Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Salient: Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 27, No. 12. 1964.

Newly-Independent Nations

Newly-Independent Nations

The newly-independent nations of Africa and Asia presented a special challenge to Nehru. They were obvious candidates for inclusion in the area of peace. From the historic Asian Relations Conference which he summoned in Delhi shortly before independence in 1947, Nehru provided intelligent leadership for the third world.

Other conferences have followed. Their proceedings have been studied with anxious concern in the capitals of both East, and West. Perhaps the most important of the early conferences was that held at Bandung in 1955, at which, sponsored by Nehru. Red China made its debut into international politics. Twenty-nine Afro-Asian countries met around the conference table for the first time and although nothing permanent emerged, were successful in focussing attention on Asian consciousness. Furthermore, it was one of the chief factors making possible the Geneva Summit Conference of 1955.

As a world statesman, Nehru was conspicuously successful. What he said mattered very much to the Afro-Asian nations to whom he provided a leadership lacking elsewhere. The aggressively nationalistic policies of Sukarno. Nasser, and Nkrumah held little appeal against Nehru's apparent peacefulness and sincerity; and they were unable to match his sense of timing or his skilful reading of the international situation.