Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's address to the India League, London October 31, 1971

Following are extracts from the speech:

....You all know that just before the elections, before the split in the Party even, India had gone through a very bad period of drought. It was a period when foreign newspapers started printing headlines such as " Will India Survive? Will Democracy Survive in India? " We in India are used to a great deal of misunderstanding and criticism. When we were fighting for freedom, the question raised was: " Can freedom be won with non-violence? " We stuck to our path and «e proved it could be won by non-violence. Then the question was raised: `' Can such a large country with so much illiteracy be democratic? " We proved in our five elections that democracy can work and that democracy has taken deep root in India. Democracy has been an educative process, because with every election we see a greater maturity amongst the Indian people. I can't say that everybody votes wisely, but if there are people who are misled by propaganda or who consider irrelevant factors in their choice, their number is certainly not larger than similar people in countries where there is much more. education and much more affluence.

So this was the situation in India when we gathered together for our new Parliament. We came with high hopes and having raised the hopes of the entire

people of India, we had hardly begun thinking of all the programmes that had to be initiated when, after a week, a very big burden fell on us and a very big event took place across our borders. It has disrupted our lives, but it is something very much more than that. I find that here in England and in other countries which I have visited, this border situation tends to be considered as a very limited problem, as a problem of refugees. I do not want to say that the refugee problem is a small one-9,000,000 people can never be small, no matter where they are-and certainly to have 9,000,000 extra people at a time when you can ill afford to look after your own people is not an easy task. But the problem of Bangla Desh is not merely the problem of the refugees in India. It is a far deeper problem and one which affects us in many ways. The refugees have highlighted the problem for us in India because they have posed not only a tremendous economic burden, they have created social problems, political problems and, above all, the question of the security, the stability and the integrity of India. We are equally concerned with the tragedy which is taking place outside of our country. Rarely has the world witnessed the sort of atrocities and barbarities which we hear described by the refugees who are daily pouring in.

At the time when I was working for the India League, our main concern was freedom for India, but we were no less concerned about what was happening in Europe, because that was the time when there was the Spanish Civil War, it was a time when Fascism and Nazism were gaining strength in Europe and the India League was rightly concerned with all these movements and all these troubles because we believed that if man's spirit is crushed anywhere that is a defeat for all of mankind.

Today, the problem of Bangla Desh is the same. It should be of concern to every human being who believes in freedom, who believes in basic human rights, who believes in democracy. Of course, there can be no democracy unless there are basic human rights. I would not like any of you to think that either I myself, or the Government of India, or even the people of India, are in any way against Pakistan or the people of Pakistan. Far from it. We have always wished them well because we believe it is in our interests that in our neighbouring country also there should be peace, stability and progress. We know that just as our major problem is the problem of poverty and disparities, this is also the problem of Pakistan. We are deeply concerned about the welfare of the people there. But we know also that peace and stability, prosperity and progress, can only come when you pay attention to the wants of all your people. In India also, we have areas which are backward, areas which have been neglected, but we are trying our very best to see that the neglect of ages is wiped out now. We know that it cannot be done by magic and neither do the people expect us to do this, but we are taking steps in every area to see that the legitimate grievances of the people should be removed and that the people themselves should be involved in planning and in working out their development programmes. This is what democracy has meant for us-not merely that people have a vote but that they should participate in all the programmes to make democracy work-and bring a better life to the people.

Just before we had our elections, there were elections all over Pakistan. We had no contact with any political party there, but we had heard from man} people that there was a likelihood of the Awami League winning the elections. We had no idea that they would win with such a tremendous majority. I think it was perhaps the biggest majority that any free election has given. But, while in our country the result of the election was an automatic one, that a party won and the leader of the party became Prime Minister, across the border the event took a very different, a very tragic and grim turn. I am told that the leaders of Bangla Desh were on March 24 given the impression that something was coming out of the talks being held. There was a possibility of understanding. Later on, of course, it seemed that this type of negotiation was used to bring more troops across the seas, and when they were ready with the troops on March 25, the great massacre began. As is perhaps usual in all such conflicts, the brunt of it was borne by the intellectuals. One of the very first attacks was on the University and a large number, I believe over 300 people, were killed on that very first day in the University area-students, professors, etc.

To India came an avalanche or a flood of people such as, I think, the world has not known. India is used to refugees. It is not a new phenomenon for us. We have had people from many different countries over the centuries and it has been our tradition to open our doors to help them to find a new life. But you just cannot keep on doing this all the time. To have millions of people in a few weeks is more than even such a big country like India can manage. We do not have the place, we do not have the money, we do not have the materials. We welcome help from outside but, as I said, if giving help means that people are going to think only of the refugees and forget the main problem, then it will not help the refugees and it will not help India. Of course, it will not help Bangla Desh either, because we want the refugees to return, and we are fully aware that they cannot possibly return unless more refugees stop coming. Today, they number more than 9,000,000, but every single day we have 30,000 or 40,000 new refugees coming in. The stream has not ended by any means, and each group comes with new stories of horror which are hair-raising.

So, the first step is that conditions should be created within East Bengal so that more people do not want to leave their homes and their homeland. Then comes the second step of asking these people to go back. The question is whether this is possible in the conditions which exist today and, obviously, it is not possible, because otherwise they would have stopped. We are told in India that we should accept observers from the United Nations. It does not really make very much difference. Perhaps some of you are not aware that we already have ten of them. We have ten observers from the United Nations High Commission for Relief and they have been there since the very beginning. We have nothing to hide and the border, as well as the camps, are open to all the diplomats who are there in New Delhi, or the Consulates in Calcutta. They are open to all the foreign correspondents who visit us time and again. You who are living in England have seen the reports being published in the British newspapers and perhaps you know that similar reports are being published by the American newspapers, by many countries in Europe and other parts of the world. So the version that is coming out is not an Indian version. It is the version of eye-witnesses who have seen these things for themselves. As a matter of fact, most of our information comes from these people. We hardly have any way of having our own information except from the refugees and those people who come from there.

This is a very grave problem for us. It does not concern merely India-it concerns Asia and it concerns the world. Everybody today is busy telling us that we must show restraint. I do not think that any people or any Government could have shown greater restraint than we have in the face of such tremendous provocation and threat to our safety and to our stability. But where has the restraint taken us? With all our restraint we are not getting any nearer to a solution. On the contrary, the military confrontation, as the other confrontations which I mentioned, political, economic, social, administrative, are steadily getting worse.

People have asked me how long can India manage? Actually that date has long since been passed. I feel that I am sitting on the top of a volcano and I honestly do not know when it is going to erupt. So the question is not of how restrained we are today, but of what will happen across the border. We think this is the responsibility of the international community to see that a way out is found. Obviously, the best way, the most humane way, is to have a political settlement and that political settlement can only be with the elected leader of the people of Bangla Desh, and with the elected and accepted representatives of that country.

It seems very strange to us how the situation can be normalised by suddenly declaring that some elected people are no longer there when they are very much in the world. You suddenly say that you are going to have new elections and that new elections are going to solve the problem. They cannot possibly solve the problem. The elections were not considered illegal when they were held, the programme put before the people was well known to the Government and the elections were presided over by the same governmental authority. They had a six-point programme on which they fought the elections and which was supported by the vast majority of the people of both sides of Pakistan. Nobody objected to it. The time to raise an objection was before the elections were fought. They could have said, " well, we don't approve of this programme, we are not going to accept the six points and, therefore, if you want to fight the elections you will have to re-think". I do not know if it would have been proper, but certainly if any objection had to be raised, that was the time to raise it, not when the programme was accepted. The people thought it was accepted and they voted accordingly.

Today, India is faced with a very grave situation. Honestly, I cannot prophesy what will happen or how we can deal with it. I can only see that from day to day the situation is worsening. The crisis is becoming more acute. India is a country which has always stood against war. We have always believed that problems and disputes can be solved by negotiation and by discussions. But there is such a thing as national interest and we cannot allow our national interest, the interest of the people, of their security and their stability, to suffer. This is the situation. But, as I have said to my people in India, which I would like to repeat to all Indians here, the graver the situation becomes, the greater the necessity to be calm and collected and think things out with a cool head. Whatever happens, we must look not only at the near future but at the distant future. We in India will naturally take all those steps which are necessary to secure the sort of future which we have hoped for and worked for before Independence and after Independence.

I want only to say that living at this distance, people see only our faults, our shortcomings, our weaknesses, our quarrels. All these things do exists. We do not want to hide them. We do not hide them. But if you think this is the whole of India, you will be very sadly mistaken. We may have sixteen languages or we may have more languages, that is not important. Each one of those languages serves a population as large as any country in Europe. We do not want regimentation, we do not want uniformity. But the fact remains that under all these fissiparous tendencies, demands, divisions, agitations which are constantly taking place, there is a very strong base of Indian unity. There is also a strong base of self-confidence. Time and again we were told that we could not do something and we have shown that we could do it and we did do it. I spoke to you about our freedom struggle. I spoke to you about democracy. I see that there is a question in 'India Weekly' that India will never be able to feed its growing population. Well, this year, 1971, we are fully self-sufficient in food, eventhough we have paid attention only to wheat and rice. We still have to do a lot of research, we still have to increase production in all kinds of other fields. We were told that planning would not work, and planning certainly has its ups and downs, but it has given us direction. In the last elections, the confidence of the people has given a new coherence and a new strength to the country. Today, it is true that we are facing tremendous problems, tremendous burdens, but do not think that we are disheartened, do not think that we are discouraged. We are full of courage, full of self-confidence, and we know that we have the endurance to bear the burden however heavy. We welcome help, we want your support and your sympathy, but we are not dependent on anybody's help or sympathy.

There is another question asked about why we turn to Russians and not to Americans. Quite honestly, we have not turned to anybody. If help is offered, we are not going to say we do not want it. We shall take it from wherever it is offered provided that it is in our national interest. The over-riding consideration is what is in the national interest. Economic progress and growth, the lessening of poverty and disparity, are important. But, there is something which is more important, and that is our freedom. We are taking only what help does not cast any shadow on our freedom. We have always believed in being friends with countries and we shall continue to believe in that and work for it, but, as I said, the over-riding consideration must be what is in our national interest, and we shall always work for that....

Source: Bangladesh Documents, vol-II, p.257-261