They made India richer with their legacies. India salutes them

The path of sacrifice, of giving everything up for nation-building is a path chosen by a chosen few. And a chosen few are in turn, chosen for this path. The child of Independent India is 75 today but that spine or the backbone that holds up India and prevents it from ever falling has been built by great men and women.

While the history of the freedom struggle and the people who shaped it is established and documented, the decade post-independence that needs to be stitched together. The India of the last thirty years till now, needs to inquire if the bricks that went into our nation’s building in 1947 are as strong.

India’s leaders followed different political ideologies, were allies, colleagues, and rivals but were steadfast about two things- nation building and the belief that even their rivals have the interests of the nation first.  

India’s great leaders had differences but they respected each other as Indians first

Differences were over policies and principles around those policies, but there was no divide in both sides respecting each other as Indians first.

The father of the Indian Constitution, BR Ambedkar disagreed with the Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi on various issues though they agreed on the broad framework of how India should be shaped.

 At times the differences were deep. But they were differences in approach. Both needed and wanted each other in the nation-building project.  Mahatma Gandhi’s idea was of making the village a unit of administration. Ambedkar favoured a wholesome change in the village structure as he believed that the village was the breeding ground for caste discrimination and communalism.

Veer Savarkar admitted Gandhi and was also his critic as Savarkar and Gandhi had different ideological approaches.

Gandhi and Nehru had deep mutual respect and yet they had strong differences.

Nehru sought a new modern India, driven by exploration and technology. Mahatma Gandhi looked for continuity in small steps keeping the socio-political fabric intact.

But no one saw them as enemies or rivals and there was a mutual and strong acceptance that each of them was an Indian seeking the best for his or her country.

That is the legacy. That is the India they left behind for us, an India the whole world was amazed by and in awe of. The Unity in Diversity manta was not unique but it was the steel frame on which Independent India was built.

From Nehru to Lal Bahadur Shastri and Sardar Patel, India started building and then in Indira Gandhi, India first saw a leadership that was not just comfortable but fully in charge to give India a firm place on the international diplomatic map. While a section of history and academia and the current ruling dispensation will only see Indira Gandhi as the architect of Emergency and press censorship, it is also true that through the Congress era post that and even during the regime of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the Indian press was proudly free and a valuable ombudsman and feedback mechanism for the government.

Even when Mr Vajpayee was the Prime Minister he would hold press conferences during his visits to Lucknow his constituency and field the toughest of national questions from state journalists, all with a smile and warmth after which he would say his trademark line “Chai peeke jaiyega” (please have tea and then go). In Vajpayee’s days, Chai pe charcha was a routine, friendly and important exercise.

Vajpayee reached out to and was met halfway, by the opposition. The grace and dignity on display when he gave his resignation speech in parliament just before his 13-day government in the first term fell, is seen as one of the finest examples of statesmanship.

He also handled criticism deftly and turned the tables gently. When the Congress criticised him for nuclear tests in Pokhran, he reminded the Congress that as the leader of the Jana Sangh, had supported the first-ever nuclear test conducted by Indira Gandhi’s government at Pokhran in 1974.

We have always been a country where political and all other differences would be left behind when our leaders were on an international platform. We are the same India where under one of India’s finest Prime ministers (and grossly underrated) PV Narsimha Rao, an Indian team was sent to the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva with leader of the Opposition Atal Bihari Vajpayee as the leader of the Indian delegation. Yes, a BJP leader of the opposition was sent to represent India, by a Congress Prime minister, with his External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid reporting to Vajpayee on that tour. By the way, Finance Minister Manmohan Singh was also sent on that trip which improved India’s standing by leaps and bounds before the International Community.

But there’s more. As the delegation was preparing to return from Geneva, Salman Khurshid (Congress and External Affairs Minister) told Vajpayee (BJP) that he wanted to stop over in London for two days before going back to Delhi. Vajpayee, his senior, told him firmly “Seedha ghar chaliye” (Come straight back home)’. Vajpayee wanted the delegation to return together as a show of unity and at the Delhi airport, Vajpayee and Khurshid hugged. Two men from two rival parties, they may have been, but they returned after completing a mission for India, and who was the Prime Mister who quietly made this possible- PV Narsimha Rao, the architect of economic reforms, executed by Dr Manmohan Singh who Rao handpicked as Finance Minister.

The BJP also had L K Advani. Though he has had his fair share of controversy, the BJP built by him and Vajpayee had warmth that allowed an organisation to be built which gave shape to leadership that had great talent. Pramod Mahajan, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, Govind Acharya, and Venkaiah Naidu were all products of the Advani-Vajpayee era. Even Nitin Gadkari, a Union Minister now, known for his professionalism and efficiency got his training under that leadership. It is, therefore, not surprising, that Naidu in his farewell speech as Vice President of India said Advani and Vajpayee, to him, “were next to God.”

They were Pillars of democracy

Today India longs for them and asks for them. They did not ask for praises. They did not come down on anyone who criticised them. For them critics were not enemies. They knew that those who criticise are also patriots. And for them, love for their country was above their love for a party. All of them kept India together.

These were stalwarts who were not only seen as great in India but were spoken in equal terms as Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King among others whose statesmanship was respected and loved throughout the world. They were saviours in their own ways.

Our India, in its 75th year of Independence, needs a saviour again.