The Tryst Betrayed

Download or read book The Tryst Betrayed written by Jagat S Mehta and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2015-04-15 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Tryst Betrayed, former Indian foreign secretary Jagat Singh Mehta looks back on an eventful career which began on the day after India’s independence. In his lucid and informative style, Mehta sheds light on Nehru’s prophetic assertion of ideological agnosticism (named ‘Non-Alignment’ in 1946) and its distortion by the accidental overlap of decolonization with the Cold War. Mehta argues that Nehru was naïve on China, wishful on the Soviet Union and prejudiced against America. The civil servants were hypnotized by what he refers to as the ‘Panditji knows best’ syndrome. He illustrates that Nehru’s bark was no doubt frightening but his bite not vicious.