Act VI, scene 1

SOUL OF INDIA: President Eisenhower, you are great. You were a five-star general. You are great. You have won the world war. You are great, you are greater and you are greatest because you want peace. I am the soul of India. I want peace too, peace all over the world. India has many faults, but India’s true love for peace nullifies all her shortcomings. My son Krishna wanted peace between the Pandavas and the Kauravas. But when he saw that peace was not going to take birth in a divine way, he agreed to settle the issue through war. He advised the Pandavas to fight for the right cause. On being attacked, your country had to fight in World War I and World War II to defend herself and thus establish and maintain the Kingdom of Truth and World Peace. Your country’s vision and my country’s vision run parallel. Although at times your America and my India are at odds, they basically love each other, for both have the self-same goal: a peaceful life. My son Gandhi cried and cried for peace. Almost all of your predecessors also cried for peace. The whole world is so proud of Washington, the Father of your nation. He wanted nothing but peace. From him, all of you have imbibed the message of peace. Eisenhower, you and your country want peace. My children and I want peace. Therefore, we are one. In your first inaugural address, your prayer to God was pure and sublime. You said, “Give us, we pray, the power to discern clearly right from wrong, and allow all our words and actions to be governed thereby, and by the laws of this land. Especially we pray that our concern shall be for all the people regardless of station, race, or calling.” In your second inaugural address, you said something divine and supreme. You said, “This is our home, yet this is not the whole of our world. For our world is where our full destiny lies — with men, of all peoples and all nations, who are or would be free. And so the prayer of our people carries far beyond our own frontiers, to the wide world of our duty and our destiny. May the light of freedom, coming to all darkened lands, flame brightly — until at last the darkness is no more.”

DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER: O Soul of Mother India, you have an astonishing memory. I fully agree with you about India and America. I feel that India has the God-ordained vision and America has the God-ordained mission. Both vision and mission must be united to give birth to humanity’s perfection in life. You are so right. You are so right.

(Eisenhower sings “O Sweet Liberty”.)