In 1940, a collection of essays written by Nehru, based on his travels over a period of six months, was published as a book titled ‘China, Spain and the War.’ Through these essays, Nehru shared his opinions on the affairs of the world.
At the time, the world was on the cusp of a world war and the Indian independence movement faced an uncertain position. As a political deadlock was underway, Nehru found the time for a thirteen-day tour of Burma, Siam and China (then Myanmar, Thailand and the Republic of China).
Nehru believed that India had much to learn from China. He saw a kinship in the Eastern neighbour – a post-colonial state with an ancient legacy – a mirror for what he wanted India to become. “China,” he wrote, “is one of the key countries of the world in the world perspective, which counts more than the small warring countries of Europe.” However, disappointed with Eurocentric and “imperialist perspectives” presented by European and American newspapers, he decided to learn things about China first-hand. In an essay titled China, he wrote:
The news agencies feed us with news of Europe and of what Herr Hitler says or Mr. Neville Chamberlain denies. We hear little about China except that an air raid has taken place and there have been hundreds or thousands of casualties. It is one of our many unfortunate disabilities that we depend almost entirely for our foreign news service on a British agency which looks at news not from our point of view, but definitely from the British imperialist viewpoint. Its offices in London decide what is good for us to have, and a restricted measure of this is poured out to us from day to day… So we hear little in India about China.
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