PART I

SECTION - 1

DEMANDS OF EXTERNAL AFFAIRS

EDITORIAL NOTE

This is the first major policy speech delivered by Y. B. Chavan as the Minister for External Affairs in which Chavan set out his own perception about basics of Indian Foreign Policy and India’s role in international affairs.

As a devotee of the Parliamentary democracy, at the outset, he welcomed review of India’s foreign policy and stated : “In this era of people’s diplomacy, it is very right and necessary that the foreign policy of a country is reviewed in this forum, people’s forum, from time to time.” Emphasizing that India’s policy is rooted in non-alignment, he pointed out that non-alignment is a dynamic living organism. Underlining the progress of detente he warned that there was need for vigilance and solidarity among the non-aligned countries in guarding against the tendency of big powers to carve out spheres of influence.

Speaking about neighbouring countries, he recalled what. Pandit Nehru had said in the Asian Relation

Conference held on 23. 1. 1947 in New Delhi. Nehru said :

All over Asia we are passing through trials and tribulations .... This is inevitable in age of mighty transition. There are often creative impulses and a new vitality in all the peoples in Asia. The masses are awake and they demand their heritage. The strong winds are playing all over Asia. Let us not be afraid of them, but rather welcome them, only with their help can we build, a new age of our dreams .... let us, above all, have faith in the human spirit which Asia symbolized for long ages past.

According to Chavan, the awakening of Asia, emergence of the Third World, the move of the Third World countries to assert their sovereignty and the right to fix the prices of its own raw materials, ere the three factors that were influencing the international scene.