Window on a Changing China

It was not until the 1940s that India and China established diplomatic relations in modern times. This article concerns itself with the observations and impressions, based on their time in China, of two of the earliest of modern India’s envoys to China, K.P.S. Menon and K.M. Panikkar. The 1940s were a watershed period in the history of both India and China, when both countries found themselves in the midst of momentous transitions. The two Indian envoys had a ringside seat from where they could closely observe and comment on the complex situation unfolding before them in China. As two articulate Indians who observed China at first hand, the writings of Menon and Panikkar offer us a unique and empathetic portrayal of China, which they viewed as a fellow Asian country facing enormous challenges not dissimilar to those of India. They show us that the governments of both India and China in this period, despite their many other preoccupations, were deeply interested in developments in the other country and in their relations with each other. At the same time, these writings also reveal that the very circumstances of the emergence of independent India and the People’s Republic of China, both with a distinct sense of their own civilisational greatness and sharing a common boundary, carried latent tensions.