From Delhi to Bandung: Nehru, 'Indian-ness' and 'Pan-Asian-ness'

Abstract

The idea of 'Asia', as a distinct space in international politics, has generated a good deal of historical and contemporary debate. This article seeks to engage this debate by examining how the Indian state, under its first prime minister and external affairs minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, attempted to delineate certain Pan-Asian regional identities at both the 1947 Asian Relations Conference in Delhi and the 1955 Afro-Asian Conference in Bandung. It will argue that such articulations of specific Pan-Asian identities were linked to the manner in which Nehru sought to represent certain aspects of the Indian state during this period. © 2011 South Asian Studies Association of Australia.