In the 1940s,
while the Russians were in Beijing
learning how to use chopsticks,
the Americans were in Delhi
learning how to drink hot tea on a hot day.
As the British were leaving India, the Americans parachuted in to build a nation that could withstand the seduction of communism.
Harry Truman's fourth bullet point, aka ‘Point Four,’ of his inaugural address was all about freeing the peoples of the under-devevloped world:
“The old imperialism of exploitation for foreign profit has no place in our plans….
…Only by helping the least fortunate of its members to help themselves can the human family achieve the decent, satisfying life that is the right of all people.”
- H. Truman
Chester Bowles, the US ambassador to India in the early 1950s, posed what was then considered the “most balanced answer to the racial question ever printed in the Indian press” when he said:
"We only want to see you strong enough and free and independent enough so that you can choose which way you want to lean, and we have no doubt of your answer.
What we want in India above all therefore is to see Indian democracy succeed."
The Americans were saying:
We really hope you'll consider western civilization as the norm.
For now, we'll send you samples in the form of schools, and clinics and food assistance programs, and wells.
The thinking was:
If India falls to Communsim,
all of Asia will fall.
And the time to influence her
is now or never.
The fear of Communism spurred a uniquely American nation-building project in India.
Everybody from the State Department to the United Council of Relief and Welfare, to various agencies dedicated to education, and Christian mission were active in India after 1947.
This massive project pulled in a wide variety of people as it rolled forward, Americans with skills in diplomacy, agriculture, education, or economics were of value.
My grandfather came on board in 1945
as a United Methodist missionary
with a degree in agriculture
a sturdy wife
two children
and the grit from growing up on a poultry farm.
He soon made his name as someone who could get things done in a hostile climate.
One of his early tasks after partition (after digging latrines in the Purana Qila for Muslim refugees) was to set up nightly film screenings in any one of five refugee camps that ranged from Delhi all the way to the Punjab.