ignored this tragedy of Bengal. The International relief efforts were undermined because Churchill’s government blocked the inclusion of India among the countries in which the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) would feed and repatriate persons affected or displaced by the war. The enormous scale of the famine has not only been attributed to the factors already mentioned, but also to the determination of Churchill and his subordinates to sacrifice Indian interests to British imperialism, and the willingness of the Roosevelt administration to acquiesce in that indifference. The priority given in shipping food and raw materials to Britain meant that not a single American freighter should be used to transport food to Bengal during the famine.’ The decisions of Churchill, seconded by Roosevelt, had calamitous consequences for the lives of millions of men, women, and children in Bengal. The two leaders were in agreement that what was sacrificed must not be something vital to the winning of the war. Predictably, for Churchill, India became a prime candidate for dispatch to the sacrificial altar.’ The unwillingness of the British government to end food exports from India to the Middle East or to ship food aid to Bengal can also be attributed to Churchill’s contempt towards Indians, and especially towards Bengalis. Churchill commented to Amery (Secretary of State for India), ‘If the situation was really so bad in India, why had Gandhi not died yet.’
The United States of America, which under the leadership of President Roosevelt, was championing the cause of mankind against the evils of Fascism and Nazism and freedom from want and hunger remained insensitive and indifferent to this tragedy of Bengal. This was displayed in it’s reluctance to provide food aid to the victims of the Great Bengal Famine of 1943.The U.S Congress, the press and the Roosevelt administration did not view with favor any action by the United States that might embarrass the British Government and arouse its opposition as India was perceived as primarily a British responsibility. In fact ever since the Atlantic meeting President Roosevelt’s unwritten agreement with Churchill was a policy of public silence in respect of the developments in the British Empire and of non embarrassment of Britain. However there was hope that the United States might be in a position to help indirectly through a new world organization UNRRA which was being created and in which the United States would be having a dominant position. The present paper examines the “Question of UNRRA Food Aid” to the victims of the Bengal Famine and how this aid was denied on the interpretation that providing relief to them was beyond UNRRA’s scope which was only meant for the relief of the victims of the War. In fact the millions who died during this great famine were as much the victims of the Second World War as were the casualties in the battlefields and the bombed cities.
Introduction
During the Third Five Y... more Introduction
During the Third Five Year Plan, the Indian Government decided to build the country’s fourth steel plant at Bokaro. When the government requested American assistance for the plant, the Kennedy administration expressed its willingness to build it and the American ambassador to India John Kenneth Galbraith, vigorously pursued the matter. The Bokaro plan called for an initial loan of $512 million, and another $379 million later. If, this aid would have been granted, it would have become the biggest single U.S foreign aid project ever undertaken anywhere. The aid proposal was strongly supported by President Kennedy, AID (Agency for International Development) Director, David Bell, and American ambassadors to India, John Kenneth Galbraith, and subsequently Chester Bowles amongst others. In fact, Chester Bowles had termed the project as ‘one of the dramatic opportunities for action and policy initiative which the Chinese attack had opened up for the United States not only in India but throughout Asia. He reported to Kennedy and Dean Rusk,(American Secretary of State) that unwillingness to proceed would be regarded in India as evidence of a doctrinaire attempt to force nations that we aid to confirm to our pattern of economic organization, and even more damaging as the U.S Government’s welshing on a commitment.
However negotiations dragged on for months without any positive outcome, and as time passed the American government became more and more reluctant. The high magnitude of the aid had already raised eyebrows in the American Congress which had doubts about the technical feasibility of the project and the extent to which India would permit American participation in the basic decisions regarding the project like its construction and operations. Since no definite decision was in sight, the Agency for International Development (AID) offered to finance a complete technical and financial survey of the project by the United States Steel Corporation, only after which a decision could be taken, whether the United States would be able to finance the project. In the summer of 1962 the United States Steel team began its study, and submitted its report in March 1963, after a detailed survey of six months at a cost of $686,000. The report did not make any conclusive recommendations; rather it raised a series of complex and technical questions. Since the report was noncommittal on the advisability of providing US aid, it provided an opportunity to critics to air their objections to the project.
The Clay Committee headed by General Lucius D Clay, which was instituted by President Kennedy to study US Foreign Aid policy, submitted its report on March 28 1963. The report further complicated the matter by suggesting ‘We believe that the US should not aid a foreign government in projects establishing government owned industrial and commercial enterprises which compete with the existing private endeavors’. The tone of the report put a heavy stress on US security interests as a basis of aid and on private enterprises the world over. The critics of the aid proposal in the congress further stiffened their opposition interpreting the Clay Report as indirectly against the Bokaro project. When the AID Director, David Bell appeared before the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee to testify about the Bokaro project, grave objections were raised by Ohio Democrat Frank Lausche, citing the Clay Report. It soon became clear that the U.S Congress would not make a budgetary provision for Bokaro for 1964 and in fact put a rider on the ‘Foreign Aid Authorization Bill’ which specifically aimed against any commitment to Bokaro, forbidding any allocation of more than $100 million to a public sector undertaking without any Congressional approval . In light of the continued stalling of the Bokaro project by the American Congress, Prime Minister Nehru formally withdrew the aid request, much to the relief of the Kennedy administration.
The argument which this paper puts forth is that apart from the objections raised by the Clay Report, huge costs involved, and the technical feasibility of the project, no less important were political reasons which were behind the US Congress‘s opposition to Bokaro. India’s Non Alligned foreign policy, which the Americans perceived as more slanted towards the Soviet Union, leadership of the Afro Asian Block in criticizing the US foreign policy, India’s reluctance to Anglo American brokered settlement of the Kashmir issue, the occupation of Goa, purchase of MIGS from the Soviet Union, and the frequent criticism and lack of support for US foreign policy objectives were the major factors which hardened the American Congress’s opposition to the Bokaro project.
For America, food has been central to its foreign policy since World War I, when the slogan was '... more For America, food has been central to its foreign policy since World War I, when the slogan was 'Food Will Win the War'. In 1919, President Wilson warned, "Bolshevism is steadily advancing westward, it is poisoning Germany. It cannot be stopped by force, but it can be stopped by food." In the Second World War, food was again viewed as a weapon and America's post-War food relief was also simultaneously business and politics. In June 1947 the USA initiated the massive European Recovery Program which was also known as the Marshall Plan. In December 1948 the Truman Administration set up the Foreign Assistance Correlation Committee. It was of the view that the geographical location and the terrain of a country in the context of American strategic plans would be an important criteria for the identification of prospective recipients of American Aid .The key political criteria would be the relative importance to the United States of keeping a country out of Soviet control, the strengthening of anti communist activity within that country and it’s orientation towards the United States in it’s own political philosophy . The Marshall Plan was part of an emerging policy of containment of Communism shaped by President Truman’s administration. Subsequently Truman’s Fourth Point in his inaugural address on January 1 1949 made military and economic assistance to Asia a major strategy of containment of communism there. The lion's share of PL 480 food aid went to foreign countries in which the US had a poltical, economic or military interest. In fact America has used food Aid and trade as a significant destabiliser in societies which didn’t accept American hegemony like Chilie under Allende in 1973 and Egypt in 1974. The USA has successfully utilized foreign aid programs to induce foreign policy compliance in the United Nations on issues that are vital to US national interests . There is evidence to show that when a State’s behavior has been inconsistent with US Government’s expectations it has been a target of punishment by the United States.
American Food Aid to India remained a contentious issue right from the early1940’s. India first suffered the American insensitiveness to food aid during the Great Bengal Famine of 1943. The Bengal Famine of 1943 was a colossal human tragedy of not only the Second World War but of the entire human history in which more than three million were starved to death. However the United States of America which under the leadership of President Roosevelt was championing the cause of mankind against Fascism and Nazism and freedom from want and hunger remained insensitive and indifferent to this tragedy of Bengal. This was displayed in its reluctance to provide food aid to the victims of the Famine as it did not favor any action which might cause embarrassment to the British and arouse their opposition. The sadness ,bitterness and disillusionment with the American policy were reflected in India Today which wrote ‘India will survive this famine as she has survived famines in the past, but the memory of the hundreds of thousands of Indians who died because no help came to them from their allies, will be a ghost not quickly laid.’ .
During the presidency of Harry S. Truman (U.S President, 1945- 1953), India had to face food crises of enormous magnitude in 1946 and 1951 and as during the Great Bengal Famine of 1943, American food aid to India remained a contentious issue. During the 1946 Food Crisis, when the failure of the monsoon had created a severe food shortage, India was unable to get increased allocation from America inspite of its best efforts, as India was not a priority for the United States and United States was more concerned about preventing the spread of communism elsewhere. The present paper focuses on the American attitude towards the question of Food Aid to India in form of wheat loan 1951 when it was faced with a Food Crisis of enormous magnitude. It examines the American political and strategic priorities and the use of food aid as a diplomatic weapon for the furtherance of the American strategic interests.
'Nationalism and Spritualism: Tibetan Nationalism in Exile in India' in edited volume ' Negotiating Boundaries in Multicultural Societies' published by Inter Disciplinary Press, Oxford., United Kingdom , 2014.
Book Reviews by Manish Sinha
Seminar Magazine, Bodh Gaya, A Layered Past., 2021
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Papers by Manish Sinha
Jagat Narain Lal(1894-1966) is one of the most prominent personalities of the National Movement in Bihar. Apart from being one of the foremost leaders of the Congress in Bihar, his association with the All India Hindu Mahasabha, becoming its General Secretary at its Calcutta session in 1926 makes him a very important figure of the period. Being closely associated with the Congress and the Hindu Mahasabha throughout his career, he suffered from an internal conflict over the question: “Congress or the Hindu Mahasabha”. As a devoted Congressman he was imprisoned during the Non Cooperation, Civil Disobedience and the Quit India Movements and spent a total of about 8 yrs behind the bars. He played a major role in the success of the Gaya Congress in 1922 after his release from Buxer jail, being Assistant Secretary of the Provincial Congress Committee. He became the Parliamentary Secretary of Finance in Bihar provincial ministry in 1937 after being elected to the legislative assembly on the Congress ticket, defeating the Mahasabha candidate who forfeited his deposit. At the Congress session at Allahabad in 1942 he moved a resolution with support from Nehru (Jagat Narain Lal Resolution) opposing Rajaji’s resolution which proposed the acceptance of the Cripps proposal recommendations regarding Muslim majority states. Ultimately Rajaji’s proposal was defeated with only 15 for it and 115 against it. Consequently Rajaji resigned from the Congress committee. He was also one of the Congress representatives to the Constituent Assembly from Bihar and later MLA and minister in the Congress ministry in Bihar.In this paper I shed light on the life and times of Jagat Narain Lal.
Gandhi and the Strategy of Conflict Resolution
__________________________________________________________
The objective of the paper is to examine and analyze the elements of the Gandhian strategy of ‘Conflict Resolution’ in his Nationalist philosophy which enabled him to forge a massive national movement encompassing all sections of the Indian society based on a broad consensus inspite of a multitude of differences amongst the participants. Nationalist Movement before the advent of Gandhi was a politics of studied limitations and was a movement representing the classes as opposed to the masses. Nationalist politics before Gandhi’s arrival was participated by only a small group of western educated professionals whose newly acquired skills had equipped them to exploit the opportunities offered by the British Raj. These people belonged mainly to certain specific castes, communities and linguistic groups and were described by some as the underlings of the British Raj. In fact the colonial government comforted itself that the Congress was being run as a closed shop by a microscopic minority.
Abstract
Here I propose to discuss the formation and working of the provincial government in Bihar, which was formed after the elections of 1937. It was a most momentous and remarkable event as it was for the first time that the Congress had broken with its conventional opposition to participation in the structures of Government under colonialism. Now it had to cope simultaneously with challenges of running the government in the provinces, being in opposition at the centre and keep on waging the anti imperialistic struggle. Sumit Sarkar writes "There were inevitable paradoxes of a party committed to Pura Swaraj and bitterly critical of the 1935 Constitution working within its framework, with powers limited by official reservations and safeguards as well by restricted financial resources, and having to implement decisions through a civil service and a police with which its relations had so long been extremely hostile.” The British who had hoped to "destroy the effectiveness of Congress as an all India instrument of v revolution", by way of deceptive provincial Autonomy. Linlithgow wrote in 1936, 'our best hope of avoiding a direct clash is in the potency of Provincial Autonomy to destroy the effectiveness of Congress as an all- India instrument of revolution..
The writing of History has become a most challenging task indeed. The notion that History describes events as they happened and that the Historian is a writer of facts, is most contested today. There is no unanimity on the premise that ‘Historians write about facts, to be clearly distinguished from fiction and myth.’ The question which confounds a lay reader and history writer is whether it is possible to have a history according to Ranke, ‘finding how it was and not imagining how it might have been.’ In this paper I attempt to understand and share some of the challenging issues in contemporary history writing.
The Cyclone of great force which struck Bengal in October 1942 and most importantly the loss of Burma to the Japanese, (the principal rice exporting country to India) imperiled India’s food security. The situation was worsened by the British policies of denial by removing the essential items from the impending zone of enemy attack in eastern India and also continued to export large amount of rice to feed British troops stationed in the Middle-East. Paul Greenough attributes the massive death toll during the Bengal Famine to official incompetence in managing food supplies and providing relief. Sugata Bose argues that British authorities in India were culpable because enforced a military strategic ‘policy of denial’ that withdrew rice and local transport from the eastern and coastal districts of Bengal in preparation for a possible Japanese landing and then failed miserably in providing relief once the scale of the famine became evident. Amartya Sen in his book’ Poverty and Famines: An Essay in Entitlement and Deprivation’ has pointed out that one of the factors which created shortage of food and consequently the rise in prices was the British military acquisition. It was not long before Bengal was in the grip of the most severe famine of the twentieth cent which was being enacted out in the open with many starved collapsing to death in the streets of Calcutta. Bengal was overcome with a tragedy which has few parallels in the history of the World. During the summer months of 1943 the residents of Calcutta were distressed to notice an increasing no of destitute people in the streets most of whom were women and children in an advanced state of deprivation.
However the International Community, and most prominently the United States largely ignored this tragedy of Bengal. The International relief efforts were undermined because Churchill’s government blocked the inclusion of India among the countries in which the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) would feed and repatriate persons affected or displaced by the war. The enormous scale of the famine has not only been attributed to the factors already mentioned, but also to the determination of Churchill and his subordinates to sacrifice Indian interests to British imperialism, and the willingness of the Roosevelt administration to acquiesce in that indifference. The priority given in shipping food and raw materials to Britain meant that not a single American freighter should be used to transport food to Bengal during the famine.’ The decisions of Churchill, seconded by Roosevelt, had calamitous consequences for the lives of millions of men, women, and children in Bengal. The two leaders were in agreement that what was sacrificed must not be something vital to the winning of the war. Predictably, for Churchill, India became a prime candidate for dispatch to the sacrificial altar.’ The unwillingness of the British government to end food exports from India to the Middle East or to ship food aid to Bengal can also be attributed to Churchill’s contempt towards Indians, and especially towards Bengalis. Churchill commented to Amery (Secretary of State for India), ‘If the situation was really so bad in India, why had Gandhi not died yet.’
The United States of America, which under the leadership of President Roosevelt, was championing the cause of mankind against the evils of Fascism and Nazism and freedom from want and hunger remained insensitive and indifferent to this tragedy of Bengal. This was displayed in it’s reluctance to provide food aid to the victims of the Great Bengal Famine of 1943.The U.S Congress, the press and the Roosevelt administration did not view with favor any action by the United States that might embarrass the British Government and arouse its opposition as India was perceived as primarily a British responsibility. In fact ever since the Atlantic meeting President Roosevelt’s unwritten agreement with Churchill was a policy of public silence in respect of the developments in the British Empire and of non embarrassment of Britain. However there was hope that the United States might be in a position to help indirectly through a new world organization UNRRA which was being created and in which the United States would be having a dominant position. The present paper examines the “Question of UNRRA Food Aid” to the victims of the Bengal Famine and how this aid was denied on the interpretation that providing relief to them was beyond UNRRA’s scope which was only meant for the relief of the victims of the War. In fact the millions who died during this great famine were as much the victims of the Second World War as were the casualties in the battlefields and the bombed cities.
During the Third Five Year Plan, the Indian Government decided to build the country’s fourth steel plant at Bokaro. When the government requested American assistance for the plant, the Kennedy administration expressed its willingness to build it and the American ambassador to India John Kenneth Galbraith, vigorously pursued the matter. The Bokaro plan called for an initial loan of $512 million, and another $379 million later. If, this aid would have been granted, it would have become the biggest single U.S foreign aid project ever undertaken anywhere. The aid proposal was strongly supported by President Kennedy, AID (Agency for International Development) Director, David Bell, and American ambassadors to India, John Kenneth Galbraith, and subsequently Chester Bowles amongst others. In fact, Chester Bowles had termed the project as ‘one of the dramatic opportunities for action and policy initiative which the Chinese attack had opened up for the United States not only in India but throughout Asia. He reported to Kennedy and Dean Rusk,(American Secretary of State) that unwillingness to proceed would be regarded in India as evidence of a doctrinaire attempt to force nations that we aid to confirm to our pattern of economic organization, and even more damaging as the U.S Government’s welshing on a commitment.
However negotiations dragged on for months without any positive outcome, and as time passed the American government became more and more reluctant. The high magnitude of the aid had already raised eyebrows in the American Congress which had doubts about the technical feasibility of the project and the extent to which India would permit American participation in the basic decisions regarding the project like its construction and operations. Since no definite decision was in sight, the Agency for International Development (AID) offered to finance a complete technical and financial survey of the project by the United States Steel Corporation, only after which a decision could be taken, whether the United States would be able to finance the project. In the summer of 1962 the United States Steel team began its study, and submitted its report in March 1963, after a detailed survey of six months at a cost of $686,000. The report did not make any conclusive recommendations; rather it raised a series of complex and technical questions. Since the report was noncommittal on the advisability of providing US aid, it provided an opportunity to critics to air their objections to the project.
The Clay Committee headed by General Lucius D Clay, which was instituted by President Kennedy to study US Foreign Aid policy, submitted its report on March 28 1963. The report further complicated the matter by suggesting ‘We believe that the US should not aid a foreign government in projects establishing government owned industrial and commercial enterprises which compete with the existing private endeavors’. The tone of the report put a heavy stress on US security interests as a basis of aid and on private enterprises the world over. The critics of the aid proposal in the congress further stiffened their opposition interpreting the Clay Report as indirectly against the Bokaro project. When the AID Director, David Bell appeared before the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee to testify about the Bokaro project, grave objections were raised by Ohio Democrat Frank Lausche, citing the Clay Report. It soon became clear that the U.S Congress would not make a budgetary provision for Bokaro for 1964 and in fact put a rider on the ‘Foreign Aid Authorization Bill’ which specifically aimed against any commitment to Bokaro, forbidding any allocation of more than $100 million to a public sector undertaking without any Congressional approval . In light of the continued stalling of the Bokaro project by the American Congress, Prime Minister Nehru formally withdrew the aid request, much to the relief of the Kennedy administration.
The argument which this paper puts forth is that apart from the objections raised by the Clay Report, huge costs involved, and the technical feasibility of the project, no less important were political reasons which were behind the US Congress‘s opposition to Bokaro. India’s Non Alligned foreign policy, which the Americans perceived as more slanted towards the Soviet Union, leadership of the Afro Asian Block in criticizing the US foreign policy, India’s reluctance to Anglo American brokered settlement of the Kashmir issue, the occupation of Goa, purchase of MIGS from the Soviet Union, and the frequent criticism and lack of support for US foreign policy objectives were the major factors which hardened the American Congress’s opposition to the Bokaro project.
American Food Aid to India remained a contentious issue right from the early1940’s. India first suffered the American insensitiveness to food aid during the Great Bengal Famine of 1943. The Bengal Famine of 1943 was a colossal human tragedy of not only the Second World War but of the entire human history in which more than three million were starved to death. However the United States of America which under the leadership of President Roosevelt was championing the cause of mankind against Fascism and Nazism and freedom from want and hunger remained insensitive and indifferent to this tragedy of Bengal. This was displayed in its reluctance to provide food aid to the victims of the Famine as it did not favor any action which might cause embarrassment to the British and arouse their opposition. The sadness ,bitterness and disillusionment with the American policy were reflected in India Today which wrote ‘India will survive this famine as she has survived famines in the past, but the memory of the hundreds of thousands of Indians who died because no help came to them from their allies, will be a ghost not quickly laid.’ .
During the presidency of Harry S. Truman (U.S President, 1945- 1953), India had to face food crises of enormous magnitude in 1946 and 1951 and as during the Great Bengal Famine of 1943, American food aid to India remained a contentious issue. During the 1946 Food Crisis, when the failure of the monsoon had created a severe food shortage, India was unable to get increased allocation from America inspite of its best efforts, as India was not a priority for the United States and United States was more concerned about preventing the spread of communism elsewhere. The present paper focuses on the American attitude towards the question of Food Aid to India in form of wheat loan 1951 when it was faced with a Food Crisis of enormous magnitude. It examines the American political and strategic priorities and the use of food aid as a diplomatic weapon for the furtherance of the American strategic interests.
Book Reviews by Manish Sinha