Chandrajit Yadav, chairman of the Centre for Social Justice of India, and Helga Zepp-LaRouche, chairperson of the international Schiller Institute, co-sponsored the first international conference on "World Situation after Iraq War" to be held in all Asia.  The conference was held in Bangalore, India, May 26-27.

Lyndon LaRouche delivered the keynote speech on May 26, and a second important intervention at the end of the conference deliberations on May 27. LaRouche made an extremely courageous and forthright statement on Dick Cheney's drive to follow in the path of Adolf Hitler in the United States, and the inevitable catastrophe which will follow, if we do not rapidly stop and reverse this fascist drive from inside the US. LaRouche called for a return to the great efforts of the Non-Aligned Nations, demonstrated in Colombo in 1976, to set the world on the path of true development. Now, this movement must be led by a community of nations in Eurasia, especially China, India, and Russia.

On May 24, LaRouche had given a very well attended press conference in Bangalore, and his views were honestly reported in excellent and broad press coverage in the Karnatakan, Hindi, and English language press and television not only in south India, but as far away as Calcutta! Excellent television and newspaper interviews were also published during his visit to India.

Chandrajit Yadav, chairman and chief organizer of this wonderful event, began and concluded the conference with the happy announcement that Bangalore, the beautiful "garden city" of India, and its center of science and high technology, will now also be known as the "city of peace and harmony." The "Bangalore Declaration" is now being prepared, to follow up the "Bad Schwalbach declaration." Bangalore will, as Helga Zepp-LaRouche stated, become known as the beginning of a new world movement to put development of peoples and nations back at the head of the world agenda.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche addressed the conference on May 27, on the theme of the dialogue of cultures and religions. Her study and discussion of the great culture of India, and its millennia of dialogue with the cultures of Europe and China, especially impressed the younger conference participants.

The Bangalore conference is the direct continuation of the strategic discussions held at the Schiller Institute Bad Schwalbach conference this March -- on stopping the drive of the Cheney-Rumsfeld "war party" in Washington, which could set off nuclear world war; on the urgent need for cooperative development of Eurasia to save the world economy; and on the rapid growth of political movement among youth.

In India, young people are facing the same "no future" crisis as they face in the Americas and Europe, and there were many interventions from the lively contingent of about 50 young people in Bangalore, in the same spirit as the LaRouche Youth Movement panel at Bad Schwalbach (and earlier Washington-area conferences!) A leading youth organization participating was the Nehru Bal Sangh, with the Centre for Social Justice, dedicated to the ideals of India's great first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. These youth movements should join hands to generate an international youth forum for peace. May 27, final day of the conference, is the anniversary of the death of Nehru, and the delegates honored his memory with two minutes' silence.

The conference was honored to be inaugurated with a speech by Shri K. Natwar Singh, on the urgent need for a multipolar world to start a dialogue with the US to end its "hyper power" drive. Singh was the Secretary General of the Non-Aligned Movement when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi hosted the NAM world summit in New Delhi in 1983. He is now an MP, and member of the Congress Party Working Committee. Four leading Ministers of the state of Karnataka addressed the conference and contributed to its great success, and the state Governor, Shri TN Chaturvedi, was Chief Guest.

The conference was attended by 240 delegates from the state of Karnataka and all over India: from states as far as West Bengal, Bihar, and Uttar Pradesh, as well as Hyderabad and Madhya Pradesh. Among the delegates were several leaders of the fight for Indian freedom, one 88 years old. National MPs, leaders of womens' groups, youth, professors from New Delhi and Bangalore, all attended. There was very good media attendance.

Foreign guests and speakers included Nouri AR Hussain, Secretary General ofthe Afro-Asian Peoples' Solidarity Organization, based in Cairo; high-level representation of the Embassy of China and the charge d'affairs of the Embassy of Cuba. The head of the Chinese People's Association for Peace and Disarmament in Beijing, which was unable to send a delegation due to the measures being taken to control the SARS epidemic, sent a message of greeting to the conference. Air Commodore Jasjit Singh, a noted writer on security issues, also spoke.

Congress Party chairwoman Sonia Gandhi sent her wishes for success of the conference, via Natwar Singh. The Chief Minister of Karnatka, who was to busy to attend, also sent a message of support and congratulations.

In addition to the conference, other events included a very beautiful evening reception held for the LaRouches at a Bangalore college for the study of Southeast Asia, featuring Indian music and food under the stars, and a second evening of Indian dance -- the story was of Alexander the Great's encounter with India -- during the conference. The guests were repeatedly garlanded. At these events, participants repeatedly expressed their support and wish for success for LaRouche's presidential bid. As one man told Lyn: "Mr. LaRouche, I wish you a thumping majority in the election!"

One of the best reflections of the impact of the Bangalore conference -- which is clearly only just beginning -- was a report on one national television station on 26 May, which noted that just at the time when the visit of Indian PM Vajpayee to China is being planned, an event of so much importance for these two great nations of Asia, the conference on world peace was being held in Bangalore! (Much more to come.) (mmc)

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