GRAFT CRAFT

PICTURE SPEAK

CAUGHT RED-HANDED: T.T. Krishnamachari (centre)

For the first time, a financial scam rocked Independent India. Governmental corruption made headlines when Feroze Gandhi, MP from Rae Bareily and husband of Indira Gandhi, brought to the notice of the Parliament an investment of Rs 1.24 crore by the newly nationalised Life Insurance Corporation in stock speculator Haridas Mundhra’s sinking companies, calling it “a conspiracy to beguile the Corporation of its funds”. Finance Minister T.T. Krishnamachari was forced to quit after the commission of inquiry headed by Justice M.C. Chagla found that his principal aide, Finance Secretary H.M. Patel, had ordered the deal. After his arrest, Mundhra, whom Feroze called the “mystery man of India’s business underworld”, revealed he had contributed to the Congress party coffers. The inquiry was intended to serve as a “corrective to administrators all over the country”, but sadly, that was never to happen.

CARAVAN LEADER

Dismissed by M.A. Jinnah as a Muslim showboy and elevated by Nehru as the caravan leader, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was crucial to the Congress in the early days of Partition when there was unease over minorities. Independent India’s first education minister, who died in 1958 of a stroke, is still remembered as a permanent statement against the ‘two nation’ notion.

FIRST CUT

For the first time, two technical squadrons were added to the National Cadet Corps’ air wing.

The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act was passed by the Parliament.

DID YOU KNOW

Filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak wrote the screenplay for Bimal Roy’s famous reincarnation drama Madhumati, starring thespian Dilip Kumar and Vyjayanthimala.

“I HAVE ALWAYS STOOD FOR JUSTICE FOR MY PEOPLE.”
Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah

He wasn’t called Sher-i-Kashmir for nothing. Released in January, Sheikh Abdullah was jailed in April on false charges of complicity with Pakistan. He became prime minister of Kashmir in 1948, but was dismissed in 1953 after rumours that he, in a conversation with American politician Adlai Stevenson, had offered J&K as a base for United States to operate from, against the USSR, in exchange for recognition of an ‘independent’ Kashmir. Jailed for 11 years, he was exiled in 1971 for 18 months. He became the chief minister of J&K in 1977 and remained in the post till his death in 1982.

PICTURE SPEAK

HOME TERRITORY: Macmillan with Rajendra Prasad (right)

Passage to India

Harold Macmillan became the first British prime minister to visit India after Independence. Time magazine reported, “Macmillan took with him the cheering knowledge that the British are today more popular in India than ever before.”

A 1928 CHEVROLET AND MADHUBALA

“Babu samjho ishare, horn pukare”; “Hum thay woh thi, woh thi hum thay”—Kishore Kumar yodelled and danced and laughed his way through Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi, a kooky romantic ensemble comedy starring the Kumar brothers (Ashok, Anoop and Kishore). A 1928 Chevrolet and the luminous Madhubala made this Satyen Bose movie a classic.

ELSEWHERE...

Hungary’s Communist regime charged Imre Nagy with treason for leading the revolution and executed him.

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov was released.

Boris Pasternak (below) won the Nobel Prize in Literature though Soviet authorities pressured him into relinquishing it.

Explorer I, the first US satellite, successfully orbited the earth.

Nine thousand scientists of 43 nations petitioned the UN for a nuclear test ban.

1,200 dollars is what Mehboob Khan, his wife Sardar and Nargis got as foreign exchange allowance from the government for attending the Oscars, where Mother India was nominated, only to be beaten by Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria.

1959: INDIA AT 60

FORSAKING HOME

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FLIGHT OF HOPE: Dalai Lama (centre) with bodyguards after fleeing Lhasa

REWIND

A homeland was lost, perhaps forever. His Potala Palace in Lhasa increasingly under attack, the Dalai Lama crossed into India with 10,000 followers after an abortive Tibetan revolt against the Chinese. India gave him political asylum and here he has stayed since then, heading Tibet’s government in exile. Though Jawaharlal Nehru told the Dalai Lama not to look for support in the West where he would look like a “piece of merchandise”, independence or nothing was what the Dalai Lama and his people wanted. The Chinese way, he said, would make them a “people without their souls”.

HINDU YA MUSALMAN?

“Tu Hindu banega na musalman banega/Insaan ki aulaad hai insaan banega” (you will not grow up to be a Hindu or a Muslim/you are the son of a man/and a human being you shall be), sang Mohammad Rafi in Dhool Ka Phool, directed by Yash Chopra, with lyrics from the great Urdu poet, Sahir Ludhianvi. The movie examined the searing stigma of illegitimacy and carried an impassioned plea for communal harmony.

FIRST CUT

Bajaj Auto received a Government licence to produce two- and three-wheelers in India.

The Press Club of India was inaugurated in Delhi.

National Aerospace Laboratories, India’s pre-eminent civil research and development establishment in aeronautics and allied disciplines, was set up in Delhi.

DID YOU KNOW

Visiting Peking in 1959, lawyer Daniel Latifi was told by his Chinese colleagues that the “McMohan line (line of control between India and China) had no juridical basis”.

“WE CAN’T WORK UNDER THE DEFENCE MINISTER.”
General K.S. Thimayya

So said the war hero and Chief of Army Staff in a stand-off with Jawaharlal Nehru’s dearest friend, V.K. Krishna Menon. The son of a coffee planter in Coorg, Thimayya was the closest to pacifist India’s idea of a modern military hero, writes Ramachandra Guha. A veteran of World War II, he supervised the movement of refugees in Punjab, battled raiders in Kashmir and led a UN team to Korea. But when Defence Minister Menon appointed B.M. Kaul as lieutenant general in 1959, Thimayya quit. Nehru recalled him after two long sessions in his office and the lack of preparation for battling China, which so worried “Timmy”, was never addressed.

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Soviet forces arrived in Afghanistan.

The United Nations issued its Declaration of the Rights of the Child.

US President Dwight Eisenhower signed a proclamation admitting Alaska to the Union as the 49th state.

Fidel Castro (below) took over Cuba, leading revolutionaries to victory over Fulgencio Batista, who fled to the Dominican Republic.

An agreement was signed by Britain, Turkey and Greece, granting Cyprus its independence.

The Barbie Doll was unveiled at the American Toy Fair in New York priced at $3.

4.49 lakh Partition refugees were paid a total of Rs 128.3 crore as compensation. Millions of people had left their fixed assets and crossed the borders after the division of the country into two nations.

1960: INDIA AT 60

NEW CONTOURS

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REGIONAL KING: Y.B. Chavan (left) taking oath as the first chief minister of Maharashtra

REWIND

India was being re-ordered on linguistic lines. Resentment in western India—which wasn’t covered by the States Reorganisation Commission in 1956—was finally assuaged when the states of Maharashtra and Gujarat were formed. In the north, Master Tara Singh and Fateh Singh fasted “unto death” while their Akali Dal supporters courted arrests, demanding a state for Punjabis. After years of agitation by rebel leader A.Z. Phizo, who charged the Indian Army with genocide, Jawaharlal Nehru announced that a state of Nagaland would be carved out of Assam.

AN ACCIDENT

The Indian Air Force’s first Indian Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Subroto Mukherjee, choked to death while having a meal with friends in Tokyo, Japan. He had flown there aboard Air India’s first flight to Tokyo. He was also the first Indian to command a flight and a squadron in the Indian Air Force.

FIRST CUT

Air India went international with its maiden flight from Delhi to New York.

The first Hindi Encyclopaedia released by Nagari Pracharini Sabha came out on October 16.

REBEL FACE
Angami Zapu Phizo

The firebrand leader of the Naga National Council went to Switzerland on a forged Ei Salvadorean passport. David Astor, the owner of the Observer newspaper, made Angami Zapu Phizo a hero, supporting a series of press conferences where he painted the Indian government as anti-Christian and charged the Indian Army with genocide while demanding an independent Nagaland. Phizo had declared Nagaland independent way back in 1947, a day before India became independent. Nehru declared Nagaland a separate state in 1960, but the insurgency and demands for independence continued, with the “father of the Nagas” remaining a rebel till his death in 1992.

“I WAS BEING BUFFETED BY THE ICY WINDS OF THE COLD WAR.”
India Abroad

That’s how Jawaharlal Nehru began his speech in the United Nations General Assembly. He is seen here with Defence Minister V.K. Krishna Menon. The 1960 session was an astounding collection of leaders—US President Dwight Eisenhower; prime ministers Harold Macmillan of the United Kingdom and India’s Nehru; the Soviet Union’s shoe-thumping Nikita Khrushchev and Cuba’s Fidel Castro.

WATER WAY

The Indus Waters Treaty was signed by Jawaharlal Nehru and Pakistan President Mohammad Ayub Khan on September 19, after mediation by the World Bank, in a rare display of cooperation from the traditional rivals.

PYAR KIYA TO DARNA KYA?

K. Asif’s Mughal-e-Azam finally hit the screens. It took 500 shooting days over 15 years to make, cost Rs 1.5 crore and mirrored a real-life love affair between Dilip Kumar and Madhubala, which began when she got her make-up woman to take a rose to him. It bore the message: “If you want me, please order this rose; if not, send it back.” Indeed, pyar kiya to darna kya?

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Existentialist writer Albert Camus died.

The building of Aswan dam in Egypt began.

France exploded its first atomic bomb.

The Beatles gave their first public performance at Kaiser Keller in Hamburg.

Cassius Clay a.k.a. Mohammad Ali (below) lifted the Olympic light heavyweight gold medal.

The first debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon for the US presidential polls was televised.

58 lakh kwh of power is what India produced in 1960, compared to 2.3 lakh kwh in 1950, and 63,060 crore kwh today. India’s increase in electricity consumption is among the highest for any major country.

1961: INDIA AT 60

FREEDOM BY FORCE

PICTURE SPEAK

COMPLETE INDEPENDENCE: Captured Portuguese troops

REWIND

Even after Independence, pockets of the country remained under foreign rule. The French gave up Pondicherry but Portugal continued to challenge India’s claim on its coastal enclave of Goa. International opinion failed to convince the Portuguese Government to change its stand. Following an incident of firing by Portuguese troops at Indian steamers and fishing boats, India sent in the army to liberate the territory by force. Within three days, without much resistance from the small Portuguese force, India liberated Goa. On December 19, 1961, Goa officially became part of India and two years later, held its first general election.

NEITHER GIVE NOR TAKE

At the United Nations General Assembly, Jawaharlal Nehru addressed the global issue of disarmament and the staggering futuristic possibility of a nuclear war.

FIRST CUT

India made its first colour cinemascope film, Pyaar Ki Pyaas, directed by Mahesh Kaul.

The Census of India identified 1,652 mother tongues spoken in the country.

DID YOU KNOW

In the 1960-61 India-Pakistan cricket series, bowler Asif Iqbal played against Pakistan, representing South Zone. He played at the university in Hyderabad before his family migrated to Pakistan.

PICTURE SPEAK

ALL TOGETHER: Kripalani (centre) with Nehru and Patel

“PLACE THE GOOD OF THE NATION BEFORE THE PARTY.”
J.B. Kripalani

This was Kripalani’s appeal to “Congressmen who were not afraid of the British bullets and bayonets”. The Gandhian from Sitamarhi, who had quit the Congress to form the Kisan Majdoor Praja Party, in protest against P.D. Tandon’s pro-Hindutva turn, took on Defence Minister V. Krishna Menon in perhaps the greatest speech ever made in Parliament. “We have lost 12,000 square miles of our territory without striking a blow,” he said. Menon, he said, was wasting the “money of this poor”. The speech was a warning sign that Nehru did not heed. But Menon had his revenge in 1962, defeating Kripalani by 1,00,000 votes in North Mumbai constituency.

Friendship First

John Kenneth Galbraith (centre), John F. Kennedy’s ambassador, arrived in India and became a great friend of Nehru, always sceptical of Americans. His Ambassador’s Journal was a delightful diary-like account of his stay in Delhi.

FOR SERIOUS AUDIENCES

Many do not consider this his greatest film (that honour belongs to Meghe Dhaka Tara) but Ritwik Ghatak’s Komal Gandhar brilliantly plotted the rivalry of two theatre groups who come together to stage Kalidasa’s classic, Shakuntalam. Ghatak’s use of sound and camera created a powerful critique of a divided Bengal which made work difficult for the director. But its commercial failure prevented the talented filmmaker from making more films in the later 1960s.

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Novelist Ernest Hemingway shot himself in the head at his home in Idaho.

Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin (below) orbited the Earth before making a safe landing, becoming the first man to go into space. His spaceship, Vostok I, was guided from the Earth.

East Germany closed Brandenberg Gate, Berlin’s symbol of peace, sealing the city's eastern and western sectors. Two days later, work began on the Berlin Wall.

0.1 was the percentage of the Naga population in India numbered at 5 lakh, according to the 1961 Census. Today, there are 1.7 million Nagas, forming .001 per cent of the country’s population, 90 per cent of whose means of livelihood is farming.

1962: INDIA AT 60

WAR AND PEACE

PICTURE SPEAK

TURNING POINT: Nehru in a forward area in the North-east Frontier

REWIND

The ditty “Hindi Chini bhai bhai” became “Hindi Chini bye bye”. Attacking India in October, China quickly snapped up Indian positions in Ladakh and nefa, aided by a complete collapse of military leadership. A shattered Jawaharlal Nehru called it a “deliberate cold-blooded decision”. The second Chinese offensive in November saw young men pouring into the army. Though China declared a unilateral ceasefire, 1,383 Indian soldiers were killed, 3,968 were taken prisoners and 1,696 were missing. M.J. Akbar wrote in India: The Siege Within, “It was as if suddenly the adolescence was over and the country had to mature through a most painful crisis. In those 10 days when it seemed as if the Chinese would march across the Himalayas or seep through Assam capturing Guwahati, there was the realisation that freedom and nationhood could not be taken casually.”

FIRST CUT

The Income Tax Act, 1961, came into force on April 1.

The Indian National Committee on Space Research was set up by Vikram Sarabhai.

RICHARD B. RUSSELL who opposed American arms supply to India
“Indians put up a disgraceful exhibition in being driven out of impregnable strongholds in the border mountains.”

“THE TRIP ISN’T A FASHION SHOW FOR MRS KENNEDY.”

So said an American spokesman. But whether it was her evening dress or her size 10A shoes, the “Amriki Rani”, who visited India months before the war, created a stir wherever she went. Jacqueline Kennedy put a gulal tika on Jawaharlal Nehru, who had issued a personal invitation.

AN AREA OF DARKNESS

Visiting India for the first time, Trinidad-born writer V.S. Naipaul stayed on for two years. “It was a journey that ought not to have been made; it had broken my life in two,” Naipaul wrote in his book An Area of Darkness.

THE NAWAB AT PLAY
Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi

Educated at Winchester and Oxford, the ninth nawab of Pataudi, Mansoor Ali Khan—better known as Tiger Pataudi—became the youngest Test captain at 21 when he led the Indian cricket team touring the West Indies. A few months later, a car accident permanently damaged vision in his right eye. The bold batsman captained Sussex five years later. Having debuted in the India vs England Test series in 1961, Pataudi played in 46 Test matches between 1961 and 1975. He also contested the 1971 elections to the Lok Sabha to protest the abolition of privy purses in India.

ELSEWHERE...

Nelson Mandela (below) was arrested after living on the run for 17 months. He was jailed and finally released, 27 years later, in 1990.

Algeria won its freedom from France after a bloody seven-year war of independence. A referendum on independence in Algeria saw six million of the 6.5-million electorate vote.

The United Nations announced that the Earth’s population had hit three billion.

361 was the number of seats, out of 494, won by the Congress in the Lok Sabha. The Congress got 44.72 per cent of the total votes. The second-largest winner was the Communist Party of India, trailing way behind with just 29 seats.

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