An Australian Response to Asian Decolonisation: Jawaharlal Nehru, John Burton and the New Delhi Conference of Non-Western Nations

Abstract

This article examines the 1949 attendance of John W. Burton, Australia's Secretary of the Department of External Affairs, at Jawaharlal Nehru's New Delhi Conference of non-Western nations. It argues that initial ambivalence and unevenness, then a swift process of learning and adjustment, characterised both Burton's response to India and the Chifley Government's stance toward change in Asia more generally. Burton's relationship with Nehru's India is used as a case study of the ways that intellectual and cultural preconceptions, as well as firsthand interactions and experience, shaped Australian government officials in their attempts to craft policy responses to the rise of Asian nationalism.