A tryst with Destiny....

The day before yesterday marked the 43^rd anniversary of the passing away of a man whose tryst with destiny altered for all ages the fortunes of his nation and his people. This man’s vision of the future would decide how his nation would stand in the forum of the world on almost all issues for nearly four decades after he first held the helm of power.

His foresight would lay the foundation of modern India, of its industrial prowess. His belief that education would liberate even the most down-trodden of men from the manacles of poverty and deprivation would form the base of world-class didactic institutes, whose very name would come to represent the sheer brilliance of the Indian people. His insistence on the principle of secularism and egalitarianism would give a recently tortured nation the calm that it needed to start on its journey towards greater prospects.

And yet, 43 years after his death, he is a forgotten man. Children, his most beloved of all creatures on earth, get a holiday and a treat on his birthday, and yet not many know why they are getting the holiday in the first place. The great institutes that he took the initiative to set up scarcely remember his creed and his advice to them that they must use their talents first for their nation and then for themselves. The systems that he built to harness the growth of his people have in turn become the very fetters which served to diminish their potential for nearly four long decades, and continue to do so to this day.

His party, the outfit which he nurtured to supreme power, from 1930 to 1947, which was scheduled for dissolution after independence, but which was saved by this man’s firm insistence that it was necessary to build the fledgling nation, has forsaken not just his legacy, but also his memory. His family, his progeny, those who came to power standing on his shoulders have pushed him into so deep an abyss that even if he were to try, he could not come out of it. The Family now disowns his name and seeks to establish a relationship with the Father, a cruel irony, considering that he had forsaken the Father in order to ensure that the Party would survive.

His mistakes continue to define him, irrespective of bigger mistakes made by his successors. His successes are credited to those who scarcely deserve the accolades. And today, 43 years after his demise, only one advertisement, that too hidden in the depths of a newspaper, remember his contribution to this nation and its history. He died a broken man, his dreams shattered by those whom he trusted, his vision of his nation in pieces. He would die a thousand deaths to have been ignored so by those for whom he lived his life. Kaifi Azmi very poignantly described the spirit of the man, the legend,

Zindagi bhar mujhe nafarat si rahi ashkon se 

Mere khwaabon ko tum ashkon mein dubote kyon ho 

Jo meri tarah jiyaa karate hain kab marate hain 

Thak gayaa hoon mujhe so lene do rote kyon ho 

So ke bhi jaagate hi rahate hain jaanbaaz suno

Meri aawaaz suno..

In memoriam of the man who made India the nation it is today, the one and the only,
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.