Spice of Life | Compassion, empathy triumph over hatred
Some of them of them returned to their camp in 1985. An old banyan tree, two water tanks and the summer palace of the Jam Sahib were the only remnants of their camp. The site where their barracks once stood was now part of a Sainik School. Even so, it remained a pilgrimage site for the families of the refugees.
In this deeply divided, cynical and strife-torn world, it is worth recounting a true story in which compassion and empathy triumphed over hatred.
The Second World War was at its peak in 1942. Adolf Hitler had overrun Poland and interned millions of people, mostly Jews, in concentration camps. Thousands of Polish men escaped to the USSR, only to be conscripted in the army. Many unfortunate children thus found themselves rudderless and without support. Amid this mayhem, a ship with 640 of these hapless children and a few adult caregivers, docked in Bombay, after having been refused entry at many ports of call. The British government in India was also inclined to decline permission. This is when Maharaja Digvijaysinhji, the then Jam Sahib of Nawanagar, persuaded the government to divert the ship to Rosi, a small port in Nawanagar, where it was received warmly. He told his new guests that they should never think of themselves as orphans. The citizens of his state considered him as their father (and called him Bapu) and so should they. He adopted them legally and immediately set up a tented township for them at Balachadi-Jamnagar. This was later converted into barracks.
Bapu encouraged the children to lead as full a life as possible. Despite being a vegetarian himself, he hired seven Goan cooks so that they could have the kind of food they were accustomed to. Their daily routine was divided between studies, sports and activities of the church. They celebrated Indian festivals along with their own. In 1946, they returned to Poland to pick up pieces of their broken existence and start life afresh – a task that could never have been an easy!
The Jam Sahib himself led a full life: He ruled his state wisely; signed the instrument of accession immediately after Independence; and became the first Rajpramukh of the newly created state of Kathiawar. He was the longest serving president of Rajkumar College, Rajkot, and for a while, also president of the BCCI. He died in 1966.
Many years later, in 1995, our ambassador in Poland, Shashi Uban Tripathi, received an invite from an organisation called Children of India. Tripathi, now an important source for this story, was visibly moved by the affectionate accounts of the members of the organisation, of their stay in Jamnagar. By then all of them were middle-aged men and women; but they had not forgotten the warmth and hospitality of Bapu and the Indian people. Some of them jocularly recalled how they had gone on a spinach strike when this dish had been served to them too often for their liking. The Jam Sahib had then personally intervened to instruct the cooks not to serve dishes that the children did not like.
Some of them of them returned to their camp in 1985. An old banyan tree, two water tanks and the summer palace of the Jam Sahib were the only remnants of their camp. The site where their barracks once stood was now part of a Sainik School. Even so, it remained a pilgrimage site for the families of the refugees.
The Polish people sent help to the victims of the earthquake that devastated Gujarat in 2001.
In 2016, the Polish Parliament passed a resolution to thank the Jam Sahib for his generosity. The Good Maharaja Square in Warsaw now stands witness to the bond that this story has created between the two countries.
For Parsis, this little story may create a strange sense of déjà vu, for something similar happened to their ancestors centuries earlier.
For all of us, it is a reminder that an act of goodness, in the words of author Gurcharan Das, may well be the most valuable thing we possess as human beings.
The writer is a Gurugram-based freelance contributor and can be reached at hsb201@gmail.com
