India expels two Chinese diplomats

New Delhi: M.C. Chagla, minister for external affairs, today announced that a third secretary of the Chinese embassy had been declared “persona non-grata” and ordered to leave the country within 72 hours.

This is in addition to the first secretary of that embassy being stripped of diplomatic status and ordered to quit India.

The announcement came at the end of a nearly threehour heated debate on the SSP-sponsored adjournment motion to discuss the Chinese action against Indian diplomats.

During the debate demands were made among others by Ram Manohar Lohia, M.R. Masani, M.L. Sondhi, Hem Barua and Acharya J.B. Kriplani that diplomatic relations with China be severed.

Replying to the debate, Chagla said that the question of severance of diplomatic relations with China deserved a more careful consideration. By having its mission in Peking, India was having a “window on China” and was getting “most useful and most important” information as to what was happening in that country.

Communist members, Left as well as Right, opposed the demand for the severance of diplomatic relations with China.

While Prof. Hiren Mukherji, deputy leader of the Right Communist Group, said that the demand went against the very grain of decency of India’s policy of non-alignment and peaceful co-existence, P. Ramamurti (Left Communist — Madras) said that there was no military solution to the problems between India and China and diplomatic relations were necessary to facilitate negotiations for a political settlement of their differences.

Tibet also figures prominently at the debate. Kriplani and some other members maintained that India had erred in not taking Tibet’s case to the UN.

Chagla was frequently interrupted during his reply by angry Swatantra, Jan Sangh, SSP and PSP members.

At one state, Balraj Madhok of the Jan Sangh asked Chagla why India should not abrogate the Sino-Indian Treaty of 1954. Chagla said, “We will certainly reconsider our policy in regard to Tibet”.