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Nehru and Modi’s dilemmas are similar. Secret documents on 1953 nuclear crisis show

As critics accuse PM Modi of surrendering national sovereignty and India’s moral compass over Iran crisis, declassified documents show the dilemmas he faces are not new.

Five and a half thousand tons of rubber packed into its cavernous hold, the Polish merchant ship SS Mickiewicz stood at dock in Colombo, its crew sweltering under the savage summer sun. The Mickiewicz’s departure for Tianjin, just up the Yangtze from Shanghai, had been delayed by a call from agitated Indian officials, who demanded that the crew find and unload two 500-kilogram barrels of industrial chemical loaded in Mumbai. The agents representing the Mickiewicz said this request could not be met: Fees had been paid for the cargo, releases had been issued, and title had passed out of Indian hands. The ship set sail—literally and metaphorically—on July 31, 1953.

Today—as critics accuse Prime Minister Narendra Modi of having surrendered both national sovereignty and India’s moral compass over the Iran crisis—declassified documents show the dilemmas he has faced are neither new nor unusual. Faced with similar choices in 1953, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru also put aside his principles—as every other Prime Minister was to find themselves doing afterwards.

Likely hoping to expand his leverage with the People’s Republic of China, Prime Minister Nehru had agreed to sell it thorium nitrate mined and processed by Indian Rare Earths in Kerala’s Aluva. From the documentary record, it is clear he was unprepared for the price India almost had to pay for the Rs 40,500 export order—around ₹5.64 million today.

Three days before the SS Mickiewicz sailed out of Colombo, Prime Minister Nehru was told by American ambassador George Allen that India might have to face economic sanctions. The Prime Minister replied that India “would never submit to derogation of its national sovereignty in permitting United States law to determine with whom and in what commodities India could trade.”

Even as he delivered these fighting words, the Prime Minister was planning his retreat.

Also read: India’s risks in the Iran conflict go way beyond oil

Fighting against North Korea—as well as People’s Republic of China troops and Soviet Union equipment committed on its side—the United States had become mired in a stalemate by mid-1951. Frustrated political leaders enacted Public Law 551, also known as the Battle Act, after its sponsor, Laurie Battle, the Representative from Alabama. Law 551 mandated that the United States would deny military and economic assistance to any........

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