বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র (দ্বাদশ খণ্ড)/৬১
| শিরোনাম | সূত্র | তারিখ |
|---|---|---|
| ওয়াশিংটনে প্রেসিডেণ্ট নিক্সন প্রদত্ত ভোজসভায় প্রধানমন্ত্রী ইন্দিরা গান্ধীর ভাষণ | ভারত সরকারের পররাষ্ট্র মন্ত্রণালয় | ৪ নভেম্বর, ১৯৭১ |
PRIME MINISTER INDIRA GANDHI’S SPEECH AT BANQUET BY
PRESIDENT NIXON IN A WASHINGTON, NOVEMBER 4, 1971
This room is indeed full of history, as indeed is this house in which we are today. This house has been the home of many great men whose ideas and actions have influenced events far beyond the boundaries of the United States.
I remember how thrilled 1 felt as a small girl, when my father first introduced me to the stirring wards of Jefferson and Lincoln. Much has happened in the world since those days. There have been many ups and many downs. But certain ideas and certain ideals have held people together.
I think, although there is so much difference between your country and mine although many miles of land and ocean separate us, there is also much in common between our two peoples, we are both large societies, composed of diverse ethnic clements, proud of our regional diversity, resentful of imposed uniformity. Our peoples are friendly and generous, wanting to be liked, quick to give expression to their feelings, and equally ready to forgive.
Naturally, there have been differences of assessment and emphasis. And since our people and our legislatures live by speaking out, there have been moments of awkward candor. But let also remember that in both our societies the most forthright critics are within ourselves.
I think that a functioning democracy converts this weakness into strength. During our Fifth General ction March, to hich you referred so generously, Mr. President, our people demonstrated the ability of the democratic process to fine answers to national problems. They gave the nation a clear and coherent sense of direction, of renewed self-confidence in and a fresh impetus to our long struggle against poverty.
The instability of the 1960’s which had enervated our growth was overcome. Our plans have benefited by the long-range capital assistance and food aid so generously given by your country. Foreign aid is important because of its direct economic contribution and also as a symbol of the involvement of advanced nations, and more specially of the United States, in the developing world. But the effort in the progress of our country is overwhelmingly and increasingly that of the labor and sacrifice of our own people.
Today, we are self-sufficient in food grains. Net foreign credits constitute a small but useful part of our resources. All this was achieved not easily. And though we have smiled through these years, you know, Mr. President, how very difficult they were for India.
There was the drought during which many people thought we just would not survive. But it was that very time that we utilized to introduce our new agricultural strategy which today has made us self-sufficient.
You spoke of our elections. They were not easily won. I was telling Mrs Nixon just now that we had a very short time at our disposal because we decided to hold the elections a year and a quarter earlier than we need have, because we were just tried of people telling us: “You are the minority Government. You have no right to do this and you have no right to do that". We said, “all right, let’s have elections”. In 43 days I traveled 36,000 miles. I had 375 meetings, all with over 100,000 people, some with 200,000 or 250,000. This was one person’s effort, but it also naturally needed the efforts of hundreds of thousands of other people. Why we won the election was not merely because of our effort, but because we were able to convince the people who are in a majority, the poor people, the smaller business men, the smaller farmers, those who had been under-privileged, the minorities, and, above all, the young people of all classes, that we had something to offer which others did not.
So, the campaign became not a campaign of a political party, but a campaign of the people. I don’t know what happens in the United States, but not all of our workers were equally enthusiastic about all our candidates. (President Nixon: It is the same.) In some places naturally we thought we had the best candidate. In some places we sometimes didn’t for various reasons. But there were many places where we thought we would not win because there was not co-operation between the candidate and those who were supposed to make him win. But this is where the people came to the fore and said, “if this is a candidate belonging to Mrs. Gandhi’s party, we will make him win, whether the party wants him or not, or anybody else wants him or not”. This is how we won these elections.
We had met in the new Parliament for only a week, and like all politicians we were still busy patting each other on the back and congratulating one another, when suddenly our entire world changed. What seemed to be a part of sunlight, just waiting for us to go ahead and solve the problems which remained, was covered with a very large dark shadow. And without warning, a major crisis erupted across our frontiers and well nigh engulfed us, seriously threatening our hard-earned stability.
What has happened is now part of contemporary history, I shall not dwell on it, but may I recall the sheer magnitude of the problem? Can you think of the entire population of Michigan State suddenly converging on the New York State? Imaging the strain on space on the administration, on services such as health and communications, on resources such as food and money, and this not in conditions of affluence, but in a country already battling with problems of poverty and population.
We are paying the price of our traditions of an open society. Of all people surely those of the Unites States should understand this. Has not your own society been built of people who have fled from social and economic injustices? Have not your doors always been open?
Every nation must bear its own cross. Our people have faced this challenge with exemplary unity, self-reliance, and self-restraint. But from neighbors far and near, and from others who value and uphold democratic principles, we expect understanding and, may I add, a certain measure of support.
None of our friends, and especially not those who share common ideals, would expect us to abandon our long cherished democratic principles. If today we are best with economic uncertainty and faced with the grave threat to our stability and security, it is because our democratic code and geographic proximity have made us the inevitable refuge of millions of helpless victims of medieval tyranny.
The circumstance did not allow an analysis of the consequences to our own economy and our society. Our administration, already strained to meet the rising. demands of our vast population, is stretched to the limit in looking after nine million refugees, all citizens of another country. Food stocks built against drought are being used up. Limited resources scraped together for sorely needed development works are being depleted.
The occasion is too scrious for the scoring of propaganda points. Our people cannot understand how it is that we who are the victims, we who are bearing the brunt and have restrained ourselves with such fortitude, should be equated with those whose actions have caused the tragedy.
There is no foretelling how far-reaching will be its consequences. It is for the international community to try to remove the root cause of the trouble. India will not be found wanting in generous responses.
In the meantime, I cannot avoid the responsibility or my duty to safeguard the future of my people.
Mr. President, we are with you in our faith in freedom and democracy. The size of my country, and the complex situations which confront us have led to many prophesics of despair. But India, like the United States, has the great resilience which is born of free society, and out of the very crisis emerge solutions and new resources of energy.
Mr. President, you have evoked admiration all over the world for the imaginative manner in which you have taken bold decisions. I am sure that having a First Lady of such grace and charm is a source of strength to you.
This morning, you spoke of sunshine, and indeed it was a very beautiful day. I don’t know whether you were responsible for it or whether I was, because, in India, I do have the reputation of bringing the weather the people want. Usually, of course, it is rain, it is not sunshine at all, because our crops need rain, and even in the driest of the drought days, when I went somewhere it always rained, not enough to make any difference to anybody, but just two or three drops to say, “well, I was there”. So, perhaps, I had something to do with the sunshine!
But while that sunshine naturally added to the beauty of your very lovely garden and house and the view we have from here, you referred to another sunshine, a deeper kind, which you hoped would light our friendship and give it a greater meaning and purpose.
So, when you mentioned sunlight, something rang a bell in my mind, but I could not think of the worlds immediately. They did come back to me later on. In one of our Vedas which is the earliest existing literature in the world, found this little quotations: “As the lotus gets its radiance with the rise of the sun in the same way the thoughts of friends are auspicious and bring prosperity”.
So let us hope words of friends which have been spoken in this room will bring prosperity. Of course, your country is already very prosperous, but we hope that this prosperity will be shared with those who have not got it, and that you will also more to another king of prosperity, shall I say, receptivity which enables people to enjoy prosperity. You have the material prosperity. We find in many countries there is prosperity, but somehow people are not enjoying it. They are looking for something else, but they don't know that they are looking for.
I sincerely share that wish, not only as a person, but on behalf of the Government and, indeed, the entire people of India, who have very great admiration and friendship for the people of the United States.
I have said how much our people inspired during our freedom struggle by the words of great Americans, and afterwards also by the many deeds of your scientists and others to add to the world’s knowledge and progress.
In India, although many of us think forward into the future, when we want something to say, we invariably look back into the past. There is always some word or sentence written thousands of years ago that could very well have been written today. There are some times less parts of our history (as I am sure you have in America) and some great ideals, which we would like to keep no matter what other progress there is. what other advances mankind make.
So, it is important to have things, but just as important to know how to enjoy them, and how, through them, to share the enjoyment with others.
I would like to thank you once again for your invitation which has made pay visit possible and given me the opportunity of having very useful and interesting talks with you, Mr. President, and tomorrow, I hope to have with some others, and of being present at this very gracious function in this lovely room with so many distinguished people.
May I ask you all to join in a toast to the health of the President and the various First Lady, the future of the great people of the United States, and on friendship between our two countries?