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October 1, 1938

Letter, Jawaharlal Nehru to Nahas Pasha

In June 1938 Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964), a Indian National Congress (INC) leader, one of the earliest INC members calling for full independence in 1927, and the main responsible for INC’s foreign relations, took a ship to Europe. This trip was not a first for India’s inaugural prime minister (1947-1964) to be. Already in 1905 he had left India to enroll at the elite British boarding school of Harrow, going on to study at Cambridge and work as a lawyer in London before returning home in 1912. And the last time he had sailed was in 1935, staying until 1936 as the INC representative in meetings with fellow Asian and increasingly also African anti-imperialists in Britain and Europe. Sure, by then the League against Imperialism (LAI), whose Comintern-organized foundational conference Nehru had attended in 1927, was defunct. (For the LAI see the 1927 document on Messali Hadj in this collection.) Even so, Nehru continued to see his secularist Indian nation-statist goals within an international leftist-anti-imperialist and now anti-fascist framework and web, as Michele Louro’s Comrades against Imperialism: Nehru, India, and Interwar Internationalism (2020) argues.

Hence, when on the ship en route to Europe in 1938 he received an invitation from Egypt’s leading nationalist wafd party and agreed to meet their leaders. Having been in contact with Egyptian nationalists before, a story told in Noor Khan’s Egyptian-Indian Nationalist Collaboration and the British Empire (2011), and having detailed their anti-imperialism in Glimpses of World History (1934), he saw the wafd as INC’s appropriately leading anti-imperialist counterpart in Egypt. Sure, in confidential INC memoranda, he criticized the wafd’sinsufficient attention to the masses, especially the peasants, which cost them an election in early 1938, he thought; indeed, the wafdistswere liberal nationalists whereas Nehru was a leftist nationalist. Nonetheless, sitting down with the wafd and exchanging views about world politics and anti-imperialist strategies was called for, in his and the wafd’s view,at a time when fascism was rising and Britain continued to rule India and be very present in Egypt. Reproduced in the massive compilation Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, this text is a letter by Nehru sent from London to Nahas Pasha (1879-1965), a leading wafd politician.

June 13, 1938

Jawaharlal Nehru, 'A Letter from the Mediterranean'

In June 1938 Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964), a Indian National Congress (INC) leader, one of the earliest INC members calling for full independence in 1927, and the main responsible for INC’s foreign relations, took a ship to Europe. This trip was not a first for India’s inaugural prime minister (1947-1964) to be. Already in 1905 he had left India to enroll at the elite British boarding school of Harrow, going on to study at Cambridge and work as a lawyer in London before returning home in 1912. And the last time he had sailed was in 1935, staying until 1936 as the INC representative in meetings with fellow Asian and increasingly also African anti-imperialists in Britain and Europe. Sure, by then the League against Imperialism (LAI), whose Comintern-organized foundational conference Nehru had attended in 1927, was defunct. (For the LAI see the 1927 document on Messali Hadj in this collection.) Even so, Nehru continued to see his secularist Indian nation-statist goals within an international leftist-anti-imperialist and now anti-fascist framework and web, as Michele Louro’s Comrades against Imperialism: Nehru, India, and Interwar Internationalism (2020) argues.

Hence, when on the ship en route to Europe in 1938 he received an invitation from Egypt’s leading nationalist wafd party and agreed to meet their leaders. Having been in contact with Egyptian nationalists before, a story told in Noor Khan’s Egyptian-Indian Nationalist Collaboration and the British Empire (2011), and having detailed their anti-imperialism in Glimpses of World History (1934), he saw the wafd as INC’s appropriately leading anti-imperialist counterpart in Egypt. Sure, in confidential INC memoranda, he criticized the wafd’sinsufficient attention to the masses, especially the peasants, which cost them an election in early 1938, he thought; indeed, the wafdistswere liberal nationalists whereas Nehru was a leftist nationalist. Nonetheless, sitting down with the wafd and exchanging views about world politics and anti-imperialist strategies was called for, in his and the wafd’s view,at a time when fascism was rising and Britain continued to rule India and be very present in Egypt. Reproduced in the massive compilation Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, this text is a letter by Nehru, the first to the INC while he was on the ship en route to London.

December 20, 1963

Transcript of Conversation between Zhou Enlai and Reporters in Cairo

Premier Zhou and Chen Yi answer questions from reporters in Cairo. Zhou and Chen were asked about issues such as their visit to Arab and African countries, China's support for national liberation movements in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, the United Arab Republic (Egypt) and Sri Lanka's perspective of the Sino-Indian border conflict, the purpose of the Chinese delegation's visit to Arab and African countries, issues that will be discussed in potential second Bandung Conference, the Sino-Soviet split, and the Pakistani national movement. Zhou also explains why China opposed the ban on nuclear test treaty.

January 15, 1964

Cable from Kong, Huang, and Tong, 'Situation of the Ghana Visit'

A summary of Zhou Enlai's conversation with Kwame Nkrumah that covered Sino-Ghanian relations, China's status at the UN, liberation movements in Africa, Sino-Indian relations, the Non-Aligned Movement, nuclear weapons free zones in Africa, and the Congo crisis, among other subjects.

January 1, 1964

Report by Shri S. Sinha, Director (EARC) – Ministry of External Affairs, 'Brief Analysis of the propagandist statements on disarmament and nuclear-free zone made by the Peoples Republic of China'

The Peoples Republic of China supports disarmament and a nuclear-free zone in the Asian and Pacific Regions strictly for tactical reasons

August 9, 1961

Cable from the Chinese Embassy in Morocco, 'A Goan Discusses Goa’s Issues with Us'

Report on a conversation with a spokesman for the Nationalist Organizations of the Portuguese Colonies' permanent secretariat in Morocco, named Aquino de Braganca, who is a native of Goa, India, and a member of the Goan People's Party. The conversation covers two main issues: First, the current political situation in Angola, and second, the status of Goa's struggle to oppose Portugal and gain independence.

April 24, 1963

Secret Telegram from Maneli (Saigon) to Spasowski (Warsaw) [Ciphergram No. 5295]

Report from Maneli, a Polish official in Saigon, to Warsaw, on the Indian opinion of the situation in Vietnam. According to him, the Indians believe the NLF to be finished and Diem's position to be strong, while they see Diem as the one lobbying for American withdrawal.