Indira Gandhi: Vision for the Future

In 1983, Indira Gandhi, the first female Prime Minister of India, gave a thought-provoking interview reflecting her views on disarmament, global cooperation, and the challenges of international diplomacy. Just one year before her tragic assassination, Gandhi highlighted India’s stance on peace and unity, balancing between non-intervention and the need for defense. This conversation provides valuable insight into her leadership, resilience, and vision for the future.

A Commitment to Peace and Diplomacy

Vocabulary Highlight:

• Disarmament (noun): The reduction or elimination of military forces and weapons.
  • Example: “Global disarmament is essential to achieving lasting peace.”
• Intervention (noun): Interference by a country in the affairs of another.
  • Pronunciation Tip: /ˌɪntərˈvɛnʃən/
  • Example: “Interventions in other countries often lead to unintended consequences.”

Grammar Focus: Complex Sentences with Subordinate Clauses

• Example from Text: “If public opinion grows, that does have some effect.”
• Explanation: A subordinate clause adds extra information to the main clause.
  • Structure: subordinate conjunction + subject + verb
  • Example: “Although it was difficult, she persisted.”

Simplified Explanation:

In this sentence, “If public opinion grows” acts as the subordinate clause, showing a condition for the main clause’s effect.

Key Points from Indira Gandhi’s Interview:

1. Nuclear Disarmament:
   • Definition: The goal of reducing nuclear weapons globally.
   • Example: “Disarmament was a major focus at the non-aligned conference.”
2. Global Cooperation:
   • Definition: Countries working together to solve common problems.
   • Example: “We believe all nations should cooperate to tackle global issues.”
3. Non-Intervention Policy:
   • Definition: The principle of not interfering in the affairs of other nations.
   • Example: “India supports non-intervention as a basic law of international behavior.”

Gandhi emphasized the importance of balancing national defense with a commitment to peace, reflecting India’s strategy of preparedness in the face of regional conflicts.

Key Lessons and Themes

Vocabulary Highlight:

• Resilience (noun): The capacity to recover quickly from difficulties.
  • Pronunciation Tip: /rɪˈzɪliəns/
  • Example: “Her resilience helped her rebuild after the setback.”

1. The Balance Between Peace and Defense:
   • Definition: Maintaining defense while promoting peace and diplomacy.
   • Example: “While striving for peace, India prepares to defend its borders.”
2. Advocating for Dialogue:
   • Definition: Promoting conversation to resolve conflicts.
   • Example: “Gandhi called for a North-South dialogue to address global disparities.”
3. Encouraging Public Opinion:
   • Definition: Using public sentiment to influence political decisions.
   • Example: “She believed public opinion could drive change in nuclear policy.”
4. Unity in Diversity:
   • Definition: Finding strength in differences among people or nations.
   • Example: “India’s unity lies in embracing its cultural diversity.”

Reflecting on Gandhi’s Legacy

Vocabulary Highlight:

• Legacy (noun): Something handed down from the past, such as values or traditions.
  • Pronunciation Tip: /ˈlɛgəsi/
  • Example: “Her legacy of peace continues to inspire generations.”

Sentence Structure: Using Conditionals

• Example from Text: “If public opinion grows, that does have some effect.”
• Explanation: Conditional sentences describe the result of a specific condition.
  • First Conditional: “If + present tense, will + base verb”
  • Example: “If we act now, we will see results.”

Pronunciation Tips:

• Intervention: /ˌɪntərˈvɛnʃən/
• Resilience: /rɪˈzɪliəns/
• Legacy: /ˈlɛgəsi/

Conclusion

Through this interview, Indira Gandhi offers timeless insights into diplomacy, defense, and unity. Her words remind us of the importance of cooperation and resilience in facing challenges. One year after this interview, Gandhi’s life was tragically cut short by assassination, yet her legacy of peace and perseverance continues to shape India’s journey.

Host: Why do you as a leader of a nation of 700 million people accept an invitation to come visit a small nation of 4 million at the outskirts of the world?

Indira Gandhi: Well, I don’t think any nation is at the outskirts because after all, it’s a round world. But we are all neighbors, small or big, and I think we would like Norway to know more about India. We already have good collaboration with your country, but news about India is very scarce and not always balanced. As you know, we believe that all nations should get to know one another better and cooperate more to try and solve problems. Most problems today are global problems, whether they happen to take place in India or anywhere else.

Host: The relations between Norway and India have always been good as far as I know, but not very extensive. Should this relationship be given some concrete content?

Indira Gandhi: Well, we would like to. I don’t know what is possible. You probably are aware of the details of the collaboration we already have with fisheries and so on. Humankind is balancing on the brink of the collapse of the world economic system and annihilation through nuclear war. Should these tragedies occur, can any one of us, large or small, rich or poor, from north or south, west or east, hope to escape?

Host: As the leader of an online movement, are you considering any concrete initiatives to get to that goal, which is a goal of all people, but very few seem to be doing something about it?

Indira Gandhi: It’s a goal which I think we must pursue. We must continue to pursue it even if we don’t seem to succeed. At the non-alignment conference, this was one of our major objectives, and it was one thing about which there was no argument. Everybody felt that we should first have nuclear disarmament; that is, the nuclear powers should decide never to use nuclear weapons, to stop stockpiling.

Host: Are any concrete initiatives being considered?

Indira Gandhi: Well, except that we can appeal to them, I don’t think we can do very much more at this stage. But I think if public opinion grows, that does have some effect.

Host: All this talk about disarmament, including in the non-aligned movement, does not prohibit the fact that you are in a certain arms race with Pakistan.

Indira Gandhi: Well, if we could avoid war, we certainly are very much for peace, and we have never invaded or threatened another country. But unfortunately, we ourselves have faced aggression five or six times, and with that experience, we have to be ready to defend our frontiers and our people. You know, we spend very little compared to the size of our country or population or the length of our land and sea borders. We spend very little on defense, and when Pakistan suddenly jumps a decade ahead of us, we have to try to make up at least a portion of that.

Host: They jump a decade ahead. Are you referring to nuclear arms?

Indira Gandhi: Well, no, ordinary arms, conventional arms. Although there’s much talk of their going in for the nuclear, which they have so far denied. We of the developing world have no margin of safety. We shall be the first and the worst sufferers in any economic breakdown in this interdependent world, where you cannot stir a flower without troubling a star. Even the most affluent are not immune to such disturbances. Only with coexistence can there be any existence.

Host: At an online summit, one of the important aspects was the North-South Dialogue, where the conference more or less said it was a non-starter. What can you do in order to get it started?

Indira Gandhi: Well, several initiatives have been taken, you know, Cancun and so on. It’s true nothing much has come out of it, but I think that more and more countries in Europe are realizing that it must come about in some form or another. That is why we have said that while we are for what are called global negotiations, we could have it in two phases and start off with certain things which are of more immediate concern. That is why we have suggested a conference on money and finance, for instance.

Host: What do you think are the prospects for that? I mean, there doesn’t seem to have been very much positive reaction from the Western countries.

Indira Gandhi: Well, it hasn’t been opposed, so far as I know. By the way, if I may go back on the nuclear question, I’d like to make it very clear that we ourselves have no nuclear bombs or anything, and we don’t propose to make any.

Host: Now, I’d like to keep to this North-South thing a little bit because what means do the third world really have at its disposal to force the industrialized countries into doing something, into entering the dialogue?

Indira Gandhi: If we were more united, I think we could do a great deal. The industrialized countries need our markets. They need our raw materials. At the moment, their policy is rather two-faced. You know, on the one hand, they say, “Well, we must have freer trade,” and they put up barriers. Now, if we don’t have purchasing power, then where will most of these countries sell the goods they want to make?

Host: But why should the industrialized countries enter a dialogue at the present moment? It seems they are only losing by entering this dialogue.

Indira Gandhi: No, I think they’re losing if they don’t enter into the dialogue because, as I said, the economies are linked. If you look into the future, not just the immediate but even immediately, there’s hardly a country which doesn’t have an economic crisis. Now, how are they going to solve it? It’s obvious that the present economic system or the institutions that were built up to solve problems have proved to be quite inadequate. So something new has to be thought of.

Host: You have proposed that as many as possible of the world leaders should participate in the UN General Assembly this September. What would the purpose be of such a gigantic summit?

Indira Gandhi: Well, perhaps it was a bit idealistic, but the real purpose was that if you really got together, you know, it generates an atmosphere. When people are feeling depressed all over the world, it generates hope. Also, by talking about one another’s problems and possible solutions, sometimes you can hit upon something which can be agreed to by most people.

Host: Have you had any indications at all of replies to this proposal?

Indira Gandhi: Well, very vague. We regard non-interference and non-intervention as basic laws of international behavior. Yet different types of interventions, open or covered, do take place in Asia, in Africa, in Latin America. They are all intolerable and unacceptable. Interference leads to intervention, and one intervention often attracts another. No single power or group of powers has the justification or moral authority to so interfere or intervene. But you cannot condemn one instance but condone another.

Host: At the non-aligned summit, you got a mandate to follow up the Iran-Iraq war. Have you considered anything concrete?

Indira Gandhi: Well, I don’t know what you mean. You see, in this world, I think very few things are black and white. Most things are somewhere in the middle. We’re in touch with both the governments. I can’t say that anything very much has emerged.

Host: One non-aligned country that has seen an intervention is, of course, of Cornister. Many people in the West find your position ambiguous. Would you like to explain this position?

Indira Gandhi: I think our position is quite clear. We are opposed to intervention, interference of any kind, and especially by troops. But we find that such intervention has been taking place in Africa, in Asia, in Latin America. It still is taking place, and very little is said about these. I mean, we know that governments have been removed and puppet governments have been put up and so on and so forth. So it seemed to us that just to pick on one country was not realistic. Also, the manner in which it was done, I think, aggravated the situation instead of helping it. Because I’m no doubt that with this world, the Soviet Union would feel threatened and surrounded and therefore want to dig in their toes even more.

Host: The same applies to a certain extent to Cambodia, where your government is supporting the Hang-Sum Rain government installed by Vietnamese intervention. Does this amount to a certain, what you might call, anti-American, anti-Western bias in your foreign policy?

Indira Gandhi: Not at all. Our sympathies have been with Vietnam, as they are with any country that is ruled by foreigners. The Vietnamese fought very bravely against the French, and soon after that, my father and I visited Vietnam. Immediately afterwards, the Americans got involved. What for me? They had no business being there. So there we were against American intervention. Now, what did the ASEAN countries and countries like Australia and New Zealand say at that time? They said we are fighting here to save India from China. So our reply was, well, we’ll deal with that question when it comes to us. I mean, you needn’t do this now. We are supporting the Hang-Sum Rain government because we think it has the support of the people of the land. Also, what we have learned of the Pol Pot regime is really too horrible for words. Journalists who’ve gone from the Western world, as well as from India and other countries, and they were not at all communists or supporters of the Vietnamese necessarily, have come back with the most ghastly pictures. You know, we can’t possibly support the Pol Pot regime. Initially, many of the Western countries supported Pol Pot. Then when we talked to them, they said, “No, no, no, we don’t support Pol Pot, but we also cannot support Hang-Sum Rain.” But now they’re supporting the coalition which has Pol Pot as one of its components. So we find this very difficult to understand.

Host: We went yesterday to the reception when you were receiving people outside your house, and we saw people handing requests to you. What is happening with these requests?

Indira Gandhi: Well, all of them are not requests. Some are problems, personal problems with which we can do very little. I mean, they even are domestic problems. Some are political matters, either their complaints or their support of somebody. As it happened yesterday, it was more in support of particular individuals rather than against, but sometimes they’re against people. One very large group, I don’t know whether you stayed to the end, some of their houses have been destroyed. Now that is a problem because as soon as you try and settle one lot of such squatters and you give them land and housing loans and so on, another lot comes and squats on land which is not theirs. This cannot be a, you know, there’s no solution or end to it, so sometimes they just have to be discouraged.

Host: The Sikhs of Punjab have also been demanding greater autonomy. These various movements in different parts of a country, would you say these are centrifugal forces within Indian society threatening it even?

Indira Gandhi: Well, in a country of our size and diversity, you know, these are all phases of development. Sometimes they get worse when the economic situation is worse. Now, we’ve had very bad drought and so on. But in Punjab, it’s not the Sikhs; it’s one political party, the Akalis. Now, when I was out of power, the Akalis were in the central government as well as in the state government for three years. If they felt so strongly about these matters, they could easily have done it because the same people were there. But they didn’t raise it at all, and now it’s only when we have come in, and that is what I think is a big indication that it is more a political movement than for demands, and they just don’t want my party to win the elections.

You have placed a heavy responsibility on me. In a world of power blocks, I belong to the non-aligned. In a world dominated by the affluent, I belong to a poor and developing country. In a world dominated by men, I happen to be a woman.

Host: Now, in what ways do you feel this has influenced your position and your work?

Indira Gandhi: I don’t think it has, but I was just pointing out that people, most people, look at things from a particular angle. Because society is man-dominated, they look at it from that angle and not as a whole. You know, in Indian tradition, I’m not saying that people look at the world and problems in that way, but the Indian tradition is to see things in the round. As you know, there’s a concept that a whole human being is half and half.

Host: Do you feel that in your position as Prime Minister of India, you’ve been able to do something special to improve the rights of women in your society?

Indira Gandhi: Well, I’ve tried, and by being a woman myself, this has encouraged women. I can’t say that anything has been done very positively. I mean, we passed laws for them which helped them, but large numbers of women are not conscious of their rights, and even when they are, because of the economic situation, sometimes it doesn’t work out. For instance, we have a law about minimum wage. Now, when as soon as it was passed, a lot of people just dismissed the women workers and said, “We are not prepared to give you equal wages.” The same with minimum wages they do, of course. Now if the person is desperate for a job, she will say, “Well, alright, I’ll take less, but you employ me.” So this is how they go around. But I think that as the economy improves, this situation will improve. More and more women are coming into public life.

Host: There was a small news item some time ago that you got angry when you were referred to as saying that you were the only man in the Indian government. Is that true?

Indira Gandhi: Well, I consider it an insult.

Host: And you do consider it an insult?

Indira Gandhi: I think so. Why should I be considered a man when I’m not?

Host: Definitely. At the moment, I would say as a foreigner that it seems that the Indian political system is under a certain strain and that it’s only your preeminent position that more or less holds it together. Maybe that’s an oversimplification, but what do you see as the future of the Indian political system?

Indira Gandhi: Well, I think Indians are very resilient people and basically sound. We’ve been through such vicissitudes in our long history that we have ups and downs, but I think we find our feet. Whatever happens, people will emerge stronger. You can’t avoid crises or obstacles or troubles, but the thing is how do you use them? If you can use them to be stronger as a society, I think that is what is important.

Host: Of course, there are lots of rumors that your other son, Rajiv, is being groomed to take over. Is he?

Indira Gandhi: No. Firstly, I would not really like, I wouldn’t want any of my sons to have the sort of life that I’ve had. It’s much too hard. Secondly, in our system, what difference can grooming make? I mean, if you say grooming, that is certain training, but even that there’s no obvious training. If anybody learns by example, for instance, my father never really told me, “Do this or do that,” but I do think that I learned a lot from him even though I was not very much with him. I think that I passed on a great deal to my sons, but in the system, it depends on the person himself or herself. Because firstly, the party has to win, and then the party has to decide who, not only the party but the country as a whole has to decide who they think can represent what they want.

Host: At the very end, we’ve been talking about different political issues and even a little bit private ones. As the leader of the second most populous nation in the world, where would you say we are all going? What is in the immediate future for us?

Indira Gandhi: Well, the immediate future does look dark, I must admit, although I’m an optimist and I’m sure we’ll get out of it. But I think it will get darker before there’s any light.