Jawaharlal Nehru । জহরলাল নেহরু

The roots of the celebrations on the 26th of January as our Republic Day actually go back to a very significant development in our Independence struggle. Till 1929, Gandhiji and the mainstream of the Indian National Congress could not decide whether to demand complete independence from the British Empire.

Aldous Huxley was among the first to brand Gandhi and his movements `anti- science’. “Tolstoyan’s and Gandhiites tell us to `return to nature’,” he said, “in other words, abandon science altogether and live like primitives”. This impression was surely in currency and, in the absence of a determined, evidence laden rebuttal, it continues to prevail. Dr Meghnad Saha once told the Russians that he and his fellow scientists had “as little regard” for Gandhi’s economic and social theories “as you ‘the Russians’ have for Tolstoy”.

Dr B.C. Roy, who led West Bengal as chief minister between 1948 and 1962, died on this first day of July, 59 years ago. He was known for his exactitude and his scientific temper, but to take leave of the world on the same date on which he came into it and that too, as soon as he had reached a perfect 80, is more than just unusual.

I came across a photograph of Pandit Nehru sitting on a simple wooden bed, covered with a frugal white sheet and a few batik spreads, and a couple of pillows strewn behind and beside him. There were no crowds on the dais, which was obviously during the Convocation of Visva Bharati in (1954), and while the Upacharya, who was at the right corner of the photo, delivered his address over an ancient microphone, Panditji looked straight at the audience.