The Public meeting held on 17th August,1998.

TALKS BY
SHRI A.P.VENKATESWARAN, Former Foreign Secretary.
Ms. ARUNDHATI GHOSE, Former Permanent Representative For India At the U.N.
SHRI ARUN SHOURIE ,Noted Author and Journalist.

INTRO- RADHA RAJAN 

SHRI A.P.VENKATESWARAN, Former Foreign Secretary. 
It is a pleasure for me to be here at this meeting organized by ‘Vigil’. Because when ‘Vigil” approached me to come to Madras for this meeting, the first thought that came to my mind was the famous quote taken from the name ‘Vigil’ itself , “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty”. And when I heard that ‘Vigil’s’ intention through this meeting was to discuss India’s nuclear tests, and to give a reply to those who were opposed to these tests, God knows for what reasons, I gladly accepted. Radha spoke to you about the motherland and it was every appropriate that the young lady who rendered the invocation, chose to sing the ‘Vande Mataram’. We have always visualised our country as a mother. A mother who gives, a mother who protects. And let us not forget, the tenderness of a mother can also become the fury of a tigress when she has to protect her young. I was asked to speak on the nuclear tests and their political aspects and also whether and how our relations with other countries have been affected because of them. But at the very outset let me remark that in all these years, although we observed the 51st anniversary of Independence the day before yesterday, it occurred to me that we have remained too subdued as a people. We did not win Independence. One man and a few thousands won it for us. How many of us were really involved in the struggle for independence? Of course we all take credit for this. But the fact is that this man in his loin cloth, decided that he would stand up against the largest empire the world has known, larger even than the Greek or the Roman empire, and he won. He won with a unique instrument called ‘non-violence’. People have misunderstood and misrepresented this concept of non-violence as he himself explains in one of his essays. He said that there was the non-violence of the weak and the non-violence of the strong. “And I am sorry that it is rather late in life” Gandhi said, “that I realise that most of my followers belong to the category of those that practice non-violence because they are weak”. Mahatma Gandhi believed very firmly that non-violence was the highest form of courage. And he would have nothing to do with anything remotely resembling cowardice.