From Jawaharlal Nehru's Speeches
Comrades, friends and fellow countrymen,
I am speaking to you on the radio after a long interval. I feel, however, that I must speak to you about the grave situation that has arisen on our frontiers because of continuing and unabashed aggression by the Chinese forces. A situation has arisen which calls upon all of us to meet it effectively. We are men and women of peace in this country, conditioned to the ways of peace. We are unused to the necessities of war. Because of this, we endeavoured to follow a policy of peace even when aggression took place on our territory in Ladakh five years ago. We explored avenues for an honourable settlement by peaceful methods. That was our policy all over the world, and we tried to apply it even in our own country. We know the horrors of war in this age today, and we have done our utmost to prevent war from engulfing the world.
But all our efforts have been in vain in so far as our own frontier is concerned, where a powerful and unscrupulous opponent, and not caring for peace or peaceful methods, has continuously threatened us and even carried these threats into action.
The time has therefore come for us to realise fully this menace that threatens the freedom of our people and the independence of our country. I say so, even though I realise that no power can ultimately imperil the freedom we have won at so much sacrifice and cost to our people after long ages of foreign domination. But, to conserve that freedom and integrity of our territory, we must gird up our loins and face this greatest menace that has come to us since we became independent. I have no doubt in my mind that we shall succeed. Everything else is secondary to the freedom of our people and of our motherland and if necessary everything else has to be sacrificed in this great crisis.
I do not propose to give you the long history of continuous aggression by the Chinese during the last five years and how they have tried to justify it by speeches, arguments and the repeated assertion of untruths and a campaign of calumny and vituperation against our country. Perhaps there are not many instances in history where one country, that is India, has gone out of her way to be friendly and co-operative with the Chinese Government and people and to plead their cause in the councils of the world, and then for the Chinese Government to return evil for good and even go to the extent of committing aggression and invade our sacred land. No self-respecting country and certainly not India with her love of freedom can submit to this whatever the consequences may be.
There have been five years of continuous aggression on the Ladakh frontier. Our other frontier at NEFA remained largely free from this aggression. Just when we were discussing ways and means of reducing tension and there was even some chance of the representatives of the two countries meeting to consider this matter, a new fresh aggression took place on the NEFA border. This began on September 8 last. This was a curious way of lessening tension. It is typical of the way the Chinese Government have treated us.
Our border with China in the NEFA region is well known and well established from ages past. It is sometimes called the McMahon Line. This line which separates India from Tibet was the line of the high ridges which divided the watersheds.
This has been acknowledged as the border by history, tradition and treaties long before it was called the McMahon Line. The Chinese have in many ways acknowledged it as the border, even though they have called the McMahon Line illegal. The Chinese laid claim, in their maps, to a large part of the NEFA which has been under our administration for a long time. The present Chinese regime was established about 12 years ago. Before that, the Tibetans did not challenge it. Even the maps that the Chinese produced were acknowledged by them repeatedly to be old and out-of-date maps which had little relevance today.
Yet on this peaceful border where no trouble or fighting had occurred for a long time, they committed aggression and this also in very large numbers and after vast preparations for a major attack.
I am grieved at the setbacks to our troops that have occurred on this frontier and the reverses we have had. They were overwhelmed by vast numbers and by big artillery, mountain guns and heavy mortars which the Chinese forces have brought with them. I should like to pay a tribute to our officers and men who faced these overwhelming numbers with courage. There may be some more reverses in that area. But one thing is certain that the final result of this conflict will be in our favour. It cannot be otherwise when a nation like India fights for her freedom and the integrity of the country. We have to meet a powerful and unscrupulous opponent. We have, therefore, to build our strength and power to face this situation adequately and with confidence. The conflict may continue for long. We must prepare ourselves for it mentally and otherwise. We must have faith in ourselves and I am certain that that faith and our preparations will triumph. No other result is conceivable. Let there be this faith and fixed determination to free our country from the aggressor.
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What then are we to do about it? We must steel our wills and direct the nation's energy and resources to this one end. We must change our procedures from slow moving methods of peace time to those that produce results quickly. We must build our military strength by all means at our disposal.
But military strength is not by itself enough. It has to be supported fully by the industry of the nation and by increasing our production in every way that is necessary for us. I would appeal to all our workers not to indulge in strikes or in any other act which comes in the way of increasing production.
That production has to be not only in the factory but in the field. No anti-national or anti-social activities can be tolerated when the nation is in peril.
We shall have to carry a heavy burden whatever our vocation may be. The price of freedom will have to be paid in full measure and no price is too great for the freedom of our people and our motherland.
I earnestly trust and I believe that all parties and groups in the country will unite in this great enterprise and put aside their controversies and arguments which have no place today and present a solid united front before all those who seek to endanger our freedom and integrity.
The burden on us is going to be great. We must add greatly to our savings by the purchase of bonds to help finance production and meet the increasing cost of national defence. We must prevent any rise in prices and we must realise that those who seek to profit at a time of national difficulty are anti-national and injure the nation.
We are in the middle of our Third-Five Year Plan. There can be no question of our giving up this plan or reducing any important element of it. We may adapt it to the new requirements here and there. But essentially the major projects of the plan must be pursued and implemented, because it is in that way that we shall strengthen our country not only in the present crisis but in the years to come.
There are many other things that our people can do and I hope to indicate some of them at a later stage. But the principal thing is for us to devote ourselves to the task of forging the national will to freedom and to work hard to that end. There is no time limit to this. We shall carry the struggle as long as we do not win because we cannot submit to the aggression or to the domination of others.
We must avoid any panic because that is bad at any time and there is no reason for it. We have behind us the strength of a united nation. Let us rejoice because of this and apply it to the major task of today, that of preserving our complete freedom and integrity and the removal of all those who commit aggression on India's sacred territory. Let us face this crisis not light-heartedly but with seriousness and with a stout heart and with firm faith in the rightness of our struggle and confidence in its outcome. Do not believe in rumours. Do not listen to those who have faint hearts. This is a time of trial and testing for all of us, and we have to steel ourselves to the task. Perhaps, we were growing too soft and taking things for granted. But freedom can never be taken for granted. It requires always awareness, strength and austerity.
I invite all of you, to whatever religion or party or group you may belong, to be comrades in this great struggle that has been forced upon us. I have full faith in our people and in the cause and in the future of our country. Perhaps that future requires some such testing and stiffening for us.
We have followed a policy of non-alignment and sought friendship of all nations. I believe in that policy fully and we shall continue to follow it. We are not going to give up our basic principles because of the present difficulty. Even this difficulty will be more effectively met by our continuing that policy.
I wish you well and, whatever may befall us in the future, want you to hold your heads high and have faith and full confidence in the great future that we envisage for our country. Jai Hind.
(A Broadcast to the Nation, October 22, 1962)