According to P. Balaram, the Indian Academy of Sciences lost its innocence in July 2001 (Curr. Sci. 2001, 81, 229-230). For me and my contemporaries (the pre-independence generation), the loss of innocence after independence came at two different times. The first in the late 1940s, when the Hyderabad action and the Goa action were undertaken by the government. The considerations of consolidation of the country and national cohesion took priority over prolonged negotiations. The more devastating loss of innocence was the Chinese action in 1962. The need for realism rather than romanticism (or even idealism) was brought home to the nation. The need for an army and its use had to be thought about and planned by the country and its people, at least in the present stage of human development. The need to possess a nuclear deterrant is, of course, a far more complex and difficult ,question, now facing us.
展开▼
