Celebrating Indira Gandhi’s birthday

Today is late Smt. Indira Gandhi’s 94^th birthday. I come to know this through a news item displayed on google news. The news item also carries Indira Gandhi’s black and white portrait, with pallu of her printed saree covering her head. This reminded me of our childhood association with her.

When we were in school, my two sisters and I used to collect images of great personalities from our history and our freedom struggle. My elder sister and I were born in our grandfather’s professors’ quarters. Baba had kept many framed portraits of our freedom fighters in our home. When we shifted to a new home after his retirement, mother got many new portraits (all collected from the middle pages of magazines like Dharm Yug) framed in glass. We had Jawaharlal Nehru, Dr. Rajendra Prasad, Gandhiji, Indira Gandhi, and many others. (One curious picture of Nehruji and Indira Gandhi was taken from such an angle that it gave the impression as if their noses were touching each other). Mother got the portraits displayed on the high walls of our drawing room and bedrooms (one nail at the top, two nails at bottom, and the frame would hang slightly tilted towards the ground). Every year during the Diwali, we used to clean the pictures to make them new. After many years, some of those became fragile, so we put them on a support. We grew up under the shadows of our great freedom fighters…

While growing up, once I heard an interesting remark of one of our guests. Some visitors who were from his bank had come to see father. They saw the picture of Dr. Rajendra Prasad in our drawing room, and appreciated our father for being impartial to caste. Dr. Prasad was a Kayastha by caste and they said it was a great thing that Papa didn’t choose pictures of personalities like Pt. Nehru (who was a Brahmin) for the drawing room. I still remember this episode which happened many years ago.

When our collection of the pictures cut out from newspapers and magazines grew big, one year an interesting plan came to our mind. We decided to celebrate Indira Gandhi’s birthday. We glued some of her pictures on hardboards and some on other sheets, and displayed our whole collection at a place in our drawing room. We had plenty of very nice pictures of her, thanks to the Soviet Nari magazine which came from the USSR. We also decorated the place. Neighbors and visitors appreciated our effort. After that, we celebrated many more of such ‘days’, like Nehruji’s birthday (Children’s Day), and also days related to Rajiv Gandhi.

When I reflect on those days, I think the innocence of our childhood had kept us isolated from the realities of the world. We saw Indira Gandhi as a strong lady who had become our PM thereby inspiring all of us. We didn’t think if she could do that had she not been Pt. Nehru’s daughter; also we didn’t know about the Emergency Days when she acted like a near tyrant. We loved the immensely good looking Rajiv Gandhi without knowing the corruption charges against him. We loved Chacha Nehru oblivious of his flawed decisions leading to humiliation and loss of life due to China’s excesses. Though we still had Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. Rajendra Prasad, Sardar Patel and Subhash Chandra Bose, who were almost “all good”. Now from our present generation, if I have to choose some of our great leaders, whom shall I choose? Narsimha Rao? VP Singh? Manmohan Singh? Sonia Gandhi? Laloo Yadav? Or Mamta Banerjee? I think Atal Behari Vajpayee and APJ Abdul Kalam would be an exception and their portraits can still be revered; but not a single more name would prop in my mind. With a situation like this, I think if my children decide to celebrate the birthdays’ of great personalities, they would have to stick to my own old list – Dr. Rajendra Prasad, Mahatma Gandhi and a Subhash Chandra Bose.

Are there great leaders coming anymore?

- Rahul

Book Review: Words of Freedom: Ideas of a Nation by Bhagat Singh

‘Words of Freedom: Ideas of a Nation’

By: Bhagat Singh

Penguin Books

ISBN 9780143068884

Shaheed Bhagat Singh is an icon of India’s freedom movement. His life-story has inspired thousands to do something worthwhile for their nation and continues to inspire the youth, generation after generation. He was a lion-hearted young man who spent his life, blood and death for the betterment of his nation called Bharat (or India). At the time he was hanged by the British, he was only 23 years old. Penguin has done a great work by compiling some of his writings, letters and revolutionary literature in the form of a small book. Readers get to know Bhagat Singh better and also delve into his “ideas” for our nation.

The book would also serve a very good means of waking us up to the realities of our nation. Have we in all these years proven the sacrifice of our freedom-fighters worth the efforts? Are we doing something for a better future of our nation? Or are we still stuck in the webs of religion, caste or location, which divide us and make us weak? In these pages, Bagat Singh puts his views very strongly. He also challenges those (Congress members) who were apparently soft on the British policies and believed in small incremental gains towards the freedom. His ideas on religion are also very strong and provocative, but well-grounded. Here is a sample of some lines from the first article:

“While we Indians, what are we doing? A branch of a peepal tree is cut and religious feelings of the Hindus are injured. A corner of a paper idol, tazia, of the idol-breaker Mohammedans is broken, and ‘Allah’ gets enraged, who cannot be satisfied with anything less than the blood of the infidel Hindus.” (P-7)

“The conservativeness and orthodoxy of the Hindus, extra-territorialism and fanaticism of the Mohammedans and narrow-mindedness of all the communities in general are always exploited by the foreign enemy.” (P-9)

“We want people who may be prepared to fight without hope, without fear and without hesitation, and who may be willing to die un-honored, unwept and unsung.” (P-10)

(From manifesto of The Naujawan Bharat Sabha, founded by Bhagat Singh in 1926 in Lahore)

(I think his idea of freedom-fighters to be ready to fight even without hope points to the eternal teaching of Lord Krishna in Gita)

Reading Bhagat Singh’s letters and speeches to the British, I couldn’t stay without being in awe of his intellect and brilliance! I think if the British gave him a fair trial, he would have got himself free, given the way he explained the matters and debated in the court. But alas, the British were bent on hanging him and ignored crucial evidence and facts, and went about their own determined ways. Bhagat Singh asked to be shot dead by a gun rather than being hanged, but no surprise that the British didn’t want to grant him his last wish too.

Sardar Bhagat Singh’s story is worth being read, told and sung with all our heart, until each Indian counts one’s nation above one’s other priorities. It also points towards self-reflection to the communities who count some other nations and their foreign beliefs above our nation, or those Indians who harm our nation’s prospects in the name of business and trade.

I find myself lucky to have read this book. Highly recommended to all India-lovers.

- Rahul