Superpowers and the Subcontinent
K.N. Ramachandran
SINO-INDIAN CONFLICT AND INTERNATIONAL POLITICS IN INDIAN SUB-CONTINENT 1962-66 by T. Karki Hussain Thompson Press India, 1979, 190 pp., 40.00
March-April 1979, volume 3, No 5

The metamorphosis of Sino-Indian interaction into a developing adversary relationship from 1959 onwards and the climax of this process which was reached in 1962, when Peking resorted to a mili­tary option and out-manoeuvred  New Delhi in a border war, has been a sub­ject of study from several points of view, both by Indian and foreign scholars. There are books and monographs on the political aspects, the Indian Parliamentary attitudes, soldiers’ accounts and on the dimensions of the border issue itself. The book under review seeks to analyse the ‘international aspect’ taking into account the roles of the United States and the Soviet Union and the impact of the con­flict on Indo-Pak relations, during the years 1962-66. It is a study of a limited period and the five-page post-script is apparently a customary sum-up to pro­vide a: semblance of completeness to a Ph.D. thesis converted into a book.

What is useful in this study is the analysis of superpower attitudes and res­ponses to the conflict and its aftermath in both a bilateral and sub-continental framework. In this exercise the author has made good use of documents, memoirs and official records and impor­tant secondary sources.

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