Total recall

We cannot remain a silent spectator'The peoples of the world look to our prime minister when they are in distress not because we have arm...

We cannot remain a silent spectator8217;
The peoples of the world look to our prime minister when they are in distress not because we have armaments, but because we try to adopt a policy based on moral considerations in the international sphere. This moral force which India has come to possess demands that whenever there is any aggression we should support the just cause8230;.

The Government of India wanted that China and Tibet should settle the issue by peaceful negotiations and our prime minister advised the Dalai Lama to come to an agreement with Communist China, in view of the assurances given by the prime minister of China, who visited India during those days. As a result of our assurances, the Dalai Lama came to an agreement, the seventeen-point agreement, with China.

I need not go into the history now. What has happened in Tibet is clear. The Sino-Tibetan agreement of 1951 has been violated. The Dalai Lama has been forced to leave his country and to seek refuge in India. With him, thousands ofTibetans have come to our country. Even then, the Government of India wanted the situation to calm down in the hope that wisdom will prevail and a satisfactory solution of the Tibetan problem will be found out.

What is happening in Tibet is very painful to all the lovers of freedom and to all those who believe in human dignity. They are aghast at the fate of the Tibetans. Now, it is not a question of Tibetan independence or autonomy. But the question is whether Tibet will remain as an entity, whether Tibet8217;s distinct personality will survive or the Tibetan people will be annihilated. We are aware, and the Dalai Lama has confirmed, that a large number of Chinese are being settled in Tibet. Five million have already been settled and four million are in the process of being settled. Besides this, there are a large number of army officials.

The whole aim of China is to reduce the Tibetans to a minority in their own country and thus to destroy the Tibetan personality. It is a new phenomenon; it is a new typeof imperialism. Except in South Africa, the Western countries, I mean the imperialists, subjugated other races, but they never tried to outnumber them in their own country so as to wipe them out completely from the map of the world. France has subjugated Algeria, but the Government of France respects the distinct personality of Algeria. But it appears that the people of Tibet will have to go the way of Inner Mongolia.

Outer Mongolia, though not truly independent, has something of its own, but Inner Mongolia has been annexed and it has ceased to exist as a separate entity. That is happening in Tibet. The Human Rights Charter, to which Communist China is party because the charter of human rights was approved at the Bandung Conference of Afro-Asians attended by China these human rights are being violated in Tibet. According to the International Commission of Jurists, the people of Tibet had been denied, and are still being denied, the right to liberty, life and security. Forced labour has been inflicted onthe Tibetans; tortuous, cruel and degrading treatment is being inflicted on them; rights of homes and privacy have been violated; freedom of movement within the state and the right to leave and to return to Tibet have been denied; marriages have been forced upon unwilling parties; property rights have been arbitrarily violated and freedom of religion and worship have been systematically denied. If human rights are to be violated in this manner, and by a nation which is seeking admission to the United Nations, the world, and especially our country, cannot and should not remain a silent spectator.

Excerpted from 100 Best Parliamentary Speeches8217; edited by Subhash C. Kashyap