India speaks on behalf of the Asian countries in the 50th anniversary of the commemoration of the historic Bandung Conference
Babu Ghanta
Apr. 24, 2005

India is ready to lead Asia to prosperity and peace like never seen before, says international think tanks. The concept came alive when India spoke on behalf of the world in the 50th anniversary of the commemoration of the historic Bandung Conference.

According to media reports, Given the honour to speak on behalf of Asian countries at the 50th anniversary of the commemoration of the historic Bandung Conference, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Sunday that development process of a nation cannot be planted from "without".

"We must realise that if development is to be sustainable, it cannot be transplanted from without. It must be intrinsic and appropriate to our societies," he told representatives leaders from 106 countries from Asia and Africa who had come to this historic West Java provincial capital for the commemoration ceremony.

At the 1955 conference there were only 29 Asian and African leaders and they included India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, whose speech on the occasion cautioning developing nations against aligning with big power blocs, led to the birth of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).

Indian officials said it was a singular honour given by other Asian countries to the prime minister to speak on behalf of Asia. The prime minister flew in here in the morning after attending the Asian-African summit in Jakarta. The prime minister, dressed in his trademark white kurta-churidar, Nehru jacket and blue turban, led the symbolic "historic walk" of about 250 metres from from the Savoy Homann Hotel to Gedung Merdeka, the venue of the conference, along with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yodhoyono and other leaders in the front row. Javanese and Balinese dancers led the way as Manmohan Singh and other leaders waved to the people lining the street. Yodhoyono, on behalf of the host country, and Nigerian President Olesegun Obasanjo, as Africa's representative, also spoke.

A visit to the Asian-African Museum, formal signing of the New Asian-African Strategic Summit Partnership and planting of saplings in the "Asian African Garden" were also part of the commemoration ceremony. Manmohan Singh urged the developing countries to be aware of the lacunae in the process of governance that prevented them from effectively delivering services to the people.

"Our structures of governance must be modernized and made more suitable to the needs of our times. Our goal must be to ensure the improved delivery of our services to all our citizens. "We need to act on the adage that power is a societal trust and we owe it to our people to ensure that it is expended for the common good," the prime minister added. He said that in seeking to address the challenges facing the developing countries, they should move in two directions - building cooperation among themselves and making development sustainable by tuning it to the needs of their societies. Cooperation among the developing countries, Manmohan Singh maintained, would not only lead to solidarity among them but would also force them to "look within" for suitable solutions and appropriate technologies to address their basic problems.

"We may well find solutions to such problems are available amongst ourselves. We can learn from each other's experiences, borrow from each other's best practices, and work together to find simple and effective solutions. But this will not happen if we ignore the importance of maintaining horizontal linkages between us in this age of globalisation," he noted.

He said that the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) that the Bandung conference gave birth to remained "a valid and effective instrument to ensure that the architecture of international institutions is democratised and made more representative."

In this connection, he emphasised the importance of restructuring the United Nations, its specialised agencies, and the international financial institutions. "We must also ensure that the global trading system is made more sensitive to the needs and aspirations of poorer countries.

"Just as the NAM played a central role in the struggle for political emancipation in the past, we need to revitalize this movement to make it a vehicle for social and economic emancipation in our times," Manmohan Singh added.

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