CHANDER GUPTA
I was privileged to be invited as the chief guest for a function held to mark Children’s Day. The honour was bestowed upon me by a reputed school in a Tehsil/taluka town in the year 2002. Con-scious that donning the role of chief guest for a function was a solemn duty to be discharged befit-tingly, I went well-prepared.
India had been celebrating Children’s Day from 1956, but initially it was celebrated on November 20. After the death of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, the celebration of Children’s Day was preponed to coincide with his birth anniversary falling on November 14. Neh-ru’s penchant for children was epochal. The famous lines in which Nehru had enunciated his views on children are: “The children of today will make the India of tomorrow. The way we bring them up will determine the future of the country.”
The cultural programme presented by the school children, the main segment of the function, was hugely entertaining and deservingly cheered loudly. After the children had displayed their creative talent, it was the turn of elders to speak on the occasion. The speakers, including the school princi-pal and other guests of honour, appreciated the children’s performances in the cultural pro-gramme and wished them well for the future besides giving them some piece of advice or the oth-er.
But there was something amiss which struck me as odd. I was aghast that there was no invocation of Nehru’s name in the entire proceedings. How could we celebrate Children’s Day without com-memorating Nehru’s legacy? Having read extensively about the freedom movement including Nehru’s books, notably ‘Discovery of India’, I viewed him as an iconic stalwart. His Autobiography and Glimpses of World History were other renowned books which I was familiar with. The percep-tion among Nehru’s contemporaries was that he would have gone on to win the Nobel Prize in Lit-erature if writing had been his main vocation. I have no doubt in my mind that Nehru transformed a nascent nation into a self-confident, mature, democratic republic with liberal ethos. He laid foun-dations of strong institutions which have stood India in good stead. You name any institution today; overwhelming chances are that those were created in Nehru’s time. With all this knowledge in my mind, it was unimaginable for me not to hear any eulogy to Nehru.
Rising to address the gathering in the end, I took upon the mantle of the chief guest to redeem Nehru from the egregious omission. I touched upon the significance of 14th November as the birth anniversary of Pandit Nehru and how Children’s Day coincided with it. The audience’s attentive-ness was palpable when I elaborated the contributions and accomplishments of the first Prime Minister of India.
If we look at any of the institutions, which have sustained India, all of them were set up during Nehru’s tenure. IITs, IIMs, AIIMS and PGI, are examples of world class education in the field of En-gineering, Management and Medical Sciences respectively. The entire democratic framework got firmed up during Nehru’s stewardship. He preferred to build Bhakra Dam rather than a statue.
Winding up my speech I told the students about ‘Discovery of India’ and exhorted them to emu-late Nehru in discovering India and shaping its future.