Nehru was over-conscious of the strategic situation of the Subcontinent lying at the mouth of vital regions of South-East Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa, with enormous political, economic and strategic importance. The Indian Ocean surrounding it has vitally served trade and commerce between the East and West, giving predominance to the British Empire as the major world power in past centuries. He entertained the grand idea of Greater India. The matter of fact is that the emergence of Pakistan frustrated Nehru’s ambition to see India replace the Indian British Empire.

Nehru wrote in his ‘Discovery of India’ in the mid-1940s that ‘the Pacific is likely to take the place of the Atlantic in the future as a nerve centre of the world. Though not directly a Pacific State, India will inevitably exercise an important influence there. India will also develop as the centre of economic and political activity in the Indian Ocean area, in South-East Asia and right up to the Middle East.

Her position gives her an economic and strategic importance in a part of the world which is going to develop rapidly in the future. If there is a regional grouping of the countries bordering on the Indian Ocean on either side of India, including Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, India, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Burma (Myanmar), Malaya (Malaysia), Siam, Java (Indonesia), the present-day minority problems will disappear, or at any rate will have to be considered in an entirely different context.

Nehru clearly wanted India to replace the outgoing British Empire as the political and economic leader of the small states in the region. As a matter of fact, the creation of Pakistan constituted the biggest hurdle in the fulfilment of Nehru’s dream. The discovery of hydrocarbon resources........

© The Friday Times