How K.M. Panikkar Became India's First Ambassador to China

With few qualified people available, Nehru took a bet on unusual diplomatic candidates in newly independent India

- Narayani Basu

The choice of K.M. Panikkar as India's ambassador to China in 1947 has in retrospect been the cause of both controversy and debate. But it was a decision based on many factors. The first was trust and long-standing friendship. Nehru had known Panikkar since his days in Amritsar and at the Hindustan Times in the 1920s. He had never lost track of Panikkar's career, following his arguments for federalism and for getting the princes on board with the Indian Union. The Indian prime minister had also read Panikkar's works on foreign policy and history, especially during the war years, with keen interest. His sister Vijayalakshmi Pandit's endorsement of Panikkar's intelligence counted with Nehru too. He had always been thinking about how to present India to the wider world, and from his reading of Panikkar's work, he knew this ambition was a shared one.

Now that India was looking to consolidate its position as a postcolonial power, particularly in South Asia, that presentation became even more important. India was already in the unique position of being an international presence by 1945, from Dumbarton Oaks to San Francisco. But with independence, new eyes and ears were needed. Nehru insisted that it could not be those who had worked previously for the British as 'that would in effect be a British approach with the background of British foreign policy', and would lead to India being looked upon as a satellite of the empire. 'I am anxious to have public men as our ambassadors,' he mused to Bajpai (G.S. Bajpai), '... more especially with regard to some of our first appointments. Panikkar, by 1948, was very much a public man, and what was more invaluably, he had shown himself to be more than capable of wearing multiple hats.