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64
ABSTRACTS OF SIKH STUDIES : APRIL-JUNE 2005 / 537 NS
non-Jats among the Sikhs; secondly, develop contacts with the small
group of foreign Christian scholars at Baring Union Christian College,
Batala, working on Sikh studies and to motivate them to serve the
cause of Hindu chauvinists; and, thirdly, work upon Jat Sikh lecturers
in History Department of Punjab University, Chandigarh to pursue
studies on Sikh historiography in a partisan manner, and collaborate
with the Christian scholars as required.
Jawaharlal Nehru was quite shaken, firstly, by the Chinese
onslaught in October 1962 crippling him both in body and mind, and
then by the publication of Alistair Lamb’s India’s China War (OUP,
1963) the following year. This quite placed him in the dock. That
buttressed Nehru administration’s realisation of importance of the
role of intellectuals in shaping human destiny. The result was
Government of India’s promoting a host of literary works. For instance,
the Ministry of External Affairs oversaw publication of a number of
books to project and articulate a particular viewpoint. I would not
like to go into the manner in which a work countering Alistair Lamb’s
devastating thesis was got prepared and printed. There were threefour
other works enunciating India’s stand on various aspects of
Kashmir question, a host of other works on neighbouring countries,
including this writer’s Pakistan’s Foreign Policy (written in four months
in 1967) (Bombay, London, New York, Asia Publishing House, 1970)
This made an independent enunciation of Pakistan’s India centeredness
in external relations, vis-à-vis, President Mohamad Ayub Khan’s Friends
Not Masters, (OUP, 1967). Besides people inside the government, the
authors included leading scholars from universities and institutes, senior
journalists/editors of newspapers, who were paid handsomely for their
exertion. However, the employees of the Ministry including this writer
got nothing extra.
It was in this melee that the Union Home Ministry discretely
worked upon the contacts developed with three-four white scholars
at Baring Union Christian College, Batala. They were a success in
penetrating this group consisting of W H McLeod, Gerald Barrier,
Jurgensmeyer, and John C B Webster, despite the fact that the college
then was headed by Dr C H Loehlin, who, in the words of Dr Trilochan