From India's largest newsroom, I'm Arun George and this is the
Times of India podcast. Every Independence Day, we not
only celebrate the day, but also try to remember what it means to
be an independent nation. With every passing year, we also
have fewer people who've seen India from the time it became
independent to the present day. There are things that all of us
know as a sort of collective memory, like that video of
crowds gathered in Delhi for the flag hoisting, or that iconic
speech. Long years ago, we made A twist
with destiny. And now?
The time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not only or
in full measure, but very substantially.
But there are a lot of things that we don't know of as well.
This Independence Day, my colleagues in Mumbai, Bhavika
Jain and Lata Mishra, decided to speak with three people who've
been around since India became independent.
They spoke with them about their memories of India on the date
gained independence and what that time was like.
They spoke about how they view India at 76, which is younger
than they are presently. They also evaluated how the
country has aged so far and what they hope for it in the coming
years. Julia Ribeiro, who spoke with
Bhavika Jain, is best known as the tough police officer who
helped end terrorism in Punjab and was the Commissioner of
Police in Mumbai. But on the 15th of August in
1947, he was a teenager in a Mumbai college.
He describes what the day was like for him.
I was 18 years old. I was studying in the final year
of my graduate of my bachelor's course.
In commerce, I was in the Sydenham College and my younger
brother, he was in the JJ School of Art.
So we both went in a bus, you know, BST bus all over S Bombay
and there was a lot of, you know, people, lots of people on
the roads and we were very impressed, especially around BT
Station. It was extremely interesting.
People were very. In a joyous mood.
So I remember that Rahul Singh is an author and former editor
who has edited publications like The Reader's Digest and The
Indian Express. He's also the son of author and
editor Khushwan Singh. Born in 1940, Rahul Singh was a
resident of Lahore when it became clear that India was
going to get independence. He tells Bhavika Jain why he
better remembers his experience of the days in the run up to
August 15. In 1947, I was only seven years
old and I think the day that India got it, Independence
Partition was taking place at that time and I think my father
by then had become a diplomat. And had moved to London, so I
cant quite remember that particular day, but I can tell
you a little bit when we moved from Lahore, the whole family
was based in Lahore in 1947, beginning of 1947 and that is
when the riots broke out my grandfather.
Whose name was SAR Shobha Singh? He was.
He had moved to Delhi. By then he had been a
contractor, a builder in what became Pakistan.
But what was undivided India then in a place called How Dali,
which was a village in what is now Pakistan And in 1947 when
the riots broke out? I still vividly remember that we
used to go out on the roof of the building where we were
living. We were living in a in a road
called Lawrence Rd. In Lahore.
I remember we used to see from the roof that there was trouble
there and my father even said there were some people being
killed during those riots. So because there was trouble in
law, my father said we better. He he sent us all off the
family. I had a small sister who was
just two years old and there was my mother.
And so he bundled us up in a car and said go to Delhi and stay
with your grandfather in Delhi. These riots will subside in a
short while and then you can come back again.
Of course, we never came back. Because the riots get worse and
worse and then Partition took place.
Doctor Rustam Sunawala is perhaps Mumbai's oldest
gynecologist and obstetrician and has worked on population
control for a lot of his life. He helped in the creation of
India's abortion law and pushed for the use of contraception
devices for women so that they could control how many children
they had. Given the nature of his work for
over 50 years of his life, it's only a surprise how he described
the event of independence to Lata Mishra.
The Independence Day celebration.
Being an obstetrician, I would compare it like a birth of a
baby. When a baby is born, the whole
family rejoices. All visitors come with gifts and
all. So it was like the birth of our
country. And everybody was happy.
Everybody was rejoicing, but as Rahul Singh described it, it was
also a time of violence. Doctor Suna Wala, who was almost
a teen, remembers vividly how he and his parents escaped the mob
thanks to a stroke of luck. My father used to just drive the
car on Sundays. Our driver was off and my mom,
myself, him went for a movie show to paradise.
Cinema at mine, after the film got over on the screen, a notice
came that there are strikes near Shivaji Park.
So our clients or whatever, I want to be careful when you
those who have to go through Shivaji Park.
At that time God Save the King was always played.
We stood up. And then as we got out of the
theatre, we saw three other Parsi ladies from the same
colony, The other Parsi colony. So naturally we offered them
lift. So my dad was driving, my mother
and me were sitting tightly. It was an old open car, and the
three other ladies were accommodated at the back.
It was all quiet. There were a lot of policemen at
Shirley Park, Not a soul to be seen, completely deserted.
So we were quite happy. We took a left turn to come to
the till the bridge. As you took the left turn, a mob
of maybe hundred 200 people from the side lanes suddenly
appeared. It was really a frightening
shock to see people with sticks and stones in the hand coming.
Sunday out and they stopped the car.
At that time the old cars they were radiated and the cap on
top. So they opened the front cap
which was metallic and started hitting the front glass to break
it and the side glasses were up and we had locked ourselves in.
They knocked on those glasses, but thank God that old German
Opel car could take it. Sunday we could hear somebody
who had opened the patrol cap and said machislau machislau and
that would have been disaster because if they had thrown the
matches in the patrol tank it would be like a bomb to our good
luck. A sick gentleman.
I can vividly see him now, quite tall to have teeth lean across
the car window and saw my dad. He just put his hands up.
Chondo Chondo Kuchen Karo. Dr. Saave, Dr. Saave.
My father was a physician at 9 hospital and he happened to be
one of his patients. How luck works?
And the car, then we were trying to start the engine and the
engine wouldn't start. So it was.
Great to watch the crowd wishing the car to give us a start.
And as soon as the pusher given the engine started and it got
onto the Tilak Bridge and came back to Parsi Colony safely home
with the car a little bit damaged by the sticks that they
were banging and all. And it was that, an experience I
will never forget. At the time of India becoming a
Republic, it already had its biggest hero.
Doctor Sunawala talks about how Mahatma Gandhi's methods were
questioned right until India became independent.
But on hindsight, it's even more remarkable, he says.
I think he was the right person who was responsible for the
independence that we finally got without violence.
That time it seemed that it was stupid to be nonviolent to get
the independence, but after? So many years, one realizes that
what he did and achieved was something unimaginable.
Without violence, without a gunfire, without a fight,
without anything. He managed to get the country
full independence. Julia Ribero, on the other hand,
remembers Singh Jawarlal Nehru and talks of the aura that
surrounded India's first Prime Minister.
Panditji I saw very often in the course of my duties.
My wife and my baby, which she had just been, she was about a
year old and she is a baby, was brought by my wife to to be
petted by Baddiji in Nanded where I was there speak and I
remember that very well. I remember people running after
his his Jeep usually like to stand in a Jeep and wave out to
everyone and we were very worried, but there was not.
That great danger in those days, people were just happy with him.
Rahul Singh, on the other hand, remembers the effects of
Partition on his family's life. He remembers how Partition
changed people and the effect it had on his father.
What I do remember about Lord at the school I went to and a girl
became my very close friend called Shireen Kadar, Shireen's
parents. Father was a very well known
lawyer in Pakistan called Manzoor Kadar who then later on
became head of the Supreme Court in Pakistan and foreign minister
under UK. When the rights took place and
partition took place, Manzoor Kadar and his family moved into
what you see my fathers house that so that it would not get.
Looted and my father, he left everything to Manzoor Kadhar and
Manzoor Kadhar became the owner of that house.
What partition did was, I think it created two kinds of people,
one who suffered a lot and who became very embittered and sort
of, I would say, almost communal because that suffered at the
hands of Muslims. That became rather communal.
But my father was in the other categories of those who were not
emitted, who who was sad that the country had been divided up
and who made it their ambition to try and bring the two people
together. Not that it will ever be
possible to bring the two countries together, but at least
try and have better relations between Indians and Pakistani.
Thats what was his great dream. And as a result of that,
whenever any Pakistani came to visit India and wanted to see my
father, father was quite busy at that time.
He always opened his doors. They made joke and the family
because he was little particular whom came to see him when we
picked up the phone. If it if it sounded like a
Muslim from Pakistan, immediately they were welcome
to, you know, come there. No, that whatever we were being
ruled by is now our own responsibility to find the means
of ruling the country and deciding on rules, laws,
whatever we want according to what we needed.
And independence was a sort of a freedom.
Freedom in life, which is very, very important.
Freedom of thinking, freedom of speaking, freedom of action and
it is a necessity of life and we got that on 13th August 1947 so
that we had to work hard to develop our country and.
Although we might not be as fast as people would like or we would
like, but throughout these years India has progressed and in the
right direction. There is a lot to cheer about
India as it turns 76. Bhavika and Lata spoke with our
three interviewees about what they thought was the biggest
improvement that they've seen in their lifetimes.
Rahul Singh points out how, while the biggest change he's
seen in recent times is the growth of the information
technology sector, there are other things like the green
revolution that ensured an end to famines.
In the last few years, I can say the revolution in information
technology. Thats number of smartphones.
People are using all that. I think that.
But before that, frankly we really had, we did have a green
revolution. As a result, the green
revolution, we were able to feed our people.
There were no mass famines. The other achievement, if you
can call it that, was that our foreign policy was we were
admired, you know, in the world. Non alignment policy was
something which Nehru himself, you know, pioneered really, and
it gave us a certain stature in the world.
While it might not be an Indian invention, Dr. Sunawala points
out that it was medical imaging that completely changed his line
of work. In the medical field, mainly
obsessive guy inside plus in other.
Especially it is to imaging. The ultrasound has really
changed the approach. Do medical treatment because we
could better diagnose. You can see you can diagnose
properly and if your diagnosis is good, your treatment is good.
But Doctor Sunawala is just as happy about the rise of women in
India, something he says is a far cry from the situation when
he took up medicine. I used to.
I'm an obstetrician, gynecologist looking after the
welfare of the women, Not only the health thing, but the
welfare of the women. And what was striking was the
complete empathy towards the health of the women.
Nobody bothered. They were always considered as a
second class citizen, no facilities given.
Everywhere it was male dominant society.
Now I am so glad to say that especially in our offsetting
Ionic field, the women have become the leaders as they
should be because it is after all their own fellow sex people
who they have to look after the amount of women power that is
building up. The women heading major
institutions, which at that time was not even thought of Julia
Ribeiro says the use of technology in policing today is
impressive, though he admits he can't really keep up with it.
For example, I don't know this technology like I like now.
Today even Mr. Rani, he knows technology very well and I keep
him present to help me. Because I I can't get used to
it, because I'm no. But now technology is most
important. Every policeman knows it and all
my grandchildren, they laugh at me because I can't do it.
So they come and help me to get it all done.
However, what upsets the former director general of police is
that police forces have become more compromised to political
powers. That is unfortunate because of
the influence of politics. Because a lot of people want to
now advance not by their own work, but by becoming friendly
with the politicians, and that is causing a lot of problem.
It never happened in our time, and we we were, I think,
fortunately not involved in all this.
Julia Ribeiro says that unless the law is implemented
impartially, the respect for the rule of law will only keep
declining. Unless the rule of law that
means whoever commits an offence should be prosecuted, you don't
have to go and put him in the lock up.
Now they are putting people five years, those those leftists I
kept there for five years and God knows what that evidence is.
It is. It's very unfortunate.
I think the whole system has changed and that is not to our
advantage. Because if people get used to
this kind, they will stop learning how to investigate
that. Nowadays you will find that
officers at that level of Mr. Raniya, they dont take interest
in investigation because they know it doesnt matter the sound
if he is this party or that party, he gets off.
If he is that party he will put inside.
We were not brought up like that, that whoever it is, from
whichever party, that is not our concern.
Is there anybody willing to talk, say to Modi Ji or to or to
our Amit Shah? They're afraid.
They're so afraid. No, this is not the way of of
people. So it's quite different.
Yeah, I would not be able to work in the Circum, I can tell
you that. But what do they see as India's
biggest failures in 76 years? Rahul Singh says that for him.
It's the failure to reduce poverty in the country, as well
as the failure to provide better healthcare and education to its
citizens. I think our biggest failure, I
would say there are two areas and they're all connected.
I think our biggest failure has been to not reduce the number of
poor people in the country. We still have about 250 million
Indians who are below the poverty line.
I think our second biggest failure has been in the area of
health and education. Nehru was a great man, had a
great vision, but the two areas where he I think failed and
where a country like China did much better, even a country like
Indonesia, big country did better, was in the areas of
education and health. And by education I dont mean
higher education. We set up I, I TS and I, I Ms.
and, you know, good universities.
But where we failed was in providing good basic primary
schools all over the country. We didn't do pay enough emphasis
on Primary Health care and primary schools.
And connected with that was our failure to control the
population growth rate. Julia Ribeiro also believes that
it's illiteracy that the Indian state should have done more to
tackle. Dr. Suna Wala, who has
campaigned for population control for many years of his
life, says the Indian state should have done more to curb
the growth of the nation's population.
We make a proud to show. India is the most populated
country. I really feel sorry for them.
They don't realize what is the. Benefit of a big, uneducated,
poorly fed, unhealthy and unprovided for a shelter
population in the country where I would say it's a human right
to be looked after for education, for health, for food
and accommodation. It is the human right which our
country should look into. For every individual Indian that
is born, education and health are very necessary for the
progress of a country. It is not whether we can make
planes or whether we can make tanks or whether we can make
guns. That is important for the
country, a country's progress as a doctor and a citizen.
I would say is to be measured by a yardstick of how much good
health you can provide them, good education we can provide
them, and a good happy life you can provide them.
Happiness in life is a very important thing and I would say
hardly any people are that happy as they should be.
But what of the future? India, at 76, is in a moment
where its influence as an economic and political power is
growing. What to our interviewees worry
about in India's future? Rahul Singh says that India
shouldn't take its freedom for granted, especially at a time it
has a majoritarian government. But he has no doubt that the
future is bright for India. He would, however, like to see
India be able to retain its brightest in the country.
I think we've got a great future.
Look at how Indians have done all over the world.
But the sad part is Indians have done very well when they go
abroad. They should be doing better in
India itself. We should remove some of the
shackles that there are on Indian business here.
You know, almost every second friend Ive got have got their
children studying and living abroad.
Why They should be coming here and they should be conditions
here where? They are able to really thrive
and improve the Indian economy. I wish there were more and more
Indians educated Indians who would work for this country.
When I was finished my studies amongst all of my
contemporaries, there was no question about staying abroad.
We all took it for granted that we were coming back to India
nowadays. They want to live abroad and not
come back to this country. At my time, they all wanted to
come back to them. And there was a feeling of
nationalism, feeling to serve the country that somehow is
gone. You've got a certain kind of
nationalism here, but it's not the same kind of nationalism
that was there at my time. Doctor Suna Wala worries about a
future where justice is openly denied and the rights of women
are not protected. Arrogance and greed are two
things which is ruining the human life.
Greed for more and more and more.
If you have enough to look after your day-to-day food, home,
happiness, good sleep at night is what is more important.
Then a bank balance or a black money balance going into crores
and crores of rupees. The women who brought credit to
the country by getting gold medals, How shabbily they are
being treated by the boss who was.
Very uncomfortably touching their body.
He is behaving as if he has done something right when there are
so many girls who have been molested by that individual, yet
he is going free. It is something which is
unacceptable. The women and children are not
protected in any society. That society is not worth living
for. And that is what is happening in
the country, the politics and justice being denied, openly
denied. Julia Ribeiro worries that
movements to maintain communal harmony are no longer working.
He cautions that while there is a lot to cheer about India's
growth, there is a lot to be cautious about as well.
After I returned from Romania, I used to get involved in communal
harmony. We had the mohalla committee
movement and we had succeeded. But now the same workers tell me
that there is so much fear and all the work they have done is
now of no use. They have to start off again.
But I say dont give up, dont give up because its not fair to
the people. I would say that the the present
government in power has done a lot of good work.
Let us not diminish their work. For example, the money goes
directly into the bank. That's a great, great this of
them. And there are many other things
that what shall I say, that they have succeeded it.
But this kind of what is the word for it?
Prejudice against one particular community is not going to help
this country at all. It might give them votes first.
I thought it is for the purpose of getting power that if you go
after this community, the Hindu vote will be will will come
together 80% of the people. But it has not happened like
that. But quite a number of people who
would not have voted have have been have voting for them.
I have no doubt about that truck.
What is politics? Its a quest for power.
So if they get power that way I suppose I how can I fight with
them. But the down the downside is
what I have. But it that if you divide people
in this manner like they are doing, it is going to be bad in
the long run. We have a very dangerous
neighbor on our east. The one on the West we can
manage easily, but the one on the east is very dangerous and
is much stronger than us. So I think the whole approach
should be like that that please keep in mind the future of this
country and if you just go around with wanting only to win
the election it might Causeway lot of problems in in the
future. This is my view.
Today's episode was produced by Jayaraj Singh and Anuja Singh.
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