In April 1945, on the eve of the San Fransisco Conference to draft the charter of the United Nations, Indian and foreign correspondents sought a statement from Mahatma Gandhi.
'India's nationalism spells internationalism,' he declared.
'There will be no peace for the Allies of the world,' he asserted, 'unless they shed their belief in the efficiacy of war and its accompanying terrible deception and fraud, and are determined to hammer out a real peace based on the freedom and equality of all races and nations...' Freedom of India will demonstrate to all the exploited nations of the earth that their freedom is near and that in no case will they henceforth be exploited.
'Peace,' Gandhi added, 'must be just. In order to be that it must neither be punitive or vindictive. Germany and Japan should not be humiliated. The strong are never vindictive. Therefore the fruits of peace must be shared equally. The effort will then be to turn them into friends. The alllies can prove their democracy by no other means.'
But he feared that behind the San Francisco Conference 'lurk the mistrust and fear which breed war'.
Gandhi saw that freedom was the twin of peace, and fearlessness the parent of both.
The Life Of Mahatma Gandhi - Louis Fischer
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