Sir, I was very much impressed by the speech which my Friend, Shri Kamath, made yesterday. He very cogently and very rationally tried to pose certain questions. One of the questions that he posed was whether by entering into this association with the Commonwealth of Nations we shall be deriving any advantage. Well, we gave our consent to this policy not only in this Assembly but even in our great national organisation, the Indian National Congress. With our eyes wide open we authorised the Prime Minister to carry on these negotiations. Did we not take all the pros and cons into consideration at that time? We did and we knew and we know that it is definitely to our advantage. After all the military science in our country is still in its infancy and there are very many advantages that we can derive from our association with Great Britain in regard to our defence measures. Then again there are so many things that we have to do by way of economic rehabilitation and in these matters we can get expert advice and guidance from Great Britain and from the other Commonwealth countries. Why should we deny ourselves that advantage, especially when it has been made clear that the King does not come in the picture anywhere, except that he is being recognised only as the Head of the Commonwealth, which again means very little, very little for the simple reason that he can no more interfere in our internal administration. Our Ambassadors are not to be appointed in his name; they will be appointed in the name of the Head of our State, who will be the President.
