Making an enduring mark in distant lands

April 05, 2016 12:49 am | Updated 08:57 am IST

Justin Trudeau, the Canadian Prime Minister, has declared that he has more Sikhs in his Cabinet than his Indian counterpart. He went on to elaborate to students at the American University in northwest Washington recently that there were as many as 17 Sikh MPs elected in the Canadian elections in October 2015.

Recently, while I was touring Hong Kong, my host, a faculty member at the University of Hong Kong (HKU), took me to the foyer of the university building to show me the bust of an eminent Indian of the 19th century. Hormusjee Naoroji Modi had arrived in Hong Kong in 1858 at the age of 20, and started as a business partner in a firm in what was then a British colony. He saw the potential to buy and develop land in Kowloon, now a part of the island chain lying north of Hong Kong. Through these investments, he soon became wealthy beyond measure.

A friend of the then British Governor, Modi offered to pay $1,50,000 to set up a university in the land of his business ventures. HKU is today highly rated, perhaps a few notches above our IITs. Most certainly it is a case of his having given back to the land that made him a tycoon.

The story of A. Madhavan Nair, popularly known as Nair-San, is equally extraordinary. He was from the province of Travancore, now encompassed by the State of Kerala. After schooling near his home, he went on to study engineering at Kyoto University in Japan. After a stint as an engineer, he entered Japanese politics and became a follower of Subhas Chandra Bose. As a close associate of Rash Bihari Bose, he was in the forefront of the Indian Independence League.

Madavan Nair continued to live in Japan, raised a family there and founded the Ginza restaurant in Tokyo. He was awarded the “Order of the Sacred Treasure” by Emperor Hirohito in 1984. Again, this was an Indian who contributed to the land where he lived most of his life. His story would inspire a blockbuster movie in both the countries.

Dadabhai Naoroji is still an inspiring name in the history books as a leading light in the early years of the Indian National Congress; he was three times its president. He was elected to the British Parliament in 1892 from Central Finsbury as the Liberal Party candidate. Today there is a plaque commemorating him in the House of Commons.

We are aware of the innovators, the linguists, even missionaries from the west who chipped in with their efforts in the fields of education and medical care. We have also had people like Samuel Evans (Satyanand) Stokes who came to Himachal Pradesh and found the land suitable for apple cultivation. He gave away saplings to the impoverished farmers and taught them the intricacies of apple cultivation and many of them came up with a golden harvest.

Nearer home, there was John Penycuick who changed the course of the Periyar. His initiatives made the Cumbum valley one of the most fertile belts in the south. At least five districts in Tamil Nadu have benefited from the efforts of this visionary. It is not rare to see busts of this good man in these parts.

The two World Wars saw so many Indians laying down their lives. They rest in unmarked graves even in Italy, implying that they had fought right up front for the Allies.

kuruvila2004@yahoo.com

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