India in Transition

FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS

INDIA has now been an independent nation for twenty years. While such a period is but a moment in the history of Indian civilization, those who struggled for freedom and worked to consolidate it looked upon the early years of Independence as a crucial period in establishing India's domestic institutions and its position in the world. Nehru's eloquent words on the eve of Independence reflected the widespread awareness that a unique moment was at hand:

Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance.

The years since Independence have witnessed many accomplishments as the remarkable group of men who led the struggle for freedom turned their energies to the tasks of building a nation out of the disparate peoples of India and establishing the nation's position in the world. For many years the momentum was maintained, but recently the setbacks to India's progress have been more striking than her advances. In the international sphere, there has been some decline in India's prestige and influence, and war with her principal neighbors has magnified all her problems. The upsurge of patriotism and national determination that followed her humiliation by the Chinese in 1962 soon gave way to a sharp decline in national confidence as it became clear that even with the greatly increased defense build-up that was planned India would be unable to regain its lost territory and status. A measure of this lost confidence was restored as a result of India's performance in the Indo-Pakistani war in 1965: not only was India successful in repulsing Pakistan's effort to seize Kashmir, but it also dealt with Peking's threats firmly and skillfully and kept the peace at home-preventing the strong popular feeling against Pakistan from leading to violence against Indian Moslems. This performance was viewed with pride by both Hindu and secular nationalists. Yet except for a psychological boost, India gained little from the victory; the basic hostility between the two countries continues unabated, and India is having increasing difficulty finding Kashmiri politicians who are able, popular and reliable.

Despite its conflicts with China and Pakistan and the major changes in some of the key relationships involving South Asia-the formation and decline of the United States-Pakistan alliance, the development of close relations between India and the U.S.S.R. and the shift from friendship to animosity in Sino-Indian relations-New Delhi has held to its policy of nonalignment and its support for Asian and African nationalism throughout the past twenty years. This has been a source of considerable pride to Indians. Prime Minister Gandhi's meeting with Presidents Tito and Nasser in 1966 was an effort to assert the continuity of Indian policy as well as to demonstrate that nonalignment still had a practical meaning in a world in which both Western and communist alliance systems were crumbling. Similarly, despite the damage done to India by the closure of the Suez Canal, Mrs. Gandhi firmly backed the Arabs generally and the United Arab Republic specifically in the Middle East crisis in 1967, continuing a long- established policy of Indian support for Arab nationalism (also designed to prevent Pakistan from gaining solid Arab support on Kashmir). For the first time, however, strong opposition to the policy was expressed by many Indians.

The striking element of continuity in Indian policy often masks the great change that has taken place in India's position in the twenty years since the British departure. Nonalignment and support of Asian nationalism remain politically and psychologically important, but the vital concerns of Indian foreign policy are its relations with its two antagonistic neighbors, China and Pakistan, and with the major industrial nations, especially the United States and the Soviet Union, whose support is essential for India. These relationships have gradually altered over the years in a way that has increased India's burdens and reduced its freedom. Thus the India of today is in a much less enviable position than the India of 1947.

II

The Indian Government was the heir to two distinct bodies of thought regarding foreign policy. The first was the legacy of the British who dealt with threats to the security of the subcontinent by dominating the countries on India's frontiers and controlling their foreign relations. In its broader international context, however, the foreign policy of the British Indian Government was clearly directed toward advancing British rather than Indian interests. The second theory of foreign policy was that expressed by Nehru and the Congress Party in the years before Independence, which decried imperialism, favored independence for colonial territories and saw no basis for British claims about external threats to India's frontiers. The men who led the independence movement reached maturity at a time of British strength, Chinese weakness and Russian preoccupation at home and in Europe; and their natural inclination was to regard India's security as due to the great Himalayan barrier rather than to the accidents of history. But the rise of Soviet and Chinese power later created potential threats from the northwest and northeast, especially to a subcontinent that was no longer united or directly supported by British industrial and military power.

Obviously Nehru's thinking was more in touch with many of the realities of postwar Asia than was the British Indian tradition, and it was India's efforts to apply these precepts that attracted the attention of the world in the early years of Indian independence. Yet the British Indian tradition was centered on the vital issue of territorial integrity and was the only body of thought realistically concerned with the question of India's frontiers in the Himalayas-the area that was to be the scene of the major conflicts involving India after Independence. However, both streams of thought assumed an undivided subcontinent and thus provided no guidance on the most important issue facing the newly independent Indian Government-its relationship with Pakistan, which both age-old Hindu-Moslem antagonism and conflicts growing out of the partition struggle assured would be a hostile one.

Most Indians-and most outside observers-regarded India's foreign policy as predominantly successful during the early years of its independence. India held the most valuable part of Kashmir and was able to deal with Pakistan from a position of strength; the United Kingdom and India developed a formula that allowed India to become a republic while remaining in the Commonwealth; India's efforts on behalf of nonalignment and anti- colonialism won it great attention and considerable respect in many parts of the world; and because India's foreign policy was widely accepted by politically conscious Indians, it enhanced national unity. Communist Chinese control of Tibet was something beyond the impenetrable Himalayas and seemed of little consequence to most Indians, although New Delhi had quietly taken steps to strengthen its position in the inner buffer zone of Nepal, Bhutan and Sikkim, and was ruling the Northeast Frontier Agency (NEFA) directly. The burden of defense required to deal with a hostile Pakistan was about $400 million annually, hardly a trifling sum but not a crushing load.

The U. S.-Pakistan alliance was the first major threat to India's predominance in South Asia, which had allowed New Delhi to play a wide- ranging role in world affairs. Indian bitterness and Pakistani pleasure-and anticipation of further U. S. support-permeated the area to an extent that is difficult to recall today. India began a gradual build-up of its military forces, and its defense expenditures increased by over 50 percent- to $610 million by 1958. India and the Soviet Union also found a common interest in closer ties. Stalin's successors were aware that India was no tool of the West, and sought to play a role in India's development in the hope of weakening India's links with the West and moving the country to the left domestically. New Delhi wanted to increase its man?uvrability vis-à- vis the Western powers, to acquire great-power support on such issues as Kashmir, and to develop a promising source of economic assistance. Finally, India signed a treaty with Peking which terminated the special rights in Tibet that India had inherited from Britain, recognized Tibet as a part of China and set forth the famous five principles of peaceful coexistence (Panch Sheel.)1 Uncertain about U. S. intentions, Nehru wanted to avoid simultaneous trouble with both of his large neighbors. These moves, together with the limited nature of U. S. support for Pakistan, enabled India to counter the U. S.-Pakistan alliance.

Soon a crisis of a different type appeared. India began its first five-year plan in 1951 with about $1.8 billion in foreign-exchange reserves, and even with minimal aid maintained them at this level until 1956. However, the ambitious second plan (1956-61) shifted the emphasis of development effort from agriculture to industry, and the concomitant requirement for a sharp increase in imported industrial goods and industrial raw materials resulted in a decline in India's foreign-exchange reserves to $625 million at the end of 1957. India turned to the West for help and the West responded with steady increases in aid. This enabled India to continue satisfactory economic progress without cutting back its defense build-up, but only at the cost of increasing dependence on the United States, Western Europe and the U.S.S.R.

The third major challenge came from the northeast. Prime Minister Nehru had always placed great importance on good relations with Peking in view of Chinese strength and Pakistani hostility toward India. His policy seemed to be working during the mid-fifties. India and China were gradually extending their control into the Himalayan frontier area, but the formidable natural obstacles involved made this a slow process, and until the 1959 Tibetan revolt the Chinese military presence in Tibet was a modest one and of limited concern to India. New Delhi was, however, concerned about Chinese maps showing certain Indian-claimed areas along the northern and northeastern frontier as Chinese territory, and Peking's assurances that these were only old Chinese Nationalist maps that would in time be adjusted left India uneasy. Indian apprehension increased with the discovery in 1958 of a Chinese road in the Aksai Chin area of the Ladakh section of Kashmir, and in 1959 Chou En-lai first informed Nehru that China did not accept India's border claims. Border clashes also occurred in this period, and by August 1959 Nehru felt compelled to inform Parliament of the Sino-Indian border dispute. Asia's two largest nations were now enemies, and the Panch Sheel period was over a scant five years after it had begun.

India increased its military forces along the frontier, and expanded roads and communications links between the plains and the mountainous border areas and within the border areas. India was determined at least to hold all of the territory it then controlled. Defense allocations were raised again, and reached a total of $780 million by 1962. India also sought Soviet support for moderating Chinese policy. The U.S.S.R., already having its troubles with Peking, publicly adopted an essentially neutral position but privately, it is thought, urged restraint on the Chinese. Moscow, as well as Washington, was finding it difficult to maintain ties with both allies and neutrals.

Finally, India attempted through negotiations to persuade Peking to accept Indian border claims. When Nehru and Chou En-lai met in New Delhi in April 1960, Chou suggested that China would yield its claim to the Northeast Frontier Agency in return for acknowledgment of its claim to Aksai Chin. Though this proposal would have enabled each to keep what was strategically important to it, no settlement was reached, nor was any progress made toward one. Nehru's freedom of man?uvre was limited by the strong anti- Chinese feelings that had welled up in India. While his reliance on Panch Sheel had been as much an act of hope as of faith, the faith had been public while his doubts were concealed, and this made it appear that he had been naïve in dealing with the Chinese. Moreover, he himself was angered by the devious manner in which China had put forward its claims and taken advantage of Indian friendship; therefore he was not inclined to make any substantial concessions.

India was now openly involved in territorial disputes with both Pakistan and China, each of which was allied to one of the superpowers. Yet rather than seek a compromise settlement with either Pakistan or China in order to concentrate forces against the other, India held firm in both cases. Indeed, it not only refused to compromise with China, but began to move its forces forward in Ladakh in 1961 and 1962 to recover at least some of the territory that was occupied by China. In so doing, Indian leaders gravely miscalculated their own strength, the Chinese strength and the likely Chinese response to such an Indian advance. In time the fighting spread to NEFA as well, and in the fall of 1962 India suffered a humiliating defeat.

Despite the early withdrawal, China was now a confirmed enemy in Indian eyes. India's defense budget more than doubled to $1.8 billion within two years, as New Delhi attempted to develop a military machine capable of facing China and Pakistan at the same time. India's policy against acceptance of military aid was dropped as New Delhi attempted to secure a continued flow of Western and Soviet arms. Even though the U.S.S.R. had disappointed India during the crisis, Nehru did not want to rely on the West alone lest this lead to the end of nonalignment and to Soviet support of China. (The Afro-Asian countries also generally took a neutral position- one of the cruelest blows of all to India.) Thus nonalignment was in a sense replaced by an informal double alignment. Now hard-pressed financially, India needed the aid of both superpowers in expanding and modernizing its outdated military forces, and coöperation with both of them might also have the added benefit of straining U. S. ties with Pakistan and further undermining Soviet-Chinese relations.

III

If developments over the last twenty years resulted in growing defense burdens, India was for many years remarkably successful in securing outside assistance to enable it to carry these burdens while adopting ever more ambitious five-year plans. The flow of foreign aid to India on a significant scale began in the mid-fifties, following the cold-war stalemate in Europe and East Asia. The attention of both the United States and the U.S.S.R. turned to the newly independent Asian countries as predictions were made on all sides that the side that "won" the Third World would emerge supreme.

The Soviet Union and the East European communist countries have been major contributors to India's efforts to develop its economy and more recently to expand and modernize its armed forces. Since the Soviet Union undertook to construct the Bhilai steel mill thirteen years ago, the Russians and their allies have committed about $2 billion in aid for a wide variety of industrial projects-machinery factories, pharmaceutical plants, machine- tool plants and (after the United States had refused) the giant Bokaro steel mill. India's trade with the U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe has increased from an insignificant level until it amounts to about 14 percent of its total trade. The Soviet Union has given India political support on Kashmir and Goa, and its adoption of a generally neutral position regarding India's quarrel with China made a continuation of nonalignment possible. Finally, the Soviets have contributed military equipment worth several hundred-million dollars, including transport aircraft, helicopters, fighter aircraft, submarines, tanks and arms factories-and are now virtually the only foreign source of arms for India.

As a result of this extensive Soviet support and Indian recognition of its value, Moscow has enjoyed harmonious relations with India since the mid- fifties. Both governments seem determined to emphasize points of agreement and gloss over differences of views. The Russians in one sense have little choice in this matter, for if the Soviet Union is to be a world power they need a substantial position in so important a country as India, the more so in view of their hostility to China. Even the retreat from a completely pro- Indian policy in the subcontinent in 1965 and its subsequent efforts to establish a position in Pakistan have not basically undermined the Indo- Soviet relationship.

Thus the Soviet presence and influence in India today are much more substantial than ever before in history. When Soviet leaders were fearful that China might enter the 1965 Indo-Pakistan conflict by attacking India- and thus present Moscow with an impossible dilemma-they were able to arrange a meeting of President Ayub and Prime Minister Shastri in the Soviet Union. The comment of The Times (London) was most appropriate: "How strange and intolerable it would have seemed to Curzon that the affairs of the subcontinent he ruled should be taken to Tashkent to be discussed under the patronage of a Russian." Equally striking to the West was the spectacle of the leading communist state working successfully to ease rather than exacerbate tensions between two bourgeois nations.

Yet it is important not to exaggerate the extent of Soviet influence in India today. Indian foreign policy was more anti-Western, and Indian domestic policy more enthusiastically socialistic, in the early years of the Soviet effort to establish itself in India than is the case today. This shift reflects the inherent difficulty any country has in acquiring influence in another nation, especially one as large and proud as India.

Moreover, during the past twelve years Indian dependence on the West has grown. It would be unduly cynical as well as incorrect to attribute India's better relations with the West entirely to its growing need for assistance, essential though this has been. Just as the United States came to see that India's nonalignment policy was compatible with Western interests, Indian suspicion of the United States gradually declined as a result of our efforts to achieve an accommodation with the U.S.S.R., our opposition to the Suez invasion in 1956 and our restraint in supporting Pakistan's claims to Kashmir. In any case, the rise in U. S. aid to India has stopped, and the immediate prospects are for a decline of some magnitude-at a time when India's debt repayments are very large.

It is ironic and tragic that India, which spoke so eloquently of the futility of seeking security through military preparedness and of the need for peaceful accommodation among quarreling nations, is today at odds with its major neighbors, supports an army of 900,000 men, and spends nearly 5 percent of its GNP on defense-a rate higher than that for most NATO countries. Moreover, India's tense relations with Pakistan and China are a psychological as well as an economic burden. Finally, if India decides it must develop nuclear weapons and ultimately a missile delivery system, defense costs will take another sharp jump.2

Thus have India's quarrels with Pakistan and China and its need for great- power support become the central concern of Indian foreign policy and altered its position in the world. Preoccupation with these matters has caused India to play a less prominent role in the affairs of the Third World. Moreover, as more and more colonies became independent, the Afro- Asian group became less cohesive and the younger and more radical leaders were not inclined to look to a moderate India for guidance-particularly after the death of Nehru. While the Afro-Asian countries still at times stand together on issues of common interest, they are preoccupied for the most part with matters of individual concern.

IV

Evaluating the nature and extent of hostility between two antagonistic nations is always a difficult task, particularly for those directly involved in the quarrel. A nation tends to see the hostility of its antagonist extending far beyond the particular points in dispute and embracing a generalized malevolence. Once suspicion and fear gain the upper hand, the worst possible interpretation is placed on the opponent's every action. In these circumstances, the need for emotional disengagement and dispassionate analysis is all the greater, lest the escalation of suspicions lead to the very action feared.

These observations are apropos of both the Indo-Pakistan and Sino-Indian quarrels. Pakistanis argue that India's refusal to accept the two-nation theory and its implications (yielding the Moslem state of Kashmir) upon which partition was based, and the many Indian statements over the years expressing a desire for a reunited subcontinent indicate that India has never truly accepted partition; hence the conclusion that India intends to destroy Pakistan when the opportunity arises. India's failure to attack Pakistan in the years just after partition when Pakistan was extremely weak, and Indian willingness to agree to a ceasefire in 1965 when the tide of battle was going against Pakistan, are facts which have little impact on Pakistani thinking. Similarly, Indians are convinced that the anti-Hindu emotions that brought Pakistan into being are the key element holding the nation together, so that even Indian concessions on Kashmir would not lead Pakistan to alter its basic hostility.

Neither Indian nor Pakistani fears are entirely irrational, although they are considerably exaggerated. The legacy of antagonism lies heavily on both peoples and colors their attitudes toward each other. Moslems generally regard Hindus as devious, untrustworthy and hypocritical; Hindus look upon the Moslems with a mixture of contempt and fear, regarding them as intolerant and brutal. There are exceptions and some are in high places, but those with a broader vision are probably in a minority. Leaders of both countries have periodically emphasized both publicly and privately their desire for better relations. Yet far more characteristic than these occasional statements have been the charges and countercharges hurled at each other for twenty years by the politicians, press and radio. Citizens of each country generally base their beliefs upon the worst possible interpretations of the words and actions of the other, and the national heroes of one nation are despised by its neighbor. The recent sharp criticism of Mrs. Gandhi in the Indian Parliament for sending a message of congratulations to President Ayub on the completion of the Mangla Dam (built under the Indus River Plan but in a part of Kashmir held by Pakistan) shows how little room the leaders have to man?uvre.

Such attitudes do not mean a new war is likely, for Pakistan is wary after coming so close to disaster in 1965, and India is basically satisfied with the status quo on Kashmir. Yet if the danger of war appears remote, the prospects for a settlement of the key Kashmir dispute are even more remote. India is more determined than ever to retain the disputed territory. Indian nationalists with a basically secular outlook have never been willing to accept the two-nation theory upon which Pakistan's claim to Kashmir is based. Hindu nationalists are equally opposed to yielding anything on Kashmir, partly because they are against concessions of any kind to any Moslem, and partly because they consider Kashmir as sacred Indian soil. Moreover, both groups fear that if they acknowledge that Pakistan has a legitimate claim to Kashmir, they would indirectly be admitting that Pakistan has a legitimate interest in the status and welfare of Indian Moslems.

Strategic considerations are also involved. Yielding Kashmir to Pakistan would not only weaken India's strategic position vis-à-vis Pakistan; more importantly it would make it virtually impossible for India to defend Ladakh against China. There is, too, the simple desire of any country to hold on to what it has, a resolve that has been hardened in the Indian case by Pakistan's attempt to take Kashmir by force in 1965. Indeed, the desire to uphold national prestige and past policy-whatever outsiders may think or say-is probably the most important factor of all.

Yet the Indian Government and many informed Indian citizens are aware that India has yet to win more than the sullen acquiescence of the Kashmiris in their present political condition. Indeed, it would be surprising if the growing strength of the Hindu Jana Sangh in recent years had not increased the apprehensions of the Kashmiri Moslems concerning their ultimate fate. While India has no intention of yielding anything to Pakistan on this issue, it probably would be willing to give Kashmir greater autonomy if it were persuaded that this would satisfy rather than stimulate Kashmiri appetites. The recent release of Sheikh Abdullah is no doubt aimed more at satisfying the Kashmiris than at effecting a rapprochement with Pakistan. Yet Sheikh Abdullah has always been a man of independent but vague ideas, a combination which makes it difficult to be optimistic about his ability to contribute to a resolution of the issue.

V

Just as India and Pakistan are each convinced that the hostility of the other encompasses far more than contested territory, so India and China believe that their quarrel is more than a mere border dispute. When the dispute developed in 1959, New Delhi could not believe that Peking would press its demands at the price of India's friendship, but the devious manner in which Chinese leaders dealt with the boundary question in the following years-and especially the expansion of their earlier claims in the Aksai Chin area in 1960-convinced Indian leaders that China's border claims were but one step toward a more ominous if indefinable goal. These beliefs and fears were reinforced by the 1962 war and China's subsequent links to Pakistan, as well as by the general hardening of Peking's foreign policy after 1957. China's willingness in 1960 to reach a compromise border settlement, its restraint in not sending troops beyond its border claims in 1962, and its early withdrawal from NEFA have never been considered by Indians as evidence that China may have more limited goals. Indians have become convinced that China is, in Nehru's words, "a country with profoundly inimical intentions toward our independence and institutions" or that the border dispute is part of a Chinese effort to pressure India "to follow the Chinese line, both in her domestic and external policies, or risk disintegration in the process of resisting that pressure." Recent Chinese calls for a Maoist revolution in India are seen not as a shift from an earlier policy but as an indication of what Peking's true goals have always been.

Yet there is another possible explanation of China's motives, at least before the madness of the Great Cultural Revolution. The direct routes from western China to Tibet pass through extremely difficult terrain and are sometimes impassable in winter. A less direct but more dependable route is through Sinkiang into Tibet from the northwest. However, such a route has to pass through the disputed Aksai Chin territory to avoid the rugged terrain to its north. Therefore, possession of this area is of great importance to China if its position in Tibet is to be secure. Indian unwillingness in 1960 to accept a compromise border settlement which recognized this area as Chinese was probably interpreted in Peking as demonstrating that India did not really accept Chinese control of Tibet, but was following the old British policy of seeking to make Tibet a buffer state. The outrage expressed by the Indian press, public and some members of Parliament over Chinese suppression of the Tibetan revolt in 1959 had already made China suspicious on this matter. India did obviously hope that Tibet would have as much autonomy as possible and that only limited numbers of Chinese troops would be stationed there, but it does not follow that the Indian Government intended to undermine Chinese control of Tibet.

Similarly, India's movement of its troops forward in Ladakh in 1961 and 1962 gave China the choice of losing important territory or responding with military force. (This advance was successful enough so that Nehru could tell Parliament in August 1962 that India had recovered 2,500 square miles of its territory.) Having concluded that a military response was necessary, Peking apparently designed its attack to achieve its territorial objectives, force India to accept Chinese terms for a settlement and humiliate it in the eyes of other nations.

Such an interpretation, while not ruling out a measure of rivalry between the two largest nations in Asia, suggests that the Sino-Indian dispute is not as broad in scope as the two parties believe. If this is correct, is there any basis for a settlement of the border dispute that would meet the asserted needs of the two nations? New Delhi has argued that its boundary claims in both the northeast and Ladakh-as well as the few small disputed areas between Ladakh and Nepal-are based upon custom, geography and past international agreements. These prove conclusively, so it asserts, that these areas are legally part of India and have long been recognized as such.3 The conviction that it has a good legal case is one reason for India's firm stand, and for its willingness to refer the dispute to the International Court of Justice.

Yet the legal aspects of the Indian and Chinese claims are both complex and unclear. Both sides rely on tenuous arguments on certain points. Western scholars who have examined the matter in detail generally agree that India's claims to NEFA are notably stronger than China's, while there is a division of opinion as to whether either side has a strong claim to the disputed Aksai Chin.

Turning from the legal aspects of the dispute, it is clear that India's natural defense line at its northeastern frontier runs along the ridge of the Himalayas, which the McMahon Line largely follows. If China were to acquire the southern slopes of the Himalayas, India's ability to defend its northeastern territories would be seriously jeopardized. On the other hand, the portion of the Aksai Chin that New Delhi claims as Indian territory is not strategically important for the defense of India. India's natural defense line in this area is the Karakorum Mountains, which run south of the Aksai Chin from northwest to southeast. Therefore an agreement which recognized Indian claims along the northeastern frontier and those of China to the Aksai Chin would meet the strategic requirements of both countries.

Such an agreement would offer several advantages to India. It would lessen the chances of another war between the two countries. It would reduce the upward pressure on Indian defense spending, and might in time make some cutbacks possible. By lowering tensions, it might also lessen India's sense of need for nuclear weapons. Finally, it would weaken if not undermine the Sino-Pakistan relationship.

Despite these advantages, a settlement along these lines is not likely in the near future. The China of the Great Cultural Revolution shows no desire to work for harmonious relations with India or its other neighbors. Yet the general view among China watchers is that Peking will eventually return to more pragmatic policies. Moreover, Communist Chinese foreign policy has often changed direction, and it may be that after the force of the present upheaval has spent itself China will try to normalize its relations with its neighbors. Even so, India would find it politically and psychologically difficult to settle for less than the whole loaf, despite the fact that it would be giving up nothing it now holds or is likely to acquire-unless Chinese authority so disintegrates that Tibet regains its autonomy. If this ever occurs, the question of who controls the disputed Aksai Chin territory will be of little consequence. In the past the Indian Government has offered to divide Kashmir along the present ceasefire line despite its attitude that Pakistan has no legal right to any part of the state. If India can display similar flexibility in negotiating a settlement with China, it will have taken a major step toward increasing its security, reducing its burdens and regaining a measure of the diplomatic freedom it has lost in recent years. 1 India apparently did not try to obtain Chinese recognition of its border claims in return for giving up its rights in Tibet. New Delhi did make its claims known to Peking and, while the Chinese never accepted them, they never contested them. 2 India could acquire a nominal nuclear weapons capability for $25-$50 million annually. However, the major problem would be the cost of a delivery system capable of reaching important targets in China, which are far from the Indian border. The price for this would be several hundred- million dollars a year. 3 However, Hinton points out that maps issued by the Government of India between 1947 and 1950 show no line for the outer border of Kashmir but simply state "Boundary Undefined." Harold Hinton, "Communist China in World Politics." Boston: Houghton, Mifflin Company, 1966, p. 280.