India’s role in ending the Korean war

India’s role in ending the Korean war

Context

India’s role in ending the Korean conflict of 1950s

What has happened?

Dramatic events that were inconceivable a few months back are now unfolding rapidly in the Korean peninsula. The Korean war of the early 1950s had never formally ended and an uneasy truce has prevailed for well over half a century. What established the truce was the Korean Armistice Agreement, which was signed on July 27, 1953.

Executing the peace campaign

A British historian Robert Barnes, wrote about the often ignored but important role that India played in restoring the peace to the region) accessed different archives and wrote a meticulously researched paper called ‘Between the Blocs: India, the United Nations, and Ending the Korean War’, which was published in The Journal of Korean Studies five years back

India’s active bureacrats

• India’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, B.N. Rau, was very active
• India’s Ambassador in China, K.M. Panikkar, was the channel through which Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai communicated his views on the Korean conflict to the Americans as well as to the UN, since the People’s Republic of China was not a member of that body then.

Pivot of India’s efforts: V.K. Menon

• A special envoy of Nehru, hated by both US and Soviet Union at that time
• But on December 3, 1952, the Indian resolution was adopted at the UN with unanimous non-Soviet support

Stalin’s death

• Stalin’s death on March 5, 1953, was a crucial turning point.
• Thereafter, signals from the communist camp were that a quick end to the hostilities would not be unwelcome

Proposal by Menon

• Menon submitted another proposal, which, however, was not acceptable to the Americans who came up with their own version
• But they agreed to merge their resolution with Menon’s to move things forward
• This was then to lead to the Armistice Agreement

Follow-up action: Establishment of Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission (NNRC)

One of the follow-up actions to the Armistice Agreement was the establishment of a Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission (NNRC) which was to decide on the fate of over 20,000 prisoners of war from both sides

India as Chair

• With Poland and Czechoslovakia representing the Communist bloc and Sweden and Switzerland representing the Western world

Custodian Force by India

• There was to be a UN Command led by an Englishman and a Custodian Force sent by India. Nehru selected Lt. General K.S. Thimayya as the Chairman of the NNRC and Major General S.S.P. Thorat as the Commander of the Custodian Force India, as it was called. P.N. Haksar, then Menon’s aide in the High Commission in London, was appointed as one of the two political advisers in Thimayya’s team
• Very soon he became the only one, since the other, I.J. Bahadur Singh, had to be repatriated from Korea quickly on health grounds.

Polarised NNRC

• Thimayyya became a hero at the end of the NNRC’s tenure in February 1954
• He was feted both at home and abroad for having executed a most thankless task courageously, although he and Haksar had developed serious differences
• Haksar felt that Thimayya was far too concerned with American opinion while Thimayya thought Haksar was too solicitous of the communists
• The Commission’s reports were drafted entirely by Haksar and submitted to the UN General Assembly, one in December 1953 and another in February 1954
• The Swedes and the Swiss wrote their dissent to certain paragraphs in both reports, showing how intensely polarised the NNRC was

Remaining POWs brought to India

• At the end of its work, the NNRC was left with over 80 prisoners of war who resisted being handed over and expressed a desire to go to neutral countries
• On humanitarian considerations, Nehru decided to bring them to India pending a final decision by the UN on where they would go
• Most left immediately for other countries in Central and South America. But a few stayed back and got loans to start poultry businesses.
• Only one of them, Kim Hyeong, now survives.
• His son too lived in India for over 30 years before taking his ailing father back for good to South Korea.