K.C.R Raja

Coach & Counsellor

Independence Day 1947- as a young boy witnessed it in Delhi

I remember vividly the midnight hour on 14/ 15 August , 1947 when India became free. I was in Delhi right in the midst of historic happenings, but as a fifteen year school boy, I guess I didn’t quite realise that history was being made right in front of my eyes. My uncle, aunt and I huddled around our radio set around 10.30 pm to tune in to All India radio, the only broadcast medium we had in those days. The radio commentary started around that time and at 11 pm the Constituent Assembly met.

We heard Mrs Sucheta Kripalani sing Vande Mataram- the original version, which to this day sounds to me sweeter than all the later ones. The President of the Constituent Assembly, Dr Rajendra Prasad, then spoke. And that was followed by Nehru’s seminal address-counted among the great speeches of our time-with the words, “ At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom.”. He added “A new star rises, the star of freedom in the East, a new hope comes into being… May the star never set, may that hope never be betrayed!” Nehru spoke of India’s determination to work with the nations of the world to promote peace, freedom and democracy. It touched a chord in our hearts and in millions of hearts because it ignited a new hope and a sense of strange, indescribable ecstasy. There were other speeches and then Jana Gana Mana, which had not yet become the national anthem!

From what the radio commentators said, all Delhi was awake . I guess most of India was awake!

The next morning, I had to be up early, to rush to my school for our celebration of the day. We had the march past, Vande Mataram and the unfurling of the flag and an emotional speech from the Principal followed by Jana gana mana and generous distribution of sweets.

We were now free men and freedom brought responsibility , our Principal reminded us. Words like peace, freedom and democracy resonated in my mind as I started walking back home . It was a two kilometre walk from school to home. And I had with me my friend Vijayendar who lived not far away from our house. Half way down the walk, we suddenly heard a shriek, a scary one and noticed a distant shadowy figure chasing a hapless victim, mercifully invisible to me. We sensed danger and I shivered in silence till I reached home.

In another part of New Delhi , celebrations were in full swing. Independence was heady wine at least for the moment and thousands of men , women and children had gathered around the Viceroy’s house, ( now Rashtrapathi Bhavan), Great Place ( now Vijay Chowk) and India Gate to see the illuminations and the great march with Lord Mountbatten and Nehru moving all the way to India Gate in the Viceroy’s open carriage drawn by six horses. I too moved around in the crowd, in what was being described as a sea of humanity ; our house was only ten or fifteen minutes away from these happenings.

I returned home late in the evening. My aunt was anxiously waiting for me.The riots had started!

Yes, the riots had started! We had independence but peace had eluded us!

In yet another part of Delhi, near Safdarjung Jung, one refugee camp was sheltering a few thousand ‘ sharanarthis’, men, women and children, victims of partition uprooted from their homes, who had lost everything and had to flee across the border in sheer search of safety.

The refugee camp was organised overnight and was full to the brim , without even basic amenities like water, sanitation and food. Cholera was a real possibility. The place was seething with anger and bitterness. It was an explosive situation.

What stressed us more was that my uncle had to go into this camp and almost take personal responsibility for its hygiene and health issues. We were no doubt proud of the fact that he had just been promoted, to become the first Indian to hold the highest position in public health administration in India, that of the Director General of Health Services but we didn’t expect this to land him so suddenly in a situation where his personal safety became our greatest concern. (One has to remember that in those days even ministers had none of the security shields that they have today.)His visits to the camp continued, I think, for about a month.

We thus had two streams incongruous with each other : one, the stark reality of facing one of the most colossal upheavals in history, caused by partition and the mass migration of population; and the other , the mood of joy and hope that pulsated through the celebrations. I guess, in a small measure, I was witness to both on that day and in the months that followed .The second, the hope of a better future has remained and has fortunately propelled us to great endeavours and glorious achievements..

We have come a long way from that Independence Day! Each year brings fresh hope and a fresh sense of pride in being an Indian!

[After I wrote this piece, I tuned in to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech at the Red Fort. The ninth in a row. As always, with telling takeaways. Specially appealing to me was his plea for reconnecting with our cultural roots and for a sense of pride in them. And his words, “ We must not seek validation from the world. ” Too often we have to wait for validation abroad before gaining recognition at home!]

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Life time Achievement Award

Address of K C R Raja at the Life time Achievement Awards Function of the Rotary Club of Bombay West on Wednesday, 24 May at at Rotary Service Centre, Juhu Tara Road, Mumbai.

I am indeed grateful to you for conferring on me this prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award.

I recall that this award was instituted in 1966 and the first recipient was Mr Arvind Mafatlal . Since then distinguished achievers from within the Rotary and outside have received this award. The number is not very large .We have had Chaturbhujbhai, Mohanbhai, the seniormost Rotarian in this Club today , Ramesh Oza who has so singularly and nobly devoted himself to a great cause and Sukdev Puriji whose knowledge and wisdom have been as much at the service of his profession as at social causes. Little did I dream then I would one day be considered worthy of entry into this select band of awardees.

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THAT PENUMBRA OF APPROBATION

“There is no penumbra of approbation round the theory of equilibrium. Equilibrium is just equilibrium.” Discuss.

Yes, this was a question we had in our Economics paper the year I joined the BA (Hons) Economics course. The answer is clear and simple: it is like saying 2+2=4 whether you like it or not : there is nothing you can do about it.

The quote is from Lionel Robbins’ book based on his lecture “ The Nature and Significance of Economics”. For Robbins, this may have been an esoteric way of bringing home a point to the Cambridge school, that economics is concerned with cause and effect , with actions and outcomes , with scarce resources that have to be deployed to achieve chosen ends ; that it is not the business of economists to give prescriptions. Yet that statement , out of context, sounds mystifying and non-communicative.

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Swami Vivekananda at Harvard

Swami Vivekananda’s stay at Harvard, although well documented, presents many incidents that have been relatively unnoticed. This, the 150th year of Swamiji’s  birth anniversary, is an appropriate time to remind Indian and American audiences of them. The Swamiji’s first visit to  Harvard was occasioned by the initial refusal of the Parliament of Religions, at Chicago,  register him as a delegate. On arriving at Chicago from Vancouver in 1893, the Swamiji was told that the Parliament would not open before the first week of September and that it was too late for the registration of delegates. Further that no registration will be accepted without official references.

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Vishwanath’s First Century and a Kick start to my career

It is amazing how a small incident can make a crucial difference to your life and career. This was what Vishwanath’s test debut did to me. I was a relatively junior official in my company. I knew I was being trained to take over the Market Research Division. But that would have depended on my success in one or two difficult assignments . There was no dearth of competitors!

One such assignment came up in 1969- a survey on a new type of decorative closures. The liquor companies were the principal prospects. There were only three major groups and I could therefore approach each of them to conduct personal interviews.

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Meeting Satyajit Ray……and into Ashani Sanket

(Satyajit Ray and I have had very little in common, personally and certainly not professionally. Most mornings I drove past Ray’s house on Bishop Lefroy  Road and parked my car close by. I had, however never thought of meeting Ray, let alone, discussing his films. Yet I did meet him once…)

I had seen most of Satyajit Ray’s films, many without subtitles, in Calcutta’s theatres and had just started going to the Sunday morning shows of a film society. The film society movement owed its existence to Ray; it was pretty active in the 1970’s and 80’s and had   produced renowned directors like Basu Chatterjee, Kantilal Rathod and Shyam Benegal. I had heard something about Ray’s shooting style and schedules from my colleague in Metal Box, Dhritiman Chatterjee, who had an offer for the principal role in Ray’s film Pratidhwandhi and had just finished shooting. Dhritiman was a management trainee and it took a great deal of pleading and the intervention of a Director, for the British company to bend its rules and let him take two months off for shooting.

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