Dow lecture series concludes with ‘Elephants, Mangoes, and Spies’

November 2, 2009 —

by James Fry

The university’s Fall Focus series wrapped up the season with a lecture Tuesday from associate professor of history Dr. Nameeta Mathur.

The lecture was the fifth in the series dedicated to leadership in times of crisis. Mathur’s focus was India’s political relations with Poland, the Soviet Union and the United States during the Cold War.

The professor said the name of the lecture — “Elephants, Mangoes, and Spies: Foreign Relations between Non-aligned India and Communist Poland, 1947-1989” — reflected non-aligned India’s relationship with Eastern Europe. The Soviets loved Indian mangoes, and the Polish sent spies to India. (Also, one Polish leader rode an elephant in India, which led Dr. Mathur to develop the term “elephant diplomacy.”) Mathur’s lecture looked at Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, a pivotal figure in India’s movement for independence. Nehru maintained India’s autonomy from the Soviet Union and the United States. During his ministry from 1947 to 1964, Nehru traveled the world and met with presidents Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower and John Kennedy, and maintained India’s nonviolence and non-alignment.

Nehru also met with Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev. The meeting led to propaganda depicting him as Russia’s best friend outside of non-communist countries. But these relationships brought advantages to both countries: India gave the Eastern Bloc consumer goods in exchange for heavy capital machinery to invest in India’s infrastructure.

Mathur say that, given the times’ troubled relations between Soviets and Americans, every leader’s visit between countries was important.

“I was in a crowd in New Delhi when President Jimmy Carter visited India,” Mathur said. “I remember waving to him, but I am sure he did not see me.”

Biology sophomore Adam Simmons found the lecture very informative. “I found the back-and-forth tug of war between these countries very similar to a giant soap opera,” he said.

Mathur is working on a book about Indo-Polish relations during the Cold War.

“My research is specialization in Eastern European history, my Ph.D. work was in Polish History and my dissertation was in Polish women and sports,” Mathur said. “I really looked at how communism used and abused women and sports to project the superiority of communism.”

As Mathur researched political relationships in the East, she has been astonished by some of the things she’s learned — in particular, how many opportunities the United States had to do good in South Asia and failed to do so, she said.

“The biggest surprise to me is that America, being a democratic nation, chose to support ruthless military dictatorships,” Mathur said. “Coming from that region and seeing this happen is very sad and makes you angry.”

Mathur is the author of the book “A Supportive Matka-Polka: Nationalism and Feminism in Women’s Physical Culture in Modern Poland.” She has written many scholarly articles and reviews and holds a doctorate in modern European history from West Virginia University.

The lecture was the seventh in the annual Hoffman/Willertz series, each year given by a member of SVSU’s history faculty.