The Doon valley has always been a privileged place as it has been home to or a favourite city of many a famous person.
Prominent among these famous people was our first Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. A great writer and a person extremely fond of the Himalayas, Nehruji held the Doon valley close to his heart. Today is this great leader’s 125th birth anniversary.His memories linger on in the Doon valley and Mussoorie where he spent many a vacation.
On May 26, 1964, Nehru left the Doon valley for New Delhi after a brief vacation.The next afternoon, he passed away. Nehru liked to describe himself as “a child of the Himalayas” and never missed an opportunity to be in close contact with the hills. The last four days of his life were spent with his daughter, Indira, visiting old friends and taking leisurely walks in the tranquil gardens of the picturesque ‘Circuit House’.
The Nehru family, right from the early years, had a very close connection with the Doon valley and Mussoorie. Mussoorie reminded the family of Kashmir, their home State. Nehruji recalls, in his autobiography, his visit to Mussoorie in October 1930 when his father, Motilal Nehru, was recouping in this hill station.
“On October 13th, Kamala and I went off to Mussoorie to spend three days with father. He was looking just a little better,and I was happy to think that he had turned the corner and was getting well; it was good to be back in the family. I remember those quiet and delightful three days well. 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 me,” he writes.
He was expecting his re-arrest soon. “Kamala and I were going down from Mussoorie on the 17th October to be in time for the Peasant Conference at Allahabad on the 19th. At Dehradun an order under Section 144 Criminal Procedure Code was served on me almost as I was leaving.”
Even during his days of imprisonment in the Dehradun jail during the freedom struggle, Nehruji loved to watch the Himalayas from the small window in his prison cell.
He was kept at Dehradun 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”.
The loving manner in which Nehruji observed and chronicled the various hues of the Doon weather is testimony to his love for this valley. “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”.
Says he, “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 Dehradun 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.”
After being released finally from Dehra jail in December 1941, his next visit to the valley was as the 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 the Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. The first was on April 24, 1959 , at Mussoorie.