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FREEDOMWAYS                                    THIRD QUARTER 1973

condition of our national survival. Danger to even one single citizen, to whatever community, caste, religion and linguistic group he may belong is a danger to all of us.  What is worse it demeans us all."

The same quality of leadership exhibited at the national level is also exhibited at the international level by Indira Gandhi.  The Prime Minister has not hesitated to express her views on any major controversy or to support just causes. "There can be no military solution to Vietnam. India is committed to a peaceful solution and not any particular solution.  But of one thing I am certain, there must be an early and immediate turning away from war in Vietnam."

The two pillars of Indian foreign policy are non-alignment and peaceful co-existence, with equal interest in safeguarding international peace and preventing the erosion of Indian national independence.  In conformity with the objectives of India's foreign policy: "In foreign affairs there are no set positions.  Where there is friendship, we must enlarge it; where there is indifference, we must remove it; and where there is hostility, we should try to blunt it."

India has not allowed past conflicts to impede her new links with Britain within the framework of the Commonwealth. India has cordial relations with France, the Federal Republic of Germany, the German Democratic Republic, with the "Middle-East" (i.e. Western Asia), Africa--North and South of the Sahara.  With the "non-aligned" Asian countries there exists a special understanding and common struggle against colonialism, neo-colonialism and racialism.

India was partitioned in 1947 to solve what the British portrayed as "irreconcilable" Hindu-Moslem antagonism.  At that juncture, India adopted as a state policy, secularism; that is, non-discrimination on the grounds of religion.

The Moslem population of India has grown since partition from 35 million to 61 million.  The 1971 census showed that there are 14 million Christians and 17 million other religious groups including Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Jews.  Pakistan, on the other hand, has, since partition, been locked into the dead-end political ideology which led to partition.  The historical development of India should serve as a concrete example that religious ties are not strong enough to bind a nation operating under the laws of capitalism as in the case of Pakistan.

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