INDIA in MYANMAR AFGHANISTAN Kerala E W N S Not to Scale Reconstruction of Post-colonial India Then came the war with China. On September , Chinese forces attacked the Thagla ridge and dislodged Indian troops. All the goodwill and attempts to forge an Asian bloc in the world came to a stop. India took a long time to recover from the blow to its self- respect, and perhaps it was only the victory over Pakistan in the Bangladesh war, in which China and the US were also supporting Pakistan, that restored the sense of self-worth.
India’s contribution to the world, however, was not restricted to its relationship with China and the Panch Sheel. It was most pronounced and lasting in the form of non-alignment and its concretisation at the Bandung Conference. In March , Nehru organised the Asian Relations Conference, attended by more than twenty countries. The theme of the conference was Asian independence and assertion on the world stage.
Another such conference was held in December in specific response to the Dutch attempt to re-colonize Indonesia. The de-colonization initiative was carried forward further at the Asian leaders’ conference in Colombo in , culminating in the Afro- Asian Conference in Bandung, Indonesia, after India’s Independence. Nehru laid a lot of importance on friendship with China, with whom India shared a long border. India was the first to recognize the new People’s Republic of China on January , .
The shared experience of suffering at the hands of colonial powers and its consequences –poverty and underdevelopment – in Nehru’s perception was force enough to get the two nations to join hands to give Asia its due place in the world. Nehru pressed for representation for Communist China in the UN Security Council. However, when China occupied Tibet, in , India was unhappy that it had not been taken into confidence. In , India and China signed a treaty in which India recognized China’s rights over Tibet and the two countries placed their relationship within