And the third epoch was —I will read this out — and I would like to invite your attention particularly to the third epoch. Martin Luther king said: "The third epoch of Nehru's work is unfolding after his death. Even though his physical presence is gone, his spiritual influence retains a living force. The great powers are not yet in harmonious relationship to each other, but with the help of the non-aligned world they have learned to exercise a wise restraint. In this is the basis for a lasting detente. Beyond this, Nehru's example in daring to believe and act for peaceful co-existence gives mankind its most glowing hope."
This is the basis of India's foreign policy and its international framework — this concept of non-alignment of anti-colonialism of anti-imperialism of working for peace and at the same time working for peaceful co-existence.
At present, the big powers are thinking in terms of detente because of many reasons. One of these is that the developing, non-aligned countries have created a certain force, a certain condition in the world. This is one aspect. Secondly, there is a certain technological imperative. Naturally, the success in technological development has reached a stage when nobody can Say that they alone are the tallest. There may be descriptions of the world today as "bipolar" or "tripolar" or "five-polar". I do not know how many "poles" there are. Basically, there seem to be two. But both the "poles" have come to realise that if there is a war, a nuclear war, nobody is going to be a winner. Therefore, there is no other alternative but detente. The fact is that the technological revolution has created certain political compulsions in the international sphere. And one of them is that the powers with all-powerful weapons have come to realise that they just cannot make use of them.
Therefore, while we always consider detente as a very healthy development and welcome it, we say that detente should not really be confined to one particular continent or one particular situation. It should not become merely a technique of crisis management but should be a genuine movement which can be made applicable to all the continents and all the situations and all the tensions in the world. Therefore, when we think of non-alignment, I would like to say that we should think of non-alignment in a much more positive manner.