Consultation doesn8217;t mean loss of sovereignty

There is the unfortunate problem of people of Indian descent in Ceylon Sri Lanka. I find a great deal of difficulty in dealing with this...

There is the unfortunate problem of people of Indian descent in Ceylon Sri Lanka. I find a great deal of difficulty in dealing with this matter, because I am quite convinced that this is, more so than other questions, a question which can only be solved in a friendly and peaceful way. The House knows that some months back, there was what was called the Indo-Ceylonese agreement.

There were certain procedures, and among those procedures, one of the things that we have laid down specifically was that neither government would take any step without consulting the other. That, of course, does not make less the sovereignty of either government. It is a very common thing for countries to come to a decision that they will consult each other. That does not make them less sovereign or less independent. Since then, nothing very much has happened, and yet many small things have happened, which have made large numbers of people in Ceylon very apprehensive about the future. There is the problem of these persons, who, at the present moment, can only be described as stateless. They are certainly not Indian nationals. They and their families have lived there for a long time; many of them have been born there.

Now, normally they would be Ceylon nationals, but, of course, Ceylon has the right and authority to decide about that matter, about its own nationals. So long as it does not accept them as nationals, they are nationals of no state certainly not Indian nationals and so they have become stateless people living in Ceylon and hoping for Ceylonese nationality. In fact, they have applied for it, nearly all of them or a very large number of them. I am not for the moment referring to the Indian nationals who are there. They are in large numbers too, may be 150,000, and the House should always distinguish between the two.

We talk vaguely about Indians here and Indians there. That is confusing, because an Indian is normally an Indian national; it does not matter what the colour of his skin is, or he may be, if I may use the word let us say a European naturalised Indian8217;. Well, he is an Indian from that point of view. Now, there are Indian nationals in Ceylon who claim only the normal rights of no discrimination, of freedom to function there as any foreign national can claim. The others are people of Indian descent who have been there for a long time, some of them for generations. Nobody has been able to go to Ceylon from India as an immigrant legally for the last 15 years. I think since round-about the late thirties.

There have, of course, been illegal immigrants leave that out. Now, so far as the Indian nationals there are concerned, that is a separate problem. It is a bit of a problem too, because there is a certain process of squeezing them out. While I may regret the manner of doing it, I cannot challenge the right of the Ceylonese government of dealing with any individual they choose to8230;

The other problem, and the real problem is that of the so-called stateless people; they have nearly all applied for Ceylon nationality and the matter is being considered by some committee etc. in Ceylon which accepts some applications and rejects the others. Lately there have been far more rejections than acceptances. Anyhow, I do not wish to go more deeply into this question except to express my regret at the trend of events in Ceylon which has produced this strong apprehension. There are, after all, 600,000 or 700,000 of these persons in Ceylon.

It is a fairly large number, and it is to the interest of Ceylon, as it is to the interest of these people, to settle this matter peacefully; otherwise, naturally an unfortunate feeling of conflict persists, which does no good to anybody.

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Excerpted from a speech Jawaharlal Nehru made in Parliament on May 15, 1954