Tribute to IK
Gujaral:
From railway
platform to the PM
house - The story IK
Gujaral in his own
words
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Inder Kumar Gujral
(4 December 1919 -
30 November 2012)
the 12th Prime
Minister of India
from April 1997 to
March 1998, came to
New Delhi as a
refugee after the
partition of India
and he and his
family spent their
first night on a
railway platform.
IK Gujaral
later rose to become
the prime minister
of the nation. He
served in the Indira
Gandhi government as
the information and
broadcasting
minister but had to
leave Congress due
to the unruly
behaviour of her
younger son Sanjay
Gandhi. He served as
foreign minister in
VP Singh and later
Deve Gowda
governments. After
Deve Gowda resigned
he was unanimously
elected the Prime
Minister of India.
He government was
pulled down by the
Congress party in
less than a year. He
was known for what
is being called as
Gujral Doctrine
emphasising peace
with the
neighbouring
countries in South
Asia.
In this two part
interview with the
NRIFM editor Vijay
Rana, IK
Gujral
tells the story of
his life.
Early Life of IK
Gujaral
To Listen Click Here
Gujaral Docrine and
how IK Gujaral was
elected as the Prime
Minister
To Listen Click Here
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In Indian
politics Jawaharlal Nehru occupies
an unparalleled place. On the 20th
October 1962 when the Chinese army
invaded India, the Indian Prime
Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was
shocked. Nehru believed in
friendship with China and had signed
the Panchsheel treaty of peaceful
coexistence with China in 1954. In
Indian politics the popular slogan
then was 'Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai.'
Nehru saw it as a great betrayal.
India was totally unprepared to face
its mighty neighbour. Critics
described his China policy as the
biggest blunder of his career.
During the war his task was to keep
the moral of his people and to see
off the unexpected military threat.
In those days of Nehru's
personal and national
crisis, Chaman Lal Chaman, a
young Indian journalist from
the Kenyan Broadcasting
Corporation arrived in Delhi
to report the war for the
NRIs living in Kenya and
other East African
Countries. He managed a rare
scoop, a one-to-one
interview with Nehru,
something unheard in the
Indian politics in those
days.
History Talking presents that
historical interview,
broadcast on KBC on 4
November 1962
To listen
click here 
(Hindi)
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Indian politics:
Jawahrlal Nehru Related Links
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NRIfm
tribute to Chandrashekhar
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As part of
its tribute to the former Prime Minister Chandrashekhar, who died
recently in Delhi after a prolonged illness, NRIfm presents a rare
interview, with him. In conversation with Vijay Rana in 1987,
Chandrashekhar talks about why socialism had failed in India. He was
skeptical about the free market economic reforms of the then Prime
Minister Rajiv Gandhi. In the second part he discusses the rising
trend of communalism in the Indian politics and also about Indian
army's attack on the golden Temple.
Part One
To listen
click here
(Hindi)
Part Two
To listen
click here
(Hindi)
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Why speaker Somnath Chatterji is
ashamed?
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Distressed at the
unruly behaviour of the Indian MPs in the house the speaker of Lok
Sabha Somnath Chatterji said on Dec 7 that he is ashamed to be the
speaker of this house. The issue was the opposition demand that the
Congress leader Sonia Gandhi must resign because her party was named
in the Volker Report as one of the beneficiaries of Saddam
government's oil-for-food programme, a demand that provoked Congress
MPs.
To listen
click here (English) |
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When
Netaji asked students to serve
India |
| In this rare and
inspiring speech Netaji Subhash Bose asks Indian students to
emulate the example of youth in Russia, France and Italy to take
part in freedom struggle and serve their country. The speech seems
to be of the early 1940s when he was still a member of the Congress
party. In the 1941, disappointed with Gandhi's non-violent struggle,
he left India to launch a military struggle for the freedom of India
with the help of Nazi Germany and Japan, a move disapproved by
Gandhi and Nehru.
To listen
click here (English)
Indian politics: Subhash Chandra Bose Related Links
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I saw Netaji alive after his alleged plane crash: Capt Abbas Ali
The remarkable story of an old INA freedom fighter
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Captain Abbas Ali, a
commissioned officer in the British army, was sent to South-East
Asia in 1940 to fight against Japan. But in 1944, after hearing an
inspiring speech of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose in Singapore, he
joined the Indian National Army. He saw Netaji very closely and here
he remembers the speech that Netaji gave in Rangoon on the tomb of
the last Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar. He says, he met Netaji
at least ten days after he is said to have died in the plane crash.
Later he was court martialled by the British army and given death by
hanging. Like many INA prisoners he was released after independence
of India in August 1947. And of course the old freedom fighter is
not happy about the state of the nation today.
To listen
click here (Hindi)
Indian politics: INA, Related links
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