India's Jawaharlal Nehru (center) using interpreter to speak with China's Chou En Lai (left) at the Bandung Conference.
Earlier this year, my family and I were staring at a fearsome Aztec frieze in Mexico City's Museum of Anthropology when an elderly janitor approached. He wanted to know where we were from. "India," we said. Immediately his lips curled into a smile. India, he expounded, led the way. It had a socialist past, stood up to imperialism and offered hope to anticolonial movements. My rudimentary Spanish couldn't keep up with the rest, but he slapped his chest when saying the name of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Indian Prime Minister. Indira Gandhi, Nehru's daughter and also a Prime Minister, was, he...
