India's Attitude -
Mr. Nehru's policy towards the Korean war last week received the support of the Indian Parliament. Although lively criticism was heard in the course of the two-day debate, approval was in the end secured without a division, and the result must be regarded as a considerable personal triumph for Mr. Nehru. The aims which he has tried to keep in sight since the fighting in Korea began have been frequently misunderstood ; they do rxl include mediation, nor do they include neutrality, but they do include " independence of action," and it is perhaps because the idea of " independence " is superficially hard to reconcile with loyalty to the United Nations that the misunderstandings have arisen. But the two speeches which Mr. Nehru contributed to the debate showed that it is against the background of support for the United Nations that his other actions must be judged. Thus he gave as the starting-point of India's policy the recognition that aggression had been committed in Korea and that it must be stopped. The corollaries which he drew from this, namely that the war must not be allowed to spread beyond Korea and that the final fate of Korea must be a matter for decision by the Koreans themselves, are also not open to criticism. It is only in questions of procedure that the Indian approach has differed from that of the other members of the United Nations. Mr. Nehru has never concealed his belief that the time has come when Communist China should be represented on the Security Council, and if that belief for the time being fits in with Russia's tactics at Lake Success, this, it is argued, is not a valid reason for abandoning it. It is a mistake to regard Indian policy towards the United Nations as oscillating between a Western and a Soviet point of view ; Mr. Nehru would claim that India is spokesman for a wider body of opinion, and that this opinion is Asiatic. If this is so, it deserves the sympathetic understanding of the Western Powers, all the more because the Indians themselves show no signs of expecting sympathy from Russia.
