This was the situation that was developing in the country and if we had allowed this to proceed further, what sort of an image you could have in the international field? If at all you want to be effective in the international world, you must be in a position to say that this is what we are able to achieve in our own country and this is what we are trying to achieve. During the last few weeks, a few months I would say, I had occasions to visit a few of the western democratic countries or, if I may be permitted to say, the so-called western democratic countries and I had occasion many times to discuss this question ; of emergency with them and I saw a sort of frenzied criticism a completely malicious and mis-informed criticism and sometimes they used to ask ‘We are saying so and you do not think what we think about you is important.’ I had to tell them very respectfully - naturally, our Foreign Minister has to be very respectful when he talks with others, even with you, Gentlemen, he must be respectful.
Shri Vasant Sathe (Akola) : That is natural.
Shri Y B. Chavan : Perhaps, yes. I told them, ‘Certainly, yes. What you think about us is important and we care about it. But in our priority what we think about ourselves is more important for us. You may think, whether we are democratic or not, or whether we have got the freedom of speech, or whether we have got the so-called free press or not. This is what you think, but let us go and see what the large masses of India think about it.’ Ultimately, that is the final proof. May be an individual here or there or some group of people here or there may criticise us. But, like a magic it was seen by the people, who said, ‘Well, this is exactly what was needed to be done.’ Sometimes, the politicians learn from the people. I think all the time the politicians learn from the people. In democracy, people are the great teacher and when this emergency was declared, we saw people saying, ‘This was exactly what was needed to be done.’ It is a good thing that this is done. That was the final verdict and a more important verdict against which you are complaining. All the speeches that I have heard on the other-side are not speeches against what the Government has done, but really speaking, they are complaining that the verdict of the people has gone against them and they just cannot be justified. That is the basic thing.
Therefore I would say, what we are passing through according to me, is a very important phase of history or period of the post-independence India. It can be a great phase of history. This time we took a rather very hard look at ourselves, a hard look at our methods, a hard look at our institutions and hard look at our means and methods and as to how they should change. This is the time, as I told you, I am only thinging aloud with you - the emergency is continuing. Now, we have to see if we are prepared to get the results of this thing. It is not just an emergency. Emergency is just an occasion to have another look at things. Many members have said that and many others would have said it that if we had not done that, what happened in Bangladesh would have been repeated in this country. What has happened in Angola or Mozambique or any other country would have happened here. I tell you from my experience in the last one year. Let us take for example the non-alignment movement. What has happened to the non-alignment movement which is the most potent weapon of the progressive forces in the world today? Thanks to our great leaders like Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Tito and his colleagues who thought of this movement, thought of this principle. They could do it because I think they had made a very correct judgment about the type of world that was going to emerge after the Second World War. There were progressive forces which were expanding and asserting themselves. They had created new hopes in mankind and there were forces which were after distributing the world, interested in status quo. At that time it was necessary, for liberated countries and independent countries, if they had to succeed in their achievements and in their strategies, to remain independent to follow their own methods. In order to do that they had to accept the principle of independent foreign policy based on acceptance of progressive socio-economic objectives. They had to transform the societies, create new societies based on social justice and equality, remove the exploitation that existed in the colonial work, and if they had to do that, they had to follow independent national policies. They had to assert their liberty to act independently of others on merit and that is how this non-alignment movement grew.
