The Great Speeches of Modern India

by Rudrangshu Mukherjee

  Now, several hon’ble members have expressed their concern about industrial production. Let me say that I share that concern. But in a situation when you have no foreign exchange, if you have to impose a savage import compression of the type that we have had to impose, then what else could you have expected? And I have been saying this from day one that I am worried about the effects of import compression on industrial production in our country. All I am saying is that we had not taken the measures that we have now, that we are beginning the process of import liberalization gradually and the process of credit liberalization. I expect the industrial situation to improve. But this is a direct consequence of the tremendous import squeeze which has to be imposed to deal with the foreign exchange crisis that our country was facing.

  In the same way, several hon’ble members have raised issues with regard to price rise. I share my concern with them. In my statement, I have said that we have not achieved the success that we would like to, on the price front. I submit to you that considering the handicaps that we have had, the handicaps of a large overhang of excess liquidity, considering that we have to put a savage imports squeeze so that domestic supplies become inadequate, considering the shortage of foreign exchange, we had to send even essential commodities like wheat and rice outside the country so that we could import fertilizer and diesel. Taking all these factors into account, to expect that the price situation could be brought under control in a short period of time, I am afraid, is unrealistic, as I was saying from day one.

  And I can assure you that if we persist with the path that we have chosen, if this hon’ble House supports us in correcting the fiscal imbalances about which Nirmal babu spoke, and if we also persist with the path of supply management, I am confident that the price situation will improve day by day. Now that our foreign exchange position has improved, we can import vegetable oils also. If we do all this, the situation will certainly improve…

  Finally, Mr Deputy Speaker, I had promised to this House that I would place this letter of intent before this august House to convince the hon’ble members that what we have done in this letter of intent is no more than the restatement of policies approved by this House.

  Therefore, all this propaganda inside the House and outside the House that somehow we have sold this country’s national interests, is incorrect. I think this letter of intent with its strong emphasis on growth and equity, strong emphasis on poverty alleviation, strong emphasis on rural development and strong emphasis on environmental protection, gives the lie to those who perpetuate this propaganda that we are out to sell this country’s honour and interests.

  With these words, I would like to thank all the hon’ble members who participated in this debate.

  The future of Indo-US relations (Washington D.C., May 1994)

  P.V. NARASIMHA RAO (1921–2004)

  Narasimha Rao was a low-key but very cerebral Prime Minister. He had no charisma and very little style but he turned around India’s policies and standing in two important spheres. He inaugurated through his Finance Minister, Manmohan Singh, the era of liberalization and economic reform, and thus set India on the path of economic growth and development. He also completely altered the direction of India’s foreign policy. During the Cold War, India had followed a policy of non-alignment but on all crucial matters had supported the Soviet Union. This had only increased India’s distance from USA. The collapse of communism left India’s foreign policy without any direction and adrift from the world’s only super power. Rao single-handedly gave to India’s foreign policy a pro-US direction. In this speech, Rao does this with amazing intellectual depth and deftness. He was also the only Prime Minister after Nehru who wrote his own speeches.

  It is with great pleasure and a deep sense of honour that I address you today. Standing in this august hall, as two great Indian statesmen did before me, is an inspiration to all, who hold democracy and freedom above all else. If, as Thomas Carlyle once wrote, ‘the history of the world is but the biography of great men,’ then much of the world’s recent history is owed to these chambers.

  The histories of our two nations have been intertwined by the words and deeds of great men and women. Christopher Columbus set off to discover a new route to India, only to discover a new world. Out of that unintended discovery was born a great nation. Undaunted by, rather big difference, he discovered in his destination, Columbus remarked, this time with perfect accuracy, that the more you go East, the more you are assured to come upon the West. Thus America has a special place in the Indian thinking, as a continent found further east of the known East. This direction is significant in its own way.

  In his first inaugural address, Thomas Jefferson spoke of, ‘freedom of religion, freedom of Press, and freedom of person under the protection of habeas corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected.’ When India gained independence, we accepted these fundamental freedoms, and looked to the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights while formulating the Constitution of the world’s largest democracy. Now, both countries are forever joined by the shared values of secularism, political pluralism and the rule of law.

  The spirit of America’s Declaration of Independence so moved Indian spiritual leader, Swami Vivekananda, that on July 4, 1898, he wrote a poem titled, ‘To the Fourth of July’:

  ‘Move on, O Lord, in the resistless path!

  Till the high noon overspreads the world,

  Till every land reflects Thy light,

  Till men and women with uplifted head

  Behold their shackles broken, and

  Know in springtime joy, their life renewed.’

  The author Henry David Thoreau was influenced by the early Indian philosophy and thought, from which he drew his inspiration for the essay, ‘Duty of Civil Disobedience.’He wrote, ‘If the law is of such a nature that it requires you to be an agent of injustice to another, then I say, break the law, let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine.’

  Thoreau’s essay influenced Mahatma Gandhi tremendously while he was in South Africa, and in fact gave him the inspiration for the great non-violent civil disobedience he was to practise in the subsequent years so effectively. I am sure, his spirit showers his choicest blessings on free and democratic South Africa today.

  In turn, Gandhi inspired Dr Martin Luther King, who learned of Gandhi that ‘non-violent resistance paralysed and confused the power structure against which it was directed.’ Dr King wrote that ‘Gandhi was probably the first person in history to lift the love ethic of Jesus above mere interaction between individuals, to a powerful and effective social force on a large scale. It was in this Gandhian emphasis on love and non-violence that I discovered the method of social reform that I had been seeking for so many months.’

  Thus the United States and India have learned a great deal from each other throughout history. Distances did not matter. Indeed distances never mattered in the transmission of ideas, because their medium is the mind. They travel at what is known as mana-vega in the Indian tradition, meaning the speed of the mind, higher than anything anyone has ever imagined or can ever imagine.

  So ideas, and born of them ideals, have echoed back and forth between India and America. Some perceived them, some experienced them, others did not, as often happens. Swami Vivekananda, Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, Thoreau, Emerson, Martin Luther King and many others, known and unknown—all these names seemed to belong to one nation—of human beings. Hundreds of American missionaries spread into the remotest tribal areas of India, learned their complicated languages and numberless dialects and served the people there with unparalleled devotion. I am personally acquainted with some of their sons and daughters, and a few who were born in my own district.

  For over a century grew this great friendship, a relationship purely between the peoples, with no trace of domination or selfish motive of any kind. Americans rejoiced in India’s political freedom. India for ever acknowledges the debt we owe to Franklin Delano Roosevelt for his role in pleading wit
h the British for India’s independence. Everything looked fine.

  We had the unique opportunity of shaping the history of the postwar world—a history which could have offered the peace dividend to all, East or West, North or South, by enabling countries to attain their full potential by giving their peoples the better life they deserved, but which they had been deprived of for ages.

  Then came the Cold War…

  That great opportunity seemed to be slipping through our fingers, even as we tried to hold it in our hands. Today, we have to worry about the fingers.

  I shall now skip the Cold War. Not being a historian, I am under no obligation to recount it. Being transient, term-bound representatives of our peoples, you and I have neither the time nor the need to review what we do not wish to repeat. It is the future we have to think about, in fact worry about. And, of course, the fingers.

  The fingers are simply, democracy and development. From my own personal experience, I have no doubt that this is an extremely difficult combination—and equally essential, in India’s view.

  India has undertaken the first steps to shaping of our history for the next generation. After decades of centralized economic policies, India recently embarked on a reform programme designed to modernize our economy, liberalize trade and realize our economic potential. We welcomed private investment and competition, and encouraged free market growth. As a result, India is becoming globally competitive and the standard of living of her citizens is gradually on the rise. The momentum of these reforms will carry India into the next century as the single largest free market in the world.

  Perhaps, the most impressive part of India’s ambitious economic reform programme is the smoothness with which the transition from a closed, protected economy to an open, export-oriented economy has occurred. Far-reaching changes have been undertaken in a short span of three years, at the same time, devising prompt and effective steps to obviate severe social consequences, which could have threatened future reforms. With these steps, coupled with popular support and a broad consensus across India’s diverse political spectrum, the reform process has now acquired a momentum of its own.

  The impact of the changes in India has had a profound effect on Indo-US economic relations and has benefited both the countries. American firms have been in the forefront of forging a new economic relationship. India’s vast domestic market, huge educated, skilled and semi-skilled work force, sound financial institutions and time-tested, and democratic system offer tremendous investment opportunities for forward-looking companies.

  In shaping our history for the next century, we must look ahead to greater trade between nations. An unfortunate by-product of the past half century was the introduction of weapons of mass destruction around the world. The difficult and complex question of nuclear weapons’ proliferation can be effectively addressed only when we consider their global reach, requiring similar global solutions.

  Every nation, large or small, rich or poor, is sovereign and possesses an inherent right and responsibility to its people to ensure their security. I firmly believe that the way to ridding the world of weapons of mass destruction lies in creating a world order based on the universal principles of equality and non-discrimination as a means of enhancing security. The answer that we as nations choose, will shape the destiny of the world in the coming century.

  Progress has been made in establishing an international consensus for banning nuclear weapons testing and halting production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons purposes. India and the US have worked closely together in helping to forge this international consensus. To consolidate these gains, further meaningful steps should be taken towards de-nuclearization, which the international situation now allows.

  And so much more remains to be done. A nuclear ‘no first use’ agreement, indeed an agreement to outlaw the use of nuclear weapon is necessary in the short-term by way of precaution, while serious multilateral negotiations are launched for nuclear disarmament, the objective being a nuclear free world.

  Mr President, the last five years have seen the world become more complex. As old animosities are unleashed by the changes taking place around the world, we hear demands for self-determination.

  But such a cry when heard in firmly established secular and free, democracies like India is totally irrelevant. Such a cry, indeed, was attempted to be made in the United States in the year 1861 and President Abraham Lincoln in his first inaugural address on 4 March 1861 had said:

  ‘I hold that, in contemplation of Universal Law and of the Constitution, the Union of these states is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination—physically speaking, we cannot separate. We cannot remove our respective sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall between them. A husband and wife may be divorced and go out of the presence and beyond the reach of each other, but the different parts of our country cannot do this. They cannot but remain face to face and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between them.’

  Indeed, in 1968 your Supreme Court had to say, ‘When Texas became one of the United States, she entered into an indissoluble relation—all the obligations of perpetual union and all the guarantees of Republican Government in the union, attached at once to the State—it was the incorporation of a new member into the political body. And it was complete and final…’

  India accepts this statement as truly characteristic of a multicultural, multi-ethnic and multi-religious republic like India or the US and as totally unassailable.

  It is the responsibility of nations to preserve the life and liberty of all their citizens under the law, regardless of race, religion and ethnicity. We in India, like you here in this great democracy, are determined in our assertion that the rights of minority groups must be protected vigorously under the rule of law. Our Constitution provides for this, our people demand this and our heritage requires this.

  The task that confronts democratic governments today is to maintain protection of human rights in the face of the most dangerous threat to the violation of human rights, namely the bullets of terrorists. India is committed to protecting its citizens from terrorism and no government worth its name can shirk this responsibility. We are taking scrupulous care to protect the rights of individuals under due process of law and punish human rights violations wherever they occur. In this difficult and delicate task, we are doing all that is humanly possible.

  As regards the United Nations, it has long been a strong defender of the rights of all the world’s citizens. We must therefore promote, in all possible ways, the original mandate of the United Nations—to provide ‘collective security’ as a means of achieving peace.

  The UN framework for pursuing global security through international cooperation must be preserved, despite the problems and limitations that exist. The international community needs to strengthen the UN and provide more resources if we expect it to respond to today’s challenges.

  It is our strong feeling too, that the UN’s decision-making bodies must more accurately reflect the regional situation of states in the world today. In order to chart a new course to navigate these troubled but exciting times, we need to recognize the role which many nations can play in the pursuit of peace.

  Indo-US relations are on the threshold of a bold new era. We have seen unprecedented cooperation in a number of areas. Most recently Indian forces patrolled alongside US and UN forces in Somalia. We share common interests in addressing global environmental crises, combating international terrorism and stemming the tide of international narcotics trafficking. In these areas, the US and India have worked closely together.

  Yet there remain areas where further cooperation is warranted. Export controls on technology, while once a useful means for controlling weapons technology, now hinder developing countries in their efforts to improve the lives of their people. Much of what
is termed as dual technology, in fact, has vital applications in a modern civilian society. Many special materials and complicated computer processors found in missile control systems are also found in hospital intensive care units and global telecommunication systems.

  In October 1949, India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had stated, ‘It was necessary, even desirable, and, perhaps, inevitable that India and the United States should know each other more and cooperate with each other more.’ This was in 1949. Later that year, Prime Minister Nehru predicted that the next hundred years are going to be the century of America.

  The Prime Minister was right. The twentieth century will be known as the American century. Throughout the last 100 years of American and Indian history—through the peaks and valleys of Indo-US relations, Nehru’s words have rung true and a bond has been forged, based on affinity and understanding. The success of Indian-Americans in this country reflects the understanding and mutual respect between the world’s two largest democracies.

  As India stands poised to contribute to global prosperity and peace in the next century, we look forward to continuing our partnership with America and with the American people.

  India is one of the developing countries in which the process of development is firmly established. We have realized that no quick fixes are possible and that there is no substitute for hard work with full involvement of the people. The results achieved in India are commended by some, derided by others, on the basis of physical statistics. In all these appraisals, however, one crucial element that has not figured as it should, is the fact that India’s progress has been achieved in a democratic set-up. This dimension, I submit, is extremely important. As an experienced activist in the Community Development process in India ever since it commenced in the early fifties, I can vividly recall the hurdles that we encountered in the path of development, for which many people blamed our democratic process. Many scholars and experts, including some from this country, told us that we were attempting the impossible, and that at any rate, we were heading for nothing but failure and frustration by attempting development under democratic conditions. It almost became a fashion to assert that democracy was inimical to development and was not suited to developing countries in their initial stages of development. It may also be recalled that several countries had deviated from the democratic system in those years in the name of ensuring development in the first instance, as they put it. These are all facts.