On 23 March 1947, standing beneath a huge illuminated map of the continent, Nehru opened the Asian Relations Conference. Those present would long remember his words: ‘When the history of our present times comes to be written, this Conference may well stand out as the landmark which divides the past of Asia from the future.’ The idea for the gathering had come to Nehru during his visits to Malaya and Burma in March 1946. Although the coming of Swaraj was clouded with anxiety, Nehru and many other Indian leaders felt that they had brought Asia to the threshold of a new millennium. They believed that Congress was the exemplary nationalism for Asia and that India’s civilization formed the core of what Rabindranath Tagore called the ‘inner human bond’ of its peoples. The Asian Relations Conference was a form of missionary outreach to other national struggles.1 The Muslim League denounced Nehru as a ‘Hindu imperialist’ and boycotted the proceedings, but virtually every nation, or nation-of-intent, from the Levant to China was represented: there were delegations of Jews and Arabs from Palestine; commissars from Soviet central Asia; courtiers from the Kingdom of Thailand; hardened communist guerrillas from Malaya, and polished Kuomintang diplomats.
