Let us early recognise some outstanding facts: Gorbachev is perhaps the most exciting personality on the international scene today; he has imparted a revolutionary new dynamism to Soviet foreign policy, his strength obviously lying in giving voice to those ideas whose time has unmistakably come. Then, because we are given to "thinking with our heart and not with our mind", let us not overlook that this visit was of the most powerful figure in the USSR, our most powerful neighbour and a world power. We need thereafter to assess the visit, not pay obeisance to it: the Soviet Union is unquestionably our valuable and time-tested ally but then India too is the USSR's largest voluntary friend.

Let me, therefore, attempt a somewhat differently balanced sheet of comments. Whereas there is reassurance to be drawn from general secretary Gorbachev's assertion, that in interpreting the Indo-Soviet treaty of peace, friendship and cooperation, "its supreme meaning lies in a reciprocal commitment to act should a complicated situation arise for one or both", this ought to be construed by us as only what it is; an expression of shared perceptions and of diplomatic support; it is not a security guarantee. Indeed, we should neither expect nor accept any such guarantees from any country in the world.

After all, between Gorbachev's recent warning about "unforeseen consequences" and Reagan's earlier ominous suggestion to Rajiv Gandhi about "a point of no return", there is little difference in substance. The questions that we need to ask are: Do we want any such super-power pronouncements about our region? Also, is it worthy of us to reduce the importance of Indo-Soviet relations to the level of being some kind of a counter to the current phase of Indo-Pak difficulties? India is capable of and must demonstrate its ability to resolve bilateral issues bilaterally, not through the means of super-powers' refereeing, or as the non-aligned would put it, through their "interference of intervention."
In the Sino-Soviet context too it was naive to be seeking Soviet assurances of continuity, a virtual status-quo ante in what, after all, has in reality already become a triangular situation. Sino-Soviet rapproachment is a stated aim of USSR's new initiatives. Therefore, Gorbachev's suggestion that the "boundary problem" between India and China be resolved politically, on the basis of "trust, reality and historical facts" is as reasonable an assertion of their viewpoint as can be expected. (All other pious assertions about improving relations with one but "not at the cost of the existing" is just so much diplomatic gap filling.) That this should be so disconcertingly like the PRC's own articulations of the issue, is our problem, not USSR's; a challenge to our political sagacity and diplomatic skill, not theirs.