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

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“There are two sets of figures available, one the figures of the budget of the Government of India, and the other the figures collected by the United Nations. They do not vary in substance; they are calculated upon a different basis, and, at the risk of boring the Assembly with figures, I think it is necessary for us to state this, because the Foreign Minister of Pakistan told us that 70 per cent of the national budget of Pakistan was devoted to military expenditure and that the same was the case in India. I do not question the right of the Foreign Minister of Pakistan to speak of his country; I have no objection to his speaking about us when the facts are right. 131.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“Our neighbours from Pakistan also made reference to India in regard to Kashmir. Now Kashmir is still on the agenda of the Security Council. We put it there. We came here with a complaint of aggression. I have no desire, therefore, to go into great detail about it. I had the pleasure of hearing the distinguished lady, who was a countrywoman of ours until ten years ago, for whom we have very great affection and regard, speak to us [592nd meeting], and I can only echo her sentiments: we want to see the end of aggression in Kashmir. 130. The Foreign Minister of Pakistan has made certain references to our military expenditure. This is a matter of some concern to us, because we are discussing problems of disarmament, the attitude of countries in regard to military expenditure and things of that kind.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“The items are on the agenda, and so far as my delegation is concerned we shall pursue them with an even greater degree of restraint than we have exercised in the past, because the South African delegation — if it maintains its ultimatum to the Assembly and adheres to its communication to the Assembly — will not be present, and I believe in that event, since we are on the other side, as is most of the Assembly, we ; have a special responsibility to look after its interests there. While the case is being considered ex parte, we shall show no vindictiveness, because what we want is the settlement of this problem, for reasons which we shall make dear, which are more than national reasons, because this question touches on one of the three great and outstanding difficulties of our modem world. 129.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“The vote we want is the vote of South Africa, and my country is not without hope that in the years to come South Africa will itself ask for the consideration of this item or make a report of its own in terms of the United Nations Charter. That is the approach we make to this. 127. This year, South Africa has been joined, much to our regret, by the delegation of Italy, the country of Mazzini which, but for the brief interval of Mussolini and mustard gas, has been a beacon of liberty and inspiration to us. We are on the most friendly terms with the Italian Government and the Italian people both in the economic, political and cultural fields. We deeply regret this one exception, although we do not for a moment question the reasons or the sincerity of the Italian Government in being against us in this matter. 128.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“My staff has very kindly dug up the figures for me. I find that from the first session of the Assembly to the eleventh, on five occasions South Africa alone voted against the consideration of this item. In the first, second and third sessions of the Assembly, when Mr. Smuts led the delegation, no formal vote was taken — that is to say, no formal objection was raised to the consideration of this item. The same thing happened at the fifth session. From the sixth to the tenth sessions of the Assembly, one vote was recorded against the consideration of the item— the vote of South Africa itself. 126. I should like to say that we do not discount this one vote, because it is the most valuable vote. If I say so, we could do without some of the others.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“We hope that the Union Government will reconsider this matter. Here we all come in for criticism — Heaven knows we do. I want to answer just two things. Mr. Louw, with whom I am happy to be in good personal relations, told this Assembly — and I hesitate to say this because he is not here, but that is no making of mine — that India has pursued a path of vindictiveness in these matters. 125. I want to ask this Assembly to read through the records of the debate. It is quite true that we might have had lapses, because the people of Indian origin have suffered very severely, not only physically but in their self-respect and dignity, under the conditions prevailing d I will not go into the details of the subject. All I want to point out is that if India was vindictive, so was practical every other Member of this Assembly.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“I should not like to refer to all of them, because we shall have plenty of opportunity in committee when we are discussing these items to refer to them as relevant. But there are two matters to which I should like to make a brief reference. 123. One is the question of our sister State in the Commonwealth, the Union of South Africa. I want to say as sincerely as I can that my Government and my delegation would deeply regret any action taken by any Member of this Organization, however much we may be opposed to it on any issue, which is a challenge to the Organization as a whole or in any way makes that Member feel that it has no place here. Therefore the statement of the representative of the Union of South Africa [597th meeting] is not one that gives us any kind of pleasure or glee. 124.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“We are happy in the development that took place in our own country, and in spite of the deadlock that now prevails, in spite of the stalemate that exists between the Portuguese Government and ourselves, where we have severed diplomatic relations and, to a very considerable extent economic relations, we are not without hope that wisdom will dawn and that we will be able to come to arrangements whereby, even as France did after seven years of patient negotiation, there will be the removal of this last vestige of colonialism from our country. 122. In the course of this debate, largely because my delegation has come in towards the end, very many references have been made to our various deeds or misdeeds, more than to almost anyone else, as I see from the records.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“And if I may say so, the only way to look at a colony for all civilized people is in the words of a famous American, Abraham Lincoln, who said: “As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my meaning of democracy.” 120. So when we hear about the free world, when we hear about democracy, no one who is in possession of a colony or who imposes the rule of his country on another can claim that he has reached perfection or even the necessary modicum of democratic government. We used to hear about democratic imperialism in the old days. There can be no more democratic imperialism than there can be a vegetarian tiger; it is a contradiction in terms. 121.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“We attained our independence from the most powerful empire the world has ever known with only very small episodes of violence. But of course it must be said that on the one side was the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, which I hope we have inherited to a certain extent, and on the other side a liberal democracy with parliamentary opinion at home. I am afraid we cannot say the same thing in this particular case. 119. It is not our intention, however, to bring this problem here. There is one aspect of it before the International Court of Justice, and therefore I have no desire to go further into the matter. But I want particularly my Asian friends to realize that we regard this as a straightforward colonial problem.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“The British were not particularly concerned about driving them away. After all, you must expect empires, after the conditions of settlement, to hang together, because if they do not hang together they tend to hang separately. 117. So Goa remains as another pain in our neck, as a kind of unpleasant pimple on our territory. The population of Goa is in ferment, much cruelty goes on and its national leaders are either in prison in Goa or have been deported to Portugal. I say here that this Indian people will never become Portuguese, any more than the Algerians will become French. 118. That is the only problem we have. But we want to assure this Assembly that we do not and we shall not approach this problem in terms of violence.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“In other words, to us, the solution of the problem of West Irian is merely the completion of the independence of Indonesia. 116. We, ourselves, have very few colonial problems. There is a small part of our country which is still under colonial occupation by the Portuguese Government, who were the earliest settlers in our country. The Portuguese were followed by the Dutch, afterwards by the French and then by the British, which was the international fashion of those days. The French and the British having fallen out — though the French had better troops, the British were better diplomats, I suppose — the British established themselves in India. At that time, the Portuguese ruler occupied a part of India, although it had not been given to him by way of a lease from our people and was still a part of our sovereign territory.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“Then we have another difficult problem in these colonial areas, the problem of West Irian. The position of our delegation is well-known on this matter. West Irian comes before this Assembly only because of the action taken by the Netherlands Government in recent years. 115. Internationally speaking, West Irian is Indonesia; West Irian is as much Indonesia as Java is Indonesia. In the circumstances in which Indonesia emerged into freedom, in which both Australia and my own country had played some part, and where the Indonesians and the Dutch displayed a great deal of common sense and compromise, this matter was left on the desk for the time being. Therefore it is not as though a new country in the sense of a sovereign State has arisen.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“We could not do that. Therefore, in this problem of Cyprus, my delegation finds itself in extreme difficulty in just saying “yes” or “no”. We are glad it is going to be discussed, but we shall take our stand on the idea of an independent country of Cyprus. 113. Cyprus has a population of half a million people. Iceland, which is a very distinguished and valued Member of this Organization, has a population of 150,000 people. If a country of 150,000 people, also an island — probably in more inhospitable seas — can be a sovereign State, we do not see why the hard-working and industrious Cypriots, of Greek and Turkish and other origin, who, if they accept the principles of the Charter of the United Nations, can make a contribution to their own economy, their well-being and their cultural advancement, should be denied their sovereignty. 114.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“The task of statesmanship, in which the United Kingdom has not been totally lacking in its long history, lies in finding a solution to this very difficult situation where there is a multilateral society in a territory in which the United Kingdom Government regards the establishment of its powers as necessary for its strategic requirements. 111. This is a contention with which we do not agree. We must find a method whereby the Cypriot people will be ensured their independence, a method whereby the international community will ensure the Cypriot people against any attempt to swallow them up. 112. There are other multilateral communities whose populations have their motherlands in other parts of the world. If they are all to be absorbed by the place whence their ancestors came, then I suppose my country would have to go back to Central Asia.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“This year the item comes on the agenda by the common consent of the two parties which in this Assembly — I repeat and definitely say “in this Assembly” — have been mainly concerned with this problem, namely, the United Kingdom and Greece. But in our respectful view, the people who are mainly concerned with this problem are the people of Cyprus. 110. I want to state here and now our approach to this problem. It is the solution of any situation involving violence, a situation which may lead to the widening of a conflict which may gradually develop into even more unbearable proportions. It is easy to say that there are difficulties, that there are adjustments that are not Possible, and to find a hundred reasons why a thing cannot be done.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“We do not discriminate against them on grounds of race as we were discriminated against, and I believe it is possible in other colonial areas at the present moment — we refer to Algeria — that if the French Government, in its wisdom, found it possible to bring to a close this chapter of violence and bloodshed, and if the Algerians, in their magnanimity, found it possible also to realize that violence was not the way to progress and therefore were willing in conditions of independence to seek friendship and co-operation, it would be good for both countries, and indeed for the world. 109. We have another problem where the phenomenon is of a slightly different character. It is an island in the Mediterranean called Cyprus, about which we have heard a great deal.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“Our relations with the United Kingdom in this respect stand as an outstanding example to other people in the sense that we have no quarrels with them. There are more British nationals in India today than when they were occupying our country. They are welcome. They have the same rights, apart from electoral rights, as our peoples. We do not discriminate against them, in connexion either with their skill or with their capital.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“These troops are engaged in military operations aimed at suppressing the desire for freedom of a people. 107. My Government desires me to say that our objective for Algeria is the same as has been our objective for ourselves: that is, the independence of that territory. We recognize that administrative arrangements ought to be established, on a basis of free discussion and free unity, for a relationship with its former rulers, so that both, afterwards, could become equal members of the world community. It is our experience, as indeed it is of our past rulers, that this association of free union out of free will is profitable to both sides. What is more, it is a small contribution in this distracted world of national strife. 108.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“We regret — and I do not propose to deal with any other aspect of the problem to which I am to refer — that the membership of colonial countries what is called the North Atlantic Treaty Organization gives them the economic, the political and the military strength to make their striking power against colonial peoples more potent. I do not for a moment suggest that NATO wages war in Algeria. But the weapons NATO supplies to its members or makes available to them, the economic resources, the skill and the expertise that comes to their disposal, enables them to release a very considerable part of their own strength for these purposes. 106. In Algeria, so far as our information goes — and I am subject to correction — there are nearly half a million French troops. I believe a good many of them are members of the Foreign Legion.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“The most important of these — and I hope no one will take offence by my grading them in this way -is that of Algeria, because of its international importance and of the problems of war and peace will which it is connected and its general stubbornness. 104. Algeria is .part of the North African continent and belongs to all its people. And war goes on in that continent in the same way as war went on for eight years in Indo-China. We mean no offence to the French people, certainly, and not even to the French Government, when we say that we regard the situation in Algeria, ever since the suppression of the national movements by force — and that is a long time — as a colonial war. 105.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“We should therefore like to express our appreciation to all the countries which have made this possible, and more particularly the United States, which had a candidate in the field and then withdrew him in order to enable an Asian country to take the post. 102. This covers the observations I intend to make by way of introduction, which does not relate to the items that are on the agenda. I should now like to point out to the Assembly the attitude of my Government on the various items and the various problems that we are to consider, not in any great detail, but in so far as they represent the foremost things that are in our minds. 103. The Assembly will pardon us if we attach a great deal of importance to what are called colonial questions.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“These men and women from every continent who are now in our national capital are not only our guests, but also, to a very, very great extent, they are our helpers, and by their visit have made a great contribution. 101. We are also happy to state that, for the first time in the history of the United Nations, the directors of one of its principal agencies, namely, the Food and Agriculture Organization, has now been selected from the Asian continent. It is particularly appropriate that agriculture, which has been our occupation over five millennia, should find a representative for its direction from our part of the world.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“We have at the present moment in India the meetings of the United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization, where seventy-seven nations and nearly 800 representatives are gathered in a conference of one of the principal organs of the United Nations. A country like ours, with its backward technique compared to the Western countries, has found it difficult to cope with this problem, but we considered that it was the right thing to do in the circumstances and it was of very great value to us, because these visits and these conferences, and the discussions that take place in our part of the world, provide us with that degree of education and open the windows in our own house; for we are not so foolish, I hope, as to believe that we do not require a great deal of education and enlightenment from other parts of the world.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“Out of the 600,000 villages of India, 130,000 are covered by what has been called an experiment, but what is now part of our administrative and political system, whereby the villages have come into an entire, integral relationship with the central and State governments and in social political and economic organization. This part of our development has attracted the attention of the United Nations, and is to a very considerable extent now being studied by other South-East Asian countries, and we hope that in the next five years all the 600,000 villages of India, where 80 per cent of its population lives, will be covered in this way. 100.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“Our population increases at the rate of 4 million a year, which is about 1.5 per cent; so that, although the pro rata increase is small compared to other countries, our aggregates are much larger. Therefore this land of ours has each year to find the food to feed these new mouths, and so our economy must take into account this balance in agricultural and industrial production. 99. Our country has made great progress in what is called community development, to which the Secretary-General draws pointed attention in his report.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“The fact that our agricultural production is not keeping pace — it is perhaps the lowest in the world — and that, therefore, it is not enabling our people to reap the rewards of independence, has been borne in upon our Government and our community so that, from this year onwards, India plans to step up its agricultural production by 35 per cent — 35 per cent in a country where modern methods of agriculture are difficult of introduction, partly because of physical and social circumstances, which take time to remedy, and even more because of the fact that, apart from the blocking of the Suez Canal, the procurement of the necessary capital goods and the provision of that great capital in all economic development, namely, time, are not with us. 98.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“In that second phase we are faced, as other countries have been faced, with that factor to which the Secretary-General refers in his report [A/ 3137], namely, the balance between agricultural production and industrial production. The second five-year plan contemplates what the Western countries, particularly the United States, would regard as a small volume of expenditure, which runs into nearly $5 thousand million in five years. 97.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“Now I refer for a moment, as briefly as I can, as has been the practice in the past, to our domestic situation, because the conditions of a country like ours, in an undeveloped part of the world, the emergence of its democratic and parliamentary institutions and the way they are functioning, and its economic development, are matters of international importance. This is not an invitation to anyone to interfere in the affairs of our country, but merely a wish to point out that the conditions which prevail have a great deal to do with the development of freedom as a whole and, what is more, with the establishment of stability in our part of the world. 96. We have passed successfully the period of our first five-year economic planning, and now enter into the second phase.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“Thus, in the African continent, there are three new sovereign States — two of which are already Members, and one which, no doubt, will be admitted to Membership before long. 94. We are also glad to welcome the establishment of the International Finance Corporation. In the economic field, the activity of the United Nations is so little known to the outside world, and in the Assembly we give so little attention to it on account of the way our Organization is built up, these matters being considered in another place. 95.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“However, I am the last speaker in this wide debate, and it is not my intention at this time to go into the activities of the various organizations that have been functioning — some of which have headquarters in our land — but merely to refer to two or three great developments in the world. 93. The Members of the United Nations — and, indeed, the world — have reason to congratulate themselves and to feel happy that, during the twelve months that have gone by, three great nations have achieved their independence. I would mention, first, Tunisia and Morocco. In regard to another part of the world, I cannot say that, formally, it has reached independence, but I am entirely confident of the independence that is to come in what is now British West Africa, or the territory which will be called Ghana in the future.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“We had hoped that when, unfortunately, this session of the Assembly was postponed until November 1956, it would give the world a longer time in order to assist in the process of the lowering of tensions, but we met here this time in the shadow of two grave crises, to which I shall refer in a moment. 92. The United Nations in the last year has great achievements to its credit. In previous years my delegation has tried to convey to the Assembly the work of the United Nations in our own country, largely because a great deal of this constructive work is never spoken about and, further, because we are an example of an underdeveloped country, an example of a large country in a far-off part of the world.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“And I want to say here and now — which I shall repeat later — that our country does not take the view that because there has been an error of very grave magnitude, which still stands to be remedied, we shall throw the baby out with the bath-water. 91. But this is the brighter side of the situation. Against that we see today what appears to be a return to the “cold war” mentality, a return even in the United Nations to recriminations, a rebirth of the whole phenomena of fear and, generally, instead of the lowering of tension that had been noticed, an increase of tension.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“It is our view that, in this Assembly, we ought to take this matter not merely as a development of internal consequence, because what takes place inside a great and powerful country is of very great importance to the rest of the world. 90. There have been other developments of a very important character. There has been much greater communication between the countries of Asia; our own capital is full of distinguished visitors, delegations, and people from all parts of the world. There has been a great deal of communication established between countries which had not formerly sent visitors to each other. Our relations with our own Commonwealth have drawn nearer in spite of the tragic events of the last two months.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“I would not say that these hopes have been completely frustrated, but events in the last few months have been of mixed character. 89. My Government desires me to say that the great changes that have been taking place in the Soviet Union in the last eighteen months are, in its opinion, changes calculated to assist in the progress of humanity and in the enlargement of human liberty. It has now been stated that, in the years before, there was considerable suppression of such liberty, and virtually a hypocrisy enthroned in that country. We would like to see the expansion of this trend not only in the Soviet Union, but also in all other areas in which the Soviet Union has influence or with which it has relationships, and we would not ourselves do anything to thwart that progress.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“That gathering, which had no agenda and at which we did not particularly conform to any rules of procedure, as it was not intended to transact any business, since the occasion was one of commemoration, appeared to us, as to many other delegations, as sending forth of a clarion call for a new face on the United Nations. Speaker after speaker spoke about outlawry of war and of how ten years of failures and debacles and checks and frustrations should lie behind. And we all thought, at San Francisco, with the Geneva Conference in the offing, that a new era was about to begin for the United Nations — although we were not romantic about it. In fact, many thought that, at San Francisco once again, we would begin to write a new chapter.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“My Government has an accredited ambassador in Outer Mongolia, and an ambassador from Outer Mongolia lives in New Delhi. We believe that that State is entitled as anyone else to take its place here, and we deeply regret that the use of the veto in the Security Council has prevented its admission. We hope that the influence of the other permanent members will used this time to blot this out, so that the United Nations will become truly universal. 88. We meet this year in conditions which we did not expect. It is nearly eighteen months ago that we gathered in San Francisco on the tenth anniversary of the united Nations.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“In arguing for their admission at the tenth session of the General Assembly, before the Ad Hoc Political Committee [31st meeting], my delegation referred to our contacts with them and tried to dispel as far as we could the idea that Outer Mongolia was a phantom that did not exist as a sovereign State. Here is a country in the fastnesses of the Gobi desert, where out of a barren and inhospitable soil their own people are building today the beginnings of modem civilization, with industry, with hygiene and sanitation and education. Fortunately, the visitors to that country who have no predisposition in their favour have returned the report of the progress that this little republic has made. It is a sovereign State lying in the neighbourhood of the Soviet Union and of China, and a small country even more entitled to have its voice heard. 87.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“But there are two omissions of which we are very conscious: one is that great country of Japan which, but for its brief episode of aggression during the last war, is a country which has the right to claim to make a great contribution to human civilization. In any case, the establishment of the Far East here, the representation of Asia, would not be complete without Japan joining our ranks. Practically all other what I call ex-enemy countries are now Members of the United Nations. The Charter of the United Nations and even the proclamation of 1942 contemplated their joining us. Therefore, we hope it will not be long before Japan takes its place side by side with us. 86. The other is that progressive and very brave little people of the small country of Outer Mongolia.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“Again I hope the Assembly will forgive us if we think a little more intimately of our close and dear neighbours, Nepal and Ceylon, which, for a long time, through no fault of their own making, were kept out of the counsels of this gathering. 84. I am sure the Assembly will agree with us in these sentiments, that the entry of these new Members has strengthened our life and in fact has not lengthened the proceedings of the Assembly, as was once feared. We look forward to their intimate association with us in every way; in fact, that is the wrong way of putting it, because there are neither old Members nor new Members once they are here. 85.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“We say that in no spirit of national illiberalism, because we are conscious that we are but the poor inheritors — that is to say, that our capacity to live up to this inheritance is very poor. We are conscious of that, but at the same time we think it is useful to proclaim to the word that, in the midst of the strife and the shadows that cast their length over us, there is this recalling of this great tradition where there is no intolerance, no attempt to proselytize, there is no attempt to impose, a view by the one who gave the great edict to the world. 83. In this Assembly, again, we join with a number of Speakers who have come to this rostrum before to Welcome to our fold nineteen new Members. We are naturally happy that many of them come from under-represented parts of the world, namely, Asia and Africa.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“It was necessary to find ways of adjusting and ways of accommodation; this was not a counsel of the practical as it is called, but an ethical conception which has been handed down to our people. 82. W-e are not today in formal terms a Buddhist country, nor was Buddhism a religion when it came to India, but these great teachings were absorbed in our fife and our culture, and it remains the home of the great founder of these teachings which spread over the centuries to far-off Asia, where in those areas our country at no time conducted either conquest or depredation, and the only missionaries that went out either to Japan or to China or to Ceylon or to what is now called South-East Asia, or to the far comers of the then Western world, were these men who took the message of love and compassion.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“In our land today are gathered peoples from far-off Japan, a Buddhist country within its own form, peoples from China governed by a Communist government, people from Thailand, people from other parts of East Asia and our very near and dear neighbours of Ceylon and Nepal. All these are gathered together in our land today, not in festivity, but to recall to the world the great message of the son of our soil who, 2,500 years ago, preached the principles of tolerance, of mutual respect and of living together; and, what is more, proclaimed to the world that the only way of toleration was to find the middle way, that is to say, that no one had the complete monopoly of good or evil.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“Today, while the shadows of these crises overcast our land and the thoughts of our statesmen and of our people, there is also, in our country, another event of great importance to which I must refer, because it is so related to the conditions of world co-operation and peace — all of which means not merely the cessation of war, but the establishment of conditions between countries, between individuals and between communities, where there is harmony, compassion and toleration. We celebrate in India this week what is called the Buddha Jayanti, that is, the birth of the Lord Buddha, which really is the date when he reached in his life his fulfilment. Now in that tradition, it is that day that is regarded as the birth of Buddha, as in the Christian tradition the Resurrection has its place. 81.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“Maza was succeeded by another countryman of his who had perhaps the most unenviable task of all those who have occupied the presidential Chair, namely, to preside over the emergency sessions, which was strenuous not only in regard to the time it occupied and the times in the course of twenty-four hours during which the President had to be with us, but also in regard to the very difficult, complex and vexing problems the Assembly had to consider. 80.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“We have had the pleasure and the privilege of receiving him in our country as Prince Wan Waithayakon has in Thailand. 78. I would like to tell this Assembly that a visit by the former President has done a great deal, not only to bring the United Nations to our people, but to bring that great part of the world, the countries of Latin America, more to the living consciousness of our peoples. We would welcome many more representatives of that part of the world, because we believe they are people emerged from former empires, new lands with new destinies, peoples who have no racial or national prejudices as between each other, among whom prevails a great tradition of law and the right of the freedom of individuals, particularly in the case of sanctuary and the right of assembly. 79. Mr.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“Not only India, but the countries that attended the Bandung Conference, will be ever ready to pay him a warm tribute for the great contribution, not so much in speeches, which he made at that conference, but by his very skillful and tactful approaches to very difficult problems. 76. I would also like to take this opportunity to recall the services of his predecessor, Mr. Maza, who was one of the great presidents of the United Nations General Assembly. 77. The last session was momentous in many ways. It witnessed many crises. It solved a situation where the future of the United Nations might have been affected; and our President stepped into the breach where many people probably would have thought that it was better to stay away, in the comparative neutrality of the Chair.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“Our more recent relations commenced with the time of the Emperor Asoka, somewhere, in the third century B.C., when the teachers of Buddhism went out to the President’s land, and their successors have had a very great and predominant influence in his country. 75. It is true that, in the last three or four centuries, the effects of modern Western imperialism have served not to bring us closer but to draw us apart in the lands of Asia, both in terms of physical and political application. Happily these bonds are being renewed, and both Thailand and Prince Wan Waithayakon have a preeminent place in the minds of our people.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)
“I join with so many others who have preceded me on this rostrum during the course of the general debate in conveying to Prince Wan Waithayakon the congratulations and good wishes of my delegation, my Government and my country upon his unanimous election to the high office of the presidency of the General Assembly. 74. We would offer these congratulations to anyone who was the recipient of the confidence of the United Nations in this manner, but so far as Prince Wan Waithayakon personally is concerned, I hope the Assembly will forgive me if I take a moment to refer to the particular happiness and pleasure we feel in having, as President of the General Assembly, this year, the representative of a country which has been related to us in 4,000 years of recorded history.”
1956-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 11 (1956)