A Brave New World, 1948–1961
MIGUEL SERRA COELHO
This chapter explores the relations between Brazil and India during the first fifteen years of the Cold War era. Encompassing four Brazilian presidencies (Eurico Gaspar Dutra, 1946–51; Getúlio Vargas, 1951–54; João Café Filho, 1954–55; and Juscelino Kubitschek, 1956–61), it explores the diplomatic, economic, and cultural interactions between Brazil and India during a period characterized by a growing global interest in the Third World project. Although lacking a clear policy toward the Afro-Asian world, Brazil recognized the increasing importance of newly independent nations and thus expanded its diplomatic network, especially in the late 1950s under Kubitschek.1 Conversely, the chapter also considers India’s foreign policy toward Brazil and the Western Hemisphere more broadly, during a period that has been described as one of “distant acquaintance” between New Delhi and the countries of Latin America.2
Although Brazil and India established diplomatic ties in 1948, their early relations remain understudied. Language barriers, continental distances, and nearly closed archives in the case of India surely contributed to this outcome. In addition, the alleged absence of interactions between the two countries during this period contributed to driving historians away. The few existing studies of Brazilian-Indian relations, though useful, tend to be based on sources of only one country, as is the case with the work of Varun Shani and Anaya Chakravarti.3 For their part, Jerry Dávila and Williams da Silva Gonçalves approach Brazilian-Indian relations indirectly, through Brazil’s support for Portuguese efforts to retain Goa, Daman, and Diu and Brazilian representation of Portugal’s official interests in New Delhi.4
Based on research in Brazilian, Indian, and Portuguese archives, this chapter aims to shed light on Brazilian foreign policy toward India and ultimately seeks to understand why early ties failed to develop. Particularly, it aims to unveil Brazilian perceptions of, apprehensions about, prejudices against, and interests in India—and, to a certain extent, the Third World—during a period that preceded the country’s so-called independent foreign policy. Additionally, it aims to shed light on India’s foreign policy toward Latin America, particularly through New Delhi’s efforts to initiate dialogue with the region’s largest nation.
Brazil embraced democracy after World War II. The military leaders deposed the popular dictator Getúlio Vargas, in power since the Revolution of 1930, free and fair presidential and congressional elections took place in 1945, and a liberal-democratic constitution came into force a year later. While maintaining the social gains of the Vargas government, the nascent regime ensured basic civil rights, the rule of law, free and direct state and local elections for the executive and legislative branches, and a free press. Although with several restrictions, such as limitations to the right strike and the denial of the right to vote to illiterate adults (approximately 50 percent of the population), Brazilian society was about to experience a twenty-year period of political and social mobilization that was termed experiência democrática (democratic experience).5
With a few exceptions, Brazil’s postwar foreign policy was aligned with that of the United States. The governments of Eurico Gaspar Dutra (1946–51), Getúlio Vargas (1951–54), and João Café Filho (1954–55) positioned Brazil firmly in the Western sphere of influence led by Washington. Brazil became a member of the Tratado Interamericano de Assistência Recíproca (Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance) in 1947 and signed a military assistance agreement with Washington in 1952. The country also repressed domestic communism and actively supported U.S. global interests at the United Nations (UN) as well as in the Organization of American States (OAS). Although it declined to send troops to fight in the Korean War during the years 1950–53, the Brazilian government offered political and diplomatic support and provided the United States with strategic minerals.6
While considering itself to be intrinsically anticolonial, Brazil demonstrated little or no interest in the problems of dependent peoples in the immediate aftermath of World War II. Indeed, as Wayne Alan Selcher has noted, Brazil declined to participate in the San Francisco Conference debates on the self-determination documents that became the core of Chapters XI, XII, and XIII of the UN Charter. With few diplomatic and consular representations in the colonial territories as well as absence from the League of Nations, Itamaraty, the Brazilian Ministry of External Relations, did not foresee the demand for independence that was to emerge in the colonies of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.7 Though some anticolonial proclamations were made, namely during the Vargas government, Brazil maintained a rather contradictory attitude toward colonialism during these initial years. On the one hand, it sought to be consistent with its anticolonial values by declaring support for the right of self-determination. On the other hand, it supported the colonial powers, especially at the UN, on the grounds that it was necessary to achieve conciliatory solutions.
As Asian states gained their independence from the European colonial metropoles, Brazil usually recognized their sovereignty, although only after the formal recognition of the colonial power. Though with a tight-fitting budget that represented less than 1 percent of the total state budget,8 Itamaraty opened diplomatic representations in India in 1948, Pakistan in 1951, and both Indonesia and Afghanistan in 1953.
In 1949, roughly one year after his arrival to Rio de Janeiro, Indian Ambassador Minocher Rustom Masani surveyed Brazilian knowledge of his home country.9 He concluded that, with some exceptions, “India was looked on as a country of Oriental glamour and mystery, a country of maharajas and snake-charmers.”10 Brazilian interest in India was confined to the cultural, social, and spiritual impacts of Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore, while knowledge of India’s political aspects and challenges was “exceedingly fitful and sketchy.” Only small sections of the official class, politicians, and press had “any point of view at all” about India’s policies and international positions. And even these learned Brazilians, Masani seemed to imply, had only a basic notion of what modern India was all about or, more important for him, what it could become in the near future.11
Although Masani was surveying Brazilian knowledge of his home country, his conclusions could be easily extended to other parts of Asia. General notions about this vast, distant, and diversified continent amounted to stereotypes and prejudices, and only a small section of the society had any informed vision. This is no surprise, as Brazil did not have departments or centers dedicated to Asia, and most of the information it did gather was obtained through an American or European lens. Besides, there was also a lack of interest in the continent. Except for the establishment of diplomatic legations to Beijing and Tokyo in in the late nineteenth century,12 Brazilians had done little or nothing to interact with Asia, not least because many of its nations were still under colonial rule.13
When Brazil decided to establish diplomatic relations with India in 1948, Itamaraty had more in mind than just a deepening of its knowledge of Indian realities. Brazilians were moved primarily by international and regional prestige, especially vis-à-vis Argentina, with which it maintained an historical rivalry. Wanting to be the first Latin American country to establish formal relations with India, Brazil set up a legation in New Delhi, which was transformed into a full-scale embassy just a few months later. Brazil was also interested in monitoring Cold War developments in South Asia as many political and military leaders believed that the Cold War would soon turn hot and that India could become ground zero of a new conflagration. Finally, a diplomatic representation in India provided the opportunity to directly request Asian votes for Brazilian candidates in several international organizations and forums.14
Brazil’s immediate objectives were political and economic. Traditionally, Brazil was politically more linked to the United States and Europe and, to a lesser degree, Latin America, while India was essentially terra incognita for Brazilians. Itamaraty knew that the prospects for trade were limited, since Brazil and India shared similar economies, which were essentially agrarian and industrially underdeveloped. In additional to the virtual lack of large national shipping companies with direct trading routes between South America and South Asia, preference for the U.S. dollar as trade currency had a discouraging effect among Brazilians. Under the circumstances, the Brazilian embassy was essentially meant to create a cordial atmosphere in India and, more importantly, to be the eyes and ears of Brazil in Asia.15
The mission of the first Brazilian ambassador to India was thus one of courtesy and observation. Recently promoted to ambassador in 1949, Caio de Mello Franco spent his short, two-year tenure in New Delhi collecting and transmitting information regarding general topics, although without detailed analysis, reflections, or comments. Communism, however, deserved attention. A staunch conservative, Mello Franco regularly dispatched alarming cables about the “red peril,” a fact that surely contributed to raising grave concerns in Itamaraty about a possible war. During the year 1950, the ambassador feared the threat of an “atomic-hydrogen storm” in Indochina, labeled the potential occupation of Tibet by Communist China as a “threat” to the fragile equilibrium of Asia, and declared that the political situation in Southeast Asia was headed toward an “outcome that the world has foreseen.”16 These catastrophic views were further influenced by growing Communist activities in India. In 1950, the horrified ambassador reported “communist atrocities” that took place in Hyderabad in which “communists killed more than 2,000 people[;] … seized and destroyed villages; and burned and occupied lands and properties.”17
This initial attitude toward India, blending a lack of interest and knowledge with some Cold War paranoia, prevented Brazilians from following India’s foreign policy and economic development achievements properly. Without any constructive or active role to play with regard to the Indian government, the embassy staff devoted most of its time to reporting general material on South Asia and India. Considered a difficult, remote, and ill-equipped post in terms of human and material resources, India was underappreciated within the Brazilian diplomatic milieu, and staff turnover was unusually high. Mello Franco’s successor, Ambassador Abelardo Bueno do Prado, who took office in March 1952, bargained for votes and sent general reports before leaving for Zurich four months later, never to return.18
For its part, India was motivated mainly by the desire to make friends who might subsequently be converted into votes at the UN. Most likely bearing in mind the conflict with Pakistan over Kashmir in early 1948, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) concluded that the absence of contacts with Latin America was a “serious handicap” and emphasized the need for establishing relations “with certain Latin American countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico, in view of the large voting strength of these countries” at the UN.19 Struggling, however, with thin staffing levels and a tight budget, the MEA eventually selected Brazil for establishing its first embassy in Latin America, followed by Argentina in 1949 and a legation in Mexico a year later.20 Being the largest and most populous country in South America, Brazil was an obvious choice. However, it was also noted that the country occupied a position of “special significance” in the region, analogous to that of India in its “own surroundings.” The assumption that Brazil—like India—was a potential great power, whose emergence would “mean the shifting of the center of world civilization to the tropical zone,” ultimately played a key role in this diplomatic decision. From Rio de Janeiro, Indian diplomats believed, it would also be possible to build up a network of contacts with other South American republics and thus to compensate for the lack of direct diplomatic representation there.21
Selecting Brazil also served as a way of trying to meet the challenge of overpopulation in India. Constantly in demand for immigrants, Brazil was perceived as a suitable candidate to receive Indian families, as it was underpopulated (considering its size) and without racial prejudices. Although only forty Indian immigrants lived in Brazil—mainly “illiterate, hard-working farmers, peddlers or railway workers … most of them married [to] Brazilian women,” the Indian government initially considered the idea of initiating a large-scale emigration to Brazil and instructed its ambassador to approach the Brazilian government with a solution that could be of “mutual interest.” How much this prospect was decisive in the choice of establishing relations with Brazil remains uncertain, but evidence suggests that it was an important factor.22
Apart from these interests, Brazil was hardly an area of importance to India’s foreign policy. Economic interests were virtually nonexistent, as the MEA had concluded in an early 1948 assessment, stating that “there are many points of similarity … as both [countries] are industrially underdeveloped … and it is unlikely that trade with Brazil will develop to a great extent.” Ambassador Masani, in a personal letter to Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, confirmed this assessment, maintaining that “India and Brazil are to a remarkable extent in a parallel condition, and parallels don’t meet. Our wants are very much the same and our surpluses not too dissimilar.” India’s embassy would thus function primarily as a listening post in Latin America.23
In contrast with that of the Brazilian government, the Indian diplomacy made some efforts to present India as a “modern twentieth century nation” and to reduce the inaccurate picture that predominated in Brazilian minds. Accordingly, monthly and fortnightly bulletins on general topics such as India’s agricultural sector, industrial development, and foreign policy were created and distributed. Exhibitions on India were inaugurated and conferences on Indian poets, such as Tagore, were organized. The Indian embassy fostered good relations with the press, as “they never failed to bring out something special whenever we approach them.” The ambassador even visited some Brazilian interior states to promote India. The embassy sponsored an organization—the Sociedade Brasileira de Amigos da Índia (Brazilian Society of Friends of India)—to deepen cultural relations between the two countries. Albeit with budget limitations, India displayed a commitment to promoting itself in Brazil.24
These publicity efforts eventually paid off, as the embassy registered a growing interest in the press regarding the international position of India, as well as its foreign policy. Writing in 1953, its press attaché observed that “there were far more press comments on India’s policy in this period … and much greater discussion among the more knowledgeable newspapermen on India’s part in world affairs.” These comments revealed, according to the diplomat, that “India’s independent foreign policy gained considerable respect [and it is] obvious that newspapers in Brazil had begun to think of India as a power to be reckoned with in world affairs.” Moreover, as a result, the embassy started to receive information requests on important subjects such as India’s attitude toward Communism and colonial powers, as well as India’s efforts to solve the Korean dispute.25
Although the press displayed growing respect and interest in India’s foreign policy, the same was not true when it came to reporting the so-called case of Goa.26 Echoing the Brazilian government, the local press did not welcome New Delhi’s claims over Portuguese colonial territories in India. Early reports sent to the MEA recognized the possibility that Brazilians would not understand and accept India’s claims on Goa, Daman, and Diu. “Even though Brazilians may appreciate India’s desire to see the end of foreign settlements on India’s soil,” one of these reports stated, “it is … possible that a certain amount of Brazilian sentiment may range itself behind the historical link between Portugal and Goa.” This early assessment proved true when India strengthened its diplomatic campaign for the annexation of Goa and its diplomats realized that this sentiment was indeed strong. “Nehru’s statement in the House … about the merger of Goa with India evoked strongly worded editorials in the press.… Brazilians are Portuguese by origin and in spite of the fact they cut away from Portugal, still have a sense of loyalty to their fatherland.” Even the intellectual sphere, among which the embassy had marked credibility, showed signs of great hesitation when the subject was broached. “The hold that Portugal has over the intellectual and cultural strata of the Brazilian populace is somewhat different and has to be experienced to be believed,” the embassy stated, and sarcastically underlined: “Scratch a Brazilian and he is a Portuguese.”27
Despite this disagreement, relations between Brazil and India remained cordial—albeit low key. Interactions were indeed confined to solicitation of votes and the project of an agreement on immigration. However, Brazilians had stressed their preference for immigrants who could be “easily assimilated” and could “fit in [Brazilian] cultural patterns and way of life.”28
By late 1953, still under the Vargas government, Ildefonso Falcão was appointed ambassador to India. Falcão was a skilled diplomat and had served before in major diplomatic missions, including consular tenures in Berlin, Cologne, and London, as well as an ambassadorial tenure in Athens. Nevertheless, like his predecessors, Falcão was far from being an ideal candidate: having cut his teeth in Europe and in the Americas, he was not familiar with Indian and Asian affairs.29 But it may be that his irascible temperament was the decisive factor when Itamaraty was desperate to designate an ambassador to such a difficult, distant, and undesirable diplomatic post.30
Itamaraty still considered its embassy in New Delhi both as an observation post and as a contact point with Asia. Now, however, it displayed more curiosity toward India and Asia, requesting more and better quality information. Priority topics included decolonization, geostrategic affairs, Communism, and foreign policy. The embassy also devoted attention to India’s development programs. “It is of great importance for Brazil to get to know Nehru’s decisions, as well as their results. We have very similar problems and, to solve them, we could use the lessons of the Indian experience.”31 This sudden interest in India can be seen in connection with the Vargas government’s development programs, which were based on state-led investment in strategic sectors such as petrochemical, metallurgy, and energy. This interest could also have been a result of an increasing awareness of India’s economic and development achievements. As previously mentioned, however, Brazilian diplomatic officials seemed more focused in Cold War dynamics.
Itamaraty started to receive numerous reports sent by Falcão on desired topics, particularly regarding economic development in industries such as coffee that competed directly with Brazilian producers. Moreover, information on local Indian products such as mica and cereals was often dispatched to Rio de Janeiro, which led Itamaraty to become aware of opportunities to diversify its markets. According to the ambassador, there were now direct maritime trade connections available between South America and Asia, while Indian manufacturers and businessmen such as tycoon B. M. Birla were interested in fostering trade with Brazil. “India keeps no traditional markets,” Falcão informed Itamaraty in one report, adding, “it buys where it finds lower prices and where the quality of products and delivery deadlines are better.” As he wrote in summary, India was a great opportunity, and “Brazil needs to sell.”32
Despite Falcão’s enthusiasm and commitment, he quickly stumbled upon inaction from his home country. Simple requests, such as the appointment of an administrative assistant to collect information or a useful list of Brazilian export companies, were denied. Lack of diplomatic staff and money, as well as the absence of Brazilian businessmen interested in trade with India were common obstacles presented by Itamaraty. Sometimes, Falcão did not even get a reply.33 In May 1955, for instance, the disillusioned ambassador reported that several attempts of the Indian Rohtas Industries to import Brazilian sugar had been unsuccessful. “At my suggestion, the company sent a letter to the president of the Instituto do Açúcar e do Álcool [Sugar and Alcohol Institute], in order to start a 20,000-ton operation,” he stated. “Obtaining no response, they sent four cablegrams that have resulted in the same, that is, no response.”34
Perhaps more confusing to Falcão was the scarce attention given to his reports, especially to those in which he analyzed India’s economic development. While sending a report regarding India’s second five-year plan, which he considered to be “of great interest [since] the Indian case is one of the most instructive,” Falcão took the opportunity to raise criticism regarding the evident lack of interest in his reports. “It is like if I was flogging a dead horse. The extensive material that I have sent ends a few yards away from the archive, without much attention being paid to it,” he fumed. “Otherwise, I am sure I would have received many questions regarding several issues that I have raised without details.”35 Such disregard was due not only to the bureaucratic problems that ravaged Itamaraty but also to the fact that the new João Café Filho government was more conservative in economic and foreign policies than its predecessor.
Falcão’s admiration of Indian development programs contrasted, nonetheless, with his sharp rejection of its foreign policy, particularly that of its figurehead Jawaharlal Nehru. If at the beginning of his mission he considered Nehru to belong to a “strain of good fighters, Mahatma Gandhi’s favorite disciple,” by mid-1954 he had already begun to portray him as a “bad pupil of Mahatmaji … who has been committing a series of political felonies which threaten peace, not only in Asia but the whole world.”36 According to the embassy, Nehru was “anti-white” and “anti-Western”; he employed a “sinister picturesque neutral policy” and exhibited an “extreme ambition of leadership, not only regarding the Indian region but also the modern world.” The 1955 Conference of Bandung, in his opinion, merely served “to activate [Nehru’s] plan of Afro-Asian unity … and emphasize the leadership of India among all the countries of this region” as India’s “supremacy constitutes the great dream of his personal policy.” Although Falcão would later concede that the Afro-Asian conference was a “remarkable happening, of great significance”—not least because from a Western perspective, the conference results were considered quite to be quite moderate and thus a matter for some relief—Falcão immediately underlined Nehru’s failure in taking over the leadership.37 Moreover, he viewed with extreme suspicion Nehru’s dual foreign policy: while entertaining relations with the United States, India traded with and courted Communist nations, including the Soviet Union.38
Despite his criticism of India’s flirtation with Communist nations, particularly with the Soviet Union, Falcão recognized that such policy was paying a dividend, as India was receiving significant aid from Washington. “The Western nations and specifically the United States, court favors from Nehru’s India as they would court favors from a brunette sly goodness who refuses to be seduced,” Falcão ironically reported. “And why? Assuming that India leans toward communism, they fear … that millions of starving Indians join the red hosts.” This led Falcão to touch a raw nerve, even for those diplomats who supported alignment with the United States. Despite Brazil’s ties to Washington, the country had been “spurned to the inferior status of a poor parent that people are ashamed of inviting home. We are loyal, we ask with a hat in hand, and we received in exchange, most of the time, promises.” On the other hand, Falcão furiously reported, India was “doubtful, Machiavellian, audacious, and treacherous” and as a result “she will receive what it [sic] wished for.”39
As a way of obtaining financial aid from Washington, Falcão proposed a variant of the Indian formula, which many nationalist Brazilians called for: economic rapprochement with the Iron Curtain nations, particularly the Soviet Union, and the establishment of diplomatic relations with Communist China. “The United States reaction would be immediate and, if not, the commercial benefits that we could obtain … would allow us to wait for the arrival of U.S. dollars,” he wrote to Itamaraty. Besides, “Brazilian products [such as coffee] would find a market and many types of machinery would reach Brazil in more advantageous financial conditions.”40 This audacious suggestion by Falcão went unanswered, like many others sent by the ambassador during his frustrating tenure. The highest echelons of Itamaraty were still occupied by staunch anti-Communists, who brooked little patience for talk about the reestablishment of political or economic relations with the Soviet Union or establishment of diplomatic relations with Communist China.
Falcão’s ambassadorship in New Delhi coincided with the escalation of tension between Portugal and India over Goa. In late 1953, the Indian government implemented economic sanctions against the Portuguese territories and created bureaucratic hurdles to hamper the movement of Portuguese officials and citizens. As had so often occurred in the past, the Portuguese regime responded with violent repression and numerous arrests. In early 1954, Itamaraty was informed that the situation was indeed delicate, and it reaffirmed solidarity with Portugal. Sooner or later, this would require some show of solidarity for Lisbon in New Delhi itself.41
Indeed, just a few months after the arrival of Ambassador Falcão in New Delhi, Brazil was involved in a rather delicate incident regarding the problem of Goa. Cautioned by the Portuguese ambassador in India, Falcão was informed that Brazil’s honorary consul in New Delhi—Jaime Herédia—had organized meetings in the consulate with anti-Portuguese Goan activists. Although Falcão eventually informed Itamaraty, he first decided to admonish the consul regarding what he considered to be an illicit activity. Not only were Brazilian diplomatic and consular staff forbidden to take part in political activities, but Brazil’s policy toward Goa was officially defined by Rio de Janeiro. Heredia capitalized on this in order to embarrass the Brazilian government and create a scandal. Presenting his resignation and taking his case to Indian newspapers, he soon became a local hero. The MEA followed by criticizing Itamaraty for its attitude toward the incident. Although both governments eventually swept the episode under the rug, it was clear that disagreement on Goa could become a sticking point between Brazil and India.42
When the Indian government countenanced the nationalist occupation of the small Portuguese enclaves of Dadrá and Nagar-Haveli by “peaceful groups” (satyagraha) in July and August 1954, diplomatic relations between Rio de Janeiro and New Delhi entered a downward spiral. Falcão received instructions to present a formal protest to the Indian capital, and virtually all the Brazilian embassies in the world were requested to inform the local governments about India’s attitude toward the “peaceful” country of Portugal. In Rio de Janeiro, the Indian ambassador was convened for a friendly but tense meeting. According to Sen-Mandi, Brazilians were “really serious about the matter now and wanted something to be done first to ease the tension,” since they believed that the situation between Portugal and India could “take a very ugly turn.” In addition, the Indian embassy dutifully reported the mass rally organized by the local Portuguese community and the anti-India protests raised by members of Parliament in both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate.43 The press, once again, expressed Brazilian indignation against what it considered an intolerable aggression, going so far as to call it a “Hitler- and Mussolini-style Anschluss.”44
After this “hysterical” reaction, as the Indian ambassador put it, Jawaharlal Nehru sought to take advantage of Krishna Menon’s brief visit to Latin American to ease tensions and improve relations. Interestingly, Itamaraty was ready to receive Nehru’s envoy, but with a slight nuance: Portuguese Foreign Minister Paulo Cunha was expected in Rio de Janeiro, and the Brazilian government demonstrated a clear willingness to give him priority.45 While Menon ended up excluding Brazil from his visit, the Indian government decided to go ahead with the visit of Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, vice president of India, already scheduled for November 1954. The first Indian statesman to pay a visit to Brazil, the vice president, did not include discussion of the problem of Goa on his agenda.46
A more complex stage of relations emerged in 1955, when Brazil assumed the representation of Portuguese interests in India after the rupture of diplomatic relations between the two nations. Although he had no detailed directives, Falcão aimed to play the role of an intermediary between the two parties. Still, he was apparently treated by India as a mere defender of Portuguese colonialism. “After assuming the protection of Portuguese interests, the hostility toward Brazil significantly increased,” he reported. “We are now treated … with the very same coldness that had been up to now reserved for the Portuguese.… we are considered a kind of continuation and surrogate of Portugal.” Despite his best efforts, Falcão sensed that India was trying to hamper his mission: for months Indian authorities delayed de jure recognition of Brazil as representative of Portuguese interests. Moreover, the Indian government tried to block the reopening of the Brazilian consulate in Bombay, where a colony of around 100,000 Goans lived and worked, in addition to ignoring Portuguese correspondence delivered by the embassy, and in some cases even avoiding interaction with Falcão personally.47
Although there are no relevant Indian sources available to cover this particular moment, available evidence suggests that the irascible personality of Falcão, combined with his staunch lusophilia and increasing aversion to Indian authorities, contributed greatly to misunderstandings. Indeed, his reports revealed biased attitudes toward India, which ultimately made him lose credibility both in New Delhi and in Rio de Janeiro. In September 1955, for instance, Falcão held a very tense conversation with Jawaharlal Nehru on the issue of Goa. According to his report, after what he considered to be another unproductive conversation, Falcão stood up and said, “I am sorry, Excellency, to come for the second time in your office and realize the inutility of my mission as ambassador of Brazil.… After transmitting with success, the request of my Government, I can only now officially ask for my withdrawal from your country.” Perhaps already fed up with Falcão, Nehru replied simply, “Do whatever you think is best.”48 The report on the meeting left a bad impression on Itamaraty, particularly Falcão’s suggestion to close the embassy. Nevertheless, he was kept in office for a few more months until newly elected president Juscelino Kubitschek could appoint a new ambassador.49 Inadvertently, Falcão had demonstrated to some sectors in Itamaraty that political and diplomatic support for Portuguese colonialism in India could indeed result in serious entanglements.
In 1956, Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira (1956–61) was officially sworn in as president of Brazil. Energetic, self-confident, and optimistic, he ran for office with a development plan that promised fifty years of development in five (50 anos em cinco). The so-called Programa de Metas (Targets Plan) envisioned significant investments in several strategic sectors of the Brazilian economy: namely, energy, transportation, food, basic industries, and education. Its main objective was to move Brazil beyond its longtime agricultural vocation, away from its chronic underdevelopment, and far from its deep-rooted pessimism. A major symbol of this will-to-modernize was the construction of a new capital—Brasília. Provided for in the constitution since the late nineteenth century, the city was planned from scratch in the late 1950s with the goal of presenting to the world a new Brazil: modern, rational, and organized. Regionally, Kubitschek aimed for his country to lead the way to a more developed, prosperous, and influential Latin America, a hope that would later spread with the arrival of other desenvolvimentistas (developmentalists), such as Argentina’s Arturo Frondizi and Mexico’s Adolfo López Mateos.50 Even Brazilian Communist Luis Carlos Prestes praised this bold vision, writing in 1958 that “Kubitschek is the Nehru of South America.”51
Juscelino Kubitschek’s foreign policy was essentially focused on issues of economic development. Even before taking office, he visited major political and economic centers such as the United States, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy, and the Federal Republic of Germany, in addition to Spain and Portugal, with which Brazil had a special relationship. Kubitschek’s objective was to demonstrate that Brazil’s economic development program, which was based largely on private investment, would welcome foreign capital. The highest expression of his economic diplomacy was the launch of Operação Pan Americana (Operation Pan America) following on the heels of U.S. vice president Richard Nixon’s disastrous visit to Latin America in 1958, in which an attack on Nixon’s motorcade occurred in Caracas, Venezuela. The Operação was a proposal for inter-American cooperation, which sought to attract U.S. economic assistance as a sort of Marshall Plan for Latin America, on the grounds that economic underdevelopment represented fertile soil for the spread of Communism and a threat to hemispheric security.52
Although firmly anchored to the West and particularly to the Inter-American System, Kubitschek’s Brazil initiated a tepid, albeit remarkable, rapprochement with the nations of the Iron Curtain. Bearing in mind Brazil’s economic needs, Itamaraty was forced to set aside its ideological bias and opened trade negotiations in 1958 with Hungary, Poland, and the German Democratic Republic. A year later, after much deliberation and controversy, Brazil even reestablished commercial relations with the Soviet Union. This was not only the product of Brazil’s need to expand its markets, especially for coffee exports, but also a result of concrete domestic pressures. Indeed, several political and commercial sectors in the society were concerned that postwar Brazil’s “blind” alignment to the United States was not paying off as initially expected. Rapprochement with the Soviet Union, moreover, could work as a way to win concessions in the United States. Kubitschek’s initial objective was to reestablish political and diplomatic relations with Moscow, but anti-Communist sentiments were still very strong in Itamaraty. He was thus able only to reestablish trade relations in the late 1950s. President Jânio Quadros would complete this political rapprochement in 1961.53
Despite the fact that Brazil maintained a contradictory foreign policy with regard colonialism, tacitly and sometimes openly supporting the European colonial powers while generally claiming to support the granting of independence to colonial territories, Kubitschek took concrete steps toward rapprochement with newly independent nations. Recognizing that the Afro-Asian world was “no longer a mere backyard of the Western countries,” Itamaraty opened diplomatic legations in Malaysia, Thailand, South Vietnam, Tunisia, and Morocco in 1959, followed a year later with offices in Ceylon and Ghana.54 In 1961, when he was in a lame-duck position, Kubitschek initiated the process of establishing diplomatic relations with Senegal, Mauritania, Guinea, Nigeria, the Ivory Coast, Upper Volta, Niger, and Dahomey. These actions were responses not only to the growing political importance of the postcolonial world but also to Brazil’s perceived need for building consensus for tackling the problems of economic underdevelopment at the UN and in other international forums.55 In 1959, Kubitschek invited Indonesia’s president, Sukarno, to visit Brazil as part of these same efforts. Increasingly, Brazil also began to envision postcolonial Asia as an attractive market for its exports. In 1959, Itamaraty dispatched an economic mission to Southeast Asia to collect information about the economic structures of the region as well as to investigate the possibilities for trade.56
Kubitschek’s approach to the postcolonial world was especially visible in his attempt to normalize relations with India. In mid-1956, Itamaraty replaced its ambassador to India, Ildefonso Falcão, whose trustworthiness in the MEA had been weakened by his strongly partisan attitude regarding Goa. In his place, Itamaraty appointed José Cochrane de Alencar, formerly Brazil’s first diplomatic representative to India (1948) and most recently its ambassador to Pakistan (1955–56). Like Falcão, Ambassador Alencar was an experienced diplomat with several other important appointments under his belt, including Vienna, London, Canberra, and Stockholm. Alencar, however, was wiser and more balanced, ultimately serving as a pragmatic diplomat who proved to be much less passionate about Brazil’s perceived connection to Portuguese colonial assets.
Recognizing the rising importance of India and other postcolonial nations in international affairs, Itamaraty wished to remove the “suspicion of connivance with colonialism” that haunted Brazil’s international image. Despite Brazil’s claims to be an anticolonial power, the country’s UN delegation had consistently supported the colonial powers, frequently abstaining on resolutions that dealt with colonial self-determination. Brazil should now offer its justification for such votes—namely, its desire to secure an atmosphere of equilibrium in which to carry out a peaceful transfer of power in the colonial territories. Resorting to the theories of Brazilian sociologist Gilberto Freyre, who contributed to the myth of Brazil as a “racial democracy,”57 Itamaraty advised Alencar to emphasize Brazilian society’s non-European cultural traits and the supposed nonexistence of racial prejudices in order to downplay suspicions. This became a distinct line of approach in Brazil’s diplomacy throughout the 1960s and 1970s, especially in relation to African countries. Through a “courteous” approach toward Indian authorities, Brazilians believed, it would be possible to elucidate Brazil’s options in the UN and thus obtain positive political results in the short run.58 Still without definite policy for Asia, Itamaraty seemed to envisage some kind of collaboration between Brazil and India, based on the two countries’ role as active voices against economic underdevelopment. This led Itamaraty to demonstrate a great deal of interest in post-Bandung Afro-Asian developments, and it therefore instructed Alencar to pay “special attention” to this movement. While Cold War neutralism was not an option for Brazil (since Brazil adhered to the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance but comprised an anti-Communist government, military, and diplomatic staff), the country showed some willingness to send official observers to future Afro-Asian gatherings.59
In October 1956, the incoming ambassador met Nehru and Foreign Secretary Subimal Dutt to present credentials and gestures of goodwill. After the disastrous tenure of Falcão, this beginning could prove a new start in Brazilian-Indian relations. Notably, Nehru and Dutt comported themselves with “extreme courtesy,” warmly welcoming Alencar and praising the “friendly relationship” between Brazil and India. Both expressed hope that the relationship between the two great nations would not be negatively affected by the fact that Brazil continued to represent Portuguese interests in India. Alencar replied in the same friendly spirit, mentioning that the Brazilian government yearned to strengthen the ties that already bound the two nations and guaranteeing that he would personally invest his “best efforts” to ensure relations between Brazil and Indian government were as “cordial and respectful as possible.”60 Although Falcão had only recently departed, it seems as if both governments were ready to turn the page. To be sure, Goa remained a problem, but the admission of Portugal into the UN in 1955 was a contributing factor to easing the atmosphere between Lisbon and New Delhi, since India exchanged the acts in the terrain for acts in the Fourth Committee (also known as the Special Political and Decolonization Committee).
Bearing in mind his instructions, epitomized by the sentence “Introduce Brazil to India,” Alencar reestablished and reinforced diplomatic contacts with India’s officials, reported on India’s economic and industrial development in detail, and adopted a more impartial posture with regard to Goa. Like his predecessor, however, Alencar was concerned with India’s foreign policy and its impact. Refusing to comment on the Cold War’s “moral dimension”—clearly bearing in mind an expression used by U.S. Secretary of State Foster Dulles to characterize neutralism—Alencar noted that Nehru “was right when he decided that it would be better not to join one of the two opposing blocks in conflict.” “Some argue,” he stated in an official letter, “that India has not a single friend.… If, however, the success or failure of a policy is measured by its results, it seems to me … that [for] the actual position and prestige of this country, [Nehru] appears to have weighed [his decisions] with great sense and much wisdom.” Alencar would repeatedly draw the attention of Itamaraty to nonaligned matters throughout his mission in New Delhi (1956–61). Restating Falcão’s conclusion from the previous year that India had become a priority while Brazil was struggling to obtain a modicum of useful attention from the United States, Alencar observed that India was receiving a series of indispensable loans from Washington to fund its five-year plans. At the same time, India was also signing trade and cultural agreements with countries such as the German Democratic Republic, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and, of course, the Soviet Union. As a Brazilian diplomat put it, “India continues to negotiate and conclude agreements with everyone, whether Tyrians or Trojans, as long as it could derive maximum benefits from these.”61 To what extent these observations helped the supporters of Brazil’s rapprochement with the “Iron Curtain” remains uncertain, but even a casual observer could not deny that neutralism, in practice, was actually paying more dividends than alignment.
On its side, the Indian government had an interest in normalizing relations with Brazil. Accordingly, a July 1956 MEA report expressed some “anxiety to create more cordial relations between India and Brazil.” India’s former ambassador to Brazil, Raja of Mandi, even suggested that as a preliminary step New Delhi should conclude a cultural agreement with Rio de Janeiro.62 Although Brazil was not a priority in India’s foreign policy, New Delhi was keenly aware of its diplomatic weight. Rio de Janeiro exerted a considerable, and sometimes decisive, influence in Latin America, had significant international prestige, and had already secured a seat on the UN Security Council three times (1946–47, 1951–52, and 1954–55). Besides, Brazil belonged to one of the largest regional groups in the UN, and India had already paid a concrete political price for ignoring it. When the Kashmir issue was discussed and voted on at the Security Council, in which Latin American nations exercised considerable influence, the Argentine delegates had assumed, at certain moments, a partisan attitude against India.63 The same was true in the case of Portuguese India. Although on a different scale, many Latin American nations had criticized the Indian government for turning a blind eye to the satyagraha occupiers in 1954 and 1955.64
The MEA was aware of the political as well as the economic and cultural benefits that warm relations with Latin America could provide. Yet constraints on financial and human resources prevented proper diplomatic outreach. Indeed, in 1949 and again in 1952, the question of opening additional missions in Latin American countries was debated in the MEA, resulting in only one additional mission, in Chile, bringing to four the number of Indian diplomatic offices in Latin America, counting Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico. In 1955–56, this question was revisited by the MEA on the grounds that “India [was] assuming more and more responsibilities in international affairs and it [was] important that her point of view is widely known.” Once again, the dearth of personnel as well as the tight budget of the Indian Foreign Service prevented the opening of any new missions.65
To mitigate this handicap, just after his official visit to the United States in late 1956, Nehru began to contemplate a wide-ranging state visit across South America. After all, he had already been to North America twice and failed both times to follow up with a visit to the hemisphere’s southern half. Such idea was not a new one: roughly eight years before, Ambassador Masani had already proposed a whistle-stop tour of several South American states, including Brazil, which he believed could create a “marked and enduring impression” on Latin American governments.66 Nehru himself had expressed privately on several occasions his great willingness to visit the South American republics, specifically the region’s largest and most important states, Brazil and Argentina.67 During the first half of 1957, Nehru received official invitations from the Chilean and Argentine governments, and he later met Chilean and Peruvian officials in New Delhi.68 These overtures led the French press to report that Nehru would pay a state visit to several South American countries in 1958, including Argentina and Chile, in order to establish more direct contacts and thus “reinforce the Afro-Asian group in the UN.”69
These combined developments eventually attracted the attention of the Brazilian government. Itamaraty had initially downplayed the possibility of Nehru’s state visit to South American countries, which was reported in several official letters sent by Ambassador Alencar, who requested that Brazil extend an official invitation to Nehru since the country “was the first Latin American nation to establish an embassy” in India years earlier. But when several newspapers in Rio de Janeiro reported the scheduled visit to South America—stressing that Argentina but not Brazil was included in the route—Itamaraty merely requested information from its ambassadors in New Delhi and Buenos Aires. Despite their confirmation of this report, Itamaraty took no action.70
In early 1958, Alencar received information indicating that Nehru’s visit to South America was still in the works, although he now learned that it was dependent on a Brazilian invitation. Indeed, after a conversation with Miguel Serrano, Chilean ambassador to India, Alencar learned that Foreign Minister Subimal Dutt had confessed that the Brazilian government had not yet extended an invitation. A similar observation was made by another Indian diplomat to his Mexican counterpart. For Alencar, this was the proof that “Nehru’s trip to South America will be delayed, for multiple reasons, until Brazil decided to present an official invitation.”71 Although Alencar’s assessments might seem exaggerated, a few weeks later Nehru gave his very first interview to a Brazilian newspaper, Correio da Manhã, in which he stressed the similarities between Brazil and India, underlined the need for a greater economic and cultural interchange, and ultimately expressed his hope that he and the newspaper’s journalist would to meet again soon in “India or Brazil.”72
Still without any move from Rio de Janeiro, the Indian government finally decided to raise the bar. In June 1958, India’s ambassador to Brazil delivered an official invitation to Kubitschek for a state visit to India later that year. This gesture was a way of demonstrating that India was keen on strengthening its ties with Brazil and that it wanted its president to have the honor of being the first Latin American statesman to visit India. By inviting President Kubitschek before any other, India was also revealing that its government considered Brazil to be the most important country in the region for its Third World policy. Although Indian sources are lacking for this period, one should also consider that Nehru wished to send a strong signal to the Brazilian government on the question of his future visit to South America. Indeed, the head of Itamaraty’s Political Division, Luis Bastian Pinto, immediately recognized that the Brazilian government “for obvious reasons cannot avoid inviting Nehru to visit Brazil should he come to South America.” Alencar, moreover, reported that Kubitschek’s invitation was “of high significance,” given his proposed Operação Pan America as well as the great Indian interest in achieving rapprochement with Rio de Janeiro.73
The Indian invitation, however, unleashed other forces unconnected to Brazil-India relations. Portugal’s recently appointed ambassador to Brazil, Manuel Rocheta, rushed immediately to Itamaraty to convey his government’s deepest concern. Rapprochement of this kind between Brazil and India, he warned, would be considered a “serious setback” in the historically friendly relationship between Portugal and Brazil. Moreover, the Portuguese diplomat underlined that public association between Brazil and a nonaligned nation could be counterproductive for the success of the Operação Pan Americana. Despite Portugal’s entreaties, Itamaraty refused to reject the possibility of a Nehru invitation, even if it considered Kubitschek going forward with a state visit to India later that year improbable.74
Domestic forces also mobilized, not just in Itamaraty, but also in Catete, the residence and workplace of presidents, where many sensed that rapprochement could be highly productive for a more “independent” foreign policy. Those connected to economic and trade affairs also lent support for rapprochement with India. Some nationalist Brazilians even hoped for the possibility that an initiation of dialogue with India could lead Brazil into the nonaligned camp. On the other hand, the idea of dialogue with India horrified the more conservative sectors of Itamaraty, as they considered Brazil to be firmly anchored to the West, particularly through the framework of the Inter-American Rio Treaty. These voices were obviously the ones that were also opposed to the reestablishment of relations with the Soviet Union.75 Pressured by all sides, Kubitschek faced a diplomatic dilemma and refused to make an immediate decision. Alencar, invited to an informal meeting with Nehru, received strict instructions to avoid the issue entirely, allegedly because his government was under “huge pressure” from the Portuguese embassy.76
Indeed, domestic conservatives and the Portuguese ambassador eventually combined efforts, agreeing to separately contact the U.S. embassy in Rio de Janeiro. The secretary-general of Itamaraty, a conservative and arch anti-Communist, conveyed his deep concern about a possible rapprochement between Brazil and India, hoping to provoke a reaction from Washington. Portuguese Ambassador Rocheta suggested to U.S. embassy attaché Woodruff Wallner that Kubitschek was being misinformed by his advisors, who falsely claimed that a presidential visit to India would somehow benefit Brazilian and U.S. interests in South Asia. A few days later, Waller confirmed the State Department’s disapproval of a Kubitschek visit to India while also rejecting any direct U.S. démarches. Such an action, Washington feared, could be regarded as interference by the United States in Brazilian affairs.77
Perhaps surprisingly, Kubitschek accepted the invitation.78 Compelled by his view that it was in Brazil’s economic and foreign policy interests, Kubitschek was also aware that the Argentine president, Arturo Frondizi, had just been invited to New Delhi, and Kubitschek wanted to seize the honor of being the first Latin American statesman to visit independent India. A few days later, however, Brazil’s ambassador to Washington, Walther Moreira Salles, was persuaded by high-ranking Itamaraty officials to convince Kubitschek of the alleged dangers associated with rapprochement between Brazil and India.79 Facing congressional elections in October and hoping to avoid unnecessary controversies, Kubitschek backed down. As it turned out, he would eventually visit India in December 1961, but as a senator of the republic rather than as president.80
After this failed attempt at a major breakthrough in Brazilian-Indian relations, the two countries returned to the status quo, characterized by low-key interactions. Although many Brazilians looked with sympathy and admiration toward India, Brazil under Kubitschek still considered association with Nehru to be too dangerous. Even in mid-1960, when Brazil had the chance to redeem itself thanks to an interest by Indian National Congress leader Indira Gandhi to include Brazil in the route of her goodwill visit to Latin America, the Brazilians once again ruled out an invitation.81 Commenting on Itamaraty in early 1961, the Indian ambassador stated that “there is no real interest in Asian and African countries or their problems.… Despite its high-sounding and oft-repeated declarations on liberty, democracy, on fighting against colonialism, against racial discrimination, [Itamaraty] is a stronghold of conservatism.”82
Brazil’s interactions with India from 1947 to 1961 show that the South American country demonstrated real interest in Asia. During the immediate postwar years, this interest was driven by Cold War assumptions, followed soon after by a broader Brazilian curiosity in India’s model for modernization and Nehru’s nonaligned foreign policy. Together, these factors caught the attention of some within Itamaraty and prompted some tepid reappraisals of Brazil’s international posture. Early Brazilian ambassadors to India embodied this paradox, with sentiments ranging from envy to admiration, the latter leading to bold suggestions that Brazil might do well to emulate India’s dynamic foreign policy. Itamaraty eventually displayed interest in the Bandung movement and notably considered sending an observation mission to forthcoming Afro-Asian summits. Considered within this context, Brazil’s participation in the Belgrade meeting of nonaligned nations in 1961 represented the culmination of a process first initiated in 1956.
This is not to say that Brazil was overly willing to engage in an active partnership with neutralist India. Because it was firmly anchored to the Western camp, Brazil’s rapprochement with India, and to a certain extent with other postcolonial Asian nations, was limited to specific and “immediate” national interests, particularly the solicitation of votes for Brazil at the UN and other international forums, as well as some loose coordination in the struggle against economic underdevelopment. Political interactions remained scant: mere association with nonaligned nations was still perceived by Brazilian elites as not only immoral but also potentially damaging to the Western effort against Communist advances. Even as some Brazilian officials advocated for close collaboration with India, conservatives retained great influence within Itamaraty, a reality that limited subsequent outreach by both President Jânio Quadros (1961) and President João Goulart (1961–64). Economically, the partnership was also something of a mirage: the distance between the two countries, a persisting information gap, the lack of concrete trade links, and to some extent a lack of political will made further inroads virtually impossible.
For its part, India also demonstrated genuine interest in Brazil. Through a cultural and publicity campaign, Indians sought to project a positive image of their nation, including in the areas of culture, economic development, and foreign policy. The case of Goa deserved additional efforts (and evidence suggests the same was true for Kashmir) in order to rally support from the Brazilian government, media, and public opinion, although without significant success. On balance, India was slightly more interested in rapprochement with Brazil, and with Latin America as a whole, as demonstrated by Nehru’s attempts to exchange state visits during Kubitschek’s late 1950s government. While more archival research is needed, available evidence suggests that national interests prompted outreach, which, in turn, would accrue benefits such as trade, enhanced international prestige, and expansion of influence elsewhere in the Third World.
This research was made possible by support provided by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia and the European University Institute. I would like to thank the editors and the anonymous reviewers. A special thanks to Sofia Tonicher. This chapter is dedicated to the memory of my dearest friend, Thierry Dias Coelho.
1. See José Flávio Sombra Saraiva, O Lugar da África. A dimensão Atlântica da política externa brasileira (de 1946 a nossos dias) (Brasília: Editora Universidade de Brasília, 1996), 21–58.
2. Varun Sahni, “India and Latin America,” in Engaging the World: Indian Foreign Policy since 1947, ed. Sumit Ganguly (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 380–81.
3. Varun Sahni, “Brazil: Fellow Traveler on the Long and Winding Road to Grandeza,” in The Oxford Handbook of Indian Foreign Policy, ed. David M. Malone, C. Raja Mohan, and Srinath Raghavan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 524–38; Ananya Chakravarti, “Peripheral Eyes: Brazilians and India, 1947–61,” Journal of Global History 10, no. 1 (2015): 122–46.
4. Jerry Dávila, Hotel Trópico. Brazil and the Challenge of African Decolonization, 1950–1980 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010); Williams da Silva Gonçalves, O Realismo da fraternidade: Brasil-Portugal (Lisboa: Instituto de Ciências Sociais, 2013).
5. For the period between the Revolution of 1930 and the democratization, see Leslie Bethell, “Politics in Brazil under Vargas, 1930–1945,” in The Cambridge History of Latin America, Volume IX. Brazil since 1930, ed. Leslie Bethell (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 3–86. For the process of democratization, see Leslie Bethell, “Politics in Brazil under the Liberal Republic, 1945–1964,” in The Cambridge History of Latin America, Volume IX, 87–100; and Thomas E. Skidmore, Politics in Brazil, 1930–1964: An Experiment in Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 48–64. In Portuguese, see Lilia M. Schwarcz and Heloisa M. Starling, Brasil: Uma biografia (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2015), and Boris Fausto, História do Brasil (São Paulo: Edusp, 2012). For a more detailed account, see, for instance, Ângela Maria de Castro Gomes, Eli Diniz, Aspásia de Alcântara Camargo, Antônio Mendes de Almeida Jr., Ricardo Maranhão, Helgio Trindade, Ítali Tronca, et al., O Brasil republicano: Sociedade e política (1930–1964) (Rio de Janeiro: Bertrand Brasil, 1996).
6. See Gerson Moura, Brazilian foreign Relations: 1939–1950: The Changing Nature of Brazil–United States Relations during and after the Second World War (Brasília: FUNAG, 2013), 237–300; Mônica Hirst, The United States and Brazil: A Long Road of Unmet Expectations (New York: Routledge, 2005), 1–7; Stanley E. Hilton, “The United States, Brazil and the Cold War, 1945–1960: End of the Special Relationship,” Journal of American History 68, no. 3 (1981): 599–624. In Portuguese, see Amado Luiz Cervo, Inserção Internacional: Formação dos Conceitos Brasileiros (São Paulo: Saraiva, 2008), Luiz Alberto Moniz Bandeira, Presença dos Estados Unidos no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 2007); Letícia de Abreu Pinheiro, Política Externa Brasileira, 1889–2002 (Rio de Janeiro: Jorge Zahar Ed., 2004); Amado Luiz Cervo and Clodoaldo Bueno, História da Política Exterior do Brasil (São Paulo: Editora Ática, 1992).
7. Wayne Alan Selcher, “The Afro-Asian Dimension of Brazilian Foreign Policy, 1956–1968,” PhD diss., University of Florida, 1970, 240.
8. Calculated by the author.
9. On M. R. Masani, see Zareer Masani, And All Is Said (New Delhi: Penguin, 2012).
10. M. R. Masani to Nehru, 30 August 1948, File (henceforth F) 2 (4) / 49 AMS (Americas) Division; Indian Embassy in Rio (henceforth IER), “Report on Brazil, Confidential, June 1948–June 1949,” 11 September 1949, F 2 (52) AMS 49, National Archives of India (henceforth NAI).
11. M. R. Masani to Nehru, 30 August 1948.
12. Cervo, Inserção Internacional, 274.
13. In 1957, the Itamaraty still concluded that Asia was a “huge region that only exists in the headlines.… If we exclude India’s peculiar case … Brazilian missions and consulates in Asia only serve to bargain, from time to time, votes for candidates to the United Nations … and to send invitations for conferences.” Ministério das Relações Exteriores (henceforth MRE), Memorandum Confidencial, Divisão Política (henceforth [DP]), 3, 3 January 1957, Arquivo do Ministério das Relações Exteriores (henceforth AMRE).
14. Embaixada do Brasil em Nova Delhi (henceforth EMBND) to MRE, Carta-Telegrama (henceforth CT) 12, 24 December 1948; EMBND to MRE, CT 3, 5 January 1959; EMBND to MRE, CT 43, 3 December 1949, all in Arquivo Histórico do Itamaraty (henceforth AHI).
15. EMBND to MRE, Telegrama (henceforth T) 28, 19 September 1950, AHI.
16. EMBND to MRE, CT 21, 16 February 1950, EMBND to MRE, CT 42, 4 May 1959, EMBND to MRE, CT 56, 2 June 1950, AHI.
17. EMBND to MRE, CT 50, 16 May 1950, AHI.
18. EMBND to MRE, CT 8, 20 May 1952, AHI.
19. Ministry of External Affairs (henceforth MEA), Extract of Note by Mr. B. Shiva Rao, 3 February 1948, F 2 (4) / AMS 49, NAI.
20. IER, M. R. Masani to Bajpai, 12 August 1948, F 2 (4) / AMS 49, NAI.
21. IER, “Report on Brazil, Confidential, June 1948–June 1949,” and MEA, “Report of Min. E. A. & Commonwealth Relations, 1948–49,” 12, Ministry of External Affairs Library, Ministry of External Affairs.
22. IER, Fortnightly Report No. 9, 16 November 1948, F 2 Research & Innovation (henceforth R&I) 48; IER, “Report on Brazil, Confidential.”
23. Office of the Economic Adviser to the Government of India, “A note on trade possibilities with Brazil,” 20 March 1948, F 2 (4) / AMS 49, NAI.
24. M. R. Masani to Nehru, 27 December 1948, F 2 (4) / AMS 49; EIR, “Fortnightly Report 21,” 16 May 1949, F 58 R&I 49; IER, “Annual Press Report (From May to December, 1949),” 27 December 1949, F 3 (5) R&I 50; and “Report on Brazil, Confidential.”
25. IER, “Yearly Publicity Report for the Year 1953, Secret,” F S54 13514 87, NAI.
26. On Goa, see Sandrine Bègue, La fin de Goa et de l’Estado da Índia. Décolonisation et Guerre Froide dans le Sous-Continent Indien (1945–1962), vols. 1 and 2 (Lisboa: Ministério dos Negócios Estrangeiros, 2007).
27. IER, “Press Report, January–June 1950, Secret,” F 3 (5) R&I 50, NAI.
28. IER, “Report on Brazil, Confidential.”
29. EMBND to MRE, Ofício (henceforth O) 18, 29 January 1954, AHI.
30. Brazilian chargé d’affaires Rodolfo de Souza Dantas summed up the spirit of Brazilian diplomats during their missions in India. When asked by the Itamaraty to give his opinion about the closure of the consulate in Calcutta, Dantas replied:
Calcutta is, undoubtedly, one of India’s major metropolises … that provides little comfort to foreigners.… The climate is terrible, many times more depressing than Delhi or Bombay.… People are extremely poor, with no hygienic habits; they wander the streets … like starving dogs.… The human scum are afflicted with outbreaks of unparalleled diseases and turn Calcutta into the cradle of almost all epidemics that regularly strike India. Water, vegetables, meat, the air, it all serves as a fertile ground for the most dangerous microbes, and foreigners need to buy canned food from abroad.… Cholera, malaria, and smallpox join the communists to make life even more unbearable. Calcutta is the larger red area of the country; one avoids going there as one avoids to visiting an asylum of lepers. (EMBND to MRE, O 23, 7 June 1953, AHI)
31. MRE to EMBND, Despacho (henceforth D) 8, 28 November 1953, AHI.
32. EMBND to MRE, O 129, 25 July 1954, EMBND to MRE, O 130, 26 July 1954, EMBND to MRE, O 113, 30 June 1954, EMBND to MRE, O 133, 28 July 1954, EMBND to MRE, O 164, 10 September 1954, EMBND to MRE, O 219, 11 November 1954, EMBND to MRE, CT 6, 15 April 1955, AHI.
33. EMBND to MRE, O 119, 6 July 1954, EMBND to MRE, CT 8, 19 May 1955, EMBND to MRE, CT 29, 30 November 1955, AHI.
34. EMBND to MRE, O 133, 11 May 1955, AHI.
35. EMBND to MRE, O 185, 10 June 1955, AHI.
36. EMBND to MRE, O 4, 7 January 1954, AHI.
37. EMBND to MRE, O 112, 26 April 1954, AHI.
38. In June 1955, describing the Indian premier’s visit to Moscow, Falcão wrote: “The elusive bird [Nehru], although with a curved beak, ultimately ended up hypnotized by the monstrous Muscovite snake, landing, first, on the red carpet of Moscow and, then, let himself screw in the elastic rings of the poisoning snake.… [Nehru] let himself beat and wrap as one of these innocent Amazon’s [region] bullocks whose bones are, previously, triturated to be slowly swallowed up by a similarly strong snake.” Falcão symbolically compared Nehru to a bird that was “gently” trapped by a snake; in this case, by the Soviet Union. EMBND to MRE, O 193, 23 June 1955, AHI.
39. EMBND to MRE, O [Confidencial] (henceforth [C]) 291, 28 December 1954, Arquivo do Ministério das Relações Exteriores (henceforth AMRE).
40. EMBND to MRE, O [C] 291, 28 December 1954, AMRE.
41. Bègue, La fin de Goa, chapters 6 and 7.
42. EMBND to MRE, T [C] 15, 20 April 1954, EMBND to MRE, O [C] 66, 24 April 1954, EMBND to MRE, T [C] 19, 8 May 1954, EMBND to MRE, O [C] 109, 29 June 1954, AMRE.
43. IER, “Reports from Rio, Secret,” Monthly Political Report for April 1954, 25 May 1954, Monthly Political Report for May 1954, 5 July 1954, Monthly Political Report for July 1954, 5 August 1954, 13 R&I 54, NAI.
44. “Pró Lusitânia,” O Globo [Rio de Janeiro, Brazil] 26 July 1954, 5.
45. EMBND to MRE, T [C] 45, 20 August 1954 and EMBND to MRE, T [C] 51, 1 September 1954, AMRE.
46. IER, “Reports from Rio, Secret,” Monthly Political Report for November, 1954, 14 December 1954, 13 R&I 54, NAI.
47. EMBND to MRE, O [C] 333, 29 October 1955, AMRE.
48. EMBND to MRE, O [C] 301, 20 September 1955, AMRE.
49. EMBND to MRE, T [C] 41, 6 October 1955, AMRE.
50. Bethell, “Politics in Brazil under the Liberal Republic,” 87–164; Skidmore, Politics in Brazil, 48–252. In Portuguese, see Claudio Bojunga, JK. O Artista do Impossível (São Paulo: Objectiva, 2001).
51. IER, “Annual Reports for 1958, Secret,” F 3 (13) R&I 59, NAI.
52. Cervo and Bueno, História da Política Exterior, chapter 11.
53. Cervo and Bueno, História da Política Exterior, chapters 11 and 12.
54. MRE, Memorandum (henceforth M) [C] [DP] 3, 3 January 1957, AMRE.
55. On Brazilian-African relations, see Dávila, Hotel Trópico; Saraiva, O Lugar da África; Selcher, “The Afro-Asian Dimension of Brazilian Foreign Policy”; Pio Penna Filho and Antônio Carlos Moraes Lessa, “O Itamaraty e a África: As origens da política africana do Brasil,” Estudos Históricos 39 (Janeiro–Junho, 2007): 57–81; Daniel Patrick Aragon, “Brazilian Foreign Policy in Africa, 1961–1976,” PhD diss., Auburn University, 2001; Samuel Yaw Boadi-Siaw, “Development of Relations between Brazil and African States, 1950–1973,” PhD diss., University of California, 1975; and José Honório Rodrigues, Brasil e África: Outro horizonte (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Civilização Brasileira, 1964).
56. Hugo Gouthier, Presença (Brasília: Fundação Alexandre de Gusmão, 2008), 247–52.
57. Dávila, Hotel Trópico, chapter 1.
58. MRE, M [C] [DP] 239, 20 July 1956, AMRE.
59. MRE, M [C] [DP] 239, 20 July 1956, AMRE
60. EMBND to MRE, T 168, 5 October 1957, AMRE.
61. EMBND to MRE, O [C] 256, 27 September 1957 AHI; EMBND to MRE, O [C] 328, 18 August 1958, AHMRE; EMBND to MRE, O 396, 16 September 1958, AHI.
62. Prime Minister’s Secretariat, “Letter from Prof. C. Mahadevan to Prime Minister suggesting the creation of (1) Educational Fellowships for Brazilians and (2) a scheme for emigration of Indians for Brazil,” 30 July 1956, F 2 (26) AMS 56, NAI.
63. Sahni, “India and Latin America,” 380–81.
64. Venezuela, for instance, issued a formal protest against the Indian government in August 1954. See Miguel Serra Coelho, “The Crisis of Goa between Lisbon, Rio de Janeiro, and New Delhi (1947–1961): The Transnational Destiny of an Empire,” PhD diss., European University Institute, 2017.
65. MEA, “The question of opening of new missions in Latin American countries, Secret” 13-1/55 AMS, NAI.
66. M. R. Masani to Nehru, 27 December 1948, F 2 (4) / AMS 49, NAI.
67. EMBND to MRE, CT[C] 45, 23 December 1949, AHI; EMBND to MRE, T Secreto (henceforth [S]) 213, 29 December 1956, AHMRE.
68. EMBND to MRE, CT 52, 16 April 1957, EMBND to MRE, CT 55, 30 April 1957, EMBND to MRE, O [S] 117, 23 May 1957, AMRE.
69. MRE to EMBND, CT 21, 8 May 1957, AHI.
70. EMBND to MRE, T [S] 213, 29 December 1956, AHMRE.
71. EMBND to MRE, O [S] 78, 17 February 1958; EMBND to MRE, O [S] 92, 7 March 1958, AMRE.
72. “Nehru da Índia fala ao Brasil” Correio da Manhã [Rio de Janeiro, Brazil] 17 April 1958, 1, 12.
73. MRE, M [DP], 11 July 1958, MRE to EMBND, T [C] 37, 11 July 1958, EMBND to MRE, T [S] 58, 12 July 1958, AMRE.
74. Embaixada de Portugal no Rio de Janeiro (henceforth EPRJ) to Ministério dos Negócios Estrangeiros (henceforth MNE), T, 19 July 1958, EPRJ to MNE, T, 23 July 1958, EPRJ to MNE, T, 24 July 1958, Arquivo Histórico-Diplomático do Ministério dos Negócios Estrangeiro (henceforth AHDMNE).
75. Gonçalves, O Realismo da Fraternidade, chapter 9.
76. MRE to EMBND, T [S] 43, 31 July 1958, EMBND to MRE, T 83, 6 August 1958, AMRE.
77. EPRJ to MNE, T, 23 August 1958, AHDMNE.
78. MRE to EMBND, T 53, 26 August 1958, AMRE.
79. EPJR to MNE, T, 30 August 1958, AHDMNE.
80. IER, “Special Report: Political Prospects in Brazil,” 20 December 1963, F 101 (7) WII /63, NAI.
81. EMBND to MRE, T 12 6 July 1960, Subimal Dutt to Indira Gandhi, 11 July 1960, F 52 (19) AMS / 60, NAI.
82. IER, “Annual Political Report for 1960,” 10 January 1961, F 3 (13) R&I / 61, NAI.