Indira Gandhi Speeches and Writings

Indira Gandhi Speeches and Writings

1. INTRODUCTION
WHEN PAKISTAN CAME INTO BEINGIN 1947 ON THE END OF BRITISH rule over India, it consisted of two wings separated by nearly a thousand miles. Even in the first few years, Bengali-speaking East Pakistan, which accounted for more than half of the country’s population, began to feel that it was denied its legitimate share of political power. During the long years of army rule to which Pakistan was subjected, there was a growing demand for autonomy among the people of the eastern wing. When the country’s first general elections were held in 1970, the Awami League, led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, won an overhwelming victory. The West Pakistan military rulers felt that by virtue of his majority, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman would stake a claim to the country’s prime ministership. Under cover of negotiations with the Sheikh, they made preparations to annul the results of the election. On March 23, 1971, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was arrested and a reign of terror was unleashed. So brutal was the punishment meted out to the people of the region by the military regime that they were completely alienated from Pakistan. The demand for autonomy became transformed into a firm resolve to establish an independent Bangla Desh. Those leaders who could escape the repression formed a government in exile.

A very large number of men, women and children fled from genocide and sought shelter in India. More than ten million people crossed over in eight months. At incalculable strain to her economic and administrative resources, India opened a vast network of camps to give them shelter, food and medicines. Indira Gandhi urged the international community to stop this flood and prevail upon the rulers of Pakistan to reach a settlement with the people of Bangla Desh. She undertook a mission of persuasion to many world capitals, but little came out of it. Meanwhile internal opposition to the Pakistan army grew within Bangla Desh to the proportions of a resistance moven spearheaded by the Mukti Bahini. Pakistan alleged that India was supporting the Mukti Bahini. On December 3, 1971, the President of Pakistan, General Yahya Khan, ordered the bombing of major Indian airfields. The Bangla Desh crisis was thus converted into full-scale war on the eastern and western borders of India.
Thirteen days later, on December 16, 1971, the Pakistani forces in the east surrendered to a joint command of Indian and Bangla Desh forces. After announcing that “Dacca is now the free capital of a free country”, Indira Gandhi unilaterally offered a cease-fire in the western sector. It came into effect on December 17, 1971.
2. PRIME MINISTER’S BROADCAST TO THE
NATION*
I speak to you at a moment of grave peril to our country and to our people. Some hours ago, soon after 5.30 p.m. on December 3, Pakistan launched a full-scale war against us. The Pakistani Air Force suddenly struck at our airfields in Amritsar, Pathankot, Srinagar, Avantipur, Uttarlai, Jodhpur, Ambala and Agra. Their ground forces are shelling our defence positions in Sulaimanki, Khemkaran, Poonch and other sectors.
Since last March, we have borne the heaviest burden and withstood the greatest pressure, in a tremendous effort to urge the world to help in bringing about a peaceful solution and preventing the annihilation of an entire people, whose only crime was to vote for democracy. But the world ignored the basic causes and concerned itself only with certain repercussions. The situation was bound to deteriorate and the courageous band of freedom fighters have been staking their all in defence of the values for which we also have struggled, and which are basic to our way of life.
Today the war in Bangla Desh has become a war on India; this has imposed upon me, my Government and the people of India a great responsibility. We have no other option but to put our country on a war *From New Delhi, in the early hours of December 4, 1971.

INDO-PAKISTAN WAR: BIRTH OF BANGLA DESH, 1971 171 footing. Our brave officers and jawans are at their post mobilised for the defence of the country. An emergency has been declared for the whole of India. Every necessary step is being taken, and we are prepared for all eventualities.
I have no doubt that it is the united will of our people that this wanton and unprovoked aggression should be decisively and finally repelled. In this resolve, the Government is assured of the full and unflinching support of all political parties and every Indian citizen. We must be prepared for a long period of hardship and sacrifice.
We are a peace-loving people. But we know that peace cannot last if we do not guard our democracy and our way of life. So today we fight not merely for territorial integrity but for the basic ideals which have given strength to this country and on which alone we can progress to a better future.
Aggression must be met, and the people of India will meet it with fortitude and determination and with discipline and utmost unity.

3. OPEN LETTER TO MR. RICHARD NIXON*
I am writing at a moment of deep anguish at the unhappy turn which the relations between our two countries have taken.
I am setting aside all pride, prejudice and passion and trying, as calmly as I can, to analyse once again the origins of the tragedy which is being enacted.
There are moments in history when brooding tragedy and its dark shadows can be lightened by recalling great moments of the past. One such great moment which has inspired millions of people to die for liberty was the Declaration of Independence by the United States of America. That Declaration stated that whenever any form of Government became destructive of man’s inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, it was the right of the people to alter or abolish it.
All unprejudiced persons objectively surveying the grim events in Bangla Desh since March 25 have recognised the revolt of 75 million people, a people who were forced to the conclusion that neither their life, nor their liberty, to say nothing of the possibility ot the pursuit of

*Open letter to President Nixon, written on December 15, 1971.

INDO-PAKISTAN WAR: BIRTH OF BANGLA DESH, 1971 173 Pakistan’s integrity was certainly sacrosanct, human rights, liberty were no less so and that there was a necessary inter-connection between the inviolability of States and the contentment of their people.

Mr. President, despite the continued defiance by the rulers of Pakistan of the most elementary facts of life, we would still have tried our hardest to restrain the mounting pressure as we had for nine long months, and war could have been prevented had the rulers of Pakistan not launched a massive attack on us by bombing our airfields in Amritsar, Pathankot, Srinagar, Avantipur, Uttarlai, Jodhpur, Ambala and Agra in the broad daylight on December 3, 1971 at a time when I was away in Calcutta, my colleague, the Defence Minister, was in Patna and was due to leave further for Bangalore in the South and another senior colleague of mine, the Finance Minister, was in Bombay. The fact that this initiative was taken at this particular time of our absence from the capital showed perfidious intentions. In the face of this, could we simply sit back trusting that the rulers of Pakistan or those who were advising them had peaceful, constructive and reasonable intent?

We are asked what we want. We seek nothing for ourselves. We do not want any territory of what was East Pakistan and now constitutes Bangla Desh. We do not want any territory of West Pakistan. We do want lasting peace with Pakistan. But will Pakistan give up its ceaseless and yet pointless agitation of the last twenty-four years over Kashmir? Are they willing to give up their hate campaign and posture of perpetual hostility towards India? How many times in the last twenty-four years have my father and I offered a Pact of Non-aggression to Pakistan? It is matter of recorded history that each time such offer was made, Pakistan rejected it out of hand.

We are deeply hurt by the innuendos and insinuations that it was we who have precipitated the crisis and have in any way thwarted the emergence of solutions. I do not really know who is responsible for this calumny, During my visit to the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Austria and Belgium, the point I emphasised, publicly as well as privately, was the immediate need for a political settlement. We waited nine months for it. When Dr. Kissinger came in July 1971, I had emphasised to him the importance of seeking an early political settlement. But we have not received, even to this day, the barest framework of a settlement which would take into account the facts as they are and not as we imagine them to be.

INDIRA GANDHI: SPEECHES AND WRITINGS

Be that as it may, it is my earnest and sincere hope that with all the knowledge and deep understanding of human affairs you, as President of the United States and reflecting the will, the aspirations and idealism of the great American people, will at least let me know where precisely we have gone wrong before your representatives or spokesmen deal with us with such harshness of language.

4. PRIME MINISTER’S STATEMENT*

I have an announcement to make. The West Pakistan forces have unconditionally surrendered in Bangla Desh. The instrument of surrender was signed in Dacca at 16.31 hours I.S.T. today by Lieutenent-General A. A. K. Niazi on behalf of the Pakistan Eastern Command. LieutenantGeneral Jagjit Singh Aurora, G.O.C.-in-C. of the Indian and Bangla Desh forces in the Eastern Theatre accepted the surrender. Dacca is now the free capital of a free country.

This House and the entire nation rejoice in this historic event. We hail the people of Bangla Desh in their hour of triumph. We hail the brave young men and boys of the Mukti Bahini for their valour and dedication. We are proud of our own Army, Navy, Air Force and the Border Security Force, who have so magnificently demonstrated their quality and capacity. Their discipline and devotion to duty are well known. India will remember with gratitude the sacrifices of those who have laid down their lives, and our thoughts are with their families.
Our Armed Forces are under strict orders to treat Pakistani prisoners of war in accordance with the Geneva Convention and to deal with all sections of the population of Bangla Desh in a humane manner. The Commanders of the Mukti Bahini have issued similar orders to their forces. Although the Government of Bangla Desh have not yet been given an opportunity to sign the Geneva Convention, they also have declared that they will fully abide by it. It will be the responsibility of the Government of Bangla Desh, the Mukti Bahini and the Indian Armed Forces to prevent any reprisals.
obiectives were limited-to assist the gallant people of Bangla Desh and their Mukti Bahini to liberate their country from a reign of *Statement made in Parliament, New Delhi, December 16, 1971.

INDO-PAKISTAN WAR: BIRTH OF BANGLA DESH, 1971 175 terror and to resist aggression on our own land. Indian Armed Forces will not remain in Bangla Desh any longer than is necessary.
The millions who were driven out of their homes across our borders have already begun trekking back. The rehabilitation of this war-torn land calls for dedicated team work by its Government and people.
We hope and trust that the father of this new nation, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, will take his rightful place among his own people and lead Bangla Desh to peace, progress and prosperity. The time has come when they can together look forward to a meaningful future in their Sonar Bangla.* They have our good wishes.
The triumph is not theirs alone. All nations who value the human spirit will recognise it as a significant milestone in man’s quest for liberty. *Means “golden Bengal”.

5. CEASE-FIRE ON WESTERN FRONT|
On March 31, 1971, six days after the great upheaval in Bangla Desh, I had the honour to move a Resolution in this House.
I said then that India’s permanent interest in peace and our commitment to uphold and defend human rights demanded the immediate cessation of the use of force and of the massacre of the defenceless people of Bangla Desh. I had called upon all peoples and Governments to take urgent and constructive steps to prevail upon the Government of Pakistan to immediately end the systematic decimation of a people.
I had concluded my statement by expressing the profound conviction of this House that the historic upsurge of the 75 million people of East Bengal would triumph. We also gave an assurance that their struggle and sacrifice would receive the wholehearted sympathy and support of the people of India.
Today the pledge we then made together in this House and in the country stands redeemed.
It is natural that the people of India should be elated. We can also understand the great rejoicing of the people of Bangla Desh. I share the elation and the joy. But as the Gita says, neither joy nor sorrow should tilt the balance of our equanimity or blur our vision of the future.
Statement made in Parliament, New Delhi, December 17, 1971.

All those who have borne arms, all those who have been involved in the planning and direction of the operations, all the people of India who have responded so generously-these are to be thanked and congratulated.
It is a victory but a victory not only of arms but of ideals. The Mukti Bahini could not have fought so daringly but for its passionate urge for freedom and the establishment of a special identity of Bangla Desh. Our own forces could not have been so fearless and relentless had they not been convinced of their cause.
India has stood for breadth of vision, tolerance of the points of view of others, of being in the battle, yet above it.
We stand for democracy, for secularism and for socialism. Only this combination opens the way for full freedom, gives protection to the weaker sections and the opportunity for the growth of different personalities. We believe that no nation can be built on concepts which are negative or which do not have meaning for all its people. Unfortunately, Pakistan had based its policies on hatred for and confrontation with India.
While we re-dedicate ourselves to our ideals, I hope the people of Pakistan will seek a path which is more in keeping with their circumstances and needs. These twenty-four years we have heard many aggressive speeches and much abusive and false propaganda against us. We cannot believe that this is the true voice of the Pakistani people. They have been kept in darkness by their successive regimes.
We want to assure them that we have no enmity towards them. There are more things in common than those which divide us. We should like to fashion our relations with the people of Pakistan on the basis of friendship and understanding. Let them live as masters in their own house and devote their energies to the removal of poverty and inequalities in their country.
It is this sincere desire which prompted us last evening to instruct our Army, Navy and Air Force to cease operations from 20.00 hours today on all fronts in the West.
I am grateful for the support which all political parties of the country have given throughout this difficult period and specially to this initiative on behalf of peace.
This offer was communicated to the world community by our Minister of External Affairs, Sardar Swaran Singh, in New York. We also had it formally conveyed to the Government of Pakistan through the Swiss
INDO-PAKISTAN WAR: BIRTH OF BANGLA DESH, 1971 177 Embassy. We hope that the people and rulers of Pakistan will appreciate and reciprocate this offer.
The consequences which flow from a failure to do so will rest squarely upon the military rulers of Pakistan. However, regardless of what happens on the Western front, let us not be complacent. The coming months specially will bring new and complex problems. We must be ever vigilant to safeguard our integrity and our interests, and above all the fundamental beliefs of our national existence.

CHAPTER EIGHT
Speeches, 1971-1972

I. DEMOCRACY IN INDIA*
DURING OUR STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDence, IT SEEMED THAT freedom itself would be fulfilment. But, when we achieved it we knew that every completion was a beginning. For us, this was a start of a great experiment in the creation of democracy in an ancient, complex and vast country.
The story of Indian development is not without significance for the rest of the world. How could it be otherwise when it encompasses the aspirations and struggles of over 550,000,000 human beings? Political theorists with their neatly labelled indices have sometimes spoken of democracy in India as a futile quest. To them, democracy could only be a two-party system worked by those who were educated in a particular way. Perhaps as advanced people of the West a generation ago protested that the colonial countries were not ready for freedom, so it was said that the under-developed societies of Asia and Africa were not ready for democracy, and could achieve order only under dictatorship of some kind or, at most, a controlled or guided democracy. Can democracy be guided any more than freedom? Is not a guided democracy a contradiction? Perhaps these questions are irrelevant. For it now seems that in some countries the word “democracy” was used as a shield for reaction and the subversion of freedom. But we did take democracy seriously. To us it conveyed the equality of all people to participate at every level in the development of their country and the functioning of government.
In the choice of political institutions, it is not inevitably the past that is decisive, but the changing conditions of the lives and attitudes of people
* Address to the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House, London, October 29, 1971.

and the capacity of those who are in positions of leadership to involve the largest number of people in the political process.

The British ruled over us for two hundred years. Little did those early colonisers realise that along with their flag they brought the seeds which would destroy their rule. Macaulay, who pleaded so passionately for Western education, did not quite realise that he was undermining the edifice he was so anxious to perpetuate. The nineteenth and twentieth centuries brought ancient India face to face with the imperatives of the contemporary world. And we quickly absorbed all that was relevant and significant in Bentham and Mill, in Rousseau and Voltaire down to Marx and Weber. And all this was grafted on to the Indian sub-continent. And we then had Tagore, Gandhi and Nehru to mention only a few.
Our democracy is dedicated to planned economic development, the peaceful transformation of an old social order and the uplifting of millions of people from conditions of social, economic and technological underdevelopment. Thus, what we are attempting in India is not mere imitation of the Westminster system but a creative application of a meaningful democracy to the vastly different economic and social problems of India.
Democracy was not entirely new to us for its roots could be found also in our old panchayat system. This system probably came into being because the village and the people were too distant from the centres of political power. Today the ancient institution has been transformed into a new organ of self-government at district and what we call block level as a link between the Government’s programme and the people.
The concept of the rule of law and the British pattern of administration may have helped to keep order in the country but much in these institutions has remained static and without changes they are becoming stumbling blocks to progress and democracy.
There are forces in our society as in others which pull in opposite directions. The competitiveness of democracy and of contemporary living seems superficially sometimes to have strengthened the hold of caste, religion and region, for these are now exploited for social and economic gain. But this is a passing phase and these differences cannot weaken India’s fundamental unity nor the basic sense of Indianness which is a powerful binding factor. Paradoxical though it may sound, we believe that the functioning of democracy itself can remove these obstacles on the democratic path.
Education has expanded tremendously. Today there are 2.5 million

SPEECHES, 1971-1972
students in colleges. The number of children in schools has gone up from 23.4 million in 1951 to 83,000,000 this year. But I am sorry to say that we have not done as well as we should in our programme for adult literacy. Without being able to read, a person’s world is a limited one for he cannot share the knowledge and companionship that comes with books. We must do and we are doing more for primary education, for strengthening secondary education and for adult literacy programmes. At the same time, I cannot agree with the common belief in the West that literacy by itself gives greater wisdom or understanding. Our people, illiterate though they may sometimes be, are the inheritors of an ancient culture and philosophy which has sustained them through the vicissitudes of their long history.
Indian voters have shown extraordinary insight and understanding of what goes on around them. If some are misled by false propaganda or diverted by irrelevant factors, their number is not larger than those of their literate—even educated-counterparts in other countries. The Indian voter knows where his interests lie and has exercised his right to vote with great political sophistication in spite of the competitive political platforms of numerous parties, even in the face of threat and violence. It is because of this basic soundness of our people that democracy has taken root in India.

Since long before Independence, the Congress Party has committed itself to certain programmes. Indeed, our leaders had made it clear that we were fighting not only against foreign rule but against all that was evil in our society, against injustice and poverty and social inequality. Our system must therefore cater to the genuine needs of ordinary people without neglecting the long-term development of the country. Development adds a new dimension to the challenge of democracy.
Three distinct streams of thought have combined to produce what might vaguely be called the Indian approach to democracy. There is the stream of liberalism and parliamentary democracy, which emerged out of the British system-parliamentary institutions, political parties, free elections, fundamental rights and freedom, the rule of law, which formed the political core of our democratic system. Parliament is the commanding centre of our political system, and government’s responsibility to the legislature at the centre and in the states is beyond dispute.

In modern society, freedom cannot be the unrestricted play of individualism nor the apotheosis of private interests and private enterprise as against social interest and the public good. Freedom lies in a delicate and continuous balancing of the rights of the individual with the rights of society. Our constitution and our actual political practice provide a larger degree of freedom than is obtained anywhere else in the world. We stand for the freedom of the press, but we do not accept the proposition that freedom of the press means the freedom of industrialists to own the press, or that the right of property should stand in the way of progressive and necessary social legislation to lessen glaring inequalities of wealth and bring the reality of economic freedom to larger sections of the population. We have taken action to eliminate these anomalies. We have sought to amend the Constitution in order to give substance to democracy.

The second major stream is that of socialist thought with emphasis on social democracy and economic planning and developments. Indeed the entire structure of democracy is geared to social and economic development. In Europe, democracy as we know it followed the Industrial Revolution, but in India, democracy with its freedom and pressing popular demand came first, and the process of industrialisation, economic development and major welfare schemes have to be operated in the face of diverse and contradictory pressures.

This baffling combination makes our task more difficult and because of the absence of organised propaganda our achievements appear less spectacular than the accomplishments of others by different methods. But we think that we have gained something in the longer run-not so much in glittering material terms but in terms of human values gained, in terms of human suffering avoided and in terms of the enduring and harmonious development of the individual and society. I do believe that real and lasting social transformation encompassing attitudes of mind and the ways of living of millions of people can be effective only by peaceful means.

The third stream has emanated from Mahatma Gandhi and his philosophy of non-violent revolution. The impact of Gandhian thought and method of democracy in India is indirect, impalpable, yet subtly pervasive. It has supported and enriched India. This whole experiment, this endeavour to combine freedom, socialism and the methods of peace in an immensely complex situation, is taking place in India, not in isolation from the rest of the world, but in the midst of international co-operation and in the glare of world-wide publicity. International co-operation is a constituent element of India’s effort in building a progressive economy and a democratic society. This is why, ever since our independence we have put forward the SPEECHES, 1971-1972
idea of world peace and world co-operation, as an enlightened selfinterest of India.
We believe in and have strictly adhered to the principle of non-interference. But can this be one-sided? Today, there is interference in our affairs and the stability and progress of our country are gravely threatened. As a result of the tragic events in East Bengal, 9,000,000 people have poured into our territory, creating a situation which seems to surpass the convulsions of partition. The crisis in Pakistan is a deep one and the spectre which haunts that unhappy country cannot be exorcised by the usual recourse to blaming India. Two questions arise, first, whether religion by itself can form the basis of a nation state, especially when the state machinery is impervious to the ordinary laws of political development and cultural aspirations, and secondly, whether some action other than that of the bayonet is not necessary to win loyalty. We in India are restrained and calm in the face of provocation but we are bound to protect the interest of our country.
No country, least of all one as vast and varied as India, can be classified under one label, or another. It seems to me that even those who claim expert knowledge of our country are often wide of the mark in their assessment of Indian events. Many specialists tend to fit facts into a preconceived framework of theory about caste and models of development which have no relevance to reality. Even in Britain which has such close historical ties with us, there is a wide gap in the understanding of the forces which have shaped our great history and which are influencing us today. To have a worthwhile dialogue such an understanding is vital. Britain and India must both replace old myths by a more rational approach. Given the necessary intellectual effort on both sides, I am confident that India and Britain can have creative and purposeful relations. It is the hope of bringing about such relations that brings me to London and to this Institute. Thank you for giving me this opportunity.

2. POLITICAL SCIENCE*
The relationship between one who is active in politics and those who study, analyse and comment about it is something like the relationship between an author and critics. Not all authors may like a confrontation *Inaugural address to the thirty-third session of Indian Political Science Conference, Calcutta, December 27, 1972.

with critics, but I can assure you that I am very glad to be here this morning and to have this opportunity of meeting you, even though at some distance.
Our country is today passing through a fascinating period. People know the direction they want to take and the goal they have to reach. They are also fairly certain about their means and instruments and they have the power to wield the means and to move faster. Greater mass
and mass power is being generated. As I said on another occasion and in another country, this is the first time when the people are speaking for themselves. Throughout history we have had great leaders of people but the masses of the people themselves were silent. Somebody was trying to express their hopes, their aspirations and what was in their minds, as Mahatma Gandhi did so beautifully in our own times here. But for the first time today, here and all over the world, the people are coming into their own and expressing their own desires as well as their fears and difficulties.
One of the main differences between our own struggle for freedom and that of other newly-free countries is that under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, our movement ceased to be an elitist one and developed a mass base, while retaining high intellectual and moral sensitiveness. India, which was a cultural entity, became an independent, political reality. But the process did not stop with freedom. We have always regarded freedom not as the culmination but as the beginning-the beginning of an endeavour to fashion an integrated society in which the old divisions of caste, hierarchy and privilege are abolished and new social obligations and linkages are established involving and benefiting all sections.
Twenty-five years have passed since the attainment of freedom. In these twenty-five years, we have come far. Now and then, there may have been a slow-down and even a set-back. But, by and large, the record is that of forward movement, of consolidation and thrust. In spite of invasions from outside, in spite of drought which was the century’s worst and other economic crises, the people have today more self-confidence, greater maturity and, I think, enduring faith in the system they have adopted. The quality of their judgment in successive general elections shows how our people who are far from affluent and, as the ViceChancellor pointed out, have no literacy even, have been politically discriminating and capable of asserting their true interests.

SPEECHES, 1971-1972
I should like to join issue with the Vice-Chancellor a little on that word literacy. Literacy is indeed extremely important, but the question arises: literacy for what? Once you know how to read, what are you going to read? Is it enough that we have literate people and they read what we see large masses of people in literate countries are reading? Perhaps it is better we do not read that. I do not think that literacy by itself has any connection with the growth of intelligence, the growth of judgment, or the growth of values. If there is a choice, obviously we must choose judgment and values over merely being able to make out a written word. But I entirely agree that if you can have both together, it is very much better, because that opens out the windows to the thoughts of others, to other values; it gives us the opportunity to know not only the accumulated knowledge of the past but the new knowledge which is being gained so fast all over the world. But here in India, although we are still very backward in literacy, I think our people have retained sound commonsense; they have retained a shrewd assessment of their own difficulties, conditions and the problems of their local situation and their local area. And these are the qualities which come to the surface when they have to make a decision, a political decision.
It is the people’s will freely and forcefully expressed that accounts for the large degree of responsiveness in the political system and the steady removal of old prejudices and unearned privileges. It is not as if distortions have not arisen. But what is equally remarkable is the prompt endeavour at self-correction. Yet, somehow, when we read books by most of our political scientists, the writings in newspapers and periodicals, much of this excitement is missing. One gets an impression, if you will forgive the term, of unredeemed sordidness. One can understand criticism. In fact, I think it is very necessary in politics, as in all spheres of activity, and it is the duty of the scientists to weigh and evaluate. Political analysts who write on current history in Europe or America are also unsparing in their criticism of personalities, of decisions and trends, but they also manage to convey the power of forces and the fascination of the whole drama.
I have sometimes felt that not only our newspapermen but even our academic scholars fail to see the whole picture. Our system of university education and research seems to be such that we have specialists who excavate a small area without having a broad familiarity with the whole field.
When we speak about the need for change of education and the falling

standards, we are not criticising the functioning of a university or all the universities. What we are saying is that education as it prevails today is not meeting the challenge of life as it is evolving. This is not merely in our country. I think it is so in most countries of the world. Like us, they are battling and struggling with this problem. Some have made a little break-through in isolated areas but there is no doubt that education as a whole has not kept pace with the discoveries and the great forces that are at work all over the world, and if we cannot give that opportunity to our young men and women, we shall not be able to go ahead and progress in the manner which we had dreamed and planned.
Another defect which comes to mind in our books on politics is the excessive use—and I think that this is something which is very important also to the thinking of intellectuals in India—of vocabulary and coordinates which may be valid for Western societies but are not relevant to our own conditions. In nineteenth-century Europe, when the dazzle of the Industrial Revolution was still new, the vogue arose of interpreting political systems and movements in mechanistic terms. Instead of the old metaphor about steering the ship of state, we have new metaphors of economic take-off and so on. But the style of thinking is the same old style. After Darwin expounded his theories of evolution, political scientists constructed theories of social Darwinism and this tendency has continued to our day. Most of these attempts to construct political laws on the analogy of the laws of natural sciences appear somewhat naive to me. Our own political writers have sometimes gone wrong in their forecasts and prophesies mainly because they are content to employ these derivative tools of understanding without undertaking a deeper study of the source of our own tradition and strength and the power of our own conditioning during the formative period of our national struggle and the rediscovery of our identity.
It would be wrong to think that systems work on their own. By speaking of them as self-propelling mechanisms we can commit the fallacy to which I referred earlier. It is men who run systems. When societies are highly organised, leadership might become a mere matter of management. But in our country, leadership has more than an executive role. It has to concern itself more dynamically with ideas and values and with educating the public. The people also expect a great deal more from leadership in India than they do in other countries. Nowhere are the lives of persons in politics more open to public scrutiny than in India and
SPEECHES, 1971-1972
189 this again is due to the high ethical tradition that we have inherited from the days of our national struggle which was more an endeavour to build a new kind of liberated Indian than merely a fight for political independence.
It is true that not all practitioners of politics pass the test, but societies are evaluated by the quality of their aspiration as well as by the capacity of its more prominent individuals. When people speak of corruption, there is a tendency to imagine that bribery was unknown in British times. I concede that there were administrators of high rectitude then as there are now. But the entire old system, whether it was colonial rule or princely rule, was thoroughly corrupt; it does not require great acquaintance with history to know what the old empire-builders did and what they are doing today in the colonial systems which still exist. Academic scholars should help other people to have the complete picture and enable them to use knowledge as a means to improve the state of affairs and to build a better future. Merely by running down the present, we shall not be able to generate the will to correct and improve.
Many instances come to mind to illustrate what I have said about judging a thing in the correct context. You have referred to our Congress
n. I saw in this morning’s paper that it has been referred to as a “fair”. Why is it called a fair? Because vast numbers of people come from all over the country. Why do they come? They do not come for enjoyment. They come for discussions; they come to meet each other. And I can tell you that any political party in the world would give anything it could to have such a fair in their countries and they have said so. In every country I have visited, they ask me: “How do you manage to have this sort of session?” But to some of our people it is a matter for derision, for fun. They cannot appreciate what moves a party, what moves an entire people, and if you cannot appreciate it, then you are not part of the people. Then you are somewhere in your ivory towers; you have no contact with what is happening, and therefore you will never be able to judge the situation.
It is an old question whether history has a purpose and whether science has a purpose. Their purpose is to enlarge knowledge, and the purpose of knowledge is to increase the will and the capacity to act—to act on behalf of justice and human welfare. To my mind, political science is not a fragmentary science but a total one. It cannot be content with the study of political systems and theories. It involves an understanding of psychology and ethics, of sociological and economic forces, of law and the phenomonal development of technology. In all countries of the world, the people are
becoming politically active. Vast sections of the population who had been content to accept the rules laid down for them by others are today astir and insisting on full participation in the political process.
I began the speech by saying that India is passing through a fascinating period. Perhaps humanity as a whole is passing through an extraordinarily important phase which is as full of dangers as of possibilities. The insights of political science can help us to avoid some of the dangers and realise some of the possibilities. But as has been said, if you see no gods, it is because you harbour none. Or to give a more down-to-earth example, something that I read a couple of days ago on the old saying that no man is a hero to his valet. Somebody’s comment on that is: “Not because the man is not a hero, but because the valet is a valet.”
So let us try and look at the problems of this country and other countries from the appropriate angles. You cannot judge what is happening in India from a British, an American, a French, Japanese or any other angle. You have to understand what India has been, what India is, what makes the Indian what he is, what gives this feeling of Indianness. Time and again why should we be asked: Will democracy last in India? Will unity be maintained? I do not think any of these questions occur to the average Indian. He takes these things for granted. He knows we have this Indianness. And the last year has amply proved, if proof were necessary, that any crisis, whether it is a natural calamity, whether it is aggression, has evoked this tremendous unity, this desire to co-operate, to help one another, to make the country strong. Of course, work in peace-time is not so glamorous or spectacular, and therefore, there is a retreat, rather, there is a covering over of that overwhelming unity, and many of the daily differences, quarrels and so on have an opportunity to raise their heads. But this does not change the fundamental character of the country and the people.
Similarly, when we speak of democracy, we are always comparing it with how it functions in America or other countries. What do we care how they function there? We are making our democracy here. Our democracy has to answer the questions of the Indian people. We do not want it to be compared with any other country and it will never work if we do. We do not know if their democracy is good for them in the way they work it. But certainly for us to try and model our system on systems which have obtained or are obtaining today in other countries makes no sense to me at all. Is democracy to be what it was when the word first SPEECHES, 1971-1972
191 came into being in Greece or somewhere? What stage do you take it to? Are you going to change it as the West changes? Whatever we want to do here in India has to be done in the context of our conditions and we have to understand that our conditions are not of now. They are an outcome of thousands of years of history. While we want to change much in the old, nobody can entirely wipe out history, either one’s personal history or a country’s history, or the many things that have gone to form a society, its values, its thinking, even its fears.
So we have to see Indian problems and Indian developments in this context. Only then can we get a true picture and the whole picture. Obviously not all of it is a good picture. There are many fine achievements, there are many fine qualities, but there are also many faults and weaknesses. But we cannot deal with the faults, the weaknesses and the shortcomings unless we are aware also of the other side of the c in, of the achievement and all that is of value.
Indian philosophy has given us a direction. Our politics is not divorced from Indian philosophy or Indian tradition. It is not divorced from the art of India, the music of India. All these together are what make our country and to understand it you have to have some understanding of all these aspects. My father spent his lifetime trying to understand India and finally he wrote a book The Discovery of India, but he said at the end of it that he had unveiled only a very small part of India as it was. The quest is endless. So it is only in that spirit of trying to understand that, I think, political science can have any meaning to the student of today, the student who wants not only to think and to analyse, but to use his analysis and his thought for action, for participating in the great adventure of building a new India.
3. HUMAN ENVIRONMENT*
I have had the good fortune of growing up with a sense of kinship with Nature in all its manifestations. Birds, plants, stones were companions and, sleeping under the star-strewn sky, I became familiar with the names and movements of the constellations. But my deep interest in this our “only earth” was not for itself but as a fit home for man. •Address to the Plenary Session of the United Nations Conference on human Environment at Stockholm, June 14, 1972.
One cannot be truly human and civilised unless one looks upon not only all fellow-men but all creation with the eyes of a friend. Throughout India, edicts carved on rocks and iron pillars are reminders that twentytwo centuries ago the Emperor Ashoka defined a king’s duty as not merely to protect citizens and punish wrongdoers but also to preserve animal life and forest trees. Ashoka was the first and perhaps the only monarch until very recently to forbid the killing of a large number of species of animals for sport or food, foreshadowing some of the concerns of this Conference. He went further, regretting the carnage of his military conquests and enjoining upon his successors to find “their only pleasure in the peace that comes through righteousness”.
Along with the rest of mankind, we in India-in spite of Ashoka-have been guilty of wanton disregard for the sources of our sustenance. We share your concern at the rapid deterioration of flora and fauna. Some of our own wild life has been wiped out, miles of forests with beautiful old trees, mute witnesses of history, have been destroyed. Even though our industrial development is in its infancy, and at its most difficult stage, we are taking various steps to deal with incipient environmental imbalances. The more so because of our concern for the human being–a species which is also imperilled. In poverty he is threatened by malnutrition and disease, in weakness by war, in richness by the pollution brought about by his own prosperity.
It is sad that in country after country, progress should become synonymous with an assault on Nature. We who are a part of Nature and dependent on her for every need, speak constantly about “exploiting” Nature. When the highest mountain in the world was climbed in 1953, Jawaharlal Nehru objected to the phrase “conquest of Everest” which he thought was arrogant. Is it surprising that this lack of consideration and the constant need to prove one’s superiority should be projected onto our treatment of our fellow men? I remember Edward Thompson, a British writer and a good friend of India, once telling Mr. Gandhi that wild life was fast disappearing. Remarked the Mahatma—“It is decreasing in the jungles but it is increasing in the towns!”
We are gathered here under the aegis of the United Nations. We are supposed to belong to the same family sharing common traits and impelled by the same basic desires, yet we inhabit a divided world.
How can it be otherwise? There is still no recognition of the equality of man or respect for him as an individual. In matters of colour and race.

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193 religion and custom, society is governed by prejudice. Tensions arise because of man’s aggressiveness and notions of superiority. The power of the big stick prevails and it is used not in favour of fair play or beauty, but to chase imaginary windmills-to assume the right to interfere in the affairs of others, and to arrogate authority for action which would not normally be allowed. Many of the advanced countries of today have reached their present affluence by their domination over other races and countries, the exploitation of their own masses and their own natural resources. They got a head start through sheer ruthlessness, undisturbed by feelings of compassion or by abstract theories of freedom, equality or justice. The stirrings of demands for the political rights of citizens, and the economic rights of the toiler came after considerable advance had been made. The riches and the labour of the colonised countries played no small part in the industrialisation and prosperity of the West. Now, as we struggle to create a better life for our people, it is in vastly different circuinstances, for obviously in today’s eagle-eyed watchfulness, we cannot indulge in such practices even for a worthwhile purpose. We are bound by our own ideals. We owe allegiance to the principles of the rights of workers and the norms enshrined in the charters of international organisations. Above all, we are answerable to the millions of politically awakened citizens in our countries. All these make progress costlier and more complicated.
On the one hand the rich look askance at our continuing poverty. On the other they warn us against their own methods. We do not wish to impoverish the environment any further and yet we cannot for a moment forget the grim poverty of large numbers of people. Are not poverty and need the greatest polluters? For instance, unless we are in a position to provide employment and purchasing power for the daily necessities of the tribal people and those who live in or around our jungles, we cannot prevent them from combing the forest for food and livelihood, from poaching and from despoiling the vegetation. When they themselves feel deprived, how can we urge the preservation of animals? How can we speak to those who live in villages and in slums about keeping the oceans, the rivers and the air clean when their own lives are contaminated at the source? The environment cannot be improved in conditions of poverty. Nor can poverty be eradicated without the use of science and technology.
Must there be conflict between technology and a truly better world or

between enlightenment of the spirit and a higher standard of living? Foreigners sometimes ask what to us seems a very strange question, whether progress in India would not mean a diminishing of her spirituality or her values. Is spiritual quality so superficial as to be dependent upon the lack of material comfort? As a country we are no more or less spiritual than any other but traditionally our people have respected the spirit of detachment and renunciation. Historically, our great spiritual discoveries were made during periods of comparative affluence. The doctrines of detachment from possessions were developed not as rationalisation of deprivation but to prevent comfort and ease from dulling the senses. Spirituality means the enrichment of the spirit, the strengthening of one’s inner resources and the stretching of one’s range of experience. It is the ability to be still in the midst of activity and vibrantly alive in moments of calm; to separate the essence from circumstances; to accept joy and sorrow with some equanimity. Perception and compassion are the marks of true spirituality.
I am reminded of an incident in one of our tribal areas. The vociferous demand of elder tribal chiefs that their customs should be left undisturbed found support from noted anthropologists. In its anxiety that the majority should not submerge the many ethnical, racial and cultural groups in country, the Government of India largely accepted this advice. I was amongst those who entirely approved. However, a visit to a remote part of our north-east frontier brought me in touch with a different point of view—the protest of the younger elements that while the rest of India was on the way to modernisation they were being preserved as museum pieces. Could we not say the same to the affluent nations?
For the last quarter of a century, we have been engaged in an enterprise unparalleled in human history—the provision of basic needs to one-sixth of mankind within the span of one or two generations. When we launched on that effort our early planners had more than the usual gaps to fill. There were not enough data and no helpful books. No guidance could be ought from the experience of other countries whose conditions-political, economic, social and technological-were altogether different. Planning in the sense we were innovating, had never been used in the context of a mixed economy. But we could not wait. The need to iniprove the conditions of our people was pressing. Planning and action, improvement of data leading to better planning and better action, all this was a continuous and overlapping process. Our industrialisation tended to follow the SPEECHES, 1971-1972
195 paths which the more advanced countries had traversed earlier. With the advance of the sixties and particularly during the last five years, we have encountered a bewildering collection of problems, some due to our shortcomings but many inherent in the process and in existing attitudes The feeling is growing that we should reorder our priorities and move away from the single-dimensional model which has viewed growth from certain limited angles, which seems to have given a higher place to things rather than to persons and which has increased our wants rather than our enjoyment. We should have a more comprehensive approach to life, centred on man not as a statistic but an individual with many sides to his personality. The solution of these problems cannot be isolated phenomena of marginal importance but must be an integral part of the unfolding of the very process of development.
The extreme forms in which questions of population or environmental pollution are posed obscure the total view of political, economic and social situations. The Government of India is one of the few which has an officially sponsored programme of family planning and this is makin some progress. We believe that planned families will make for a healthier and more conscious population. But we know also that no programme of population control can be effective without education and without a visible rise in the standard of living. Our own programmes have succeeded in the urban or semi-urban areas. To the very poor, every child is an earner and a helper. We are experimenting with new approaches and the family planning programme is being combined with those of maternity and child welfare, nutrition and development in general.
It is an over-simplification to blame all the world’s problems on increasing population. Countries with but a small fraction of the world population consume the bulk of the world’s production of minerals, fossil fuels and so on. Thus we see that when it comes to the depletion of natural resources and environmental pollution, the increase of one inhabitant in an affluent country, at his level of living, is equivalent to an increase of many Asians, Africans or Latin Americans at their current material levels of living.
The inherent conflict is not between conservation and development, but between environment and the reckless exploitation of man and earth in the name of efficiency. Historians tell us that the modern age began with the will to freedom of the individual. And the individual came to believe that he had rights with no corresponding obligations. The

man who got ahead was the one who commanded admiration. No questions were asked as to the methods employed or the price which others had had to pay. The industrial civilisation has promoted the concept of the efficient man, he whose entire energies are concentrated on producing more in a given unit of time and from a given unit of manpower. Groups or individuals who are less competitive and, according to this test, less efficient are regarded as lesser breeds-for example the older civilisations, the black and brown peoples, women and certain professions. Obsolescence is built into production, and efficiency is based on the creation of goods which are not really needed and which cannot be disposed of, when discarded. What price such efficiency now, and is not reckless a more appropriate term for such behaviour?
All the “isms” of the modern age-even those which in theory disown the private profit principle-assume that man’s cardinal interest is acquisition. The profit motive, individual or collective, seems to overshadow all else. This overriding concern with self and today is the basic cause of the ecological crisis.
Pollution is not a technical problem. The fault lies not in science and technology as such but in the sense of values of the contemporary world which ignores the rights of others and is oblivious of the longer perspective.
There are grave misgivings that the discussion on ecology may be designed to distract attention from the problems of war and poverty. We have to prove to the deprived majority of the world that ecology and conservation will not work against their interest but will bring an improvement in their lives. To withhold technology from them would deprive them of vast resources of energy and knowledge. This is no longer feasible nor will it be acceptable.
The environmental problems of developing countries are not the side effects of excessive industrialisation but reflect the inadequacy of development. The rich countries may look upon development as the cause of environmental destruction, but to us it is one of the primary means of improving the environment for living, or providing food, water, sanitation and shelter; of making the deserts green and the mountains habitable. The research and perseverance of dedicated people have given us an insight which is likely to play an important part in the shaping of our future plans. We see that however much man hankers after material goods, they can never give him full satisfaction. Thus the higher standard

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197 of living must be achieved without alienating people from their heritage and without despoiling Nature of its beauty, freshness and purity so essential to our lives.
The most urgent and basic question is that of peace. Nothing is so pointless as modern warfare. Nothing destroys so instantly, so completely as the diabolic weapons which not only kill but maim and deform the living and the yet-to-be born; which poison the land, leaving long trails of ugliness, barrenness and hopeless desolation. What ecological project can survive a war?
It is clear that the environmental crisis which is confronting the world will profoundly alter the future destiny of our planet. No one among us, whatever our status, strength or circumstance, can remain unaffected. The process of change challenges present international policies. Will the growing awareness of “one earth” and “one environment” guide us to the concept of “one humanity”? Will there be more equitable sharing of environmental costs and greater international interest in the accelerated progress of the less developed world? Or will it remain confined to a narrow concern, based on exclusive self-sufficiency?
The first essays in narrowing economic and technological disparities have not succeeded because the policies of aid were made to subserve the equations of power. We hope that the renewed emphasis on self-reliance, brought about by the change in the climate for aid, will also promote a search for new criteria of human satisfaction. In the meantime, the ecological crisis should not add to the burdens of the weaker nations by introducing new considerations in the political and trade policies of rich nations. It would be ironic if the fight against pollution were to be converted into another business, out of which a few companies, corporations, or nations would make profits at the cost of the many. Here is a branch of experimentation and discovery in which scientists of all nations should take interest. They should ensure that their findings are available to all nations, unrestricted by patents. I am glad that the Conference has given thought on this aspect of the problem.
Life is one and the world is one, and all these questions are interlinked. The population explosion, poverty, ignorance and disease, the pollution of our surroundings, the stockpiling of nuclear weapons and biological and chemical agents of destruction are all parts of a vicious circle. Each is important and urgent but dealing with them one by one would be wasted effort.

It serves little purpose to dwell on the past or to apportion blame, for none of us is blameless. If some are able to dominate over others, this is at least partially due to the weakness, the lack of unity and the temptation of gaining some advantage on the part of those who submit. If the prosperous have been exploiting the needy, can we honestly claim that in our own societies, people do not take advantage of the weaker sections? We must re-evaluate the fundamentals on which our respective civic societies are based and the ideals by which they are sustained. If there is to be a change of heart, a change of direction and methods of functioning, it is not an organisation or a country-no matter how well intentioned-which can achieve it. While each country must deal with that aspect of the problem which is most relevant to it, it is obvious that all countries must unite in an overall endeavour. There is no alternative to a co-operative approach on a global scale to the entire spectrum of our problems.
I have referred to some problems which seem to me to be the underlying causes of the present crisis in our civilisation. This is not in the expectation that this Conference can achieve miracles or solve all the world’s difficulties, but in the hope that the opinions of each nation will be kept in focus, that these problems will be viewed in perspective and each project devised as part of the whole.
On a previous occasion I have spoken of the unfinished revolution in our countries. I am now convinced that this can be taken to its culmination when it is accompanied by a revolution in social thinking. In 1968 at the 14th General Conference of UNESCO the Indian delegation, along with others, proposcd a new and major programme entitled “a design for living”. This is essential to grasp the full implications of technical advance and its impact on different sections and groups. We do not want to put the clock back or resign ourselves to a simplistic natural state. We want new directions in the wiser use of the knowledge and tools with which science has equipped us. And this cannot be just one upsurge but a continuous search into cause and effect and an unending effort to match technology with higher levels of thinking. We must concern ourselves not only with the kind of world we want but also with what kind of man should inhabit it. Surely we do not desire a society divided into those who condition and those who are conditioned. We want thinking people, capable of spontaneous self-directed activity, people who are interested and interesting, and who are imbued with compassion and concern for others.
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199 It will not be easy for large societies to change their style of living. They cannot be coerced to do so, nor can governmental action suffice. People can be motivated and urged to participate in better alternatives.
It has been my experience that people who are at cross purposes with Nature are cynical about mankind and ill-at-case with themselves. Modern man must re-establish an unbroken link with Nature and with life. He must again learn to invoke the energy of growing things and to recognise, as did the ancients in India centuries ago, that one can take from the Earth and the atmosphere only so much as one puts back into them. In their Hymn to Earth, the sages of the Atharva Veda chanted:
“What of thee I dig out, let that quickly grow over, Let me not hit thy vitals, or thy heart.”
So can man himself be vital and of good heart and conscious of his responsibility.

CHAPTER NINE
Twenty-Five Years of Independence, 1947–1972

1. ARTICLE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS*
THIS YEAR INDIA CELEBRATES THE TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY of her independence. These have been years of change and turmoil everywhere. Deep surging forces have torn asunder our past colonial feudal structures and have combined with the tides sweeping the world to give our post-independence evolution its unique qualities. But our own unvarying concerns have been two: to safeguard our independence and to overcome the blight of poverty.
Many crises and dangers from within and without have obstructed our path but we have taken them in our stride. Contrary to predictions, the country has not broken into warring states. We have not succumbed to civil anarchy. There has been no widespread starvation; on the contrary, we have become self-sufficient in cereals. We have not jettisoned our free institutions, but instead gained greater political cohesion and economic strength. This does not justify complacency but it does give us confidence that the Indian people can rise to whatever challenge the future may hold. Under Mahatma Gandhi’s inspiration, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and the Congress movement formulated a set of principles which have served as our guidelines and which are still valid for us. These are democracy, socialism and secularism so far as our internal affairs are concerned, and non-alignment in our external relations. One or the other of these principles has been the subject of criticism within the country and abroad. But generally speaking, internally there is a more inature awareness of the forces and compulsions of our age, and these principles have coine to form the essential elements of a national programme accepted by virtually all sections of our people, even though there are differences of *Article for the October 1972 issue of Foreign Affairs.

interpretation and regarding tactics. The massive majority with which the Congress Party was returned to power in the fifth general election in 1971 and in the state elections in 1972 is an indication of this.
What holds people together is not religion, not race, not language, not even a commitment to an economic system. It is shared experience and involvement in the conscious and continuous effort at resolving internal differences through political means. It is a sense of “Indianness” which unites our people despite ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity. Most conflicts and tensions in the world originate in the failure to take note of the importance of nationalism.
Two centuries and more of history marked by foreign intervention, domination and exploitation left India backward, apathetic and stagnant. The general scene was one of decay, reflected in the misery of the masses. For us, political independence became inseparable from economic freedom, which in turn could be meaningful to the extent that it served the interests not only of the few but of the many, of the nation as a whole. Hence our energies at home have been chiefly directed toward the reconstruction of our society.
Our national movement was committed not to a doctrine but to a purpose-the modernisation of our society without loss of the Indian personality; the development and integration of industry and agriculture with modern science and technology; the uplift of the masses and the ending of archaic, hierarchical systems in which discrimination and exploitation had become entrenched.
In the economic field, it was clear from the beginning that we could not rely only on private enterprise and the play of market forces, that we would have to establish social control over the key sectors of the economy and adopt measures of economic planning appropriate to the stage of development reached. Our socialism is not a ready-made ideology but a flexible concept. Three successive Five-Year Plans have been implemented and we are halfway through the Fourth. None of them was beyond criticism in formulation or execution. And yet the overall progress of the last twenty-five years is by no means negligible. We have an impressive record of diversifying our industrial capacity and raising industrial output. The Indian peasant has quickly responded to the new strategy, with the state providing irrigation, improved seeds, better implements, fertilisers and pesticides. So marked has been the development of our industry and agriculture, our science and technology, our education and
health, that some argue that India should not now be counted among the under-developed nations.
Although we have acquired certain features of an industrial state and although some classes and groups of our people are visibly prosperous, the vast majority still live in poverty and a substantial minority in crushing poverty. Moreover, the process of development has widened the disparities between different social classes and has created new imbalances between states and between districts within the same state.
Our very progress has drawn attention to the inadequacy of our achievement and to the magnitude of the tasks that still lie ahead. But it has increased our capacity to deal with them. We have realised that reliance on stereotyped processes of economic growth will not make an appreciable impact on the living conditions of the masses for decades to come. Hence, a basic review of our economic policies is now under way. We propose a more direct assault on poverty and its major manifestation, unemployment. Our next Five-Year Plan will emphasise investment and production programmes which are closely related to a minimum level of consumption for all and are linked to the provision of employment opportunities on an extensive scale. This gigantic enterprise calls for institutional changes and innovations.
These radical policies do not conform to the code of capitalism and they may not adhere to orthodox doctrines of socialism but they are desired by the great majority of our people. The privileged do not hide their misgivings. Reform, as in every country where it has been an issue, is being hotly debated. Some of the more glaring inequities of the land system, e.g. absentee landlordism, were removed immediately after Independence but the just redistribution of land and consolidation of holdings are yet to be satisfactorily completed. Industrialisation and urbanisation have given rise to new problems and have further accentuated disparities. However, our commitment to democracy is fundamental. Indian socialism is not a negation of democracy but its fulfilment, and democracy will be imperilled only in the measure by which we fail through lack of foresight or want of courage to respond to the aspirations of our people.
The resources for our economic development have come mostly from the sacrifices of our own people, but we have also received aid from abroad in the form of credits for the purchase of industrial equipment and food. Although aid was originally conceived of as external assistance for supplementing the self-help measures of developing countries, we have found that it is often used by some creditor governments as an instrument to enforce their short-term policy objectives and to secure political and economic concessions unrelated to our development. Aid is effective only if it is guided by considerations of development and when there is assurance of its continuity and not when it can be suspended or withdrawn abruptly. While aid is generally tied to purchases from donor countries, repayment under many of the agreements has to be made in freely convertible foreign currencies, adding to our burdens. At present more than half of the external assistance to us goes for repayments of earlier debts. It is our policy to reduce reliance on aid progressively. We are determined to mobilise internal resources and technological capacities more intensively.
India’s foreign policy is a projection of the values which we have cherished through the centuries as well as our current concerns. We are
t tied to the traditional concepts of a foreign policy designed to safeguard overseas possessions, investments, the carving out of spheres of influence and the erection of cordons sanitaires. We are not interested in exporting ideologies.
Our first concern has been to prevent any erosion of our independence. Therefore we could not be camp followers of any power, however rich or strong. We had equal interest in the maintenance and safeguarding of international peace as an essential condition of India’s economic, social and political development. In the bipolar world which existed in the immediate postwar era, Jawaharlal Nehru refused to join either bloc. He decided to remain non-aligned as a means of safeguarding our independence and contributing to the maintenance of world peace. Non-alignment implied neither non-involvement nor neutrality. It was and is an assertion of our freedom of judgment and action. We have not hesitated to express our views on any major controversy or to support just causes.
In conformity with the objectives of our foreign policy, India sought friendship with every nation. We did not allow past conflicts to impede our new links with Britain within the framework of the Commonwealth. The problem of French possessions in India, unlike those held held by the Portuguese, was solved in a civilised manner by peaceful negotiations. Thereafter, our relations with France grew in cordiality. We have similar relations with the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic and other European countries, both East and West. With the non-aligned countries in Asia, the Middle East,
North Africa and Africa south of the Sahara, there exist special understanding and co-operation based on a common interest in safeguarding freedom and a common struggle against colonialism, neocolonialism and racialism. We have friendships with the countries of Latin America whose concern with problems of development is similar to ours. India has always held Japan in esteem as a dynamic Asian country, and our co-operation with Japan is steadily growing.
We have also tried to have normal relations with Pakistan. Yet successive governments of Pakistan based the survival and unity of their country on the idea of confrontation with India. This has stood in the way of co-operation which would have been to our mutual benefit. India was partitioned in 1947 to solve what the British portrayed as irreconcilable Hindu-Muslim antagonism. Pakistan was based on the medieval notion that religion alone constituted nationhood. Encouraged by the imperial power, the Muslim League claimed that Muslim majority areas were entitled to become an independent nation. Thus, Pakistan was born a geographical curiosity, its two halves separated by a thousand miles of Indian territory. India was left with a very large number of Muslims; they formed the largest of her many minorities. In keeping with her old tradition and the spirit of her nationalist movement, India adopted secularism-i.e. non-discrimination on grounds of religion-as a fundamental state principle. Equal rights and equal protection have been vouchsafed for the followers of all religions. The Muslim population of India has grown since partition from 35 million to 61 million. It is noteworthy that the 1971 census showed that there are 14 million Christians and 17 million others including Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Jews.
Pakistan, on the other hand, clung to the political ideology which had led to partition. Those who came to power in Pakistan had sided with the colonial power in undivided India and had opposed the national struggle These ruling elements, especially after the establishment of military dictatorship, set Pakistan on a course of pointless and seemingly endless conflict with India. Just as in the earlier days when the colonial power had used religious sentiments to blunt the nationalist drive in India, some powers sought to use Pakistan to offset India. Pakistan joined military alliances, which had been formed ostensibly to contain international Communism, but which Pakistan used primarily in order to acquire weapons to be used against India. Moreover, it suited the West to play off Pakistan against India. China gave military assistance to Pakistan with the same purpose. Later, so did the Soviet Union in order not to lose leverage, but soon discovered its hazards. The consequence of this assistance was to strengthen the militarist oligarchy in Pakistan and inhibit the growth of democratic forces there. Hatred and suspicion of India were whipped up to maintain those in power and to divert the Pakistani people’s attention from their demands. Since India remained outside military systems, our defence capacity, unlike that of Pakistan, had to be built up out of our own resources. We have bought defence equipment from a number of countries, however, particularly after the Chinese invasion in 1962 when we received very modest assistance from the United States and the United Kingdom.
Kashmir, as early as October 1947, was the first victim of aggression by Pakistan. This was at a time when there were no Indian forces at all in Kashmir—as acknowledged by the Foreign Minister of Pakistan at that time in the UN Security Council. A large part of that state has been under Pakistan’s occupation for many years. India does not intend to recapture this territory by force; on several oc casions we have given this assurance to Pakistan and have offered to conclude a “no war” pact. Pakistan has rejected this offer repeatedly, trying to invoke third-party intervention in our affairs. Infiltrators and sab )teurs have been sent into Kashmir and other territories, notably in the north-east. Early in 1965, our Kutch area was invaded, and later the same year the infiltration was escalated into an attack on Kashmir which led to fighting all along the western front.
The immediate background to the latest aggression against us in 1971 was the other battle which Pakistan had been waging for many months against its own citizens of East Pakistan (as it then was). India had no part in the internal developments of Pakistan-West or East. We would normally have welcomed the attainment of freedom by any victim of colonial oppression but usually it would have little direct impact on us. Bangla Desh, however, was a part of our subcontinent. How could we ignore a conflict which took place on our very border and overflowed into our own territory? Ten million destitute refugees poured into densely populated areas which were also politically sensitive owing to the activities of Marxists and the Left extremists we call Naxalites. This posed unbearable strains on our economy and on our social and administrative institutions. The terrible stories of genocide and the comings and goings of Mukti Bahini, the resistance force of Bangla Desh, created a volatile situation
for us also. Could we remain indifferent to these developments?
As I told the leaders of the various countries which I visited in October 1971, the situation could not remain static. Several border clashes took place during these tense months, and there was one serious skirmish in November; but we treated these as local incidents. In the last week of November, President Yahya Khan publicly announced that war would begin in ten days and, sure enough, on the tenth day there was a massive air attack on seven of our cities and a ground attack all along our western border. Thus did Pakistan extend its war to India.
However, when fourteen days later, on December 16, 1971, Pakistani troops surrendered on the eastern front, India unilaterally announced a ceasefire on the western front also. On March 25, 1972, we withdrew our troops from Bangla Desh in consultation with the new government. The political map of the subcontinent has been redrawn and the notion of an inherent and insuperable antagonism between a secular India and a predominantly Muslim state has been discredited—not through any design on our part but because the idea itself was untenable and the military dictatorship of Pakistan, totally alienated from its own people, had followed a short-sighted and unrealistic policy. In his address to the nation on June 27, 1972, President Bhutto gave a perceptive account of the events when he said:
The war we have lost was not of our making. I had warned against it but my warning fell on the deaf ears of a power-drunk junta. They recklessly plunged our people into the war and involved us in an intolerable surrender and lost us half our country. The junta did not know how to make peace nor did it know how to make war.
The shock of these events compelled Pakistan to exchange military dictatorship for civilian rule and opened the door to new possibilities for the peaceful resolution of the basic issues between the two countries. I took the initiative to invite President Bhutto for discussions. These have resulted in the Simla Agreement of July 2, 1972, by which Pakistan and India have proclaimed their determination to solve their conflicts bilaterally and without recourse to force, and to seek a durable peace and growing economic and cultural co-operation. The agreement, which holds the promise of settlement of the Kashmir and boundary problems, has been welcomed by almost all sections of the Indian people. It is my hope that the implementation of this agreement in the spirit in which it was made will close the twenty-five-year-old period of Pakistan’s hatred of India, and that both countries will become good neighbours. I appreciate the courage and realistic approach which enabled President Bhutto to come to India. If Pakistan also shows the wisdom to come to terms with Bangla Desh which, under Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, is building a secular, socialist-oriented democracy, the subcontinent will at long last have overcome the main obstacle to its progress.
I have dwelt at length on Pakistan and the problems of the subcontinent for their impact on us is immediate and deep. But we want better relations with China also. Even when we were fully absorbed in our own struggle for liberty, we supported China’s parallel fight against imperialism and sent a medical team to Mao Tse-tung’s Eighth Route Army. We have respect for their culture and cherish memories of past contacts. We were among the first in 1949 to welcome the establishment of the People’s Republic.
Much to our disappointment, the last two decades have failed to fulfil our initial hope that India and China, both great Asian nations newly independent and faced with similar problems, would learn from and assist each other and so co-operate on the wider international scene. We began, as we thought, with mutual confidence and goodwill, but the events of the 1950s brought tension and misunderstanding, culminating in the entry of Chinese troops and their occupation of thousands of square miles of Indian territory in 1962.
It would be an oversimplification to regard this merely as the result of a border dispute. Simultaneous or subsequent developments–such as China’s systematic support of Pakistan against India, her provocative criticism of India for alleged subservience to the United States and later the Soviet Union, and her persistent though futile efforts to promote internal subversion-leave us no option but to infer that the border dispute was the outcome of a more complex policy which was aimed at undermining India’s stability and at obstructing her rapid and orderly progress. After the Cultural Revolution, conditions seem more tranquil, and there appears to be a new orientation of China’s policies. We wonder whether this new mood will also be reflected in China’s policy toward India. The earlier faint signs of a thaw have receded since China’s unreserved support of General Yahya Khan’s campaign against Bangla Desh and India. We are not engaged in any competition with China, nor have we any hostile intentions. We hope that some day China will appreciate that co-operative
and freindly relations between the 560 million people of India and the 700 million people of China are in our mutual interest.
Apart from the Soviet leaders, I think my father was the first Prime Minister to pay a state visit to China. Similarly, the exchange of visits with the leaders of the Soviet Union was memorable in that it was the first time since the October Revolution that a non-Communist personality of Nehru’s stature and the head of a non-Communist government was welcomed officially by the Soviet government; it was the first time, also, that Soviet leaders travelled in a country outside the Socialist bloc. The talks held in Moscow and Delhi resulted in a significant measure of understanding that had more than bilateral implications. They demonstrated that it was possible for two countries such as India and the Soviet Union to maintain good relations and to work together in a friendly spirit in spite of very different social systems and without either having to modify its policies or sacrifice its philosophy and traditions.
The Soviet Union shares the Indian view on the maintenance of peace and the elimination of racialism and colonialism. On these issues it has supported the Afro-Asian stand in the United Nations and elsewhere. When matters vitally concerning our national security and integrity, such as Goa, Kashmir and more lately Bangla Desh, became subjects of international controversy, the Soviet assessment of the merits of the case coincided largely with our own. In strictly bilateral terms also, there has been a steady increase in the range and volume of our co-operationeconomic, commercial and cultural-to our mutual advantage. Economic relations with the Soviet Union are easier for us since we repay them through the export of our commodities. This mode of payment makes the Soviet credits self-liquidating.
The Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Co-operation concluded last year grew logically from this expanding relationship. It affirms the determination of both countries for greater co-operation in various fields and to consult one another, if need be, on suitable measures to safeguard their peace and security. There is nothing in the treaty to which any reasonable person or government could take exception. It contains no secret clauses, nor is it aimed against any country. Yet there have been some misapprehensions that the treaty dilutes India’s non-alignment. It is strange that such criticism comes mostly from those who have vehemently denounced non-alignment all along. In the text of the treaty itself there is explicit recognition and endorsement of India’s policy of non-alignment.
Our relations with the United States started off rather well. At that time, the American people and government showed considerable sympathy for the colonial peoples who were struggling for independence, and particularly for India. However, this phase was short-lived. With the rise of the United States to a dominant world position, Washington’s concern and respect for the national independence of India receded into the background. Everything was viewed solely in the context of checking Communism and containing first the Soviet Union, subsequently China, and now once again the Soviet Union. There was a feverish building of military blocs and a continuous extension of a network of bases stretching across oceans and continents. The logical and practical consequence of this policy was to divide the world into two opposing camps and to expect each country to belong to one or the other-preferably the Western bloc.
A newly freed people, jealous of their independence, could not resign themselves to this position, nor could we isolate ourselves from what was happening around us. Successive U.S. administrations have ignored the fact that India must see her problems and her relationships in a different perspective. They have insisted on interpreting our non-alignment within the confines of a neutralism which they imagined to be slanted in favour of Russia. India was regarded with disapproval and resentment because of her independent policy. This could not but affect the bilateral relations between India and America. Despite fluctuations of mood, our relationship as a whole has been uneasy over a long period.
To our grave concern, U.S. policy as it developed impinged seriously on our vital interests. The admission of Pakistan into the U.S. controlled system of alliances and the massive supply of arms to Pakistan were ostensibly part of the U.S. grand design against Communism, but we cannot believe that the U.S. administration was unaware that these weapons could be and would be used only against India. We took considerable pains to point this out but our protests went unheeded.
Should not the people of the United States ask their government what they have gained from America’s activities in Europe and in Asia? Has the United States succeeded in containing Communism? On the contrary, has not the U.S. government been compelled to build bridges with the non-aligned and to woo the opposite bloc-the hated Communists? I have no doubt that if we had followed the advice of the Western bloc conditions in India would have deteriorated and the extremists would have been strengthened.
In regard to Bangla Desh and during the December war, the United States openly backed Pakistan at the cost of basic human values. This further strained our relations. I do not wish to analyse the U.S. role at that time or go into the misrepresentations which were circulated. But it is necessary to take note of the dispatch of the warship Enterprise to support a ruthless military dictatorship and to intimidate a democracy, and the extraordinary similarity of the attitudes adopted by the United States and China. Imagine our feelings. The original misunderstanding with the United States had arisen because of our contacts with China, the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. We find it difficult to understand why, when the U.S. policy toward these countries changed, the resentment against us increased
We do not believe in permanent estrangement. We admire the achievements of the American people. Indeed, a large number of Americans expressed sympathetic support for the cause of Bangla Desh and India during the last year. We are grateful for the assistance from the United States in many areas of our development. We are ready to join in any serious effort to arrive at a deeper appreciation of each other’s point of view and to improve relations. A great power must take into account the existence not only of countries with comparable power, but of the multitude of others who are no longer willing to be pawns on a global chessboard. Above all, the United States has yet to resolve the inner contradiction between the traditions of the founding fathers and of Lincoln and the external image it gives of a superpower pursuing the cold logic of power politics.
On fundamental questions such as disarmament, the abolition of nuclear weapons, the continuing struggle against colonialism and racialism, the widening gulf between the haves and have nots, the war in Vietnain and the conflict in the Middle East, our stand has been consistent over the years and has been clearly stated in appropriate forums. In this article I have preferred to focus attention on the situation on our subcontinent because it is our special concern and has a significance beyond geographical frontiers. In considering the policies of some major powers, I have confined myself to bilateral relations which are intimately connected with their attitudes to the subcontinent as a whole.
The international scene with which we had become familiar has considerably altered. Do the two recent summit meetings in Peking and Moscow indicate that Communism and anti-Communism will no longer be the ultimate criteria of political and moral values and that peaceful coexistence, which India has been advocating all these years, will be the governing consideration in international dealings? Whatever the motivation, the wisdom of these new approaches is beyond question, provided that the spirit of detente is also extended to other parts of the world. We cannot be sure if thesc flexible relationships necessarily point to a more stable world order. Coexistence by itself does not preclude policies, separately or in concert, which are detrimental to the freedom and interests of third countries. For example, co-ordinated action in the Security Council between China and the United States last year operated against an immediate restoration of peace in Bangla Desh in keeping with the rights of its people. Agreements which promote the doctrine of balance of power or mark out spheres of influence are bound to increase tension and invite instability. No nation will be happy in a subservient role.
Europe has avoided war for more than two decades and is now attempting to build a framework of security and co-operation. But peace is indivisible and so long as there are conflicts and dissensions in Asia there will be no peace in the world. Asia has cradled many civilisations and contains a substantial section of the world’s population. For more than two centuries, it has been drained of its resources and wealth which have contributed in no small measure to the industrial advance and affluence of the West. The countries of Asia are now politically free but the continuing interplay of international forces impedes our struggle against economic backwardness and the shadows of the past. We share many problems which can be solved through co-operation among ourselves rather than merely through assistance from the outside, which has tended to cause misunderstanding among us and which was motivated more by self-interest than by a genuine understanding of our needs.
Each country has its own heritage and distinct personality which it naturally wishes to develop in its own way. But we must also bear in mind our community of interests and take positive initiatives for working together among ourselves and with other countries in order to make a richer contribution toward the evolution of a world more livable for all and of a social order more in consonance with the yearnings of modern man.
2. SPEECH AT MIDNIGHT SESSION OF PARLIAMENT, AUGUST 14-15, 1972
We have gathered from all parts of the country to live again a moment of history when, out of the long gloom of feudalism and foreign rule, India awoke to freedom and democracy. We have come to remember with gratitude the long succession of those who have gone before us. The Father of the Nation reinterpreted our ancient values and traditions and transformed ideals that seemed unattainable into powerful instruments of political action. His message reached out to village and town, inspired the educated, brought understanding to the simplest and awakened long suppressed aspirations.
Our movement was a non-violent one. It released unthought of qualities in our people and revealed the many faces of courage. By participating in a cause larger than himself, every Indian grew in stature. Some groups followed the more familiar path of armed confrontation. Many were the instances of individual daring and self-sacrifice. I recall also the work of the Indian National Army away from our shores.
My mind goes still further back, beyond personal memory, to the great rising of 1857. The immediate cause does not matter. Perhaps deep in the subconscious, underlying sentiments of caste and religion was another stirring, the search for identity.
It was a remarkable century. The darkness of oppression was illumined by great intellects. Men of religion were also revolutionaries. Poets, scientists, indeed people of all professions, were one in a great objectivethe resurgence of the nation.
Ultimately, success was achieved by the countless men and women, unknown and unsung who served our cause by their numbers no less than their dedication.
What was our strength? Oppressed and humiliated as we were, our leaders raised us above fear and hate. Transcending all hardship, we focussed our gaze on a vision of the future. We had faith that a people who moved with dignity and courage could not be cowed; that India awakened could never again be subdued.
We have always believed that freedom is indivisible. We have been in touch with movements for liberation everywhere and have contributed to them. Today we reaffirm our solidarity with the many Asian and African countries which became free with us or soon after, the latest of whom is Bangla Desh, and with all those who are still struggling for freedom or development.
At the moment of Independence, our energies turned from the tension of struggle to the immediate probleins of partition and the vast new responsibilities which we had assumed. That night, Jawaharlal Nehru said in a mood of prophecy: “The future is not one of ease or resting but of incessant striving so that we may fulfil the pledges that we have so often taken.” A quarter of a century has since elapsed, during which we have had our share of failure and success, of tragedy and triumph. And yet we can take pride in the undeniable fact that despite the long sequence of challenges, we are today stronger–politically, economically, and socially. Our national unity, democracy, secularisin and socialismı remain strong and firm.
Our quest has been friendship with all, submission to none. Our fight was not for ourselves alone but for all mankind. Nor was it merely for political independence in its narrow sense. We were determined to change the old order, to eradicate poverty, to emancipate society from rigid stratification, evil customs and superstition.
The struggle for freedom began when the first man was enslaved and it will continue until the last man is freed not merely of visible bondage but of the concepts of inferiority due to race, colour, caste or sex. Only those who are free in spirit can be the torch bearers of freedom and pioneers of the future.
The greatness for which we strive is not the arrogance of military power or the avarice of economic exploitation. It is the true greatness of the spirit which India has cherished through the millennia. Man in the nuclear age stands at a crucial crossroads in his destiny. Let us rededicate ourselves not only to the service of India and her great people, but beyond to the broader goals of world peace and human welfare so that generations yet unborn can live with dignity and fulfilment, as part of the great world family.