UN General Assembly
1959

160. Side by side with the advance in food production there have also been advances in social development. I would not take the time of the Assembly by going into every item. There are a great number of them which may interest me as an Indian national, but I think the development of co-operatives in India is one of the outstanding features. In our country the position is different from that of Western Europe, from the point of view of our political and social evolution in the recent past or in current times. In western Europe democracy and a political revolution, whether violent or otherwise, conferring political power upon the masses, came after the Industrial Revolution. We have the reverse process. 161. In India, we have had full-fledged political revolution. We have placed political power in the hands of every man and woman of adult age, whether literate or illiterate, whether rich or poor, whether tall or short, and the industrial and economic progress has to come thereafter, with all the social consequences that follow from such a situation.