Speech #830114339

The enigma of Nehru is that with his own keenly developed sense of values which always implies preferments and judgments. he has withdrawn to the frayed commonplace that every story has two sides. implying in turn that each stor. has only two sides equally wrong and equally right. Are there equal rights and wrongs in freedom versus tyranny? I talked to Nehru about the refugee problem since that was one of my objects in visiting India. I believe that few of us in the United States understand the magnitude of the refugee problem faced by both Pakistan and India. Some 15 million people crossed from India into Pakistan and from Pakistan into India at the time of partition. 8 millions going the first way and some 7 millions the other. The bitterness over partition has not by any means evaporated. and the refugees in both countries who fled from riots and bloodshed in religious differences are a constant reminder of the bitterness. There is still . constant crossing. sometimes by as many as a thousand a week. In the beginning the refugees settled on whatever land they could find. building their huts of sticks and mud. thousands upon thousands in a single colony. Very few came with any possessions at all. Most of them were untrained for the economy into which they were pouring. Only the hot sun of India and Pakistan averted disease epidemics. Both countries have started large housing projects for the refugees. In India. a training and educational program is under way. The program is split into many levels. from the training in weaving to the training in engineering skills. The refugees have added innumerable problems to problems already innumerable. Yet neither country has asked for aid in their programs of housing. rehabilitation. and education. They are struggling with a gigantic social and economic task. It is here. perhaps. that the Western World. including the United States. can give evidence of its concern for humanity and for humanitys sake. There are refugees. uncounted. throughout all of the East. The problem can be regionalized by all affected nations of the East combining in association to exchange knowledge. data. resources. drawn each from its own experiences and pooled for the common benefit of all. To such regional association the Western powers can give such aid as it deems able. proper. and necessary.