Conflicting Visions: Canada and India in the Cold War World, 1946–76, by Ryan M. Touhey

Abstract

Reviewed by: Anita Singh (), Centre for the Study of Security and Development, Dalhousie UniversityRyan Touhey, in his aptly titled book, Conflicting Visions: 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 classic story arc featuring two star-crossed lovers who, despite their best intentions, are beset by 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 between and India has been considered natural alliance: 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 case for re-engagement. Touhey observes: neither common interests on international issues nor strictly bilateral items set India apart as country for special with Canada (240). At its centre, the Canada-India 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 must-read for all observers of Canadian foreign policy. Touhey masterfully invokes 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 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 personalitiesTouhey'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 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 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 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 interestTouhey 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 means to maintain, if not overtly assert, its hard-earned sovereignty. Indian policy-makers pursued non-alignment as 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. …