A prominent politician and diplomat, Jawaharlal Nehru's sister Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit has fallen victim to the palace intrigues of her own clan.

With the British withdrawal from India in 1947, the bastions of its influence in the former colony - the regimes of hereditary rulers in the principalities-also began to collapse. But, paradoxically, even after the declaration of independence of India, for four decades, at short intervals, it was led by representatives of one political dynasty - Nehru - Gandhi. All of them were outstanding politicians, and Jawaharlal Nehru also went down in history as a brilliant thinker and writer.

And yet, when a clan is in power for a long time, then, as history has shown, intrigues within it are inevitable. Nor did the Nehru - Gandhi dynasty escape this fate, as evidenced by the fate of Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, India's first ambassador to the Soviet Union.

She represented India in Moscow in 1947-1949, and then was Ambassador to Washington and Mexico (1949-1951), and from 1954 to 1961-High Commissioner (Ambassador) in London and for some time - Ambassador to Ireland, Italy and Spain. In 1953, Pandit was elected to the post of President of the UN General Assembly.

"Perhaps," says the Tribune columnist, " Vijay Laxmi Pandit would have been president of India. But her meteoric career was interrupted by her own niece, Indira Gandhi, after she took over as Prime Minister of India." These closest and most devoted women to Jawaharlal Nehru couldn't stand each other. It is difficult to judge whether the reason was a difference of opinion, accumulated resentment, jealousy, rivalry, claims of both to Nehru's political heritage, or all combined. In any case, very soon after Iidira Gandhi came to power, Pandit went into exile to her small "estate" in Dehra Dun.

The self-imposed retreat was preceded by a meeting with Indira Gandhi, which Vijay Lakshmi Pandit described as follows: "During the session of the People's Chamber, I was told that the Prime Minister would like to see me in her office... Indira was not at ease with even the closest of her friends. I sat across from her for a long time, waiting for her to say something. Finally, she stopped scribbling on the piece of paper in front of her and told me about the offer that had arrived from London. (It was about the request of the former Viceroy of India, Lord Mountbatten, to appoint Pandit to the post of High Commissioner to London, in order to boost India's very cool relations with Great Britain. - Author's note. After that, there was another pause. "What do you think of that?" I finally asked. Indira paused and then said very softly, " Aunt, to be honest, I don't trust you." I had to pretend for a long time that I didn't understand what was going on, but her words made me feel relieved. I got up from the table, went to Indira and kissed her on the forehead: "Thank you, Indu, for being so frank." Indira asked me if I would like to go to work in Paris for a year. "You know de Gaulle likes you." I didn't agree, determined to give up my diplomatic career."

Only once after leaving the political scene did Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit publicly cross swords with Indira Gandhi and return to public politics for a few months. She sharply criticized the introduction of a state of emergency in the country, restrictions on democratic freedoms and freedom of the press. In 1977, Pandit left the Indian National Congress Party and joined Indira Gandhi's opposition Congress Organization. After Indira Gandhi's election defeat, Pandit was appointed as the Indian representative to the UN Human Rights Commission in 1978. It seemed that her interrupted diplomatic career had been resumed. Morarji Desai, after succeeding Indira Gandhi in power, decided to send Nayantara, Pandit's daughter, as India's ambassador to Rome.

However, Indira Gandhi, as soon as she returned to power, canceled the appointments made by the Morarji Desai government for Pandit and Nayantara. She never forgave Pandit for her political demarche. The recluse went back to Dehra Dun.

WRESTLING, POLITICS AND DIPLOMACY

Unlike other Indian politicians - members of the Nehru family (not to mention Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi), about whom there are mountains of books, relatively little has been written about Pandit.

Vijay Laxmi Pandit (Swarup Kumari Nehru), like her famous brother Jawaharlal Nehru, ro-

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She was born in Allahabad in 1900 in the family of Motilal Nehru, a native of an aristocratic family and one of the leading leaders of the national liberation movement of the country and the Indian National Congress (INC) party. She received an excellent home education, which she continued at Allahabad University, and then abroad. In 1921, Swarup Kumari Nehru married INC member Randit Sitaram Pandit, who died in 1944. Like other members of her family, Pandit was active in the national liberation movement and was repeatedly arrested and imprisoned.

Pandit is one of the pioneers of the women's movement in India. From 1941 to 1943, she was the president of the All India Women's Conference, and for several years headed the All India Child Protection Organization, which was created on her initiative. Many of the positions that Pandit has held have never been available to women before: from 1937 to 1939, she was Minister of Local Government and Health in the Indian Government; from 1962 to 1964, she was Governor of Maharashtra; from 1964-1968, she was a member of the lower house of the Indian Parliament, representing the constituency from which J. R. R. Tolkien had previously stood.. Nehru.

On the eve of India's independence, Pandit's illustrious diplomatic career began, and her popularity went far beyond India's borders. In 1946-1948 and 1952-1953, she headed the Indian delegation to the United Nations. Her speeches against racism and colonialism at General Assembly sessions and other international forums have helped to bring recognition to the fledgling Indian diplomacy.

The most valuable source of insight into Pandit's years in politics and diplomacy is her memoirs written at the age of 78 (published in 1979). Memoirs, although undoubtedly vivid and interesting , are more memories of colleagues in the struggle and work, colleagues, relatives and friends, than a story about events and their political and historical background.

Working as an ambassador to the USSR, Pandit gave a relatively insignificant place in her memoirs. Fortunately, during a business trip to Britain, I was able to find archival materials and documents related to this period. Some of them, alas, were subsequently lost. By this time, the UK had already passed a law that reduced the period for declassifying archival materials from 50 to 30 years. And I received documents that talked about India's attempts to establish diplomatic relations with the USSR even before independence, and about the history of the first Indian embassy in Moscow. In numerous memos and memos, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit's name appeared quite often, her statements, speeches and speeches were cited, her character traits and even appearance were mentioned, and her characteristics were given on the occasion of regular appointments to diplomatic posts. Sometimes it seemed that I was looking at this beautiful, intelligent, temperamental woman. The most important of these documents are included in the 12-volume edition of " Transfer of Power in India "(Constitutional Relations between Britain and India: the Transfer of Power 1942-47. Vol. I-XII. Ed. by N. Manserth and P. Moon).

IN STALINIST MOSCOW

Pandit was already a well-known political figure both in India and abroad when she was appointed Ambassador to Moscow. It was a gesture that showed the importance that J. R. R. Tolkien had attached to his work. Nehru relations with Soviet Russia.

Indian envoys were escorted to Moscow in the summer of 1947 with special solemnity. Although India already had embassies in the United States and China, they were seen as a continuation of relations established during the British rule. The Embassy in Moscow was the first mission opened by the Provisional Government on its own initiative abroad.

Roses and a red carpet at the meeting in Moscow, special signs of respect shown by the Soviet side to Indian diplomats, set up a festive mood. The accreditation procedure of the first Indian ambassador was held with unusual solemnity at that time, which was accompanied by a pleasant surprise for V. L. Pandit. She later wrote that she was literally shocked when, during a conversation after the presentation of her credentials, the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, N. M. Shvernik, asked about the fate of the bill she had once proposed and asked if the position of the Muslim League on the issue of united electoral districts had softened since then. "...This and other questions put to me indicated that the Russians were well aware of the events in India, " she said in Delhi.

Comparing her work in Moscow and Washington in her memoirs, Pandit wrote:: "The Russians treated me with great respect. < ... > In Washington, I was Madame Pandit, Nehru's sister, and I was not taken seriously as an ambassador at first... In Moscow, my clothes and lifestyle were taken for granted and not commented on. In Washington, they commented on my clothes, the way I comb my hair..."

However, neither the respectful attitude nor the signs of attention and hospitality shown to the first Indian ambassador could smooth out the further general impression of the usual diplomatic everyday life for post-war Stalinist Moscow.

The diplomatic corps, according to the memoirs of Pandit, as well as T. N. Kaul, the future Indian ambassador to the USSR, was a small, closed community. "Due to the lack of communication with Soviet citizens and the poverty of reliable sources of information," its members, together with foreign correspondents, " exchanged gossip and information about events and scandals, sometimes real, and sometimes the fruits of their rich, but not always healthy imagination." Various rumors and complaints about the shortage that was felt in everything were constantly being discussed. Fellow diplomats were quick to inform the Pundit that all foreigners were being watched without exception, and that their premises were equipped with listening devices.

This is how the Pundit describes this period. The building dedicated to the Indian Embassy was in need of renovation. "...Until the house was ready, we lived in the hotel "Metropol", and I did not attach much importance to this, but my colleague, US Ambassador Walter Bedel Smith (General Smith after returning from the USSR served as director of the CIA in 1950-1953. - Editor's note. ) cautioned me, saying that for-

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support with moving is associated with the" equipment " of rooms with listening devices. He said that just before our arrival, a high-level meeting was held at the American Embassy... Before it started, the room was thoroughly checked for microphones. However, at the end of the meeting, it was discovered that the microphone was placed next to the phone on which the American ambassador spoke with Washington..."

Soon after her arrival, Pandit was confronted with all sorts of prohibitions that existed in Moscow. "Russians were not allowed to come to the Indian embassy," Pandit later wrote....This was a big disappointment for us, and especially for me, because I wanted to establish a personal relationship, as I did everywhere else... I was hoping that contacts would be established, and I would be invited to my home by Russians... As time passed, I became more and more disappointed..."

However, the restrictions that Pandit faced at the official level, as is usually the case, did not prevent her family members and embassy staff from getting closer to the Soviet people. Both of Pandit's daughters visited her in Moscow. And, as she later recalled, Lekha and Tara (Nayantara) visited theaters, parks, especially Gorky Park. There they met students and people of their own age, knowing a little Russian.

Even closer communication with Muscovites took place at the level of the embassy staff. The Indian servants who worked at the embassy gradually grew into acquaintances and friends. At the same time, it had its own perception of Soviet reality. Pandit recalls that cook Budhilal and servants Rafiullah and Afzal Khan had a very high opinion of the standard of living in the Soviet Union, despite the food shortages in Moscow. "I once asked them:' What do you mean by the standard of living? Don't you see the lines, the fact that people are poorly dressed, that women are doing heavy work, and that an entire family is crammed into one room?" And they answered: "But here everyone is dressed, everyone has a roof over their heads, and their children go to school."

Muslims Rafiullah and Afzal, having found out that there is a mosque in Moscow, went there for Friday prayers.

They were greeted by the Mullah himself, and after prayers he even invited them home and treated them to tea. This gesture, the Pundit notes, made ordinary people lifelong friends of the Soviet Union, especially Budhilal, who was a Kharijite ^. After returning to India, Budhilal gave several interviews in Allahabad in which he spoke about his impressions of the Soviet Union. As a result, the cook Pandit, whom she wanted to take with her to Washington, was refused a visa by the US Ambassador Loy Henderson, accusing him of being a communist.

Official diplomatic life in Moscow, according to Pandit, "was extremely monotonous", especially boring and monotonous were diplomatic receptions, to which the same figures, writers and artists were constantly invited. "I was less and less interested in them...", - says Pandit.

To understand how much the environment was depressing for Nehru's sister, it is necessary to take into account some features of her character.

The British ambassador to Delhi, T. Shawn, described Pandit in a dispatch to London:"...It would be unfair to say that Mrs. Pandit is a copy of her brother, especially since she has an independent mind. Nevertheless, they share many of the same traits - an emotional approach to problems, an inquisitive analytical mindset, an intolerant attitude towards fools, a nervous, easily excitable temperament, impatience in case of delays and an allergy to procrastination and monotony, and the latter will not serve her well in Moscow..."

Mr. Shawn was right. Pandit flew to Moscow full of hopes and expectations, set up for a full-fledged activity. In addition to developing bilateral relations and cooperation in various fields, Nehru set a task for Indian diplomats to get acquainted with Soviet experience in economic and social construction, health care, education, science and literacy elimination. Speaking to the British Ambassador to Moscow, M. Peterson, in January 1948, V. L. Pandit described the tasks that Nehru assigned to her embassy: "India is striving to establish good-neighborly, mutually beneficial commercial relations with the USSR... We can learn a lot from the Soviet Union, which only recently was at the same level of development as we are. It is hopeless to learn from America, which is so far away from us." Pandit herself, Peterson noted in a message to London after another meeting with the Indian ambassador, " is particularly interested in the experience of developing healthcare in the Soviet Union in rural areas...".

The pundit, recalled T. N. Kaul, expected to visit various republics and regions of the USSR, to study the Soviet experience in solving social and economic problems. However, she soon discovered that " this is not so easy in Russia under Stalin. Any foreigners, and diplomats in particular, were viewed with suspicion as potential spies."..Suspicion hung in the air. It was not directed against anyone personally, but it was directed against everyone who came from abroad...", Pandit later wrote.

Diplomats were allowed to visit only Leningrad and Yasnaya Polyana. The contacts did not go beyond the narrow circle of people who were sanctioned to meet with foreigners.

Pandit, as Kaul recalls, made a request for a trip to Tashkent. "After a two-week wait, we were informed that transport can be arranged, but there are no places in the hotel. When we made the same request in relation to Tbilisi, we were told-again a few weeks later-that although there are no problems with the hotel, there are difficulties with tickets... "It will be years before, recalling such incidents, T. N. Kaul writes:" The real reason, probably, was that that the Soviet authorities simply did not want foreigners, and especially diplomats, to see the harsh conditions in which people lived outside of Moscow."

After refusing to visit Tashkent and Tbilisi, V. L. Pandit, according to Kaul, took "a cool and wary attitude towards the Soviet government." At the same time, the Indian ambassador did not hide her disappointment. Pandit met with foreign journalists approximately twice a month. And although their Soviet colleagues could not sow-

^* Adherents of the religious and political trend of early Islam, founded in the VII century, "splintered" from the supporters of the fourth "righteous" Caliph Ali (Shiites).

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Although there were no foreign missions and such meetings were not attended, the Soviet authorities were undoubtedly aware of the conversations that were held there. And this, in turn, did not contribute to the warming of the atmosphere.

Meetings with individual officials and officials with whom they constantly had to deal did not evoke positive emotions among Indian diplomats. Diplomats ' contacts with Soviet writers and artists were carried out through the VOX Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries. "This organization," wrote T. N. Kaul, " was headed by Madame Kislova. She never retreated an inch from her position, no matter what arguments were given to her."

In this regard, he especially remembered such an event. In November 1948, Uday Shankar, a student of Anna Pavlova and one of the most prominent Indian artists, came to Moscow with his wife and son Ananda. The Indians suggested that he and his wife perform in front of Soviet audiences.

But Kislova only agreed that the performance should take place within the framework of the embassy. No arguments worked on her. In vain did the Indians expect that the Soviet side would show a little more understanding and sympathy towards India, given that our countries never came into conflict with each other and that Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru expressed sympathy, understanding and admiration for the October Revolution. In the end, I had to give in. However, at the concert, it turned out that barely forty artists and writers responded to the hundred invitations prepared by the embassy.

Undoubtedly, V. L. Pandit's activities in Moscow were also overshadowed by the fact that Stalin did not accept her. "Beauty and charm Pundit... they usually gave her advantages over her male colleagues when it came to getting an audience with the heads of governments and states in which she was accredited, "said Budhraj, an Indian political analyst," but not in Moscow..." The question of why her meeting with Stalin did not take place was constantly asked by Pundits, especially by journalists. In India, it has been raised repeatedly, and at a very different level.

Stalin in the eyes of the Indians was not just a leader, but the personification of all branches of government in the USSR. Probably because of this, officials in Delhi drew up credentials for Pandits with an appeal to Stalin, and not to the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, N. M. Shvernik. Just before the accreditation ceremony, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that an error "crept into the credentials". V. L. Pandit recalled this episode in her memoirs. She emphasizes that the Soviet side found the mistake in the document written in Hindi.

When, on the eve of her departure from the USSR, T. N. Kaul asked Pandit if she would like to pay a farewell visit to Stalin, the ambassador replied:: "Why should I make such a request? He could have invited me if he wanted to." "This was very typical of Ms. Pandit's attitude toward the Soviet Union," Kaul observes. "She may have been right that India shouldn't be begging for favors from the Soviets on its knees. But in this case, it was a routine protocol visit, for which she could have made a request, and perhaps the Soviet Union would have met her halfway. However, this could not be said with certainty, and Mrs. Pandit probably did not want to make a request that Stalin could reject."

Just a few months after her arrival, as noted by S. Gopal, the author of the fundamental biography of Nehru, V. L. Pandit abandoned any attempts to improve Soviet-Indian relations. Guided by the advice of Secretary-General for Foreign Affairs Bajpai, she maintained close contacts with the American Embassy, which increased the distrust of the Soviet side. Instead of promoting contacts between the opposing blocs, as Nehru had hoped, the Indian Embassy in Moscow turned out to be a weak link in the Indian diplomatic service.

The British ambassador, who was closely monitoring the situation, reported from Moscow to London that Pandit was "not very happy in Moscow." She made it clear that "she is not going to be in office for more than six months and endure the separation from India and her two daughters who are in America."

COSTS OF A PRO-WESTERN ROLL

The cold attitude towards India and its representative in Moscow was not only due to the xenophobia that prevailed in the USSR, or the behavior of Pandit herself. There were deeper objective reasons for this.

As S. Gopal notes, " the Soviet government was not so wrong in not trusting India, since at that time India's neutrality clearly favored the Western powers. Nehru himself acknowledged this, and it was at his direction that Great Britain and the United States received assurances that, given the current situation in the world, India would never be blocked with the Soviet Union, either in wartime or in peacetime."

A roll to the West was, to a certain extent, inevitable. The division of the colony and the formation of dominions brought neither political stability nor economic growth to the new states. Bloody sectarian clashes broke out, including an armed conflict between India and Pakistan. In India, peasant uprisings began, often led by communists.

Against the background of these difficulties, the Government of India had little freedom of maneuver in the international arena. Nehru had to rely on economic and technical assistance from the United States and Great Britain. He believed that the anti-government campaign launched by the CPI was more dangerous than an open uprising. In some provinces, the Communist Party was banned by law.

The Indian press began to publish sharply critical articles about the policy of the USSR and Stalin. This could not but provoke a painful response from the Soviet side.

Speaking to the British diplomat Sir Roberts in the summer of 1948, V. L. Pandit remarked that the Russians had chosen a "strange way" to demonstrate their dissatisfaction with the Nehru government's actions against the Communists in India.

On her own initiative, she often visited Alexandra Kollontai for a cup of tea, and they had friendly conversations on a wide range of issues, never discussing serious political issues. And suddenly the Pundit called-

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She was asked to "visit Comrade Kollontai," who gave her a long and apparently pre-arranged lecture on the appalling treatment of communists by the Indian government and the serious harm it was doing to Soviet-Indian relations.

In 1948, relations between Moscow and Delhi became so tense that the Indian police began openly hostile actions that contradicted international legal norms. It invaded the territory of the Soviet embassy, where Communists were allegedly "hiding".

The stagnation in political relations could be offset by an increase in trade and economic cooperation. However, Britain tried to put a spoke in the wheel to the best of its ability. The letter sent by the British Embassy from Delhi to London is typical in this regard. "From Calcutta," it says, " we have received a message, which we are transmitting, as it may be useful. It follows, in particular, that one of the first tasks assigned to Mrs. Pandit upon her arrival in Moscow is to negotiate the supply of petroleum products to India in order to break the monopoly of British and American Middle Eastern supplies... Please forward this letter immediately to the Oil Department of the Ministry of Fuel and Energy for review and appropriate action."

"Necessary measures" London

was definitely able to accept. This can be seen from the report on the barter deal for the purchase of grain from the Soviet Union in exchange for tea. Before the shipments were shipped, the Indian side notified London of the agreement. This provoked Vyshinsky's protest. "It is surprising," he said to the Pundit, " that India is still so dependent on the UK that operations of this kind still have to be agreed in London, and are not a matter of relations between the two countries." An English diplomat, describing this incident, writes that " Mrs. Pandit tried to remove this impression..."

On April 1, 1949, V. L. Pandit left Moscow in connection with her appointment as Ambassador to Washington. "Mrs. Pundit left this morning," said an urgent telegram sent after her from Moscow by the British ambassador to London. "Before she left, she didn't meet with any government officials, not even Vyshinsky, who, presumably, is ill..."

Assessing the years of her work in Moscow many years later, V. L. Pandit called her stay in the Soviet Union (August 1947-April 1949) "rather a stage of cementing relations in the last period of the war than a period of friendship between the USSR and India."

Undoubtedly, staying in Moscow was not a great success in Pandit's political career. However, it is with her name that the beginning of the countdown of Indian-Soviet relations at the official level is connected.

* * *

The last years of Pandit's life were spent almost in complete oblivion. The tumultuous political battles, changing parties in power, political assassinations, and many other dramatic events did not seem to disrupt the flow of her life in Dehra Dun.

I had the opportunity to meet and talk with Vijay Lakshmi Pandit in January 1990. She welcomed me very cordially. In her nineties, Pandit was still beautiful and surprisingly elegant, although she received me sitting in a chair in a warm dressing gown and soft, somewhat reminiscent of our felt boots, slippers.

When I told her that many of the events related to India's initiative to establish diplomatic relations with the USSR, in which she was involved, about the Moscow period of her life, her activities and statements, I learned from the English archives, she was not at all surprised. "Of course, the British attached great importance to all this." But another thing that surprised the well-known politician and diplomat in the past was that they were still interested in her. "Such visitors, and journalists too, have not been frequent visitors for a long time," she said with a smile. "Some people are even surprised that I'm still alive."

As I was leaving, I noticed Jawaharlal Nehru's book The Discovery of India, which was sitting on her coffee table with her glasses on top of it. Catching my eye, she smiled, " This is my desk book. I often reread it."

Goroshko G., Skosyrev V. " Birch and banyan (Russian-Indian relations: yesterday, today, tomorrow)", Moscow, 1999.

V.L. Pandit. The Scope of Happiness. A Personal Memoir. London, 1979.

Nayantara Sahgal. Prison and Chocolate Cake.

Anne Guthrie. Madame Ambassador: The life of Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, 1962.

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