We, who meet here, meet under a heavy sense of responsibility–responsibility not only because the task which we have undertaken is a difficult one or because we presume to represent vast numbers of people, but because we are building for the future and we want to make sure that that building has strong foundations, and because, above all, we are meeting at a time when a number of disruptive forces are working in India pulling us this way and that way, and because, inevitably and unfortunately, when such forces are at work, there is a great deal of passion and prejudice in the air and our whole minds may be affected by it. We should not be deflected from that vision of the future which we ought to have, in thinking of the present difficulties. That is a dangerous thing which we have to avoid, because we are not building for; today or tomorrow, we are making or trying to make a much more enduring structure. It is a warning which the House will forgive me, if I repeat–that we must not allow the passion and prejudice of the moment to make us forget what the real and ultimate problems are which we have to solve. We cannot forget the difficulties of the present because that come in our way all the time. We have to deal with the problems of the present, and in dealing with them, it may be, unfortunately that the troubles we have passed through all these years may affect us, but, nevertheless, we have to get on. We have to take quick decisions and final decisions in the sense that We have to act on them. We have to be realists and it is in this spirit of realism, as also in a spirit of idealism, that I say that our Negotiating Committee approached this task.
