NO DATE
M/ 92 6 June 1973
PRII7, MI". ISTR'S VISIT TO I1IDIA
Following is the text of a speech given by the Prime
Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Whitlam, at a dinner
given in his honour by the Prime Minister of India in New Delhi on
Monday, 4 June, 1973.
" It is a moving occasion indeed for me to be here on your
invitation as Prime Minister of Australia, in your canital in
this ancient seat of kings, emperors, viceroys and now the centre
of the world's largest democracy.
Your gracious invitation came very soon after the change
of Government in Australia. Nothing could have been more gratifying
0 to me, nothing could be more attuned to my own desires than that I
should return to India as soon as nossible in the life of my new
Government. The honour you have done me, and through me, Australia,
is deeply anureciated and will not easily or quickly be forgotten.
In the countries I have so far visited an Prime Minister,
in New Zealand, in Indonesia, in Canada, in Britain, I have been
at some nains to emphasize the continuity of Australian policy
desnite the change of Government. / 2
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I do so again here in India. There was, for example, no
disagreement between the two sides in the Australian Parliament
about the support given by the previous Government to the_ emergence
of Bangladesh as an independent nation.
The previous Government's prompt recognition of Bangladesh
was warmly sup-norted by the whole Australian people. Nevertheless
I cannot help but feel that there has been something missing in
recent years in the relationship between our two countries.
There has been perhaps too much of the feeling that we can
take each other for granted. It is, for instance, just not good
enough that I should be the first Australian Prime Minister to visit
Delhi for fourteen years. It may be that because of our recent
preoccunation with Indo-China and the fascinating possibilities
Australia has before her in developing new-relations with China
and Japan, our relations with India have not been given the
attention they should have. If this has been so I intend to amend
it and amend it thoroughly.
I particularly look forward to closer co-operation with
India in the United Nations. We are now both members of the
Security Council. When my Government took office I gave a number
of new instructions on the way our votes would be cast in the
Security Council and the General A: asembly.
It is significant I think that all the departures from
the orevious pattern of voting have brought us in line with India.
It has not been, of course, a question of our just following / 13
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India: but it is an indication of the closeness of our views on a
great range of issues facing the world on race discrimination, on
de-colonisation, on Southern Africa, on human rights, on the need
to keep this region free of great power rivalries.
We gratefully acknowledge the moral leadership India has
so often given in the cause of world neace. In that continuing
quest we can never forget or overestimate the pioneer role played
by your father. Perhaps never in human history and certainly not in the
history of the democracies has so great a man had his works so
faithfully and splendidly carried forewsrd by his daughter.
The generation in which India achieved indenendence was one
not lacking in great world leaders. None lives so brightly in the
memory, not only of the millions of his fellow countrymen but all
mankind, as Jawaharlal Nehru.
I find it fascinating to read in his great work, " The
Discovery of India", his observations about Australia fascinating
and moving at the same time, because this profound book was written
in a British nrison when his work and the work of his own father
for independence seemed smashed beyond hope. And I find that in a
book in which he has drawn deep lessons from the history of India
covering 5,000 years, he drew an example from an event then occurring
in my own country a referendum whether to give greater social
powers to the Central Government of Australia. / 4
He speaks of the continuing difficulty confronting
Central Governments in Federal systems in persua~ ding the States
to abjure any morsel of t'leir powers, even in war.
The defeat of that referendum in 1944 happened to be a
crucial event in the development of my own political thinking. I
find it profoundly moving that such an event in siuch a far off
country provided a lesson for so great a man at such a crisis in
his own life. The lesson, I'm afraid, is still to be learnt in
my own country. It was also in that work that Nehru said that the measure
of Indian progress would be the role India would give to her women.
Your premiership, Madam Prime Minister, is certainly a striking
symbol of that nrogresrs. Never in history has a woman faced so
formidable a task and met that task with such skill and devotion.
With the change of Government in Australia, my country
loolks for a fresh apnroach and we hope, a more fruitful approach
towards all our neighbours. I have indicated that we are seeking
no sharp break with our past role but we are certainly not
satisfied by all the aspects of the role Australia has played in
the past. My Government could not, for instance, be content to
maintain the old course of a generation of unthinking hostility
towards China. Yet our policy is not by any means to place China at the
centre of our afflairs: rather we seek to ratify the reality of
China as a significant member of the world community.
We do not propose any radical change from our traditional
close friendship with the United States: but wve now look for a
more matiure, a give-and-take relationship. Again, w-. e will continue
our very close friendship -with Britain: but we want a relationship
based less on kin and more on kind namely on th-e basis tho, t we
are tl.. o indep-endent nations of a kind, with common interests as
well as common institutions.
So I would want our developing policies to be seen more
as an effort to remove anomalies rather than as a complete breaking
with the past. This is particularly so in the case of India. The anomaly
I find is this:-here are two great democracies bordering the
Indian Ocean, both members of the Commonwealth, both deeply
dedicated to world peace, both with Federal systems, both holding
great institutions in common: and yet we haven't forged the very
close relations I believe we should have.
I profoundly believe that Australia has everything to
gain by the closest possible co-operation with India. W4ith all
that we hold in common there is no need for formal or written
arrangements: our friendship need be no less enduring and.
fruitful for that.
Madam Prime Minister: Australia is proud to be as
closely related with so great a nation, so remarkable a
civilization, as India. Of course, our views sometimes
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perhaps our interests will not always coincide. I believe what
both our countries seek is a relationship mature enough to
acknowledge such differences and to discuss them freely whenever
they arise. It is a deep honour you have done me, and my country, in
inviting me to your country to help further, as assuredly we shall,
that relationship."