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Hindustan Times
a day ago
- Politics
- Hindustan Times
Like Nehru for 1962 War, Panikkar became easy scapegoat on China policy: Shivshankar Menon
New Delhi, India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and and its first ambassador to China KM Panikkar shared one thing. Both are still criticised for their policies and they can't defend themselves as they are dead, says former NSA Shivshankar Menon. Like Nehru for 1962 War, Panikkar became easy scapegoat on China policy: Shivshankar Menon Speaking at the India International Centre on Monday during the launch of historian Narayani Basu's biography of Panikkar "A Man for All Seasons", Menon argued that Panikkar's reputation suffered largely because history judged him with the benefit of hindsight, while he and the government were navigating uncharted waters with limited information at the time. "Nehru gets blamed for 1962, but nobody asks, 'What is everybody else doing?' 'Why wasn't anybody else doing their job?' Because it's much easier - the man is dead, he can't defend himself, so they blame him. Then nobody else has to reform or change or do anything. "I think the same applies to Panikkar and China policy. It's convenient to have a scapegoat, and scapegoats are useful to societies, especially to bureaucracies," said Menon, who himself served as ambassador to China from 2000-03. Panikkar was appointed ambassador to China in April 1948. The Communists took over in the country the year later. His role in dealing with China's new government became highly controversial, with accusations that he misled Nehru about the Chinese military campaign into Tibet. China invaded Tibet in 1950. The Chinese People's Liberation Army entered Tibet in October 1950, leading to the eventual incorporation of Tibet into the People's Republic of China. "One of the reasons why Panikkar's reputation on China policy suffered is because we already knew how the story ended. The trouble was, he didn't know where it was going - frankly, none of them did," Menon said in his defence of Pannikar. Giving a glimpse into the period when Panikkar served as ambassador to China, Menon described it as marked by chaos and uncertainty, with no officials for Panikkar to engage with since the new Communist regime had not yet been recognized by India. He highlighted that cables from that era reveal "complete confusion both in Delhi and on the ground", made worse by Panikkar's lack of diplomatic experience and limited sources of intelligence. "He wasn't a professional diplomat, so he wasn't cynical about people," Menon explained, noting how Panikkar had to rely on Chinese officials for information during China's move into Tibet with no alternative channels for verification. Menon cited Basu's book to highlight how directives to Indian diplomats about Tibet shifted nearly every week, emphasizing that the government's stance on the issue was constantly evolving. Despite this, Menon argued that Pannikar right from the beginning foresaw the challenge posed by revived Chinese nationalism. "Some of his early dispatches from China, just before the Communist takeover, were quite prescient," Menon added, lamenting that Delhi did not heed these warnings. Describing Panikkar as someone "difficult to pigeonhole", Menon credited him with being the first to highlight the "maritime dimension" of how India views and engages with the world. "In fact, the 'Look East' and 'Act East' policy is the logical end of where he started us off," he added. "A man for All Seasons", published by Westland, draws on Panikkar's body of work, as well as on archival material from India to England, from France to China, and from Israel to the UN to present a "vivid, irresistibly engaging portrait of this most enigmatic of India's founding fathers". This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
The Hindu
17-07-2025
- Science
- The Hindu
Centre urged to strengthen CIIL for protection and promotion of language studies
G.K. Panikkar, director, International School of Dravidian Linguistics, Thiruvananthapuram, on Thursday said that the Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL), Mysuru, has the potential to become the world's topmost institution in the field of language-related study and research and in finding out solutions to language-related problems. 'For sustainable development of Indian languages and for protection of the cultural ethos of Indian people, I appeal to the Government of India to strengthen the CIIL, giving it necessary freedom, and academic, financial and administration support,' he said, in his address as the chief guest at the 57th foundation day of the CIIL here. Mr. Panikkar praised the CIIL for its work in the protection and documentation of minor languages. Almost all tribal languages of India, including those with less than 10,000 speakers had been analysed by CIIL researchers, who prepared grammars and lexicons for them, he explained. He further said that textbooks were prepared for primary classes to enable tribal students to have their early education in their own mother tongue itself, and then switch over to the major language of their respective regions. 'As a part of CIIL's role to promote multilingualism and its efforts for the effective implementation of the three-language formula, school teachers were trained in different languages — especially South Indian languages to the teachers of North Indian states,' he stated. 'I think this project successfully continues even now by expanding its scope to all the major languages of the country. It now trains teachers in second language teaching methodologies providing them with linguistics orientation,' he added. He said that the application of AI and other technological innovations may also be helpful to CIIL for solving many of our present-day problems. Similarly, steps towards equipping one's mother tongue for higher education such as the preparation of dictionaries of science terms in regional languages and so on are the need of the hour, he added. On the occasion, the 'Bhasha Sanchika' portal — a digital language repository of CIIL, which is described as a pioneering platform where language preservation, dissemination, and technology converges, was launched. The launch of the Bhasha Sanchika (Language Archive of India) marks a significant milestone in CIIL's ongoing efforts to safeguard India's linguistic diversity. Developed using D-Space, a widely adopted open-source digital asset management system, the portal serves as a resource hub for the promotion, documentation, and preservation of Indian languages and cultural heritage, according to CIIL. CIIL Director Shailendra Mohan presided over the event. Former CIIL Directors, language experts, and other dignitaries were present. The inaugural event was followed by panel discussions.
Mint
13-07-2025
- Politics
- Mint
How K.M. Panikkar became India's first ambassador to China
The choice of K.M. Panikkar as India's ambassador to China in 1947 has in retrospect been the cause of both controversy and debate. But it was a decision based on many factors. The first was trust and long-standing friendship. Nehru had known Panikkar since his days in Amritsar and at the Hindustan Times in the 1920s. He had never lost track of Panikkar's career, following his arguments for federalism and for getting the princes on board with the Indian Union. The Indian prime minister had also read Panikkar's works on foreign policy and history, especially during the war years, with keen interest. His sister Vijayalakshmi Pandit's endorsement of Panikkar's intelligence counted with Nehru too. He had always been thinking about how to present India to the wider world, and from his reading of Panikkar's work, he knew this ambition was a shared one. Now that India was looking to consolidate its position as a postcolonial power, particularly in South Asia, that presentation became even more important. India was already in the unique position of being an international presence by 1945, from Dumbarton Oaks to San Francisco. But with independence, new eyes and ears were needed. Nehru insisted that it could not be those who had worked previously for the British as 'that would in effect be a British approach with the background of British foreign policy', and would lead to India being looked upon as a satellite of the empire. 'I am anxious to have public men as our ambassadors,' he mused to Bajpai (G.S. Bajpai), '… more especially with regard to some of our first appointments. Panikkar, by 1948, was very much a public man, and what was more invaluably, he had shown himself to be more than capable of wearing multiple hats. Also read: How to build AI literacy and become a power user India did not as yet have trained career diplomats. Even as Krishna Menon reported a keen interest from European capitals to establish relations with the newly independent India, there was a severe manpower crisis, one that was accentuated with the transfer of power and Partition. To put things in perspective, independent India needed about three hundred diplomats to start with. There were only about fifty people actually available who commanded enough experience to qualify. Small wonder that Girija Shankar Bajpai was forced to reply to Menon that 'the possibility of opening new missions abroad is scant in the extreme'. With personnel in short supply and India dealing with successive internal crises in the wake of transfer of power and partition, Nehru simply couldn't afford to send people he didn't know to important postings. This often resulted in 'strange choices', like Asaf Ali's appointment as India's ambassador to Washington DC in January 1947, and some controversial ones, like his sister's appointment as India's ambassador to Moscow, all of which resulted in the creation of policies that were not always in line with those of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). Panikkar's appointment, given this backdrop, was very much in accordance with Nehru's thinking about how to choose ambassadors in the first hectic days of Indian independence. Then there was the fast-changing foreign policy situation regarding Tibet and China. Nehru had a vision for what he wanted to achieve in Asia. In 1946, he wrote for The New York Times, 'A free India will link together the Middle East with China. India is so situated as to form the centre of a group of Asian nations for defence as well as trade and commerce.' He wrote this essay against the backdrop of the excellent relations between India and Nationalist China in the inter-war years. But the Asian Relations Conference should have been the first indicator that, while idealism was all very well, realpolitik and pragmatism should have been the first principles of the hour. Nehru envisioned the ARC as a harbinger of solidarity when it was actually a mirror to how far that solidarity would go. Nationalist China was furious that India had invited Tibet as an independent country, suspecting Nehru of wanting to 'promote his personal prestige'. In addition, China was also outraged over the map hanging in the main conference hall, which showed Tibet outside China and its mention as India's neighbour. Nehru mollified the Chinese representatives by welcoming China as 'that great country to which Asia owes so much and from which so much is expected'. In May 1947, Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang (KMT) government, also known as the Nationalists, sent Luo Jialun as its ambassador to India as a gesture of support from one Asian country to the other. Luo's appointment, short and ill-starred though it was, is little studied in India. According to his diary, he was summoned early in 1947 by the generalissimo and told that he would be going to India as the Republic of China's ambassador. The bespectacled serious-faced Luo was more of an academic than a diplomat and he was considerably startled at this request. But Chiang was persuasive. China was looking, he said, for a man with academic credentials and excellent knowledge of the Tibet issue. Cultural, civilisational and academic ties were to be the cornerstones of bilateral relations between independent India and China. Luo fit this bill despite his own misgivings on the subject. He had always been an industrious, brilliant student, and he had trained in history at Princeton, Columbia, London, Paris and Berlin. In 1919, he had been a prominent leader of the May Fourth Movement, the cultural and anti-imperialist political movement which grew out of student protests in Peking and marked a move towards populist politics in China. At the time of his appointment as ambassador to India, Luo had taught history at universities across China and was a respected scholar in his own right. Chiang Kai-shek was aware of his political leanings and his academic accomplishments, and to his mind, the professor would be an asset in India. Luo would live up to Chiang's hopes during his time in India, authoring a poem to celebrate Indian independence and a paper on Chinese sources for Indian history while he was in India. He also used his knowledge of frontier issues like Xinjiang and Tibet—knowledge that China could use to reinforce its own ideas of sovereignty over Tibet. Before leaving for India, Luo was personally briefed by Chiang Kai-shek. He was told to tell Nehru that, 'except for China's own interests, India's interest is the most important one to China'. He was also asked to keep an eye on the workings of the Muslim League and to see to it that the Chinese embassy in India functioned as a kind of research centre for Tibetan affairs. Luo's arrival in India on 3 May 1947 was symbolic for many reasons. It coincided with China's victory in the Second World War and India's navigation of its final days of being a colony. It also coincided with the turning of the tide of civil war in China, with the victory of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) under the chairmanship of savvy, brutish Mao Tse-tung seeming ever more likely, and the winding down of the Raj's policies in Tibet. By April 1947, the Foreign and Political Department was telling Hugh Richardson, its political officer in Gangtok, that if, in the light of the participation of a Tibetan delegation in the most recent Chinese National Assembly, China and Tibet should work out some kind of modus vivendi between them, India should neither object nor interfere. On 23 July 1947, in a message approved by His Majesty's Government, Tibet was informed that, after transfer of power, Lhasa would deal exclusively with New Delhi, 'upon whom alone the rights and obligations arising from existing treaty provisions will thereafter devolve'. Tibet agreed to abide by the Simla Convention (1914) and reserved its right to discuss the question of trade and boundaries in the future which, much to Richardson's irritation, it did not do. As these niggles continued, in October 1947, India and China found themselves at odds over the question of the grant of an Indian visa to the newly appointed Chinese Amban or high official who would be proceeding to Lhasa via India. India insisted that the visa be granted subject to a no-objection certificate from Lhasa as per past precedent. China, on the other hand, said that the visa should be granted without consulting Lhasa at all. These irritants were the backdrop against which Panikkar was dispatched to China. He would be taking over from K.P.S. Menon, India's agent-general in Chongqing since 1943. Menon was fully aware that he was in China at a time when it stood at the crossroads between the old and the new. He had reported from across Nationalist China now for five years: during the ongoing civil war and the slow unravelling of Kuomintang power and during the changing role and influence of the United States. From Menon's detailed, eloquent and brisk reports, Nehru understood just a little more than Chiang Kai-shek would have liked. By 1947, Menon was writing directly to Nehru, much as Panikkar would do. Excerpted from A Man for all Seasons: The Life of K.M. Panikkar, with permission from Westland Books. Also read: Frederick Forsyth's 'Jackal' is back in 2025
Scroll.in
07-07-2025
- Politics
- Scroll.in
‘Failures for having dreamed of a united India': Diplomat KM Panikkar anticipated Partition in 1941
In the spring of 1942, Panikkar received a shock. He had known for some time that the maharaja was ill, but he hadn't known the extent of it. Now, Ganga Singh informed him soberly that he had, for a long time, been living with throat cancer. His doctors had told him that he had mere months to live. It was a moment Panikkar would never forget. This was the second maharaja he had served with for such a long time. Of Sadul Singh, Bikaner's mercurial son and heir, he knew little, but it was clear that this was yet another turning point in his career. In fact, turning points were everywhere. In February 1942, Linlithgow's muttered imprecations about the direction of the guns of Singapore came true. Long held to be an impregnable citadel, the island fell to the Japanese that month. They were here now, at India's door from the south and from the northeast, holding over 62,000 Commonwealth and British troops captive. It was a stunning blow to Britain's prestige in Asia, and it led inevitably to the popular feeling that the British were not, after all, as invincible as they seemed. The authorities in New Delhi were nervous that Hindus had a 'brotherly feeling' for the Japanese. This wasn't helped by the fact that, just the previous year, in 1940, Subhas Chandra Bose had escaped house arrest in Calcutta. With the help of the Abwehr – German intelligence – he was spirited across Peshawar and Afghanistan to the Soviet Union, where he assumed a new identity as an Italian nobleman, Count Orlando Mazzotta. The 'count' was then taken to Berlin where, once safely inside the Third Reich, Bose began recruiting his fellow Indians to fight against Britain. In 1941, he founded the Free India Centre, set up a transnational radio station broadcasting pro-Axis propaganda to India and formed the Free India Legion, also known as the Tiger Legion, an all-Indian infantry force of volunteers made up of expatriates and prisoners of war, recruited from labour camps like Colditz. Its soldiers swore an oath of allegiance to Subhas Chandra Bose – and Adolf Hitler. By 1942, the Tiger Legion was a thousand men strong. To British eyes, there were threats everywhere they turned. In India, for instance, the situation seemed to be spiralling out of control. Constitutionally speaking, the reforms commissioner HV Hodson was of the opinion that 'time is not on the side of constitutional sanity'. Indian political leaders were on the same page as Hodson. In December 1941, the Bardoli session of the Congress Working Committee expressed support for the 'peoples who are the subject of aggression and are fighting for their freedom', while contending that 'only a free and independent India can be in a position to undertake the defence of the country on a national basis'. On 1 January 1942, Sapru appealed to Churchill to break the constitutional deadlock in India by some 'bold stroke' of 'farsighted statesmanship'. What the Congress wanted, he said, was simple: to view India not as a colony but on a constitutional position equal to other dominions of the commonwealth. He called for the Indianisation of the Viceroy's Executive Council to form an interim national government. Churchill, even though his back was to the wall, refused to consider this. He cabled his colleagues at the India Office, warning them of the danger of raising key constitutional questions when the enemy was at its doorstep. On 24 January 1942, Clement Attlee wrote to Leo Amery, wondering whether it was worth considering if 'someone should not be charged with a mission to try and bring the political leaders together'. In Attlee's opinion, one of the better alternatives favouring Whitehall was to send out an official of high standing to negotiate some kind of settlement. This was what Lord Durham had done in Canada. The only question was: who would this official be? While the Raj and Whitehall debated, it had to contend with the undoubted fact that the United States was a very much interested participant at this time. In early 1942 then, Churchill was an unhappy man. His government was rapidly becoming unpopular, with constant blackouts, heavy rationing and incessant news of defeats in the Far East. He knew he would have to give way to Roosevelt on something at least, but the US president was being peculiarly adamant about concessions in India. In February 1942, FDR told Harriman to deliver a 'highly sensitive' personal message to Churchill, asking when and what kind of action was being taken. It was a squeeze and Churchill knew it, but he was in no position to revolt. Britain was currently extremely weak. In March, Malaya and Burma had fallen to the Japanese. There was no way that he could push back against Roosevelt, especially not when the United States was itself in the war. As a result, when he had word that Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and his wife, the vivacious Madame Soong, intended to visit India that February, he was thrilled. He wrote immediately to the Chinese leader in the fond hope that he would adhere to British policy over India. But this was a gross underestimation of who the generalissimo was and why he was coming to India in the first place. Chiang Kai-shek was born in a hilly town called Xikou, in the province of Zhejiang near Shanghai in 1887. His father, a small-town salt merchant, had died when he was eight and his widowed mother had struggled to bring up her two children, Chiang and his sister. Chiang was not a particularly prepossessing character, with a penchant for brothels and hard liquor. His neighbours avoided him and his relatives were ashamed of him. Stung by their visible revulsion, Chiang determined to make a success of himself and chose a military career. It was the perfect path to have chosen, for China in the 1920s was a mix of scheming politics and brutish strongarm tactics. By allying himself with Sun Yat-sen, and via Sun's wife, marrying May-ling Soong, one of the most beautiful, independent women in China, he was at the peak of his powers in the 1940s. Visiting India was not quite as outlandish as it might have seemed. Nationalist China and India had been in touch since the end of the First World War, a relationship driven by cooperation in the anti-imperialist struggle. The British were aware of the dangers of this bonhomie and through the 1920s, bilateral visits were often blocked diplomatically. That hadn't stopped China from closely tracking the course of the Indian nationalist movement over the years. Now, as the war reached new heights, it was hoped that a common strategy could be found, one that would continue in the post-war period. How this would play out in reality is another story, but when Japan attacked China in the summer of 1937, the Congress had not only expressed public support for the latter but had also sent a medical mission of five doctors post-haste. Nehru himself went to China in August 1939, only to rush back when war was officially declared. But he returned convinced of the need for deeper political cooperation between India and China. In the early years of the 1940s, Chiang and Nehru kept in touch. When Nehru was in jail in 1940, Madame Soong asked Sir Stafford Cripps, then the British ambassador to Moscow, when he would be released from prison. So this visit by the generalissimo in February 1942 was at least superficially no big surprise. Sir Maurice Hallett, then the governor of the United Provinces, wrote disgustedly that Chiang Kai-shek was here to 'meander through India, with Nehru sticking to him like a burr'. Still, the Raj rolled out the red carpet for him. He was taken to review Indian troops in a Rolls-Royce from which a Union Jack 'fluttered from the radiator cap, like a raccoon tail on a college boy's Ford'. The generalissimo and his wife were given palatial villas for their stay and waited on by liveried servants. He was even made an Honorary Knight of the Bath, Military Division. While he partook of these delights, Chiang was here because, as he told the viceroy during the formal banquet thrown in his honour, 'To have one look at things is a hundred times more satisfactory than hearsay.' So, he was here to see how the munition factories, from which arms were moving to China across the Burma Road, were functioning and how they were being defended. He was here to talk of the new road being built from Assam into China, and he was here to assess India's general readiness for war. Politically, there was also no harm in taking the temperature of relations between the Congress and the Raj. With the Japanese reaching Malacca, Borneo and the doorstep of Burma (it would fall in a matter of weeks), Chiang was understandably worried. He was also reporting to Roosevelt. The American involvement in the war, post Pearl Harbour, was considerable, especially in the realms of backchannel diplomacy. Through FDR, the generalissimo's main aim was to put pressure on the empire to accept the Congress Party's demands for Indian self-determination. They were at a quid pro quo: Chiang needed Roosevelt's help for arms and money. FDR, who was in favour of British talks with India, was influenced by Chiang's suggestion that the United States and China could cooperate in putting pressure on Britain to resolve 'the Indian Question'. The US president liked the sound of this, though it must be noted that FDR had never been to the subcontinent. His India policy was at best inconsistent and at worst weak and ineffective. In both cases, it was driven largely by the generalissimo and his own resistance to European colonialism. Still, Roosevelt thought about Chiang's suggestion and wrote to Madame Soong that one possible solution could be the dividing of India into two parts. While the US president pondered the fate of India, Whitehall was depressed. The recent lethal combination of political and military reversals had forced Churchill to agree despondently to the dispatch of a political mission to India. Here, he found unexpected resistance from his viceroy. His nerves frayed by the fall of Singapore and Burma, Linlithgow insisted that any such visit 'in existing circumstances could be disastrous'. But his pleas fell on deaf ears. On 9 February 1942, Sir Stafford Cripps was announced as the man who would lead Britain's next mission to India. In the face of this torrent of events, each occurring within days of the other, Panikkar had to think fast. In 1941, he had written a note for the ailing Ganga Singh that compared the policy proposals of the Congress and the Muslim League and concluded that the League posed a far more serious threat to the princely states.13 This note was written in the aftermath of the Lahore Resolution. In it, Panikkar took the view that, with the League in favour of the creation of Muslim-majority states, the situation was worse than before. It would be possible, for instance, for the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) to ally itself with Afghanistan to attack Kashmir. This was only a hypothesis, of course, but its consequences would be catastrophic, fracturing the transport and communications system and rendering the rupee valueless. Jinnah might not have fully endorsed Pakistan, Panikkar wrote forthrightly, but the omens were dire. Therefore, he believed the princes had no choice but to embrace the necessity of a central government. Panikkar's political thoughts in the early 1940s are interesting, if deeply fatalistic. The archival correspondence of the national movement suggests that, in general, nobody was in favour of Partition before 1946. Even then, it was always seen as a decision born from having been left with no choice. Yet, as early as 1941, Panikkar appears to have not only accepted that Pakistan would be a reality but also that it was the only reality worth considering. In a letter to his old friend Syed Mahmud from his Aligarh days, Panikkar wrote, 'I have for a long time now, been a Pakistanist. Without the separation of Pakistan, a central government will not be possible in India. The fear of Hindu majority at the centre, whatever safeguards you may create and wherever pacts you may work out, will drive the Muslims to unreasonable madness.' He continued, 'I have no terrors about even the exchange of population. But the 'two eyes theory' and a central government cannot work together. So let us, dear Mahmud, foreswear our past. Consider ourselves failures for having dreamed of a united India.' This was clearly not a point of view to which he had come easily. Panikkar was by now on the cusp of fifty. He had spent most of his life working for the princes to unite them with provincial India, for a federal cause that was now lost, for a dream of India that to him at least had now shattered. There was no room any more for emotion. From where he stood, joining hands with the Congress was the only practical way forward for the Chamber of Princes. At least the Congress would offer a strong central government along with greater administrative efficiency, strong political institutions and a more modern legal system. Smaller states with no resources for such reforms would have to join with each other or larger states. VP Menon and Sardar Patel would call the process 'integration'. Panikkar called it 'cooperative groups'. As he watched India move towards a transfer of power, his clear-eyed nationalism was evolving. Tradition was important, but so was the development that could originate from modernising traditions, such as the industrial policy of Mysore or the abolition of untouchability from Travancore. Syed Mahmud, who was then a senior Congress leader, read Panikkar's note and passed it on to Rajaji for his perusal. Soon Panikkar received a note from Rajaji himself, congratulating him on the depth and foresight of his views, and asking him to take those views to their natural conclusion. Should democratic regimes also be introduced in the states? Wouldn't they guarantee the same rights and duties enjoyed elsewhere across the country? These were the questions with which Panikkar was wrestling when Ganga Singh's health worsened considerably. The cancer was moving fast through his body, and though there was only a dim chance of a full recovery, the maharaja's health was hampered by his love affair with his personal physician, Dr Sivakamu. 'This lady,' Panikkar said spitefully in his memoir, 'was as skilled in surgery as she was in the … intricate art of serving a king.' To the king's detriment and Panikkar's despair, Bikaner chose to ignore the ministrations of his brilliant German physician Richard Jizchak Weingarten, then the head of the Bikaner State Hospital. This resulted in what Panikkar described as a 'medical crossfire', a messy mix of sorcery, ayurveda, allopathy and priestly incantations. This despite the fact that, as Weingarten himself wrote later, Bikaner led the way when it came to modern medical innovation, favouring Western medical approaches over practices of indigenous medicine. As Ganga Singh's health declined even further, the Cripps Mission landed in New Delhi. Stafford Cripps had just returned from an unsuccessful mission to Moscow. A patrician vegetarian with a penchant for nudism and knitting, he was at the time 'a prominent public figure without a public role', But he was a popular choice as the leader of this new mission to India. The viceroy disagreed emphatically, calling him Stafford 'Crapps' behind his back and rather childishly keeping him in Karachi on enforced quarantine before allowing him passage to New Delhi. Cripps was no fool. He was aware that his political standing hinged on the success of these negotiations. The Hindustan Times had already warned ominously, 'Everything depends on how quickly Sir Stafford Cripps gets through his task in this country.' He already had the reputation of being pro-Congress, but as he told Churchill anxiously, 'The outlook so far as the internal situation goes is exceedingly bad.' It didn't help matters that he picked a fight with the reforms commissioner straightaway over everything from the communal problem to the princely states. Hodson was wary of Cripps and his agenda from the start, a fact not helped by Cripps's tactless statement that the cabinet was ready to give India whatever it wanted except defence, a fact that neither the British nor the Indians enjoyed hearing. Cripps also wanted to 'redraw' the federal units first. To Hodson's horrified mind, there was 'the germ of the historic conflict' that was to come in 1946–1947. More importantly, a key figure on the scene who was complicating matters still further was FDR's latest emissary – Colonel Louis Johnson. The colonel was an unhappy choice, for there was literally nobody in India who liked him. His own brethren thought he was 'coarse, bombastic and ignorant.' Amery thought he was a 'real mischief maker' and Hodson thought he was an 'indiscreet, ill-informed busybody'. Despite Johnson's irritating presence, Cripps kept up a public relations barrage. His manner was informal and cheery, a striking contrast to the more aloof viceregal style. He met over forty individuals and delegations, using a mix of consultations, negotiations and midnight meetings. He undoubtedly worked very hard, but he was up against a war that was advancing steadily toward India and communal rifts that were too deep to bridge. Cripps knew that if the Congress was to wait until the war was over, the balance of power might shift in their favour even further than it could already claim. But the Congress was in no mood for conditional promises. They didn't want a 'post-dated cheque on a failing bank.' There had been too many of those in the last two decades. They rejected his offer outright. Nehru, with whom Cripps had been friendly in the 1930s, was coldly suspicious. 'He was a lawyer who stated his case powerfully and expected it to prevail … He … left no room for manoeuvre.' Yet Cripps, to be fair to him, negotiated well beyond his mandate. His final offer to the Congress was one of Indian-staffed administration, with only home affairs and defence remaining in British hands. Such a concession had never been authorised by London. But fatally, what Cripps did promise was the likelihood of Pakistan. At a press conference in Delhi on 29 March 1942, in answer to a question as to whether there was anything to stop two provinces from different parts of India from clubbing together 'to form separate union', Cripps replied, 'That would be impractical. Two contiguous provinces may form a separate union.' In the same breath, he also said that it would not be impossible to have a 'rearrangement of boundaries between the two unions and an exchange of populations to get the larger majority of each'. It was the first time that the prospect of autonomous provinces outside India had been publicly mentioned by the British in an official capacity. Cripps affirmed to the press that, as a dominion, India would be equal in every respect to the United Kingdom and other dominions of the Crown and would be free to remain in or separate itself from the equal partnership of the British Commonwealth. There would be a post-war Constituent Assembly, subject to the right of any province not to accede. This provision entrenched the right of predominantly Muslim provinces to not be coerced into an Indian union. Simply put, it meant that the door to Pakistan was now open. Hodson was appalled and Linlithgow was furious. 'Having gone so far, why boggle at the word independence with all its appeal to India?' he snarled at Amery. And so, by the time Cripps left India, his mission had failed on a grand scale, marking a fatal split between the viceroy and the Congress, and between the Congress and the League. 'The less interested we appear now to be in Indian politics the better,' Linlithgow wrote bitterly. It was, as the historian Patrick French has written, a moment of great political and mental alienation. What of the princely states in this entire imbroglio? Their position was also left unresolved. They would be free to stand out but encouraged to stay in. But technically, the central question being debated was the issue of sovereignty. The Cripps proposals envisioned several different political successors to the British Raj, including the princely states and some provinces, all of which would continue to exist as relatively autonomous entities. Even though the mission had failed, the princes favoured Cripps's plan precisely because Cripps allowed them to stay aloof from any constitutional structure. At a meeting with the Chamber of Princes on 28 March 1942, Cripps told them, 'So far as the paramountcy treaties are concerned, these would remain unaltered unless any state desired to get rid of the paramountcy in order to be able to accommodate itself the better to new conditions … We should stand by our treaties with the states unless they asked us to revoke them.' He patiently went over his draft, point by point, with the Jam Sahib and with Bikaner, assuring them that they had the right to opt out of the constitution-making body 'if the constitution did not suit them'. It was precisely the kind of assurance that Patel and Menon would be firm in not making when the time came. When the War Cabinet and the viceroy heard that Cripps had promised this to the princes, they were collectively furious. The political secretary, Kenneth Fitze, was instructed firmly to inform the chamber that there would be no 'unilateral denunciation of the treaties'. Deeply worried now, the princes decided that it might not harm them to conduct a little public relations at this stage. At Bikaner's behest, Panikkar was deployed for this new mission due to his persuasiveness and his intelligence. His first move was to publish a quick but crucial essay in the influential American journal Foreign Affairs. 'The Princes and India's Future' is both smartly written and smartly positioned. It makes no real point beyond the need to protect princely autonomy based on their treaty rights with the British Empire and their independent existence before the empire was established. In modern terms, it would qualify as a puff piece, plugging the importance of princely states in negotiations for a free India. Panikkar's choice of publication was shrewd. It was a good way to reestablish the image of the princes, away from their eccentric, cartoonish portrayals and towards a perception of them as socially progressive, intelligent forces. But what followed from this was an invitation that would keep Panikkar away from India for the rest of that year. He was asked to participate as a delegate in the eighth annual conference of the Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR) at Mont Tremblant, Canada.
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Local oncologist gives insight on prostate cancer
SCRANTON, LACKAWANNA COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU) — Former President Joe Biden is facing a serious health battle. He has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer that has spread to his bones. The news has many men asking questions about screenings, symptoms, and treatment options 28/22 News spoke with a local oncologist to break down what this means and why prostate cancer can be so difficult to navigate. Former President Joe Biden's cancer diagnosis has sparked questions about prostate cancer and how it affects men, especially as they age. A local oncologist says there's no one-size-fits-all approach to treatment, and the disease can vary greatly from person to person. Former President Joe Biden and his family say they're reviewing treatment options after he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer that's already spread to his bones. A local oncologist says in serious cases like this, symptoms may start with unexplained, persistent pain. Patriot's Cove 7th annual 'Fish for the Fallen' 'Men that present with those situations often will have new bone symptoms that are unexplained, persistent, and different from their usual aches and pains that they may have from joint troubles or other,' Dr. Rajiv Panikkar, cancer institute chair at Geisinger, explained. Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men, but screening for it is complicated. 'Prostate cancer screening is a tricky question, and that's because when screening became more common in prostate cancer, we saw an increase in men who were diagnosed, but it didn't correspond to men living longer and doing better. So for all those reasons, it's an important conversation to have with a primary care physician, particularly once a man reaches the age of 50, to have that discussion,' said Dr. Panikkar. Not every man with prostate cancer ends up needing aggressive treatment. 'In the right man with a lower risk, looking biopsy, a smaller tumor, observation alone, can be the right step of treatment. Other men are going to make choices for surgery and potential risk of surgery, but then the benefit of having the tumor out,' Dr. Panikkar continued. Dr. Panikkar says building the right team of specialists is key, especially when the cancer has spread. 'It's important when prostate cancer is diagnosed to have a thoughtful discussion with a urologist as well as other members of a cancer team, which can include radiation oncology or a doctor like me in medical oncology, to determine whether radiation medical treatments or surgery are needed,' Dr. Panikkar said. While prostate cancer can be serious, doctors say most men diagnosed do not die from the disease. That's why early conversations with your primary care physician are so important, especially if you have a family history. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
