Officers and Members of the Royal Indian Air Force, Ladies and Gentlemen: The first thing that I inquired was whether I can talk to you in our own language because we have won the freedom after a hard struggle after many years of slavery and bondage; and if we do not begin to talk in our own language now, there is a danger of harbouring the remnants of slavery which may grow again into a tree; and, therefore, at least the Armed Forces in India must learn to talk in our own national language.
But I am told that there are many South Indians here who will not be able to understand our national language. I find the same difficulty in the Congress also; and in our Assemblies occasionally, we have to talk, largely or, we have to talk in the foreign language because of the South Indian block in the Congress lagging behind in spite of their great efforts to learn the Hindi language. You must make up quickly because if you go to South India also, you will not be able to talk to the common man except in the provincial language or in the national language. We have to make rapid progress in that direction. For the present, I will abide by your desire and say a few words in the language which you say you can understand.
I have been a soldier all my life. I am not a statesman nor am I a politician. I have joined the armed forces of India which after a hard struggle — a prolonged struggle — got the country emancipated from bondage and although the Commander-in-Chief! of our armed forces departed from this transitory world this year; and you and we all paid our homage to him when he left us all as orphans. It was he who had really started the real struggle for freedom. Freedom’ struggle which we fought was a different kind of struggle and in that struggle there were rules of honour, rules of conduct and rules which governed the struggle in which we were all engaged and which has no parallel in the history of the world’s struggle for freedom.
Mahatma Gandhi came to India in 1915. For one year, he kept himself secluded in his own temporary abode in Ahmedabad to see what is happening in the country. According to the advice of his leader or guru’? Gopal Krishna Gokhale’ who brought him here from South Africa and advised him to stay in India, one year, without doing or involving himself in any public life. Unfortunately, his guru died during that year; but as soon as the first year was over, he started his experiments in different fields. The first was in Champaran, in Bihar, where the indigo planters who had settled themselves in Bihar for several years were exploiting the poor peasants. Their history of sufferings and sorrows are written in the history of that Struggle. That was the foundation of the struggle for freedom.
In a short period without any weapon in his hand—except the weapon of the soul-force—he made the planters surrender; he made the Bihar Government and the Government of India surrender; and since many years, you see no planters in Bihar; they have all disappeared. There was no slavery as bad as the slavery of the labourers in those plantations in Bihar. After that, he started the struggle in Kaira and simultaneously with Kaira, he started the great labour organisation in Ahmedabad when no Trade Union movement was born in India.
It was he who laid the foundations of labour movement in India and that Organisation⁶ today is the best and the most well-organised organisation in this country and yet the movement was of such a nature and the organisation was built on such foundations that there has been the least friction between capital and labour in that city. So the industry there has thrived to an extent that it is the most well-organised industry in India and the labourers the best-paid in the country. That was because he avoided friction and laid the foundation of settlement by arbitration for any dispute that arose between labour and capital.
It is not so in Europe. The movement of Trade Union in Europe or in the West is based on the principle of collective bargaining in which there is an element of coercion and force which always result in bitterness. Now when he first started this movement he had to fast for several days in support of labour which could not stand the organised opposition of the industry. And at the end of his fast there was a settlement which made industry and labour accept the principle of resolving all differences and disputes by independent arbitration. His one principle in all his movements was that we must not always claim to be in the right although we know that we are in the right. We must not insist on our point of view being the final thing. The opponent would also claim the same thing; and, therefore, the best solution between the two warring elements was to refer the matter to an independent arbitration. If that principle today is accepted in the world, there will be no trouble.
But you know what is happening in the United Nations’ Organisation. People assemble there; the big powers, who of all countries, have laid the foundations of world unity, are not able to resolve their own differences and they meddle with the other people’s differences. Those who are not able to compose their own differences have no right to meddle with the differences of other people.
We have seen what price we have paid in Kashmir by going to that organisation. We went to the United Nations’ Organisation in order to bring the dispute to an early end. For six months, we were maligned all over the world by the representatives of Pakistan. And people who had never seen this country and who did not understand what the problem of India and Pakistan or Kashmir was,—they began to hear our case from people who had no bone in their tongue. They, therefore, went on talking anything that came into their mouth and for six months it went on like that. After that, their delegation came here. They visited Kashmir, they visited Pakistan, they visited India, and had long and prolonged conversations and discussions.
Eventually, they made proposals for a cease-fire. We accepted the proposals for a cease-fire. The other party did not. Yet we are where we were. If we were to fight this out by armed forces and if the United Nations’ Organisation is not able to do anything then instead of calling it the Security Council, it must be termed the “insecurity council” which disturbs the security of the law.
You have seen what is happening in Hyderabad. The Nizam says: “I do not want my case in the United Nations’ Security Council.” But the Security Council says: “We are seized of it.” It is so because they have no other thing to do. Therefore, anything that comes before them they go on discussing it which disturbs the security here or which is likely to disturb the security here and thereby it disturbs the security of the world and thus it is a proper and fitting thing to call this organisation an “insecurity council”. How far it is advisable to be a member of that august organisation is a question which has to be seriously considered.
You have seen that we have performed the operation in Hyderabad with the least amount of blood: But has the above Security Council solved any problem which they have handled after its establishment? Take Palestine, take Indonesia, take any question that has been referred to the Security Council. It has not been able to dispose of them and bring about peace; and they are all problems which they are not able to settle. So, in one way, the League of Nations was more or less a harmless organisation. This organisation if it does not improve itself is going to land the world into a terrific slaughter and destruction.
In that context, if the Security Organisation would have been based on the principles on which Gandhiji led his struggle, the world would be happier and there would be no struggle at all. There would be peace. But we all pay our lip-sympathy and homage to that great leader which this country in its degraded state, in the state of slavery of several hundred years, produced. Now it is a free country. If a slave country produced such leaders, why should not India produce such greater leaders who would raise its head amongst the nations of the world. That is our ambition. We do not want to have armed forces to have aggression on any country in the world.
That is not India’s history. Its civilisation is entirely different. India has never made any encroachment on any country throughout its history by sword. It has done so by its culture, by its civilisation, by its force of the soul. That is how it has spread its message in the past, right up to Japan, Afghanistan and other places. When the world hardly knew what civilisation was, our civilisation, without any air force, without any fighting force, spread the message of peace, love and goodwill. That was the message which Gandhiji gave to us, and wanted us to fight with that force—that weapon. We started the struggle. After a hard struggle for a prolonged period in which I had the honour to share his sorrows, his miseries, his joys, in every struggle, and pass prolonged periods of seclusion in jail with him, we got our liberty and the fruits of which we have now to enjoy. Whether we are fit for it or not, the future history can tell.
But the world has progressed fast and it has changed. Some people in the foreign countries criticise us saying, “These people are not following Gandhiji’s ways.” As if they know more about Gandhiji’s ways than we who have passed our life with him. Gandhiji knew that the world is not following him. He knew very well that India was not following him. And if India had followed him, the world would also have followed him. Therefore, he knew India’s limitations and he knew and he appreciated the work of the armed forces also. His ambition was that the world should have no armed forces and all countries should disarm themselves.
That is what the United Nations’ Commission’ also says. When will it be fulfilled? If one country says: “I must have monopoly of the atom bomb or the atom energy,” the other country says: “I must find out its antidote….” How is the world going to disarm itself? If it is not going to disarm itself, India would not do it also even though it accepts the principles of non-aggression. We have never done it: we shall never do it in future also. But Gandhiji never advised us to be cowards. He never advised us to forsake our country or not to protect the country’s honour and the country’s liberty. Therefore, we shall not fail to arm ourselves with the requisite armed force whatever it may cost for the protection of this land. We would be unworthy of the inheritor of liberty. We would be unworthy of the great soul who released the country from bondage if we did not provide sufficient armed strength to protect its borders and not for its internal troubles.
The internal troubles are all solved now. So far as India is concerned, in the Indian Union, nobody will raise his head again. The last ghost⁸ has been buried recently. We have pricked the bubble which created frightening shadows and pictures all over; there will be massacres of Hindus and Muslims; there will be a big invasion from Pakistan; oh! you do not know what war is; don’t do this; don’t do that. But we said we shall see. We shall perform this operation at the proper time when there will be least amount of bleeding; and, thanks to you all, we did it, and we are free.
This is part of ThePrint’s Great Speeches series. It features speeches and debates that shaped modern India.