I found there was no need to publish all the material collected verbatim or in full transcript. Yet I felt that there might be something in it of value to the historian and the student of Indian diplomacy, not merely for a comparative study of the conduct of foreign policy in 1974-76 but also for identification of changes in emphasis, imperceptible or otherwise, in the finer nuances of India's participation in international affairs in these years. Keeping these criteria in mind, I have selected thirty-three pieces for this collection which, I hope, will be pertinent to contemporary Indian studies by academicians who might examine and debate, now or afterwards, whether on the international horizon our foreign policy has undergone since 1977 a shift at micro-level in style or substance or has remained a continuous stream as in the preceding three decades.
I have added to these pieces, a rather comprehensive and long interview given by me on February 4, 1979. Another piece included in this collection is the speech I made in Parliament on April 2, 1979 during the debate on the budget demands of the Ministry of External Affairs on the foreign policy of the Janata Government. In a way, these two pieces are retrospective, though I have also attempted to look into the future.
The rest of the material falls into five categories. First, there are policy and keynote speeches, such as those made in Parliament in New Delhi and at the United Nations General Assembly in New York. In the second category are occasional articles and interviews given to national and international media network. The speeches I made at academic institutions and international seminars fall in the third category. The speeches linked with the visits of foreign dignitaries to India or my own visits to foreign countries form the fourth category. Lastly, there are "protocol" remarks at formal functions, welcoming or bidding farewell to foreign ministers and diplomatists. The material classified in the first and second categories is of substantial value and has been retained more or less wholly. But the material in the third category has been edited. Much of the material in the fourth and fifth categories had to be omitted, as it was of a conventional nature.
