India's “positive neutralism” in the assessment of Soviet ambassador K.V. Novikov (1949)

In the late 1940s the struggle between the USSR and the USA for the influence upon the countries that liberated themselves from colonialism became part of geopolitical confrontation between the two opposing social systems, with Hindustan being one of the regions of this confrontation. The strategy of India’s “positive neutralism” as a concept of keeping equally off any military and political blocs, including the USA and the USSR, which was put by Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of the Indian Union, as the basis for his government’s international policy, ran counter to the foreign policy strategy of the Stalinist USSR. In 1949 Washington invited J. Nehru to officially visit the US, with the intention to economically bind India to itself, drawing the latter into the sphere of its interests. Using the archival documents of both the Russian Federation and India, the authors analyze the assessments of the motives and results of J.Nehru’s official visit to the United States in October 1949, which were presented by Ambassador Novikov in his report to the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He made the analysis of the presented data in strict accordance with Soviet political and ideological principles and dogmas. His assessments amounted to the conclusion that J. Nehru’s visit to the US was a step toward India becoming a puppet state in Asia, subordinate to the US, which resulted from the collusion between the Indian and American business elites. Consequently, J. Stalin’s attitude toward J. Nehru was considerably affected by Ambassador Novikov’s assessments.