FIRAQ AS I
KNEW HIM- BY R K
GARG ( SENIOR ADVOCATE SUPREME
COURT)
( CHAPTER
IN A BOOK-
‘THUS SPOKE FIRAQ’-
A COLLECTION OF INTERVIEWS
BY SUMANT PRAKASH
SHAUQ-1992)
A few
days before his death I had taken Firaq Sahib to the Medical Institute
for admission. While my wife had gone to get the admission card ready , finding
the waiting too tedious , sitting at the steering wheel of the car with Firaq in the back seat , I asked , “ Firaq Sahab ,
why after all are you against Gandhi and
what was your assessment of Jawaharlal?”
It was just a casual question to provoke Firaq Sahib
break the unbearable tedium . I did not accept a serious answer . But
Firaq took out a cigarette , took a little time to light the match and drew a long puff, obviously trying
to formulate his answer rather precisely
and with feeling. Then with effortless ease he replied “ Gandhiji was a mountain of will . It
was enough to frighten any human being . Therefore , Gandhiji was not human in the ordinary sense but had power to move millions into
action by his Herculean will . Nehru was
different. If you took an inch tape and
measured the circumference of the head
of Jawaharlal alone , you will find the Head of Jawaharlal bigger than the heads of all the world
leaders together. That was Jawaharlal.”
I could not take the answer about Panditji seriously , I quite
irreverently asked “ Firaq Sahib are you serious about your assessment of Jawaharlal?” He was provoked enough to justify why he had
made this fantastic assessment of Nehru -
“ Don’t you know that in every moment of crisis , Jawaharlal’s
response was always scientific and
Rational ? Could this be said of any
other leader?” This is true indeed. One’s thoughts naturally went back to Churchill , Hitler,
Mussollini, Stalin, Chaing Kai Shek, and even Rosevalt. Firaq’s answer stands vindicated by
History- Nehru’s vision unfolded itself
in the ‘Panchsheel ‘ and it is unfolding itself in the new thinking around the
world to restructure a new world order
based on universal Human values and democracy . For Nehru, Democracy
was a way of life . He believed in
resolving the problems of life by
discussion and dialogues with Scientific Temper.
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