Coming back to the other criticisms, which are very constructive criticisms, I would like to take up first the issue of the Air Force. Naturally, the criticisms offered were about our Air Force. Army, Navy and defence production. Some Members did make mention about the Border Roads organisation too.
The most important fact of last year, 1964, for me was the preparation of the defence plan, because when we have to prepare our country for any eventually, we will have to think for the coming decade or possibly a longer period, and in order to do that, we thought of certain areas in which we should have in a planned manner. So, we decided to modernise and expand the Army, we decided to expand and modernise the Air Force. We have certainly taken note of certain problems of the Navy. I will go into these details a little later and also about border roads and defence production. I will mention each point and the point referring to each area separately.
I will take up the Air Force first, because many Members have tried to touch it. Here I must make mention of one point. Hon. Member, Shri Nath Pai, reminded me of a certain statement that I made last year when I returned from the Soviet Union about non-alignment. The point that Shri Nath Pai made was that for purposes and for the considerations of national security we should not care from where the aid comes. This is exactly what I meant when I made a reference to non-alignment. I was not doctrinaire about that. Non-alignment, in its very essence, means freedom to choose from where you want your help. We do not want to be guided by doctrines or ideologies in this matter. We certainly want to be guided by friendship, not friendliness. At the same time, if we bind ourselves to any particular groups, when really speaking, this inhibition starts asserting itself. Yesterday, I heard a very interesting speech of the hon. Member who is not present here now. He went to the length of suggesting that if we had gone into some sort of an alliance possibly we would not be required to make defence preparedness. That would he the saddest argument if we ever accept it. The idea of going into an alliance is an argument not to prepare yourself. That is a dangerous aspect of it which we must take into account. Really speaking, defence preparedness is in a sense preparing yourself so that you will have faith in yourself. You can have faith in yourself when you have got the capacity to fight, capacity to manufacture the equipment that you want and to develop technical capacities in our country and it is only with the help of these things that you will ultimately succeed in the real defence preparedness. There is nothing wrong in this particular matter because as I said in the beginning the central theme should he national security. I must say that the central theme of national security has much to do with the principle of non-alignment and loyalty to world peace. I have no doubt about it. I am prepared to argue this point, not, on the floor of this House, but somewhere else if Members want to argue that point. My idea is not to go into that point at this stage.
