North-East Frontier Agency Research Articles

Chou En-Lai's African Journey as Viewed by the Indian Press

No journey of a foreign dignitary created so much interest and alarm in India as did the African travels of the Chinese Prime Minister, Chou En-lai, in 1963-64. The Indians had not been indifferent to the importance of the Khrushchev and Bulganin Asian tour in 1955 nor to the African-Asian travels of President Eisenhower in 1958. But Chou En-lai's African tour was an entirely different event in the context of India's disrupted relationship with the Chinese People's Republic and the Chinese invasion of the North East Frontier Agency in the autumn of 1962. Both India and China had sought the assistance of the Afro-Asian non-aligned countries for a peaceful settlement of the border dispute. India, the acknowledged leader of non-alignment, watched with unconcealed apprehension China's blandishments to countries which she had been used to regard as belonging to her fold. The Indian interest in Chou En-lai's African tour was, therefore, conditioned by the state of India's relations with China as well as by the sudden burgeoning of China as a leader of the under-developed world.

Pakistan's Foreign Policy: An Analysis of Pakistani Fears and Interests

Every country pursues her foreign policy in accordance with her national interests. These interests depend upon a number of factors like cultural and historical traditions, geography, economic and political objectives. But in this medley of interests there often is an overriding objective which is not based purely on rational considerations. Every country has a ruling passion in her foreign policy. When one calls it a passion, one is not suggesting that this is something entirely emotional or irrational. It may be based on genuine fears and hatreds which have accumulated over the years and which may be intertwined with material and religious considerations. Pakistan is no exception to this. Indeed very few countries were born in an atmosphere surcharged with intense illwill and mutual hatred as Pakistan was in 1947 as a result of the partition of the sub-continent. Almost every action of Pakistan can be interpreted as being motivated by fear of India. She complains that India opposed her very formation and that her policy of intense hostility continues unabated. India, both in manpower and material and military strength, is vastly superior to Pakistan. Before India's border clash with China, even with the aid Pakistan was receiving from the United States, her armed forces never exceeded more than one-third of India's strength. After sixteen years of Pakistan's independent existence, and even after India's humiliating defeat in the border clash with China, Mr. Nehru in an inter. view declared that Indo-Pakistani confederation remains our ultimate end.' Similarly, Pakistan alleges that India has been promoting subversive activity in East Pakistan and that in the event of a military conflict her first and relatively easy target would be East Pakistan. American aid to India has only accentuated Pakistan's fear in the sense that a well. equipped Indian army meant for China in the North-East Frontier Agency would be so positioned as to be able to wheel round swiftly to attack East Pakistan.2 Thus, Dawn in an editorial observed: If the main concern of the Christian West is the containment of Chinese Communism, the main concern of Muslim Pakistan is the containment of militarist and militant Hinduism.v3 One may find all this a bit exaggerated, but the fact remains that Pakistan joined the various defense pacts with the United States largely to protect her interests against the future aggression of

Peoples and Cultures of the Himalayas

Recent events have focused interest on history, politics and strategic situation of Himalayas, but peoples who live in this spectacular region have been largely overlooked. There is no source to which one can go to find out who these people are or how they relate to one another and to populations bordering their homelands. This essay attempts to provide such a source in brief outline. The Himalayas form an arc more than 1,500 miles long, 150 to 250 miles wide and averaging 19,000 feet high at crest, rising out of Indo-Gangetic plain of northern India and Pakistan and bordering on Tibet. They extend from Indus River in Kashmir in northwest through north Indian states of Himachal Pradesh, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh and through mountain countries of Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan, turning northeast with Brahmaputra River in state of Assam where they comprise northern sections of what is known as North-East Frontier Agency of India. In northwest they merge into Karakoram, Pamir and Hindu Kush ranges and lower mountains which turn southward in West Pakistan. In east they connect with lower mountains perpendicular to them which form border between India and Burma. Davis aptly notes that the whole mighty barrier, with great subsidiary ranges curving southward at either end, looks on relief map like a folded curtain pushed back and draped around northern India and Pakistan.' Throughout Himalayas are great variations in climate; from arctic conditions of high regions to sub-tropical climate of terai, which is swampy forested belt at foot of mountains bordering Indo-Gangetic plain. The one common feature is rugged mountain terrain broken only occasionally by broad valleys such as that of Kathmandu in Nepal. It is not surprising that in vast and varied Himalayas are to be found a wide variety of peoples, though it is surprising to find people at all in some of localities in which they live. The peoples of this region, numbering about 21,000,000, are subject of this paper. The residents

Some foliose and fruticose lichens from assam and north-east frontier agency of India

The paper deals with a collection of foliose and fruticose lichens collected by Mr. R. S. Rao and Dr. G. Panigrahi from Assam and North-East Frontier Agency of India. The total number as determined is 72 species under 18 genera and 9 families in a collection of about 145 specimens. Notable aspects of the investigations are the new reports from this region of the species—Cetraria asahinae, C. straminea andUsnea asahinae—and the discovery of the fertile state of the specimensAnzia physoidea andCetraria straminea which were so far known in the sterile condition only.

Verrier Elwin: Myths of the North-East Frontier of India, xxii, 448 pp. Shillong: North-East Frontier Agency, [1958]. Rs. 10.

Verrier Elwin: Myths of the North-East Frontier of India, xxii, 448 pp. Shillong: North-East Frontier Agency, [1958]. Rs. 10.