Sub-Continent Divided: India, Pakistan, Ceylon

Abstract

The Far Eastern country next in importance to China is India, another of the new nations that have emerged in the post-war world. It was in fact India’s rise to nation- hood more than any other immediate factor that roused the ambitions of other colonial peoples, transforming their nationalist movements from cliques of rootless dreamers into political forces that could not be resisted. India is of leading importance in the modern world firstly because of its sheer size of population. Though still backward economically — despite being already much further developed, as the result of British rule, than most other Asian countries — the Indian Republic with its 500-odd millions obviously has the potentialities of a really great power; and future as well as present power-relations should be taken into account in diplomacy. Even at the present, India’s immense population entitles her to particular consideration. In addition, however, and of greater importance, India is looked up to as a leader by many in the bloc of new nations — the uncommitted Afro-Asian bloc which wields so many votes in the United Nations and whose goodwill is increasingly a main prize in the diplomatic contest between Communism and the West.