Jawaharlal Nehru Quotes

As you know, the ban on the RSS has been removed…. This does not mean that we are convinced about the bona fides of the RSS movement…. Our general relaxation in the field of civil liberties will certainly not mean the slightest relaxation in meeting violence against the individual or the state, wherever it occurs and whatever form it might take.

In times of crisis it is not unnatural for those who are involved in it deeply to regard calm objectivity in others as irrational, short-sighted, negative, unreal or even unmanly. But I should like to make it clear that the policy India has sought to pursue is not a negative and neutral policy. It is a positive and vital policy that flows from our struggle for freedom and from the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi. Peace is not only an absolute necessity for us in India in order to progress and develop but also of paramount importance to the world. How can that peace be preserved? Not by surrendering to aggression, not by compromising with evil or injustice but also not by the talking and preparing for war! Aggression has to be met, for it endangers peace. At the same time, the lesson of the past two wars has to be remembered and it seems to me astonishing that, in spite of that lesson, we go the same way. The very processes of marshaling the world into two hostile camps precipitates the conflict that it had sought to avoid. It produces a sense of terrible fear and that fear darkens men's minds and leads them to wrong courses. There is perhaps nothing so bad and so dangerous in life as fear. As a great President of the United States said, there is nothing really to fear except fear itself.

Communalism resulted not only in the division of the country, which inflicted a deep wound in the heart of the people which will take a long time to heal if it ever heals but also assassination of the Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi.

Reports from many sources have reached me that the communal atmosphere is again becoming tense, and that particularly the people who belong to the RSS…are becoming vocal and demonstrative again…. Many of the RSS men who had been arrested previously, detained in prison for sometime and then subsequently released, are again taking part in these activities in spite of assurances they might have given.

These people [the RSS] have the blood of Mahatma Gandhi on their hands and pious disclaimers and dissociation now have no meaning.

We have a great deal of evidence to show that the R.S.S. is an organization which is in the nature of a private army and which is definitely proceeding on strictest Nazi lines, even following the technique of organization. […] The Nazi party brought Germany to ruin and I have little doubt that if these tendencies are allowed to spread and increase in India, they would do enormous injury to India.

We must constantly remind ourselves that whatever our religion or creed, we are all one people. I regret that many recent disturbances have given us a bad name. Many have acquiesced to the prevailing spirit. This is not citizenship. Citizenship consists in the service of the country. We must prevail on the evil-doers to stop their activities. If you, men of the Navy, the Army and the Air Force, serve your countrymen without distinction of class and religion, you will bring honour to yourselves and to your country.

I wish to make it clear that the Government will take the most stringent measures to quell the disturbances. If the rioters do not repent for their acts and behave properly, the Government will not show any mercy towards them and they will be fired upon and bombed from the air if necessary... It is very shameful for you to resort to acts of lawlessness... By these acts you have proved traitors to your country and placed serious obstacles on the path of Swaraj. I want an assurance from you that you will give adequate protection to the Muslims even at the cost of sacrificing your all instead of thinking and acting in terms of retaliation for the happenings in East Bengal.”

Do you propose to repeat the unfortunate happenings in Bengal by killing the Muslims in Bihar? Is this the way in which you are showing your culture and civilisation of which you are so proud? .. You should be ashamed of your acts of lawlessness. I urge upon you to cry a halt even now and restore peace.

I have received a large number of letters stating that the Bihar Government had refused to indulge in firing and that it was only when I insisted upon it that this was agreed to. Some people imagine that I really took part in the firing. It is also usually stated that the casualties were very great. No doubt, you must have received many such communications, and the newspapers have also written much to this effect.” ... “It does not seem to be realised by people that there is a vast difference between my going to Noakhali and my going to Patna. I went to Patna to meet old colleagues and discuss the situation with them and I stayed on at the request of those colleagues. It was not the Central Government inter-vening or overruling you. I couldn’t go in that capacity to Noakhali... .As for the firing, so far as I know, it was on a limited scale and, considering all that had happened, this firing was obviously not in excess of the situation. Indeed it erred on the other side. I was told that the total casualties would in no event exceed 250. That figure is by no means a big one considering everything.... If you agree with me, I suggest that a brief statement might be issued contradicting the report that the Bihar Government had refused to order firing and that I had personally ordered it. You could say that this and other reports are entirely unfounded and that your Government had asked for the military as early as 31st October and when they actually came they were given full discretion to meet the situation. As for me I stayed there at your invitation and I did not interfere in any way with your work or decisions. As for the firing I had nothing to do with it.”

After the excessive strain of the last two days I had a feeling of reaction and relaxation… This evening I returned by air from Bhagalpur. On arrival I learnt that the military had fired on a peasant mob in the rural areas some miles from here, and about 400 had been killed. Normally such a thing would have horrified me. But would you believe it? I was greatly relieved to hear it! So we change with changing circumstances as layers of fresh experience and feeling cover up the past accumulation... I have had horror enough during the past two days. Something incredible has happened here, or something that I would have refused to believe in, a few days ago. Hindu peasant mobs have behaved in a manner that is the extreme of brutality and inhumanity. How many have been done to death by them I do not yet know, but it must be a vast number. To think that the simple, unsophisticated, rather likable Bihar peasant can go completely mad en masse upsets all my sense of values... For a few days they had it their own way, with few checks or hindrances. And so when the news came that they have been stopped at last in one place and that 400 of them had died, I felt that the balance had been very slightly righted.

Because we have sought to cover up past evil, though it still persists, we have been powerless to check the new evil of today. Evil unchecked grows, Evil tolerated poisons the whole system. And because we have tolerated our past and present evils, international affairs are poisoned and law and justice have disappeared from them.

Most of us seldom take the trouble to think. It is a troublesome and fatiguing process and often leads to uncomfortable conclusions. But crises and deadlocks when they occur have at least this advantage, that they force us to think.

I do not think there is any necessity at present for our Defence Ministry, or any part of it, to consider possible military repercussions on the Indo-Tibetan frontier. The event is remote and may not arise at all. Any present thought being given to it will affect the balance we are trying to create in India. It may also not remain a secret and that would be unfortunate.

But there was one little drawback, one not unimportant fact seems to have been overlooked. Palestine was not a wilderness, or an empty, uninhabited place. It was already somebody else's home. So that this generous gesture of the British Government was really at the expense of the people who already lived in Palestine, and these people, including Arabs, non- Arabs, Muslims, Christians, and , in fact, everybody who was not a Jew, protested vigorously at the declaration...... The Jewish population is already nearly a quarter of the Muslim population, and their economic power is far greater. They seem to look forward to the day when they will be the dominant community in Palestine. The Arabs tried to gain their co-operation in the struggle for national freedom and democratic government, but they rejected these advances. They have preferred to take sides with the foreign ruling Power, and have thus helped it to keep back freedom from the majority of the people. It is not surprising that this majority, comprising the Arabs, chiefly, and also the Christians, bitterly resent this attitude of the Jews.