With One Voice

That hissing sound heard round the world last week was Jawaharlal Nehru's reputation deflating.

In Britain Nehru has long occupied an exalted position in the political mythology. Tory governments looked to him for "expert" advice on Asian affairs, and told the U.S. that its Asian policy was ill advised for ignoring Nehru, Asia's only true spokesman. Left-wingers saw in Nehrunian "noncommitment" an idealistic answer to U.S. massive retaliation. British opinion began to change when Nehru's U.N. delegates regarded a discussion of Hungary as an unworthy diversion from the serious business of condemning the Suez invasion.

Nehru's own defiance of a 10-to-0 Security Council resolution on Kashmir (TIME, Feb. 4) was the last straw. With one voice Britons of every political coloration last week proclaimed their disillusionment with Moralist Nehru. "It is shameful to remember that India is still a member of the Commonwealth," said the conservative weekly Time and Tide. "Willful stubbornness," snapped the Liberal News Chronicle. Even Nehru's favorite British publication, the shocking-pink New Statesman and Nation, abandoned its usual faithful praise of everything Indian to warn Nehru that he had "gravely impaired his influence in the world."

Pakistan, of course, was so mad that it declared Nehru's annexation day a "black" day, and tens of thousands of Pakistanis rioted. But less predictable was the reaction of Southeast Asian "neutralists," whose admiration for Nehru once knew no bounds. Accusing India of "obvious hypocrisy," Burma's English-language Nation charged that Nehru "has shown himself capable on this issue of flouting the principles he so ardently preaches to other countries." The annexation of Kashmir, said Abadi, voice of Indonesia's powerful Moslem Masjumi Party, "places India on the same level with Soviet Russia . . ."

Though obviously stung by these gibes, Nehru last week assured the world: "If I am convinced that I have not honored any international commitments in regard to Kashmir, I will either honor them or resign my prime ministership." Unimpressed, Britain's Liberal Manchester Guardian retorted: "Mr. Nehru evidently does not recognize that he is throwing away much of India's moral authority."

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