Without identifying herself with any of the blocks in the United Nations, India has played an important role in it. The awakening of the Afro-Asian Nations is a significant feature in the history of the modern world and India has welcomed it in the right spirit. The Asian Relations Conference, which met in New Delhi in March-April, 1947, and the Conference of the Colombo Powers (Burma, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), India, Indonesia, and Pakistan), which was held in April-May, 1954, were concrete milestones in the growth of the idea of co-operation and harmony among the Afro-Asian countries. But a highly important landmark in this respect was the Conference held at Bandung in Indonesia (I8th to 24th April, 1955). India was one of the sponsoring powers for the Bandung Conference and the most significant decision of this Conference was its “Declaration on World Peace and Co-operation”.
During recent years, in spite of the menace of a “cold war”,the formation of military alliances and supply of military aid, and some grave complication in international politics, India has steadfastly adhered to the policy of non- alignment and to the five principles of Panchsheel, namely, mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, mutual non-aggression, mutual non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful co-existence. The Tashkent Declaration of 10th January, 1966, marked the culmination in the mission of peace of India’s Prime Minister, the late Lal Bahadur Shastri.
At the Commemorative Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations held from 14th to 24th October, 1970, the Prime Minister of India called upon the United Nations ” to strive to bring about an era of international transformation by consent, a new era of justice and peace”. India has participated in many other international meetings of the allied bodies of the United Nations.
India has consistently adhered to her principles of international amity and co-existence through trade and other agreements. Several Indian delegations visited different countries in 1973, 1974, and 1975. On 15th March, 1974, India and Poland signed in New Delhi, a five-year agreement on co-operation in science and technology. During the months of November and December, 1974, Heads of States and ministers of various friendly countries visited India in quick succession. Through such contacts the Government of India have tried to promote bilateral relations, especially in trade and commerce. Those who visited India included Prime Ministers of Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, President Nimeri of Sudan, and Prime Minister Sunderman of the German Democratic Republic. The agreements signed by India with these countries one after the other, are calculated to develop mutual co-operation and cordial political relations will logically follow these commercial engagements. It is significant to note that half a dozen Indo-Czechoslovak agreements were signed during the stay of the Czechoslovak Prime Minister, Dr. Lubomir Strougal, in New Delhi. The agreements provided for a firm basis for co-operation in different spheres between the two countries and called for removal of foreign military basis in the Indian Ocean. The German Democratic Republic also approved India’s stand on the Indian Ocean. A Trade Protocol for 1975 was signed between India and Rumania on 30th November, 1974, according to which the trade turnover between the two countries was fixed at Rs. 113 crores. On 19th July, 1975 India and Libya signed in Tripoli an oil agreement for technical co-operation and exchange of mutual aid for development projects in two countries. On 25th July, 1975 India and Mexico signed agreements of scientific and cultural co-operation.
In December 1975, President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed visited Sudan and at the end of his visit a joint communique was issued in Khartoum in which both countries stressed the need to “achieve the objective of making the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea area a zone of peace free from foreign military bases”.
Relations between India and France are growing more cordial. France and India “should act together to encourage the emergence of a world that is more just and more interdependent”, said French President Valery Giscard D’Estaing on 29th July, 1976, in his speech at a ceremony when India’s new ambassador to France, Mr. Ramchandra Dattatreya Sathe presented his credentials.
Post-War Economic Conditions
Development of Industries
The social and economic effects of the Second World War on India were profound and far-reaching. No branch of economic life remained unaffected, and with the cessation of hostilities new forces were released in the social and cultural sphere, so that the country had to face various acute problems of reconstruction and readjustment. The war can indeed be regarded as marking the beginning of a new social order.
Some favourable factors, such as the growing demand for war materials both at home and from other parts of the Commonwealth, restrictions on imports, and greater care and assistance on the part of the Government with regard to industries, contributed to increased activity and output in all items of industrial manufacture except jute, matches and wheat flour. The decline in jute manufacture was due principally to lack of demand, and the fall in the production of matches to lack of raw materials, while wheat flour dropped owing to the shortage of supplies for mills, though the crops were relatively large. Petroleum and electrical power were the outstanding examples of increased production. Labour shortage affected the production of coal and iron ore. Though India’s shipbuilding industry had not yet satisfied legitimate national expectations, it may be noted that ship building yards were opened in Vizagapatam in 1940, and within two years 4,000 sea-going ships were repaired. In April, 1947, the Reconstruction Policy Sub-Committee on Shipping recommended a planned development of Indian Shipping on economic as well as strategic considerations.
The industrial policy of independent India, envisaging a mixed economy, was first announced in 1948. A new statement of industrial policy, following the acceptance of “socialist pattern of society as the national objective,” was made on 30th.April, 1956. According to it many of the major industries became State-owned, with the expectation that private enterprises would supplement the efforts of the State in these fields. Even after demarcation, it remained open to the State to undertake any kind of industrial production.
