Abstract
Reviewed by: Anita Singh (anita.rathore@gmail.com ), Centre for the Study of Security and Development, Dalhousie University
Ryan Touhey, in his aptly titled book, Conflicting Visions: Canada and India in the Cold War World, 1946–76, covers thirty defining years in the Canada–India relationship. His research deftly combines well-known events in the bilateral history with the personal reflections of some of its most proficient members. The narrative is reminiscent of a classic story arc featuring two star-crossed lovers who, despite their best intentions, are beset by a series of mistaken expectations and miscommunications, and are ultimately separated—in this case, by India’s nuclear test in May 1974.
Since India’s independence in 1947, the bilateral relationship between Canada and India has been considered a natural alliance: a “special relationship” based on “shared values of democracy, pluralism, tolerance, human rights and rule of law.” 1 Ignoring decades of animosity and miscommunication, academic observers, politicians, and media continue to invoke these commonalities to make a case for re-engagement. Touhey observes: “neither common interests on international issues nor strictly bilateral items set India apart as a country for special relationship with Canada” (240). At its centre, the Canada–India relationship is one of unrealized expectations built on an assumption of parallel core values.
This book does an excellent job of highlighting the complexities of this bilateral relationship, and is a must-read for all observers of Canadian foreign policy. Touhey masterfully invokes a levels-of-analysis approach to show how personal affinity between Canadian and Indian leaders, national interests, and international alliances and security issues uncovered now-obvious tensions underlying the “special relationship.” 2 He shows how the (un)timely intersection of these foreign policy inputs—at the individual, national and structural level—can introduce murky unknowns into even the most earnest bilateral engagements. In this way, three clear lessons for the broader community of Canadian foreign policy scholars emerge from this book.
Lesson 1: Importance of personalities
Touhey’s case study is an excellent example of the role of personalities in the conduct of foreign policy. His examination of the personal interactions and affability of Canadian prime ministers Louis St. Laurent and Lester B. Pearson with the confident and enigmatic Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru stands in stark contrast to the other leadership combinations in the bilateral history. While the Pearson–Nehru relationship coincided with the golden years of Canada–India relations, Prime Minister Diefenbaker, with his limited foreign policy experience, was an unlikely leader to give the India relationship the attention it required. As Touhey notes, Diefenbaker was more comfortable with Pakistan’s General Ayub Khan, “a straightshooting, clear-thinking, anti-communist” (134), than with the shades of grey and communist flirtations of the Nehru government. Touhey’s book offers a great assessment of the erratic V.K. Krishna Menon, Nehru’s envoy to the United Nations, showing how the issue of personality extended to the bureaucratic level in the bilateral relationship.
Lesson 2: False assumptions about national interest
Touhey situates his narrative in 1946–76, when India was emerging from its long-negotiated independence from Britain. Independence also meant that India was keen to use foreign policy as a means to maintain, if not overtly assert, its hard-earned sovereignty. Indian policy-makers pursued non-alignment as a response to the widely-held Western assumption that military or economic aid could bring India into the Western sphere of influence under the guise of international alliances. Touhey draws a neat parallel between India’s position and Canada’s emergence from its paternal relationship with Britain after the Second World War. As a major contributor to the Allied victory, and having escaped relatively unscathed from the war, Canada and its leaders were desperate to define a niche role for themselves in the international system. In this way, as Touhey narrates, early relations were attempts for both countries to find areas of mutual interest and to develop their national identities. Yet, this self-assertion resulted in increasingly divergent rather than cooperative world views as it played out in the International Commission for Supervision and Control in Vietnam.
Lesson 3: Role of geopolitics
Despite Touhey’s focus on the cultural and personality dynamics in the bilateral relationship, the geopolitical climate of the Cold War continued to be a large determinant in bilateral relations. Canada could not understand why India was unable to commit to the Western alliance and all its benefits. India saw Canada, which was protected by the American nuclear umbrella, as unsympathetic to its geopolitical security issues. India’s primary concern was its immediate neighbourhood, particularly in the aftermath of its regional wars with Pakistan and China in 1949, 1962, and 1965. This became apparent in the Indo-Pakistani war of 1971, when then-prime minister Indira Gandhi visited Canada and the United States seeking help with the Bengal refugee crisis. It became clear to India that Canada and the rest of the West could not be counted upon in the case of a future conflict.
Touhey’s book ends with the large wedge that was driven between Canada and India after the latter’s 1974 nuclear test. Despite thirty years of limited engagement in the bilateral relationship, India has recently re-emerged as a priority for Canadian foreign policy-makers. But there are striking similarities between now and sixty years ago: Canada–India trade is minimal, promises made to improve cooperation remain unfulfilled, and there is very little military or strategic need between the two countries.
Despite this, there may be a better chance for improving bilateral relations now than at any time in the past. Unrealistic expectations no longer dominate the narrative between the two countries, and Canada and India have much more clarity about their roles and identity on the international stage. Furthermore, the players that dominate the foreign policy space have changed. Canada–India relations will no longer be about personality clashes between the Trudeau and Nehru dynasties; instead, business, immigration, the environment, and investment now dominate the dynamic. It is no longer a story of the centre, but a conversation between cities and provinces, diaspora, cultural leaders, and business interests. A new golden age is perhaps yet to come.
Readers will find very little to complain about in this book, which will stand as one of the finest studies within the Canadian foreign policy literature of Canada’s bilateral relations. If anything, Touhey undersells what his book aims to do. It provides a rich narrative of a very complex relationship that will be useful for all observers of Canadian foreign policy.
