But what are the realities–nobody has referred to it–as to what secession from the Commonwealth would have meant? It would have meant one thing. I do not know many of our people realise it. A person like the Prime Minister can and does realise it. There has always been–let us understand it–a section of British public opinion supported by a reactionary and conservative press fed by British administrators who have spent their administrative lives in this country fighting the Congress, who have identified the Congress with the Hindus and because of that have developed a blind spot of prejudice against the Hindus and the Congress. There has always been that section of British public opinion which is anti-Hindu and anti-Congress. And if India had seceded from the Commonwealth, this section would have seized avidly on this secession to stir up a state of anti-Indian sentiment in the country. We are fortunate in that we have a person of the stature of the Prime Minister. While dealing a blow to this reactionary anti-Indian section he has mobilised and given strength to the new forces which are emerging in England-forces of friendliness towards this country. I am quite confident that secession would have meant in the first place coolness between Britain and India and subsequently an irrevocable estrangement. And it is for my friends who glibly mouth slogans and shibboleths to answer honestly whether India today, is in a position to estrange some of the most powerful countries in the world. And I go further and say secession would have not only led to coolness and subsequent estrangement between this country and Britain, it would have led inevitably to estrangement between India and America. Let us have no illusions about it. I am not advocating chauvinism or Machiavellianism. I think it was Macaulay who has said that British diplomacy has been struck midway between moral principle on one side and expediency on the other. I believe that those who are building India cannot ignore expediency. I am not talking of opportunism : I am talking of realism. It is an accepted fact that the building up of all our schemes, our hopes, the building of India economically, industrially and aye, militarily also, all these depend in no small measure on our continuing cordial relations both with Britain and with America.
