The Sunday Star (September 8, 1946)
Nehru vows to spurn satellite role for independent India
NEW DELHI, Sept. 7 (AP) – Making his first broadcast as head of India’s new interim government, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru declared today that the new India would be entirely free – “not merely a satellite of another nation” – and would participate in international conferences with our own policy.”
The Cambridge-educated premier said he hoped India would have friendly relations with Britain and the empire “in spite of our past history of conflict,” and condemned what he termed “racialism” in the Union of South Africa.
“We propose to keep away from power politics or groups aligned against one another, which led in the past to war and which may well lead to disaster on an even vaster scale,” Nehru said.
“We hope to develop close and direct contacts with other nations and cooperate with them in the furdom.”
Greetings sent to nations
The left-of-center Congress Party leader sent greetings to Russia, the United States, China, the Arab World and to Indonesians.
Of Russia, he said, “they are our neighbors in Asia and inevitably we shall have to undertake many common tasks and have much to do with each other. We are of Asia and the people of Asia are nearer and closer to us than others.”
Nehru pledged India to work for a “world commonwealth, a world in which there is the free cooperation of free peoples and no class or group exploits another.”
He said he would not discuss domestic policy “at this stage” but appealed for cooperation among India’s warring creeds and deplored recent Indian riots.
The Congress Party’s main rival, the Moslem League, has refused to participate in the interim government, which Britain has said is a step toward Indian independence.