845.00/3–1848: Telegram
The Ambassador in India (Grady) to the Secretary of State
221. Chinese Ambassador here has had repeated to him a wire sent several days ago by Chinese Ambassador in Moscow to Nanking. He regarded it of such importance that he requested permission of Nanking to communicate to me its contents. Nanking left matter to his discretion and he has just given me what I quote in following paragraph. Source of information of Chinese Ambassador in Moscow is Indian Ambassador with whom he seems to have frequent confidential conferences. In giving me this information Chinese Ambassador here felt deeply concerned lest either Chinese or Indian Ambassador in Moscow should know that he had passed this along for information of US.
- “1. Molotov1 has expressed to Mme. Pandit2 on several occasions that world is divided into two great camps, the democratic and the imperialistic and it is now up to India to decide which side she is going to take. Soviet Russia has been ‘disappointed by the indecision of the Indian attitude’. She reports that now the Soviet press has begun to attack India.
- “2. After his arrival in Delhi Soviet Ambassador did not make serious attempts to get in contact with responsible leaders of government, but directed clandestinely secret movements of Indian Communists. This aroused great indignation among the people of Congress. Some of the Congress leaders even suggested that Pandit should be recalled.
- “3. There are regular meetings of the British Ambassador in Moscow with representatives there of Dominions. Recently at a meeting British Ambassador told Dominions representatives that relations between Soviet Russia and countries of western Europe have become more and more seriously strained. He hoped that Dominions would make up their minds as to their policy toward Russia at the earliest possible time and make their attitude clear to him.”
Chinese Ambassador stated that he had also learned from same source that Molotov had urged Pandit to request GOI to exchange [Page 498] diplomatic representation with Yugoslavia, Poland and other countries of eastern Europe. She replied that her government lacked personnel to do this.
All of information contained in above throws new light on Nehru’s recent foreign policy speech.3 It would seem that he may have been answering Russia through the medium of general policy statement. It is to be noted that he said India was not afraid of military might of any great power and the Assembly cheered him. He also stated that India did not intend to increase her representation abroad.
Am endeavoring to get information here to substantiate what has been said regarding activities of Soviet Ambassador to India and shall report promptly any information I can obtain.
Sent Department as 221, repeated Moscow as 2.
Department please repeat London as 56.
- Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov, Vice-Chairman of the Council of Ministers and Minister of Foreign Affairs.↩
- Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, Indian Ambassador in the Soviet Union.↩
- The reference here is presumably to a speech made on March 8 by Indian Prime Minister-Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, before the Constituent Assembly in New Delhi. For text, entitled “India Keeps Out of Power Blocks,” see Dorothy Norman (ed.), Nehru, The First Sixty Years, vol. ii, pp. 380–386.↩