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Nehru and his role in building our country\u2019s modern day democratic infrastructure can never be bypassed or overlooked or diluted. He stands tall and will always be remembered!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Sadly and unfortunately,\u00a0 in these recent years, every effort seems to be on by the\u00a0 Right-Wing ruling regime, to dilute the very significance of a statesman like Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.<\/p>\n In these recent years there have been distortions if not deletion of some very significant historical facts and factors. At times, absolutely blatant moves to change the very basic and core. Together with that, twisted and incorrect versions of the political past. I would call this nothing short of lynching of facts.<\/p>\n Around the autumn of 2016, news-reports had come in of the then Rajasthan government\u2019s plans to remove from the text books the particular chapter on Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. It was then BJP government in Rajasthan and it\u00a0 had taken some very\u00a0 blatant decisions, which included moves to remove focus on Nehru.<\/p>\n Tell me, why should this generation or future generations sit deprived of details to a statesman like Nehru? After all, \u2018Panditji\u2019, as Jawaharlal Nehru was popularly called, stood for democratic values, for the rights and dignity of the\u00a0 minorities and the disadvantaged. Yes, communal attacks did take place even in those years, but they were controlled and there was that guarantee that justice would prevail. He was looked upon as a saviour. That feeling of security was intact because he was himself secular. I\u2019m certain if Nehru was around,\u00a0 it\u00a0 would have been\u00a0 impossible for the Right-Wing brigades to have destroyed the Babri\u00a0 Masjid or for the Gujarat\u00a0 and\u00a0 Delhi pogroms to have\u00a0 taken\u00a0 place, or for the Hindutva brigades to be unleashed all around to terrorize hundreds of\u00a0 innocents.<\/p>\n The fact is that Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was a leader of the masses. He was respected and loved. I rather too\u00a0 vividly recall, I saw my\u00a0 maternal grandmother, Amna Rahman, cry out\u00a0 in deep anguish when she heard the news of the passing\u00a0 away of\u00a0 the then\u00a0 Prime\u00a0 Minister of\u00a0 India, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru\u2026 I was too young to comprehend the connect between her tears and the death of Nehru, but to this day I recall\u00a0 her words along the strain\u00a0 that Nehru was a saviour of the masses of our country. And much later she had explained that in a democracy it is not important to have a leader from a minority or majority community but a person one could respect and look up to\u2026someone who could take care of the masses, without discriminating along the religious or regional formats.<\/p>\n And\u00a0 years later during my interactions with the Muslim citizens, when\u00a0 the topic of the\u00a0 Partition came up, Muslim families\u00a0 told me that their\u00a0 fathers\u00a0 and grandfathers\u00a0 had\u00a0 opted to stay back in their country Hindoostan, in the hope that leaders of the stature of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru would be their rulers; with that, sound and\u00a0 just administration would prevail. No, they couldn\u2019t have imagined, not even in their wildest dreams, that a day would come when Right-Wing men will be the political rulers of this land.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In those earlier years, I had attended press conferences of the Palestinian envoys to India and witnessed the emotions they generated amongst the Indian masses. I do recall that warm hug the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat gave Indira Gandhi when she hosted an elaborate reception for him in New Delhi. Indira Gandhi\u2019s office had sent invites to even middle- rung Muslim families besides the usual list of the who\u2019s who. Of course, those were the days when there were no security phobias. No hyped statements. That was phase of Government of India\u2019s close bonding with the Arab countries. Well, the foundation of that bonding was laid by none other than Nehru and his policies.<\/p>\n Nehru and his role in building our country\u2019s modern day democratic infrastructure can never be bypassed or overlooked or diluted. He stands tall. He will always be remembered. After all, he was a leader of the mases.<\/p>\n A publisher-author\u2019s unique journey<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019d met Ashok Chopra on several occasions at Khushwant Singh\u2019s home. That was over two decades back. And around the same time I\u2019d done a detailed interview with him, where he spoke of the various ups and downs, turns and twists\u00a0 in his professional life. Of course, webbed and inter-webbed were his absolutely hitting comments on books and volumes and writings, authors and publishers, and his own life and lifestyle.<\/p>\n And now, this summer of 2022, after years I met him once again, at Sanjiv Saraf\u2019s book launch. And as we got talking, it got rather obvious that Chopra has been ongoing in that focused way. Not to be overlooked the fact that he started as a journo and has made a mark as publisher and also as an author. In fact, Chopra is one of those few publishers who is also an author. This combination is somewhat rare and offbeat, at least in our country.<\/p>\n Though he prefers to keep a low profile but I recall the who\u2019s who on the literary circuit had made it a point to focus on him. Khushwant Singh had called him the “pushy publisher”. Shobha De had described him as “a low key individual whose publishing list is middle brow and sensible… ”<\/p>\n And to these comments I can add that he\u2019s absolutely forthright. And focused. So much so that over two decades back, in the late 90s, when he landed up with a heart attack, he didn\u2019t contemplate taking a break, either from the publishing scene, or from the several columns he was then writing. As he had then told me, during the course a detailed interview with me, “Laying down I took to dictating my commentaries on the book scene from the hospital bed. \u2026Coming to my own personal lifestyle, I think it is incorrect say that I have no time for friends. After the heart attack I follow a very disciplined lifestyle, but always appreciate the company of beautiful friends and writers.\u201d<\/p>\n And his passion for the written word has resulted in his writing one\u00a0 book after another. The\u00a0 books\u00a0 authored by \u00a0him are — Memories of\u00a0 Fire \u2013 a novel,\u00a0 The\u00a0 Lovers of\u00a0 Rampore \u2013 a\u00a0 novel, A\u00a0 Scrapbook\u00a0 of\u00a0 Memories, Of\u00a0 Love\u00a0 and Other Sorrows\u2026<\/p>\n Holding out, of course, is his role as a publisher. This\u00a0 veteran publisher\u00a0 was earlier associated with several well- known and\u00a0 reputed publishing houses, and had at one point even established his own publishing house. Today he heads Hay House Publishers<\/em>\u00a0India.<\/p>\n Leaving you with his this quote from the preface of his book \u2013 A Scrapbook of Memories \u2013 \u201cWho is a book publisher? \u2026A publisher is a man of many parts who can\u2019t be slotted into a specific category. Perhaps, it may be easier to state what he is not if only to dispel some\u00a0 notions in the\u00a0 popular\u00a0 mind. A\u00a0 publisher is\u00a0 not a scholar or a\u00a0 pure\u00a0 intellectual who\u00a0 lives on ideas alone; he may have his head in the clouds but he is firmly rooted to the\u00a0 ground\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Nehru and his role in building our country\u2019s modern day democratic infrastructure can never be bypassed or overlooked or diluted. He stands tall and will always be remembered! Sadly and unfortunately,\u00a0 in these recent years, every effort seems to be on by the\u00a0 Right-Wing ruling regime, to dilute the very significance of a statesman like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339273,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23,2205],"tags":[6945,9671],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339272"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339272"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":339275,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339272\/revisions\/339275"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/339273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Humra-Quraishi-Ashok_Chopra.jpg\")
Nehru was known and respected worldwide as a statesman. His stand on Palestinian issue was strong and unchanged. His views and policies vis – a – vis the Middle East made the Arab world tilt towards India. Arab lands and its\u00a0 people were strong allies of\u00a0 India \u2026I recall the\u00a0 receptions hosted\u00a0 in New\u00a0 Delhi by the Iraqi\u00a0 envoys in that sprawling bungalow on\u00a0 Prithvi Raj Road, which\u00a0 was gifted way back\u00a0 in\u00a0 the 1950s, by\u00a0 Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to the first Iraqi\u00a0 envoy\u00a0 posted to India. And at those receptions,\u00a0 talks would invariablydrift towards Nehru, with the Arab envoys recounting his popularity amongst their people. Mind you, even after his passing away, the Arab\u00a0 governments and people carried that same level of respect for his daughter, Indira Gandhi.<\/p>\n