Getting Jawaharlal Nehru's autograph

Lieut-Gen Baljit Singh (retd)

MY generation of Indians, who entered colleges in the early 1950s, did not have any structured education about neither the nationwide movement seeking independence from colonial rule nor the personalities who were in the vanguard of that mission. My understanding of those momentous times was gleaned chiefly from reading random pages of three books on my father's bookshelf; biographies of Mahatma Gandhi by C F Andrews and Louis Fischer and “An Autobiography” by Jawaharlal Nehru. In due course, the latter book acquired symbolism of memorabilia.

I had arrived home on winter vacation in December, 1951, a few days prior to Prime Minister Nehru's address to an election rally at Sangrur where my father was posted as the Deputy Commissioner. There was just one air strip in Punjab those days and Mr Nehru’s motor cavalcade was late by an hour and the crowd of several thousand peasants was becoming restive. But the moment the Prime Minister in a brown-coloured woollen “Achkan” and a white Churidar mounted the podium, there was instant hushed silence which only a charismatic and inspiring personality can infuse among his audience.

Though I was privileged to sit on one of the few chairs upon the rostrum, I was simply mesmerised to be in the shadow of the great man that I paid scant attention to his speech. He finished his exhortation with a flourish, by asking his audience to get up and join him in a full-throated chorus of “Bharat Mata Ki Jai Ho” three times over!

All this while I had sat holding a book and a pen but no sooner did Mr Nehru turn to leave than I stepped forward and, as tutored by my father, opened the book and requested him to autograph it, at the marked page. The catechism “Chacha Nehru” had not gained currency at the time but his love of children was so evident that not only did he break into a gentle smile but also gladly autographed it and patted me on my cheek. I was to learn later in the day that recounted on that page was Mr Nehru’s arrest at Jaitaun (a village in the interior of Nabha princely state) on May 23, 1923, for inciting disorder by the agitating Akalis and his lodgement in Nabha jail. And when produced in court the following day, a kindly Sikh Magistrate ordered the police to remove the handcuffs as the accused was not a criminal. Mr Nehru was obviously pleased by the fair sense of jurisprudence shown by the Magistrate and even more so by his humanity as a few days later the Magistrate visited the jail to enquire whether he was reasonably comfortable! That endorsement of probity by Mr Nehru was intrinsically valued like a family heirloom because the Magistrate was my father's father!

As befitting the spirit of the times, the hard binding of the first edition of “An Autobiography” had off-white ‘khadi’ cloth pasted as its outer wrap with his autograph imprinted on the upper half of the front cover which, in a manner of speaking, also symbolised the elegance of Mr Nehru, the man.