11-05-2006, 12:04 AM
X-posted from BR
Op-ed, 10/31/06
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Indira Gandhi: Great and magnanimous leader
By K. Natwar Singh
Twenty-two years ago on this day one of the worldâs greatest and magnanimous leaders was assassinated. That day the spring went out of my life. She inspired in me a lasting affection and a degree of respect verging on veneration. I have a deep sense of gratitude, as I owe her more than I can say. Probably more than I know. She had little sympathy for those who recoiled from the forces of life, the cautious, the calculating. The pompous were deflated by one ignited look, the craven were treated as the craven ought to be. She broke so many social and political barriers. Indira Gandhi was a major liberating force.
I was the first Indian Foreign Service officer to join the Prime Ministerâs Secretariat. It became PMO in Morarji Desaiâs time. In May 1966, I joined the Prime Ministerâs Secretariat and spent nearly five years there. At my marriage to Heminder Kumari of Patiala on August 21, 1967, Indira Gandhi, Dr Y.S. Parmar and Nath Pai were the witnesses at the civil ceremony, which was followed by a traditional Hindu-Sikh wedding.
On January 27, 1970, I wrote a note to her from Patiala: âHaving failed to solve the problem of addressing you (Dear Madam, Madam, Dear Mrs Gandhi, Dear Shrimati Gandhi, Dear PM etc) I have decided to send this in note form... It is now over two weeks that I have been condemned to lie flat on my back on a hard wooden bed as a result of having slipped disc. On the 11th I bent down to give my son, Jagat, his teddy bear and that is when it happened. I would have thought that middle age would arrive with a little more ceremony and a little less pain...â
She wrote to me on January 30 an enchanting letter: âI know you were on leave but I had no idea it was caused by physical incapacity to turn up. I know how painful a slipped disc can be. You have all our sympathy â however, it is giving you time to ruminate on the past, present and the future and this is something which we all need from time to time. You can imagine how life in Delhi is when one is facing explosive issues, and visiting VIPs during Republic Week. I am off on tour tomorrow morning. With every good wish for a complete recovery... Do you remember when the same thing happened to K.P.S. Menon? He had to stand in a very artistic Ajanta pose for quite some time. Now you know the perils of fatherhood.â
Here was a Prime Minister who found time to reply within three days to a letter written by a lowly Foreign Servicewallah.
In 1975, H.Y. Sharada Prasad and I put together some of her writings and speeches. The book, Indira Gandhi: Speeches and Writings, was published in London and New York. On her death anniversary it is fitting to quote from some of her stirring, sensitive and elegant speeches:
* We are deeply hurt by the innuendos and insinuations that it was we who have precipitated the crisis and have in any way thwarted the emergence of solutions. I do not really know who is responsible for this calumny. During my visit to the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Austria and Belgium, the point I emphasised, publicly as well as privately, was the immediate need for a political settlement. We waited nine months for it. When Dr Kissinger came in July 1971, I had emphasised to him the importance of seeking an early political settlement. But we have not received, even to this day, the barest framework of a settlement which would take into account the facts as they are and not as we imagine them to be.
Open letter to US President Richard Nixon, written on December 15, 1971
* <b>The British ruled over us for two hundred years. Little did those early colonisers realise that along with their flag they brought the seeds which would destroy their rule. Macaulay, who pleaded so passionately for western education, did not quite realise that he was undermining the edifice he was so anxious to perpetuate. The nineteenth and twentieth centuries brought ancient India face to face with the imperatives of the contemporary world. And we quickly absorbed all that was relevant and significant in Bentham and Mill, in Rousseau and Voltaire down to Marx and Weber. And all this was grafted on to the Indian subcontinent. And we then had Tagore, Gandhi and Nehru to mention only a few.
Address to the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House, London, October 29, 1971</b>
* <b>One of the main differences between our own struggle for freedom and that of other newly-free countries is that under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, our movement ceased to be an elitist one and developed a mass base, while retaining high intellectual and moral sensitiveness. India, which was a cultural entity, became an independent, political reality. But the process did not stop with freedom. We have always regarded freedom not as the culmination but as the beginning â the beginning of an endeavour to fashion an integrated society in which the old divisions of caste, hierarchy and privilege are abolished and new social obligations and linkages are established involving and benefiting all sections.
Inaugural address to the thirty-third session of Indian Political Science Conference, Calcutta, December 27, 1972</b>
* Our national movement was committed not to a doctrine but to a purpose â the modernisation of our society without loss of the Indian personality; the development and integration of industry and agriculture with modern science and technology; the uplift of the masses and the ending of archaic, hierarchical systems in which discrimination and exploitation had become entrenched.
Article for the October 1972 issue of Foreign Affairs
* Two years hence, in 1970, the United Nations will complete twenty-five years. Can we make it a Year of Peace â a starting point of a united endeavour to give mankind the blessings of a durable peace? To this end let us devote ourselves. One of our ancient prayers says:
Common be your prayer;
Common be your end;
Common be your purpose;
Common be your deliberation.
Common be your desire;
Unified be your hearts;
Unified be your intentions;
Perfect be the union among you.
Address delivered to the UN General Assembly, October 14, 1968
K. Natwar Singh is a former minister for external affairs
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Op-ed, 10/31/06
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Indira Gandhi: Great and magnanimous leader
By K. Natwar Singh
Twenty-two years ago on this day one of the worldâs greatest and magnanimous leaders was assassinated. That day the spring went out of my life. She inspired in me a lasting affection and a degree of respect verging on veneration. I have a deep sense of gratitude, as I owe her more than I can say. Probably more than I know. She had little sympathy for those who recoiled from the forces of life, the cautious, the calculating. The pompous were deflated by one ignited look, the craven were treated as the craven ought to be. She broke so many social and political barriers. Indira Gandhi was a major liberating force.
I was the first Indian Foreign Service officer to join the Prime Ministerâs Secretariat. It became PMO in Morarji Desaiâs time. In May 1966, I joined the Prime Ministerâs Secretariat and spent nearly five years there. At my marriage to Heminder Kumari of Patiala on August 21, 1967, Indira Gandhi, Dr Y.S. Parmar and Nath Pai were the witnesses at the civil ceremony, which was followed by a traditional Hindu-Sikh wedding.
On January 27, 1970, I wrote a note to her from Patiala: âHaving failed to solve the problem of addressing you (Dear Madam, Madam, Dear Mrs Gandhi, Dear Shrimati Gandhi, Dear PM etc) I have decided to send this in note form... It is now over two weeks that I have been condemned to lie flat on my back on a hard wooden bed as a result of having slipped disc. On the 11th I bent down to give my son, Jagat, his teddy bear and that is when it happened. I would have thought that middle age would arrive with a little more ceremony and a little less pain...â
She wrote to me on January 30 an enchanting letter: âI know you were on leave but I had no idea it was caused by physical incapacity to turn up. I know how painful a slipped disc can be. You have all our sympathy â however, it is giving you time to ruminate on the past, present and the future and this is something which we all need from time to time. You can imagine how life in Delhi is when one is facing explosive issues, and visiting VIPs during Republic Week. I am off on tour tomorrow morning. With every good wish for a complete recovery... Do you remember when the same thing happened to K.P.S. Menon? He had to stand in a very artistic Ajanta pose for quite some time. Now you know the perils of fatherhood.â
Here was a Prime Minister who found time to reply within three days to a letter written by a lowly Foreign Servicewallah.
In 1975, H.Y. Sharada Prasad and I put together some of her writings and speeches. The book, Indira Gandhi: Speeches and Writings, was published in London and New York. On her death anniversary it is fitting to quote from some of her stirring, sensitive and elegant speeches:
* We are deeply hurt by the innuendos and insinuations that it was we who have precipitated the crisis and have in any way thwarted the emergence of solutions. I do not really know who is responsible for this calumny. During my visit to the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Austria and Belgium, the point I emphasised, publicly as well as privately, was the immediate need for a political settlement. We waited nine months for it. When Dr Kissinger came in July 1971, I had emphasised to him the importance of seeking an early political settlement. But we have not received, even to this day, the barest framework of a settlement which would take into account the facts as they are and not as we imagine them to be.
Open letter to US President Richard Nixon, written on December 15, 1971
* <b>The British ruled over us for two hundred years. Little did those early colonisers realise that along with their flag they brought the seeds which would destroy their rule. Macaulay, who pleaded so passionately for western education, did not quite realise that he was undermining the edifice he was so anxious to perpetuate. The nineteenth and twentieth centuries brought ancient India face to face with the imperatives of the contemporary world. And we quickly absorbed all that was relevant and significant in Bentham and Mill, in Rousseau and Voltaire down to Marx and Weber. And all this was grafted on to the Indian subcontinent. And we then had Tagore, Gandhi and Nehru to mention only a few.
Address to the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House, London, October 29, 1971</b>
* <b>One of the main differences between our own struggle for freedom and that of other newly-free countries is that under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, our movement ceased to be an elitist one and developed a mass base, while retaining high intellectual and moral sensitiveness. India, which was a cultural entity, became an independent, political reality. But the process did not stop with freedom. We have always regarded freedom not as the culmination but as the beginning â the beginning of an endeavour to fashion an integrated society in which the old divisions of caste, hierarchy and privilege are abolished and new social obligations and linkages are established involving and benefiting all sections.
Inaugural address to the thirty-third session of Indian Political Science Conference, Calcutta, December 27, 1972</b>
* Our national movement was committed not to a doctrine but to a purpose â the modernisation of our society without loss of the Indian personality; the development and integration of industry and agriculture with modern science and technology; the uplift of the masses and the ending of archaic, hierarchical systems in which discrimination and exploitation had become entrenched.
Article for the October 1972 issue of Foreign Affairs
* Two years hence, in 1970, the United Nations will complete twenty-five years. Can we make it a Year of Peace â a starting point of a united endeavour to give mankind the blessings of a durable peace? To this end let us devote ourselves. One of our ancient prayers says:
Common be your prayer;
Common be your end;
Common be your purpose;
Common be your deliberation.
Common be your desire;
Unified be your hearts;
Unified be your intentions;
Perfect be the union among you.
Address delivered to the UN General Assembly, October 14, 1968
K. Natwar Singh is a former minister for external affairs
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->