বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র (দ্বাদশ খণ্ড)/৬৩
| শিরোনাম | সূত্র | তারিখ |
|---|---|---|
| যুক্তরাষ্ট্রের কলাম্বিয়া বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ে প্রদত্ত প্রধানমন্ত্রী ইন্দিরা গান্ধীর বক্তৃতা | ভারত সরকারের পররাষ্ট্র মন্ত্রণালয় | ৬ নভেম্বর, ১৯৭১ |
PRIME MINISTER INDIRA GANDHI’S ADDRESS AT THE COLUMBIA
UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 6, 1971
Following are excerpts from the speech:
Had I come here just a few months ago and you had asked me what are the difficulties, I would have said: “There are no difficulties now. We are united. We are sure of our direction. And we are going ahead solving our problems one after another”. But just a week after our new Parliament met and we were still, in the way of all democratic societies, congratulating one another on our victory, a terrific new burden fell on us. All of you are aware, what it is. So I do not want to dwell on it. But I would like to point to some questions which arise and which we think are very basic questions. We are told today that because our forces and those of West Pakistan are facing each other on the border, there is a threat of war. And this is true. But the real problem is not because these forces are face to face. The real problem is because of what has happened in East Bengal. If today there is peace in East Bengal it would not matter if our forces are face to face the West or in the East. There would be no war. But there is this a very serious problem there. And how did it arise? It did not arise because there was insurrection or because there was desire of one part of Pakistan of separate, to scccdc, to become independent. No such voice was raised. There was an election held, a free election under the present military leadership of Pakistan. The programme for the election was put frankly and openly before the people. If the Government of West Pakistan objected to that programme, that was the moment to say, “We will not allow the elections, we cannot allow your six-points, we do not approve of them. Nothing was said. The elections were held and the people of both parts of Pakistan overwhelmingly voted for one party the-Awami League.
I am congratulated on my great majority. But it was nothing compared to the majority which Sheikh Mujibur Rahman gained in the election in Pakistan. It was a tremendous victory for him. And he is not an extremist. He was a moderate person. In fact, if I may use the term, he used to be called by some others an American stooge at one time. But once the elections were won, apparently this came as surprise to the Government of West Pakistan and they wanted to find out ways of getting around these results.
Negotiations were begun. We were not in touch with either Sheik Mujib or his party of East Bengal. We did not know what was happening. We read in the papers that there were negotiations. Later, much later, in fact only about a week before I stared on this trip. I happened to meet somebody who said he was present at the negotiations. And, on the 24th of March, they thought that they were coming to a settlement, may be not a satisfactory settlement but still something that could be worked out. But this period was in fact used to bring troops from West Pakistan, and on the 25th of March a reign of terror was let loose. Perhaps you have heard that the biggest concentration, the biggest attack, was on the University of Dacca, where a large number of faculty and students were killed on the very first night. The entire East Bengali population-the civilians, the para-military forces, the East Bengal Regiment and the East Pakistani Rifles-changed their allegiance, that is, they decided to fight that Pakistani Army. They are the base today of the fight of the people of East Bengal. They are the people who are training the guerrillas, the young people who are coming across.
Now, we are asked the question why is India hesitating to allow United Nations observers? We are not really hesitating, because we have some observers already. We have United Nations observers on the Western frontier who have been there since many years and we have about ten people from the United Nations High Commission for Relief of Refugees on the eastern border. Ours is a very open societyanybody who comes, any of you, any of the diplomats who are there, the Press, parliamentary delegations from Europe, from Latin America, from Asia, from New Zealand, the Arab countries, the Scandinavian countries, all these people have been to our camps; they have been to the border an many of them have crossed over and been to East Bengal. Every one of them, without exception, has given one story, which is of the very great misery and the utterly chaotic conditions which exist there. Now, in these conditions we are told that there is an attempt to have a civilian government by declaring some scats vacant which are not vacant. The people who were legally, constitutionally, elected are still there, but their seats have been declared vacant and I am told that 55 people have been declared elected unopposed. Now in the present conditions they can have the whole Parliament declared unopposed, because it is surely not possible for anybody to vote.
If United Nations observers go, what do they hope to achieve? If they go with the intention of really bringing about peace in East Bengal, they are very welcome on our side; on any side they want to go, we will facilitate their going there. But this is not what they want to do. They want to say, “what is happening in East Bengal is an internal problem of Pakistan-we will only want to see what is happening at the border”. What is happening at the border cannot be divorced from what is happening inside East Bengal. You cannot say, “we will go and try and prevent the guerillas, but not prevent the army killing the people”. I cannot even mention to your what is happening to some of the women there. The U.N. observers are not going to interfere with those things, but they do want to interfere with what the freedom fighters are doing.
You may ask, “is India interfering in this by giving some support?” I can tell you that the people of East Bengal are not very happy with what we are doing for them. They think, and I agree with them, we are doing far too little. And what we are doing is something that we cannot help doing. We cannot stop people going across the border cither from the other side to our side or from our side across back to East Pakistan. Had we been able to do this, we would certainly have taken measures to stop these millions of refugees from coming. Initially the reaction was, “they are in great trouble, let us allow them in”. But very soon the problems for us grew really beyond our control and this are creating an extremely difficult situation.
The people of America have shown generosity. As I came here, was given a cheque. I have been given cheques by children in different countries by poor people, all kinds of people, and we are grateful for the help. But the major problem is not a financial one. We are poor, we cannot afford these millions of people. But because we are poor, because we have know how to live without food, without necessities, we can put up with any difficulty. We can look after any number of people, of course with great discomfort to them and to us, and may be some people with die also. Nevertheless, we can survive this problem. What is difficult to survive are the political consequence s, the social tensions, the difficulty of the administration, and last but most important the real threat to our independence, to our stability, to our integrity. Because with the refugees are coming people who are not genuine refugees. We are having sabotage. Our trains have been blown up, and all kinds of other things have happened.
So, India today is facing a real threat. We had reached a point in economic growth, in social stability, this was not an easy task; it was achieved against very great adds. We had help from many countries, including the United States, but it has been a very small part of the major endeavor. The major brunt of the problems-whether it is of the refugees today or whether it is the problem of our own people, has been bome by the Indian people themselves. If there is progress, it is because the Indian people have put in the effort, put in the sacrifice that was needed to go ahead.
So, just when we come to stage where we think we can go ahead much more easily, much faster, we suddenly have the problems of another country. They are not our problems. This other country has pushed across the border people who did not vote for their Government, but voted for the regime they wanted. There is no other crime which these people have committed because the cry for independence arose after Sheikh Mujib was arrested, and not before. He himself, so far as I know, has not asked for independence, even now. But after he was arrested, after there was this tremendous massacre, it was understandable that the rest of the people should say: “After this, how can we live together? We have to be separate”.
This is the situation. We have no animosity towards Pakistan even though they have campaigns of “Crush India”, “Conquer India”. They observed a Day or a Week and they has these stricken on their cars. We never had anything like this, and we never shall. We have not had anything against even China. China has attacked us, Pakistan has attacked us. On our side, we have always side we want friendship. On our side, we have always taken unilateral steps which we thought would lead to a normalization of relations. But there has been no response forthcoming.
We do not mind if there is no response. But we do think that the limit of our endurance has been reached when they think they can just put their troubles on to us. Here was a problem they were facing-that their people had voted against the Government. So what do you do? You send them across the frontier. At one stroke, you get rid of your enemies, you get rid of population, and you weaken India, which you want to weaken. This is something which India just cannot tolerate. May be. I could tolerate. But with all my majority in Parliament, it is not a dictatorship. I have to carry not only my party, I have to carry, in a serious situation, all the other parties of India. And we feel that it is not just the question of India, because we believe that if peace is threatened in India, if stability is threatened in India, there cannot be peace and stability in my part of Pakistan. They can have all the armies of the world, whether they have from China or the U.S.A. or any other country. They cannot bring peace if there is instability in the major part of the subcontinent.
Today, by some countries wanting to support the prestige of one man, they are threatening peace in the entire sub-continent. I do not personally think that they can save Pakistan, or keep it united, or keep it strong by supporting a person who is not an elected person, who is a military dictator. This is what we are concerned about-not really today’s problems, but the basic values for which we have fought, for which so many of our people have given their lives. These are the values which are being attacked.
And if they are attacked next door to us, what guarantee have we that they can survive in our country and they cannot be attacked there? This is what bothers us. It is not important who is to blame, though I think Pakistan is to blame, but I do not want to score a debating point. What is important is: How can we now have peace? You cannot have peace just by saying that the troops should move. You can only have peace if the basic problem which has arisen is solved. and the basic problem is not in the West, were the troops are facing each other, but in the East. Since I have mentioned troops, I would like to say one word more, and that is that Pakistan moved its troops about a week or ten days before we did anything. And the United Nations observer, who was there, took up this question with them. They said, “this is nothing serious, this is just ordinary training exercise”. It is very strange indeed that you have these exercise and you keep your troops posted, not for a day or two days, but over a week. And ten days passed without any action from the United Nations or anybody else. Then we said, “these people may attack and in order to defend ourselves we must move up our troops”. Already twice, or three times if you include Chine, we have been invaded and been found unprepared. No government can last in a country if the people feel that it is not going to defend the country or defend security.
We waited patiently hoping that something would be done, some way would be found. But nobody was bothered. Not a word was said while these troops were on our borders facing us. It was only when our troops went in, that suddenly the world’s concern came up: “Oh, the two troops are facing each other”.
It is true that war is a dreadful thing. I have lived through the last war in London during the worst part of the blitz. And I know that wars now are much worse. I know what happens to the civilian population. Never would anybody want war for their people. And certainly India will do nothing to provoke a war or conflict. But India is determined to safeguard her interests. India is determined to keep her freedom intact. India is united as never before, and India feels so strongly about these basic things whether it is freedom, whether it is democracy. It is a whole way of life with us. It is not a dogma, is not an ‘ism’ that we follow. It is a way of life which has kept our nation alive for thirty centuries. And we are not going to have it attacked because it suits somebody or other, or does not suit somebody or other. We want help, we want support, we welcome sympathy. But basically, in the world, every individual ultimately is alone and every nation is ultimately alonc. And India is prepared to fight alone for what is thinks worth fighting for......