Foreign relations of India
India's relations with the world have evolved since the British Raj (1857–1947), when the British Empire monopolised external and defence relations. When India gained independence in 1947, few Indians had experience in making or conducting foreign policy. However, the country's oldest political party, the Indian National Congress, had established a small foreign department in 1925 to make overseas contacts and to publicise its independence struggle. From the late 1920s on, Jawaharlal Nehru, who had a long-standing interest in world affairs among independence leaders, formulated the Congress stance on international issues. As a member of the interim government in 1946, Nehru articulated India's approach to the world.
Speeches about Indian independence
Although the militant factions of the Independence movement were advocating a complete break from British rule for almost a century, the first call for a non-violent movement led by Mahatma Gandhi was articulated in the aftermath of the failed Cripps' mission in April, 1942. Below is an excerpt of Gandhi's speech advocating complete independence from British rule.
"I am convinced that the time has come for the British and the Indians to be reconciled to complete separation from each other. Complete and immediate orderly withdrawal of the British from India [...] will at once put the Allied cause on a completely moral basis. [...]
I ask every Briton to support me in my appeal to the British at this hour to retire from every Asiatic and African possession. ... I ask for a bloodless end of an unnatural domination and for a new era. Leave India to God and if that be too much, leave her to anarchy, necessity for withdrawal lies in its being immediate." By Rahul Kumar