I asked Michael Barrett once about the seemingly fantastic ideas which he wrote down for Buchman on such occasions. What were their purpose? 'Assurance,' he replied, and, indeed, many of those large visions could have come to him - or have welled up from within him - to give him courage to tackle the immense tasks he had taken on with such meagre resources. Also, perhaps, they were thoughts emerging through the spirit of an American bred in the era of expansion, a man who, in Loudon Hamilton's words, 'had not a negative bone in his body'. They were an indication of attitude rather than action; and when it came to action, the tests of common sense and spiritual integrity were there to be applied. Baynard-Smith's summary of Buchman's attitude in India is 'a persistent search for the will of God'.

Clearly, in the passages quoted above, there are many unfulfilled promises, or hopes. On the one hand the President of India was concerned in exactly the way Buchman foresaw and, after their interview, was a friend of Moral Re-Armament to the day of his death. The Munshis were a great help and kept in touch through the years. And Moral Re-Armament has, ever since, had a permanent place in India, represented more particularly by the outreach of the conference centre built at Panchgani, near Pune. On the other hand, 'an organism which will decide the future of the world' did not become visible in India. Nor did Nehru 'turn more and more' to Buchman.

On the last point, however, it is arguable that something did happen to Nehru in the last years of his life which brought his thinking nearer to Buchman's, greatly to his colleagues' surprise. Many of them - T. T. Krishnamachari, one of his cabinet, and Sanjiva Reddi, a future President of India, for example - remarked how much more frequently from late 1955 he spoke of the importance to the individual and the nation of moral and spiritual standards. Nehru himself said to his biographer, Michael Brecher, in June 1956, 'If they (moral and spiritual standards) fade away, I think that all the material advancement you may have will lead to nothing worthwhile.'21

After Nehru's death Reddi described in a public speech in London the excitement when he had first spoken of such values at a rally in the state of Andhra. 'Congress Party leaders who had so often heard the Prime Minister say that the steel mills and factories were the real temples of India crowded round him and said, "What has happened to you, Panditji?"' Reddi reported. '"Yes," Nehru had replied, "I have changed. I believe the human mind is hungry for something deeper in terms of moral and spiritual development, without which the material advance is not worthwhile." '22 It is even possible that someone influenced by Buchman may have been a contributory factor to his change of thinking. Appadorai Aaron, a YMCA Secretary in Glasgow, returned to India in 1955, after being at Caux, and started to spend time in quiet each morning. When he told Vice-President Radhakrishnan, an old school friend, about it, Radhakrishnan remarked, 'You must meet Nehru. I will arrange it.' They met and Panditji said, 'People flatter me. They don't tell me the truth and I feel out of touch with the country.' Aaron told him that a daily time of quiet meditation would help him to 'read men's characters'. 'That sounds like Moral Re-Armament,' said Nehru. 'It doesn't matter what you call it. The thing is to try it,' Aaron replied. Some days later they met at a Delhi reception. 'I've been trying what you suggested,' Nehru said. 'I find it a real help.'23

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