It is urged that India can gain many advantages by remaining with England and America. She can receive financial aid. She can receive aid for promoting her industrialisation. It can also be said that a powerful country like America can give adequate aid to India in the next war and she will do so. Sir, for the moment I accept that America will give us the aid that we ask for. I admit that American aid in times of peace would be very beneficial to India. But I think that in times of war it would be in a way suicidal for us to depend on American aid. The way American aid has been given to China is a lesson to us. No sooner did the American government see that the power of the government headed by Chiang Kai Shaik was failing, than if left that government to the mercy of the Communists. I can also accept that during a period of war America will strive its best to supply arms and other things to India; but Sir, we should not forget that oceans roll between India on the one side and America and England on the other. It would not be easy matter for aid to flow to India in such troubled times. There would be sub-marines operating on the seas and bombs and atom-bombs would be raining from the skies. Therefore even if America sincerely wants and strives its best to aid us, it can be doubted whether that aid would reach us at all. Then, as I have said, a great distance separates us from these countries and it will be a long time before the aid reaches us. But, Sir, if we take into consideration the present circumstances, we find that we are surrounded by Communist powers and their sympathisers. We see Russia on the border of Pakistan and we see her on the border of Kashmir too. The Chinese Communists are gaining more and more strength every day. We are not blind to what the Communists are doing in Malaya and we are aware that Burma too is not free from the Communist danger. I do not think that any one amongst us can like or entertain the prospect of the Russian troops entering the borders of India within a week of the outbreak of a war at some future date, while we expect aid from U.S.A. as a result of having joined the Anglo-American bloc. Why should we then place ourselves in a situation which may lead the Russian bloc to think that we are setting up ourselves against it? It is the misfortune of our people or in other words I may say that our foreign policy has been such as to create misgiving in my mind. Even today circumstances do exist which make Russia doubt our intentions and consider us to be allied with the bloc opposed to her. It was probably for this reason, if I mistake not, that our Ambassador, who stayed in Russia for about an year and a half, was not even once given the opportunity of having an audience with Mr. Stalin, the highest dignatory of the Russian Government. Now that we have linked ourselves to the Commonwealth it can be said that we have openly declared that we have joined the Anglo-American bloc. We can imagine to some extent the danger that is likely to follow.
