India - the Mother

November 20, 1962

(Mother looks weary.) They're on the verge of taking Assam —things are very bad.

But what can be their reason? Why are they doing this?

I heard they're circulating maps in China showing Nepal Bhutan, Assam and all of it as part of China.

So that's their intention—to settle there.

It's not very clear why.

National ambition. To put a constant pressure on India and force it to go communist.

To impose their rule, you see—they're at the door and can enter whenever they want.

Why did they take Tibet?...²⁵

(After a silence) And all this side of Bengal and Assam is full of Chinese who settled there years and years ago; there are thousands and thousands of them, doing business. All the Communists support them, and it seems they keep a very accurate and meticulous list of those for and those against communism. (What do they base themselves on? I don't know —on what people say or do.) And the idea is that it's all going to be taken like this (gesture of encircling India).

Anyway, things look nasty.

They seem to be taking a nasty turn.

But what I find perhaps even more incredible than the leaders' incompetence—Nehru, MenorT and so forth—is that for twenty years there hasn't been a single Indian to see things clearly and speak out—there's been no one in India, no one! For twenty years there have been those two idols, Nehru and Gandhi, and then some 400 million stupefied people, with no one to see clearly. How is it possible?... No one!

But Nehru had a very good foreign press. In Europe and America, they treated him almost like a god. And Gandhi, oh, how they were ... The whole world is like that—they don't understand. They don't understand.

(After a silence) We will see.

I believe we WILL see—it's going to be now: we're going to see.

Maybe we'll see from another world! (Laughing) That may be.

They have bombs in America and Russia (China hasn't boasted about it, but they may have some too²⁶), and one bomb is enough to destroy a whole city—one is more than enough, you don't need two.... We saw what happened to Hiroshima, it was pretty bad. Well, if that was ten, then what they have now is a thousand—that's the proportion.

In other words, they've turned all their intelligence towards destruction.

Some say, "It will deter them from fighting." But that childish!

... The Supreme alone can decide. Just as He decides that this is done, so He also decides ... [that that shall not be done]. That's all. There is nothing left but He.

There's no longer any hope that a human being can give protection through his own power—it's no longer like that. If the Lord protects you, it's good, nothing will happen to you. But as for knowing what He will decide ...? For if He decides on such a destruction, it means the earth truly needs it—otherwise He wouldn't decide on it....

I know it was a very bad night; I woke up this morning completely drained of forces, and with plenty of difficulties—an it's not over yet.²⁷

... And all night long (or at least a good part of it), Indira Gandhi's thought was there, clinging to me (Indira Gandhi is Nehru's daughter, and it's to her that the jewellery was given;²⁸ it was handed over to Nehru, who passed it on to Indira). And yesterday I received a letter from her—a very (Mother searches for the word)... very amiable letter; a letter from someone who has understood that the gesture was an important element—not on a worldwide level (!), but because it was important for people to know that I have made a gesture of collaboration. But it didn't end there. The letter came yesterday; generally, of course, when it's the letter that I see, I see it BEFORE receiving it; but here it was SHE, she herself, thinking [of Mother], thinking and thinking over and over again. (With Nehru, it's always very hazy: he doesn't have a sufficient mental power for his position, he lacks the required mental power, so it's always woolly; when you tune in to him, that's the impression you get [Mother makes a blurred gesture], something not solid.) But with her, it kept coming and coming and coming. They must be feeling ... or beginning to feel that they need something other than what they have.

We shall see.

Mother's Agenda: November 20, 1962