India’s role in Hungary, Congo, etc.


India’s role in countries abroad is something that we do not get to hear much about. It’s role with neighbors is clearly known – but I did not realise that India had played a role in places like Hungary and Congo. A recent article in The Hindu by Jairam Ramesh quotes a president of Hungary saying: “in those months (in 1956), the Indian Embassy in Budapest became the Embassy of the Revolution”. That came as a major surprise to me. I was reading the autobiographical notes of J. K. Galbraith called Ambassador Diaries that he maintained during his stay in India. During his first visit of Nehru he writes that Nehru assured the American Ambassador that India had no plans to take over Congo! Having grown with the assumption that India does not meddle with internal affaires of other countries, these come as a surprise to me. I wonder what else lies in our foreign policy closet.


About Vivek Srinivasan

I work with the Program on Liberation Technology at Stanford University. Before this, I worked with the Right to Food Campaign and other rights based campaigns in India. To learn more, click here.

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