পাতা:বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র (দ্বাদশ খণ্ড).pdf/১৬২

এই পাতাটির মুদ্রণ সংশোধন করা হয়েছে, কিন্তু বৈধকরণ করা হয়নি।
বাংরাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ দ্বাদশ খণ্ড
১৩৬

 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.