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The 73-year-old Nehru gave the impression of being swept along by this tumult, not of leading it. His agony was apparent as he rose in Parliament, three days before the Chinese cease-fire announcement, to report that the Indian army had been decisively defeated at Se Pass and Walong. The news raised a storm among the M.P.s. A Deputy from the threatened Assam state was on his feet, shaking with indignation and demanding, "What is the government going to do? Why can't you tell us? Are we going to get both men and materials from friendly countries to fight a total war, or is the government contemplating a cease-fire and negotiations with the Chinese?" Other gesturing Deputies joined in, shouting their questions in English and Hindi. "Are we nothing?" cried one Praja Socialist member. "Is the Prime Minister everything?"
While the Speaker asked repeatedly for order, Nehru sat chin in hand, obviously scornful of this display of Indian excitability, his abstracted gaze fixed on nothing. Finally Nehru rose again and tried to quiet the uproar by saying, "We shall take every conceivable and possible measure to meet the crisis. We are trying to get all possible help from friendly countries."
Attic Burglar. His critics accused him of still clinging to the language of nonalignment. Later, in a radio speech in which he announced the fall of Bomdi La,
Nehru sounded tougher. He no longer defended his old policies, denounced China as "an imperialist of the worst kind," and at last thanked the U.S. and Britain by name for arms aid, pledging to ask for more.
Nehru was coming close to admitting that he had at last discovered who were India's friends. The neutral nations, which so often looked to India for leadership in the past, were mostly embarrassingly silent or unsympathetic—a government-controlled newspaper in Ghana dismissed the war as "an ordinary border dispute." As for Russia, its ambiguously neutral position, argued Nehru, was the best India could hope for under the circumstances. Actually, Nehru had obviously hoped for more, and was shocked when, instead of helping India, Moscow denounced India's border claims and urged Nehru to accept the Red Chinese terms.
As India's poorly equipped army reeled under the Chinese blows, the West moved swiftly and without recrimination to India's defense. Shortly after the Chinese attack, frantic Indian officers simply drove round to the U.S. embassy with their pleas for arms and supplies. Eventually their requests were coordinated. During the tense week of the Cuban crisis, U.S. Ambassador to India Kenneth Galbraith was virtually on his own, and he promised Nehru full U.S. backing.
When Washington finally turned its attention to India, it honored the ambassador's pledge, loaded 60 U.S. planes with $5,000,000 worth of automatic weapons, heavy mortars and land mines. Twelve huge