The Tryst Betrayed

Book excerpt: In The Tryst Betrayed, former Indian foreign secretary Jagat Singh Mehta looks back on an eventful career which began on the day after India’s independence. In his lucid and informative style, Mehta sheds light on Nehru’s prophetic assertion of ideological agnosticism (named ‘Non-Alignment’ in 1946) and its distortion by the accidental overlap of decolonization with the Cold War. Mehta argues that Nehru was naïve on China, wishful on the Soviet Union and prejudiced against America. The civil servants were hypnotized by what he refers to as the ‘Panditji knows best’ syndrome. He illustrates that Nehru’s bark was no doubt frightening but his bite not vicious.