The Hindu Business Line : `Unhonoured, unwept and unsung'

It is impossible to convey to the present generation the aura of greatness and nobility of those who took part in the struggle for Independence for well over 30 years.

By the time this piece appears, yet another birthday (November 14) of Jawaharlal Nehru would have come and gone. The rituals of garlanding his statue and observing of Children's Day by some schools here and there in memory of Chacha Nehru would have been mechanically gone through, receiving negligible notice (sometimes not even that) in the media in the form of a few sound bytes and lines of perfunctory reporting tucked away in some obscure corner.

That has been the fate of not only Nehru, but even Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Patel, Rajaji, S. Satyamurti and Kamaraj as well. The legendary freedom heroes, who strode like colossuses, are fast receding from memory. Soon, a time will come when "Nehru, who?" may well be the response to the mention of his name.

Aura of greatness and nobility

The reason is that the younger generation is being brought up without sensitising them to the utter fearlessness in facing the ruthless repression of the British authorities, total dedication to the cause of the country's freedom from foreign rule, and the unbelievable extent of suffering and sacrifices that freedom heroes represented.

Unfortunately, the youths of today have few role models other than lesser and smaller public figures strutting on the State and national stage with scant credentials of either selflessness or sacrifice and little credible claim to fame.

It is absolutely impossible to convey to the present generation the aura of greatness and nobility of those who took part in the struggle for Independence for well over 30 years from 1915 when Gandhiji appeared on the scene and converted what was essentially a petition-mongering Indian National Congress into a formidable mass movement.

Equally, the spirit of sacrifice that animated the struggle will be simply incomprehensible for the young men and women of today who are used to seeing their so-called leaders shamelessly amassing ill-gotten riches not in just lakhs of rupees but in thousands of crores.

Each one of the freedom heroes had the qualifications to wallow in wealth, if they so wanted. Gandhiji was a barrister and if he continued in his profession, he could have lived a life of luxury. Nehru too was a barrister, born with a silver spoon in his mouth, the laundry of the household of his father, Motilal Nehru, being sent to Paris every week for cleaning. Patel, Rajendra Prasad, Rajaji and C. Subramaniam had substantial income of their own as prominent and much-sought-after lawyers.

Chambers of horrors

When they threw all that away and chose a life of privation and long spells of incarceration in British jails, it was entirely without any inkling as to what the future held for them — even whether they would survive the freedom struggle, let alone occupy Ministerial chairs.

Seeing the corrupt and rapacious leaders boarding the prison vans with a broad grin and a `V' sign, the young persons of today might also be misled into imagining that jails were home from home, with perhaps better comforts. They were, in fact, in those days, chambers of horrors inflicting physical and psychological torture, resulting from the most unbearably stinking and primitive conditions obtaining within them. Travel too was no picnic, but akin to the Twelve Labours of Hercules. Is it ever going to be possible to take the nation back to the values and virtues of that glorious era? One is frightened by the answer that quickly comes to mind!

B. S. RAGHAVAN