Friend of India

Jimmy Carter was considered a friend of India. He was the first American president to visit India after the removal of the emergency and victory of the Janata Party in 1977.

In his address to the Indian parliament, Carter spoke against authoritarian rule. “India's difficulties, which we often ex-perience ourselves and which are typical of the problems faced in the developing world, remind us of the tasks that lie ahead.

Not the Authori-tarian Way,” Carter said on January 2, 1978. “But India's successes are just as important because they decisively refute the theory that in order to achieve economic and social progress, a developing country must ac-cept an authoritarian or

totalitarian government and all the damage to the health of the human spirit which that kind of rule brings with it,” he told members of parliament.