880 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
Shri B. Gupta: Are you speaking for match-making ?
Mr. Chairman: The Prime Minister is quiet and you are talking.
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : And secondly from the fear of what Russia will think if India joins the SEATO. Here again, I think, it is necessary to give the House some background against which the merits of the SEATO may be assessed. Now, Sir, what is the background of all this ? The background is this.
I have given a list of countries which have gone under the Russian regime. I think it is well known that this happened largely because, if I may say so, of the foolishness of the Americans during the last Great War. The Russians got possession of these territories with the consent of Mr. Roosevelt and with the reluctant willingness of Mr. Churchill. Mr. Churchill expressed, when the war ended that they had done a great mistake, and a great wrong, in sacrificing the liberty of so many nations for the
11-00 A.M. sake of winning victory against Hitler. And the same feeling, I think, is expressed by him in his last volume which he called “Triumph and Tragedy”. It is because of this that he named his last volume “Triumph and Tragedy”. Now, Sir, what the Americans are doing. If I understand, their policy correctly, is this. Their point of view is that Russia should be satisfied with what she has got during the war, the ten countries. As a matter of fact. I should have thought that it should have been the duty of the Americans and the Britishers to extricate these countries, to liberate them, to make them free. But neither country has the will, nor the moral stamina, nor the desire to engage itself in such a stupendous task. They are therefore following, what may be called a second line of defence, and that second line of defence is that Russia should not be allowed, or China should not be allowed to occupy any further part of the free world. I think that is the principle to which all freedom-loving people would agree. There could be no objection to it. And it is to prevent Russia from making further aggression that they are planning the SEATO. The SEATO is not an organisation for committing