On the occasion of the 124th birth anniversary of our first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, which is celebrated as Children’s Day due to his fondness for children, it would be extremely apt to say that his memories that linger on in the Doon valley and Mussoorie need to be kept alive for posterity. With each passing generation, they are fading and this is a cause for concern.
Nehruji believed that Mussoorie and Doon bore a similarity to Kashmir. It is interesting to recall the experiences he went through in Dehradun and Mussoorie, cities which he loved greatly and visited often.
India’s first Prime Minister had a close relationship with this valley and spent many relaxed vacations here in the fifties and the sixties. The valley has always cherished and been proud of this association. His writings bear witness to the great attachment he had to this region. Nehru’s relationship with Doon carried on till the day he was here last, May 26, 1964. On May 27, the very next day, he breathed his last.
He was extremely fond of the Doon valley and even during his days of imprisonment in the Dehra Dun jail during the freedom struggle, he loved to watch the Himalayas from the small window in his prison cell. He was kept at Dehra Dun jail three times in 1932-33, for about four months in 1934, and then for 14 months during 1940-41. He was allowed to receive food from outside. It was brought to him by the well-known Kashmiri family — the Tankhas — of the Doon valley.
It was here that the great leader began writing his autobiography in 1934. During his third and last term here, he wrote parts of the Discovery of India. His great love for nature finds full expression in his detailed descriptions of the picturesque surroundings of the jail in his autobiography. “The sight of the towering Himalayas nearby was an added joy. It was my good fortune that I could gaze at these mountains that I loved. A secret intimacy seemed to grow between us”.
The loving manner in which Nehruji observed and chronicled the various hues of the Doon weather is testimony to his love for this valley. Even as a prisoner, he loved the seasons of Doon and penned their description like a poet. “Spring was very pleasant at Dehra,” writes Nehru. “Suddenly, there was a stir, both in the peepals and other trees, an air of mystery surrounded them as if secret operations were going on behind the scenes”.
He says, “I had never noticed before that fresh mango leaves are reddish brown, russet coloured, remarkably like the autumn tints on the Kashmir hills.” He describes Dehra Dun as ‘one of the favoured haunts of the rain god’. “Within the first five or six weeks of the break of monsoon we would have about fifty to sixty inches of rain”.
Of Doon’s severe winters, he wrote, “With thunder and rain and piercing cold winds, one longed for a decent habitation and a little warmth and comfort.” But he forgot the discomfort of a cold, rainy December eve when he saw the mountains covered with “a thick mantle of snow the next day which was Christmas day, lovely and clear.”
Nehruji looked for comfort and emotional satisfaction, during his prison days, in the company of birds and dogs. He looked after and nursed homeless dogs at the jail. “I was grateful for their company,” he writes. After being released finally from Dehra Dun jail in December 1941, his next visit to the valley was as prime minister. His times at the Circuit House (now the Raj Bhawan) as a prime minister were far more pleasant and he made frequent visits, especially in the mid-fifties. As his daughter and official hostess, Indira Gandhi used to accompany him.
In April, 1959, Nehru arrived in Mussoorie to meet the Dalai lama after he came here from Tibet. In his autobiography, Freedom in Exile, Dalai lama has described this one-year stay in Mussoorie as “A Desperate Year”. The year included several meetings with prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru. The first was on April 24, 1959, at Mussoorie.
But these were not the only visits of Panditji to Mussoorie. Nehruji recalls, in his autobiography, his visit to Mussoorie in October, 1930 where his father was recouping. “On October 13th, Kamala and I went off to Mussoorie to spend three days with father…I remember those quiet and delightful three days well; it was good to be back in the family. Indira, my daughter, was there; and my three little nieces, my sister’s daughters. And these three days were the last I was to have with my father before his fatal illness came to snatch him away from him,” he writes in his autobiography.