Mr. Chairman, Your Excellencies:
Now that the main business of the Greater East Asia Assembly has concluded, I wish to draw your attention to a collateral question which follows us constantly like a shadow. That question is nothing less than the Indian question. His Excellency, the Head of the Indian Provisional Government, is present among us as a guest. His presence is sufficient to endorse whatever statement I may make on this great Indian question.
Yesterday in the course of my observations, I made a categorical statement that in my view Asia cannot be free unless India is free. Having made that observation, it is my duty to pursue it logically, Mr. Chairman, Your Excellencies. As the representative of Burma, I am in a peculiarly fit position to pursue the Indian question as I have
not yet exhausted it and because I undestand [sic] that my friend Mr. Bose will also have an opportunity to address Your Excellencies. All that I wish to say will be in the nature of preparatory observations, preparing the way for the Indian leader.
Burma is in a peculiar position to speak on the Indian question. For a generation, as the world knows, by the forces of historical circumstances, Burma and India had to travel the same hard, bitter road. Linked in every way, we had to pursue the same struggle against the same enemy. We had to act in unity of purpose of action, of objective. I am proud to admit that much of the political philosophy that the Burmese learned, much of the political techniques that Burma learned, were learned from India. Burma derived in the past her religious philosophy from India. In the present, I, as a leader of my people, cheerfully acknowledge that we learned much of our political philosophy also from India.
For generations the Burmese and Indians had to carry on the same struggle. Most of you will not understand the real meaning of my words. It was a struggle against the most powerful, the most merciless, the most predatory Power in the world. It was a struggle between men and guns. Needless to say, every time the guns won. The men every time rose, but the guns crushed them every time. And it was in those battles—it was at the time of bitter struggle against odds of the most overwhelming character—that I learned my present realism, that whatever we may say of our philosophy, of this, of that, the ultimate decisive victor is force. But, we still carried on.
I am not ashamed to say that my country rose at every turn. Every revolt was crushed with guns. As I happened to tell an Englishman in England, it is easy to keep sixteen million people down with guns, if they gave me the guns, if they gave me a force of 100,000 armed with guns, I can keep the whole of Britain down. Only the guns were in their hands and not in ours.
That, in short, is the substance of the common struggle that India and Burma had to carry on. And out of this struggle, out of the fires of these constant revolutions rose men, great men, selfless men, men of light and leading, who gave their lives and careers, everything they possessed, to the cause of their motherland. Among these great patriots, patriots of international reputation is, as we now have as guest here, Mr. Subhas Chandra Bose.
I am perfectly certain that the story of Mr. Subhas Chandra Bose is known to all of us—that he symbolize [sic] the resurgent, the revolutionary
spirit of India—India, although divided, yet remaining unbroken. And we must all be glad to know that Mr. Subhas Chandra Bose is now with us prepared to carry on the same struggle, and now not isolated but with a thousand million East Asiatics behind him. I will emphasize the fact that there cannot be a free Asia without a free India. I am speaking quite literally. For a hundred years Great Britain pursued her colonial policy in Asia with Indian strength. With Indian resources from even in the West right down through Singapore and Hongkong in the East. It was with Indian manpower, Indian resources, Indian wealth that Great Britain built her great, her vast predatory empire.
I am speaking from personal experience that my own country collapsed before the British, because the British, according to the irtraditional [sic] policy, never fought themselves. They fought and won Burma with Indians just as they fought every war with every other persons except themselves. This war they will fight to the last Russian; they will fight to the last American; fight to the last Indian, but Britain according to her traditional policy will never use her own self and resources.
And following her traditional policy, she came to Burma, saw Burma, she conquered Burma with Indian manpower and Indian wealth. That is why she pursued the same policy downward to the right and from India upward to the left across Asia. It was Indian wealth that maintained British power, and it was Indian manpower that gave Britain the instrument of a colonial policy.
That is why you will understand me when I say that if we wish to destroy that predatory empire, if we wish to destroy anti-Asiatic Powers, we must burn them out, drive them out of their Asiatic stronghold, and that stronghold is India. The British Empire cannot be goaded until and unless British power, British domination of India, is destroyed.
I will not say more—this is not an occasion for words. The great Indian leader who will follow me will, I am sure, state the Indian case. He will state it with his usual clarity and force, and so as I have said, these remarks of mine are just preliminary, just to propose before this A sembly [sic] that we do here solemnly declare that we give our complete support to the cause of India's independence, to His Excellency Mr. Subhas Chandra Bose, who as the Head of the Indian Provisional Government is pursuing that struggle, preparing for the day when he and his Indian Independence Army will march into Delhi and redeem India.