In the context of the conflict between China and India, certain things are happening on the northern and particularly the northeastern border of the country which deserve our special attention. The situation developing in the valley of Brahmaputra, in Nagaland and NEFA demands a close watch. Along with it, we also have to keep in view the fact of the existence of the Chinese Army all along the northern border of about 2000 miles stretching from NEFA to Ladakh. If you combine this with the Chinese overtures of friendship to Pakistan and her tendency to interfere in our internal affairs in regard to Jammu & Kashmir, you get the overall picture of the tension that exists between us and the neighbouring countries. In the light of all this, I as the Defence Minister cannot give advice to the Government that there is no danger of external aggression. I would not like to mislead the nation with any such assurance. We will have to act with the valid presumption that the external threat still exists.
I am not saying this with the idea of merely maintaining permament enemity with any particular nation. I am also not saying this because China is a communist country and India is not. There are so many communist countries in the world with whom we have friendly relations. We have never taken the position that all communist countries will be our enemies. This has never been our position; it is not so today, and I think it should never be so. The system of government and the political ideology is an internal affair of a country, to be decided by its people. Even after the 1962 conflict we have not taken the position that China is our permanent enemy. A statesman had said long ago, 'a nation does not have permanent friends as it does not have permanent enemies'. It would be inadvisable to treat any particular country as a permanent enemy or to maintain permanent tensions.
An exceptional event took place in the form of Tashkent Agreement. During August-September 1965 we had a clash with Pakistan. Immediately thereafter both these countries came together and discussed the issues at stake. This itself was an unprecedented occurrence from the point of view of international peace; but what was almost a revolutionary occurrence was the fact that a powerful communist country took the initiative to bring about a rapprochement between two of its neighbouring non-communist countries. I think this was the first instance of its kind since the rise of communism as an international power. Uptil now our experience was that Russia intervened in the disputes between communist countries alone. To take the initiative for bringing about peace and understanding between two noncommunist nations was an unheard of thing in the history of the communist world. This must be regarded as an extremely important event in the sphere of international politics.