YouSaid · the spoken record

Krishna MENON

lines on the record: 599
first: 1956-09-24
most recent: 1961-09-24
sittings or episodes: 5
sources: un-general-debate

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“Where the peoples who hunger to be free are soon liberated and are faced with the grave economic problems of their own countries, so that they are preoccupied with them, then we would have unrest in the world. We would promote racial quarrels; we would promote divisions, even among friends, as happens in the case of Greece and the United Kingdom just now. 122. This era of colonialism no more belongs to us than does the paleolithic age; it belongs to an age that has passed behind. This is not to argue against the beneficence, the wisdom and the hard labour put in by administrators in the past. It is not to minimize the difficulties of metropolitan countries. But none of those difficulties can sta.id in the way of the natural aspirations of the peoples not to be foreigners in their own countries.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“The Government of India stands firmly upon the conception that every person in the territory of Algeria — whatever the colour of his skin, whatever his racial stock and whatever his religion — is an Algerian, and that therefore there cannot be an independence that excludes those vast numbers of Frenchmen who have made Algeria their home. 121. Nationalism is territorial, and — if I may be pardoned and if I am not regarded as taking any liberties- I would like to say particularly to the Western countries that the force of nationalism today is, perhaps, the strongest force in the world, with the exception in many countries of religion. It would be a great mistake to ignore the power of nationalism because it is not directed into the channels of constructive endeavour.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“Since we shall have the occasion to do so in the First Committee, this is not the time to deal with those problems in detail, but I should like to say a few words here and now with regard to the one which is the most crucial in that it is attended by violence and a great deal of loss of life and slaughter all round, namely, the problem of Algeria. 120. We have great sympathy for the difficulties of France in this matter, derived largely from historical circumstances, but great nations must rise above difficulties and no difficulties can be pleaded in bar of human freedom.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“In this connexion, it is my duty to state on behalf of my Government that, irrespective of the irritations we may create and irrespective of the fact that some may argue that the presence of such a large number of ex-colonial countries upsets the balance of this Assembly, we shall for ever, like our friends from Ghana, stand four-square and solidly by the side of those peoples who have been left on the road in the march towards independence. That is a duty we shall not forswear at any time. But that does not mean that we shall ever try to interfere with other Governments or have recourse to methods which were not our own in securing our own liberation. 119. There have come before us two or three great colonial problems — that of Algeria, that of Cyprus and that of West Irian.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“Whatever may be the difficulties of the future or of different communities, there has been an adjustment of monarchy to a republic and a quick march forward to the assumption of power. We hope that the remaining vestiges of empire in Asia will disappear, whether it be in India, far oil in the Pacific or in that vast continent of Africa where millions of people still live in conditions that are inhuman and where forced labour is the order of the day. It is a disgrace to all of us that human beings in any part of the world should live in those conditions, and they should come to an end. 117. We look to the time when, the wisdom of France will resolve the problems that are attendant on some of its vast possessions in Africa, and there are many signs that French public opinion reacts favourably in these matters. 118.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“At the same time, we are happy to think that the area of freedom is growing in the world, and only the other day we had the opportunity of welcoming a sister State of ours from the Commonwealth to the United Nations as an independent nation. I would be failing in my duty if I did not express — as, indeed, it is a privilege and a pleasure to do — our gratification and sense of pride at the fact that in all those areas which were the colonial empires of Britain there has been a rapid advance towards independence since we became independent. We used to say in those days that Britain really wanted freedom from its empire, and we started the march to freedom. Today in Malaya, as the result of wisdom and patience on both sides, there has been a reconciliation. 116.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“As I have said, it has cost us $630 million in the last six years, and for a country like ours, where the per capita income is 225 rupees a year — between $50 and $60 — that is a vast amount of money to spend. In Calcutta one can see any day human beings who have been driven out of their homelands and cut from their roots and their moorings, with nowhere to go and nowhere to look. And while we are an independent and free Government, and while we do the best we can, there are limits to our capacity and to our resources. Having regard to the vast burdens that already rest on the international community in connexion with refugees from different parts of the world, we have not yet invoked aid, but the time will come when this will become a very vast international problem. 115.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“Since independence, 500,000 people, very nearly, have come into West Bengal, and the Government of India has been responsible for expenditures of up to $630 million in housing and in the provision of relief for the vast numbers of refugees that have flowed into India. West Bengal is such a crowded part of the world, and into our populations come those who are pushed out for various reasons, so that this refugee problem is really of international concern. It would be a very wrong thing to say that one country must have the land and that the other must have the people. 114. This continuing exodus from the other side does not make for friendly relations but strains our economy, and, what is more, we do not see the end of it.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“We have not brought these matters before the United Nations because it is not our purpose to load the agenda with more subjects and merely to bring here problems which might perhaps be resolved in other ways. We have little doubt that the peoples who are interested in these territories will assert their freedom in the same way as we have done. 113. With our nearest neighbour we try as hard as we can to build up closer economic, political and cultural relations. There are large numbers of people flowing into India from our dear neighbouring country. Some come for a holiday, and they do not return, so that this leaves us a problem of refugees in which, I would point out, our country has had no assistance from anybody else.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“We believe that, with the patience which we have shown in this matter, the completion of our negotiations with France, which have been based upon mutual respect and understanding, will soon come about in every respect. But there is still apart of our country under colonial rule under the Portuguese empire. But here as elsewhere, as in the whole of India, if we decided to have our liberation from one of the most powerful empires of modern times, that of Great Britain, by peaceful methods, we shall continue to do that in other places also. But until the whole of our motherland is free from foreign occupation, we could not regard our independence as complete. 112.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“Australia to us becomes more and more a part of the Australasian continent. This has many significant aspects; it may be a contributory and a remedial factor in the racial conflicts which exist in the world. In many senses countries like ours are partly western and partly eastern by historic and economic circumstances, and we hope that in this way it will contribute in some measure to the purposes of the United Nations. 111. We have two problems in our area. One is part of an unfinished job, namely, the complete liquidation of colonialism in our country. Thanks to the wisdom of the British and French statesmen, two of the Western Powers which had been in occupation of our country have either fully or mostly relinquished the whole of that.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“Our greatest problem, however, is the problem of time. Unless we are able to make progress in the given time, the conflict between social aspirations and social satisfactions will become an even bigger problem, and this is a situation which a democracy has to face. We are determined to carry out our political and economic development on the basis of the sovereignty of our people. We intend to cultivate and maintain relations with all peoples, adhering firmly to the idea that friendship with one does not exclude friendship with another; in fact, it only extends the area of friendship. 110. With regard to foreign relations, more particularly with our neighbours, Burma, Ceylon, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand — I hope I have not omitted any — are not only good but have become closer each day.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“Therefore, when we speak in tills Assembly about assistance to under-developed countries, it must be on the basis of the economy of those countries and it must not be tied in with political relations. What is more, aid that goes to a country which does not make its own efforts, will not, in the long run, produce fruitful results. 108. I should like to take this opportunity, in case I do not get any other, of offering our thanks and expressing our gratitude to all the countries which I have mentioned, large and small. Even a country like the President’s, which I hope he will not mind my saying is a small one, has come to the assistance of India in a measure much larger than its resources would indicate and in a much larger proportion than other countries. We are immensely grateful for that. 109.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“But we would not say that so far as we are concerned either the desire or the anxiety to make them better is lacking. With every country in the world we have friendly relations, economic and political, and, more particularly, countries like the United States, the Soviet Union, New Zealand, Canada, Australia, Japan and Norway have come to our aid in various forms, whether through the United Nations or through bilateral agreements. A large amount of assistance, both in kind and in money, has come into India. 107. It would be a mistake to think that the economic development of our country, or of any country, should not depend mainly upon the efforts of its own people. In such a case it would have no real foundations and it would wither away.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“We are faced today with an expanding economy; and our difficulties arise from our having to find the resources, particularly in the way of exports to the highly developed countries, for a higher standard of life, for which we have to pay by the produce that comes out of agriculture. 105. Until we are able to correct this balance, we shall not get out of the relationship of economic imperialism; that is to say, until our countries are able to balance their economies to a considerable extent, we cannot hope to make much progress. 106. In the advancement which we have made, there has also been the feature of international co-operation. While we have friendly relations with every country in the world, it is true that we are in the unhappy position in which our relations with our nearest neighbour could be better.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“I do not want to go into any great detail about this, except to point out that this is a positive side. But we are also beset with problems, problems to which the Secretary-General makes reference in the economic section of his annual report [A/3594]. So far as the highly advanced industrial countries are concerned, adverse balances of trade do not affect them so much. But if the under-developed countries are really to get out of the rut of colonialism, then it is necessary that they should not be merely the producers of the raw materials supplied to the advanced industrial countries, taking in return what they can ill afford — the capital goods and the consumer goods of those countries. That is our big problem.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“In fact, we could not hope to achieve progress unless the development of every section of the population could take place. During the next five-year plan, our objective is to increase our national income, to expand industrialization, to increase employment opportunities and to reduce inequalities. For all this, our people must bear heavy burdens. 103. India today is the most heavily taxed country in the world. If you earn money, you pay income taxes; if you spend money, you pay expenditure taxes; if you save money, you pay taxes on wealth; if you leave money, you pay a State duty on inheritance. By the time everything is over, the people realize that the burdens on them are very great, but they have to carry these burdens in order that the future may be better than the present. 104.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“However, we consider that these are of very great importance in the area, particularly in South-East Asia and in other parts of Western Asia. 101. At the same time, social services have been developed. Owing to the existence of democratic institutions, a great deal of our social services, while they do not compare to social security measures either in Western Europe, in the United States or in other parts of the world, are largely met by voluntary contributions, with the Government, which represents the community, providing the initiative and the inspiration in many cases. 102. This is the balance sheet as it was at the beginning of last year. Then we went into what is called the second five-year plan. These plans do not mean that individuals are not allowed to develop private enterprise in India.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“Consumer goods, which should be kept down for various reasons, have also gone up by one third. 99. India today produces — and most people regard this as a very strange surprise — a large quantity of electric power, but it is not as much as we require. In five years the quantity of electric power has doubled. We have brought under cultivation, owing to the scarcity of food, 16 million additional acres of land, which is watered by the rivers that normally flow into the sea. That is why we sometimes feel very sad that on this particular problem political considerations should come in and that we should have difficulties. 100. I am relating these points not in order to be complacent or to take the time of the meeting with what are, after all, national projects and national achievements.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“There are friends of ours, like the Foreign Minister of Australia, who says that we ought to learn soon to break the clouds and pour the water out. But I do not know what one part of India would think if we burst the clouds there and the other part did not have it. That is to be seen. At any rate, these natural calamities visit us year after year. This year, for example, in Kashmir, 747,000 people saw their villages go under water as the result of sudden flood. 98. Food production, however, has gone up, but people are eating more. Are we to say that they should not eat more? There have been produced 11 million tons of food. Similarly, our industrial production has gone up in a meagre way by about 22 per cent or so, and the production of capital goods has increased by 70 per cent.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“What is more, we are beset by the problem of refugees flowing from a neighbouring country into ours. 96. Food is our most important problem because, if we do not have it, then it must be imported. And for some strange reason, foreign food is always paid for in dollars, and dollars are a rare commodity. But so far, we are short of food grains. However, we have made progress to the extent of increasing their production by about 20 per cent in the last six years. So if our people work hard enough and if nature is kind, which it is not, the condition will greatly improve. 97. Not a year passes in our country, however, without either a flood or an earthquake or a cyclone or a drought of some kind. There is too much water in one place and too little in another.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“Of that sum, I am happy to think that we spent 23 per cent — over $1,200 million — on social services. 94. But it is not enough to spend money whether we have it or not. We must also look at the results. The results are not as good as we would like them to be. But the national income of India increased by 17.5 per cent during that period and the per capita income increased by 10.5 per cent. 95. Our main problem has always been the problem of food. We are a very densely populated country. We are not. like Australia, a whole continent inhabited by 10 million people. The average density of our population, taking the mountains and the seas and the rivers and everything else into account, is about 350 per square mile. There are 376 million people in 1,200,000 square miles of our territory.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“Impatience is one of the concomitants of democracy. A democracy that is not impatient will soon cease to be and deteriorate into a very rigid society. 93. Therefore, having had this political revolution beforehand — whether in the village, the State, the municipality, the parliament, the chambers of commerce or the trade unions — everyone was making demands on the resources of the country, and it was essential that attention should be paid to economic planning. In 1950, we started in a very modest way. It was certainly modest when you compare it to the astronomical figures that you hear in the United States. The total outlay for our economic projects in the first five years came to $5,325 million. Of course, we did not pay it out in dollars, but this is the calculation.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“Of course, these conditions change. The better they become, the better people want them. There are some outstanding differences between countries like ours and those Western countries, including the United States, which have accomplished vast industrial achievements. We started with a political revolution and our industrial revolution follows. In Western communities, the industrial revolution came in and the people who became part of the industrial development demanded more political power. Therefore we have less time. We have more people who make calls upon us — that is, on the country. 92. The satisfaction of the aspirations of the people in terms of what they need cannot be put off on grounds of dearth of foreign exchange or inflation or this or that. Populations are impatient, and rightly so.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“In a few years time, therefore, democracy will not be confined to our parliaments or our State legislatures. It will not be confined to those whose names figure in the headlines of newspapers, but will go down to every village in India where men and women even today are in tens of thousands of organizations which are fully democratic, where they express their views and, what is more, govern the area. We have some village communities in our part of India where the whole of the village assembly is composed of women. It may not be a good thing, but there it is. 91. We come now to our economic planning. We realize that no form of independence has any meaning unless it can bring to the populations freedom from starvation, from hunger or the threat of hunger, and such conditions as are required for a reasonable way of life.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“By 1960, all India, with 600,000 villages, will give an example regarding the majority of the ordinary people who live on the fruits of the soil — they are mainly engaged in agriculture. These areas today are organized not so much by government officials as, to a very large extent, by voluntary organizations. Even the expenditure funds of up to 65 per cent come from the people themselves. 89. I refer to this because, as the Secretary-General well knows, the United Nations has taken an interest in this project and is trying to discover how much it would suit other countries similarly placed, and not in an identical set of circumstances. We are always willing to offer such assistance and to derive such information and inspiration as we can from other people. 90.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“It is not possible in a country like ours to get away by saying, "I am a good man". You have to say why you are, and the people decide for themselves. This is a political aspect of our country. If it were confined to our national Parliament, where the representatives sit far away in our central metropolis in New Delhi, that in itself would not be a great advance in democracy. For the first time since the death of the village republics some 2,000 or 1,500 years ago, our country has gone back again to the conception of village democracy. So whether it be on the executive or the judicial side or even in respect to financial powers, today 200,000 villages in India are covered by our community project schemes, where six years ago there were only fifty.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“It is quite true that a great number of my colleagues have had their elections challenged by petitions, which is part of the constitutional process, and so long as there are clever lawyers in many countries there will be long procedures in this direction. 87. So for the second time in the last ten years millions and millions of people — men and women — without distinction of class, creed or colour, have gone to the polls and elected the government of the day in peaceful circumstances without having to call in the troops or the police or anything of that kind and, what is more, with the issues being fully explained. I know the issues had to be explained. I myself had to campaign for election for only a short period of time because the United Nations takes a great deal of one's time. 88.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“On our electoral rolls today are 193,429,004 people. That number is larger than the population of the United States. I am quite prepared to admit that one Indian may be far inferior to one American. But just as we are larger in quantity, our electorate is larger than the population of any country that is represented here. 86. We take legitimate pride in the fact that this democratic exercise has proceeded peacefully. Whether our political parties be of one type or another, whether they be Liberal, Constitutional, Congress, Communist, Socialist or all the other things there are — and we have fourteen parties in opposition to the Government, and what opposition! — not one of them has complained about the stifling of opinion or the rigging of elections.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“But none of these has any meaning to the masses of the people of any country unless they are translated into terms of political facilities to express themselves, autonomy — swaraj, as we could call it in our country — satisfaction of hunger, provision of shelter, proper sanitation and organization of leisure. These are the social minima that must obtain in our civilized age. 84. We in our country took the plunge six or seven years ago when we not only accepted but proclaimed and embodied in our Constitution and political life the idea that the independence of our country must be the independence of all the peoples. What the West then regarded as an experiment is now part of our national life. 85. A few months ago, 121 million people registered their opinion as to who should constitute the Parliament of India.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“Therefore what happens in countries like ours, not India alone, is of world significance, because we have come today to a state of affairs where it is not possible to have prosperity in one place and misery somewhere else. Just as we say that war somewhere would become var everywhere, similarly, epidemics, famines and lower standards of life, bad conditions of labour and social unrest, are as infectious as the rest of the epidemics in the world. 83. When we became an independent country, without being addicted to any ideology, we took over in our own minds the political and the economic consequences of independence. There is so much said in these halls about, colonial rule, national independence, the sovereignty of nations, the much abused words "self-determination of peoples" and so on.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“This is not to blot out the period of history that has gone before us, whether it be from the time of 1919 when we became an original member of the League of Nations, or the 7,000 years that preceded that date. But these ten years are the only period that we as a people have known as a democratic, independent national State; and if we refer to this, it is not because this rostrum should be used for the propaganda of national Governments, but in order that attention may be drawn to the vast experiments, or projects, that have taken place in the amelioration of the conditions of people in under-developed areas and the bridging of the gap resulting from the recession, or rather stagnation of development, existing during the period of imperial rule. 82.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“There is so much desire on the part of the people to know about it, and there is great expectation, and this great expectation is one that we, who represent Governments either singly or collectively, may not ignore, because ultimately it is the voice of the peoples of the world that must decide. Whether we call them by one name or another, so far as our forms of government are concerned, there never can be any authority established anywhere in the world which ultimately would not yield to the impact of the people. 81. It will be my task, in so far as I have time, to refer back to the achievements of the United Nations. I take the liberty, but I make no apology at this time, of referring to the ten years of our own life as an independent nation.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“One of the main distinctions between the predecessor of the United Nations and the United Nations itself is that the countries of the world do not regard the United Nations as just an organization outside themselves, to whom some specialists are sent in order to sit in session, after which they can forget about it. 80. As the Secretary-General well knows, and as I said the other day [690th meeting], when he came to our country and wandered in a village where he was net supposed to be going, he was asked all about the United Nations, including his salary.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“While it is true that Lie Credentials Committee must examine our credentials, and while there maybe differences between the economic and political composition of our various States and in our procedures, the fact does remain that today, irrespective of the forms of government all over the world, the people are the significant and ultimate factor in decision. It is the view of my delegation that, while there is an increasing realization of the impact of world public opinion on all our Governments and on us collectively, there is not enough profit.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“In the last two years, the area of freedom has widened in the world and so has the membership of the United Nations. We have here now eighty-two countries of the world, and while either representation or membership is significant in certain omissions, we still represent a very considerable part of the world and, what is more, a great many of us are conscious of our omissions. The United Nations, if its purposes had to be recited in simple terms — which may not always be accurate — is the Organization for world peace and co-operation. The very words of the Charter open with the exhortation to rid the world of the scourge of war so that this planet may not be again plunged into confusion, as has been the case twice in this century. It also uses in the beginning, the words "We the peoples of the United Nations". 79.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“The United Nations was founded, while war was raging, by those who could see further than the events of that time in order that peace might reign in this world and that this comity of nations might not be a holy alliance of good nations and of bad nations, but a universal society where the differences between sovereign countries, with their different historical backgrounds and civilizations, might be expressed in such a way that their diversities would make them a common richness. 77. Some of those expectations, as must be the case in all new organizations, especially those based partly on idealism and partly on the imperative necessity of survival, have suffered some setbacks. But still, our position is one which, while we may not be complacent, gives us hope and certainly calls for greater endeavour. 78.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“We are particularly happy to note that the Secretary-General refers to the functions of the United Nations as a realm of open diplomacy. I wish the time would come when the Secretary-General could make the physical conveniences and facilities of this place more conducive to conference and not merely to speaking and counter-speaking. 76. My delegation appears on this rostrum today in the context of twelve years of United Nations existence and, so far as our country is concerned, ten years as an independent nation. We are an old country but a new nation. Against that background, one approaches the United Nations not as from a vacuum but in terms of the successes and the failures of its predecessors, going back to the Middle Ages and, more recently, to the failure of the League of Nations.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“But the impact of public opinion and the speakers who represent here the millions of people all over the world — with significant omissions though, to which I shall refer later — have a tremendous influence upon the progress of humanity as a whole. 75. My country is one of those which shares very much the view the Secretary-General expresses in the introduction to his annual report [A/3594/Add.1]. that the United Nations should neither be romantically regarded as a panacea, as the centre for resolving every dispute, or as having the answers to every problem, nor should it be regarded as an institution that has failed to perform its functions. Each year the United Nations blossoms out in a different way. Opportunities for different ways of solution come about.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“But at any rate, there is this idea that we all come here with different points of view, we tolerate each other, we try to understand each other. 74. While sometimes the language used may not be all that would have been correct in the Victorian age, we still conduct our procedures in this Assembly in, such a way that the views of different delegations, and the approach that is made by nations and by large regional continental areas of the world, make their impact upon our common desires. We are not a world parliament nor are we a world government of any kind. Any decision that is made here is by way of recommendation, which goes back to our sovereign Governments, to our parliaments, or otherwise.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“I am the seventieth. This large number of delegations which have considered it necessary and proper, and indeed essential, to participate in this general debate is in the view of my delegation a great tribute to the trust and esteem in which the United Nations is held in all our countries. 73. This general debate, while cynics may speak of it as a long run of speeches, has a significance which should not be overlooked. This is perhaps the occasion when representatives are somewhat disanchored from the necessity of voting according to political alignments, but are free to express themselves. There are delegations like mine who sometimes think that if the votes were all like the speeches, the Assembly would be rather different.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“His patience and his courtesy were to a very considerable extent responsible for our overcoming certain procedural and debating difficulties at that stage, even apart from his good offices for reconciliation. 71. This is also the proper opportunity for my delegation to express a word of appreciation to those large numbers of people whose names are not printed in the books of delegations or who do not come in for public approval, namely, the large staff of the Secretary-General, at all levels, who make our life and our work here possible and whose research, diligence and thoroughness of organization contributes so much to the success of this Assembly. 72. During the last three weeks, sixty-nine speakers, representing the legitimate Governments of their countries and duly accredited by them, have spoken from this platform.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“A few days ago, my delegation had the honour and privilege of offering its felicitations to Sir Leslie Munro on his election to the high office of President of the General Assembly and to Mr. Hammarskjold for having accepted the onerous duties of Secretary-General of the United Nations for a period of another five years. Repetition is not always welcome, but I think this is a good thing that will bear repetition. Therefore I wish, now, to repeat those felicitations. 70. I should also like to take this opportunity of expressing our appreciation of the President of the last session, Prince Wan Waithayakon of Thailand, under whose presidency we had very difficult issues to deal with in this Assembly over a long period.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“But the thought I would like to leave for myself at the end of these observations is that the future of the United Nations largely depends upon ourselves. As was said by this great man — and he did not regard himself as a god: “Not even a god can change into defeat the victory of a man who has vanquished himself.” And the only person who can vanquish a man is man himself.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“This is the general outline which I would like to place before the Assembly. We want to say here that in spite of the shadows that darken this world, if our efforts are directed towards the practical implementation of the provisions of the Charter, and if we are able to cast our votes with a full consideration of the issues, without predetermination, without taking sides, but guided by the reality of events, we shall strengthen this Organization and create greater confidence in everybody. 206. I referred in the beginning to the fact that in our country today the anniversary of the Buddha, 2,500 years ago, was being observed. Religious leaders in the past have given maxims about devotion and dedication.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“India has made more advance in this respect than any other country in that part of the world, and in the circumstances now prevailing, where our food supplies are short, the United States has come forward, on the basis we have arranged with it, of a business character, to furnish the necessary food supplies, part of them at any rate from its surpluses. 204. Our economic development has been assisted by drawing on the technical and material resources of the Western world as well as of Eastern Europe. For example, in our attempts to discover oil deposits in India, Soviet engineers are working in India. The same applies to certain parts of our heavy industry. But in none of this is there any sacrifice of our sovereignty or in any way the mortgaging of our independence for a mess of economic pottage. 205.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“We are happy to think that between the United States and ourselves the relations of co-operation and friendship will be promoted further by the visit of our Prime Minister to the President of the United States in a few days, at which time I hope our Prime Minister will have the opportunity of meeting large numbers of delegations in the United Nations itself. 203. We are also deeply beholden as a country to the members of the Colombo Plan, which in the last five years have expended something like $4,000 million in the development of the countries of South-East Asia in the main. Canada particularly has taken an important part in the provision of an atomic reactor in India.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“In connexion with the Egyptian question, it would be an understatement to say that the United States, by the stand which it took on the whole of the issue and by the way in which the republics of Latin America and the European countries rallied to the issue of finding a settlement by obtaining a cease-fire, JR has created a great deal of confidence and a feeling of assurance in the powers of the Assembly. But I would be wrong if I did not point out that we must carefully warn ourselves that the security functions of the United Nations do not willy-nilly and forever shift to the Assembly. There are dangers inherent in this, and it is for us to consider them carefully. 202.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“We believe that any attempts to attack or any attack of a Member of the United Nations is the common concern of everybody else. Therefore, as we said in San Francisco, we must move from this era of the balance of power to an era of universalism. 200. We are happy to think that in the countries of Asia, and certainly in our country, as I said a while ago, there has been greater contact with other parts of the world. With the Western world also, my Government and country stand in relations where we are able to understand to a certain extent the differences of outlook, and it is our desire to promote this understanding. 201.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“What is more, we now have various nuisance pacts in our area, which only serve to dismember the unity of peoples and to take the apparatus of war into regions where it is possible for the peoples concerned to build up their economies without being involved in these conflicts. That is not to say that they could lead a sheltered existence. 199. In all these matters it is my duty to tell the Assembly that the view of our Government is that the relations between the countries must continue to be based on the principles of the Charter, and that we should not seek to make exceptions in the case of some, to allow some people to assume powers of sanction and security, to allow the interpretation that either the Warsaw Pact or the other regional military agreements are agreements under Article 51 of the Charter, because they are not.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)