Today, when Prime Minister Modi hosted President Xi on the Sabarmati river-front, with a studied silence on the PLAs intrusion in Ladakh, one couldnt but miss late Prof. ML Sondhi. An upright patriot and an IFS officer, he resigned in the Sixties to join politics. Our Chinese debacle had a profound impact on him. He was a compelling orator and the Tibet issue was his passion. My father often recalls how the entire babudom in the vicinity of boat-club and beyond, would often rush to the Rajpath lawns, sacrificing their lunch-hour, to listen to him. He entered Lok Sabha from the prestigious New Delhi constituency on the Jana Sangh ticket. Prof. Sondhi was, arguably, the first politician who ran his electoral campaign on a robust critique of Nehrus foreign policy, even in his street corner meetings. He fashioned the Jana Sanghs (BJPs forerunner) foreign policy that gave precedence to espousal of national interest over Nehrus wooly headed moral grandstanding. For decades, he taught at the School of International Studies at JNU. I vividly remember my last meeting with him, over a decade ago, at his Amrita Shergill Marg residence, barely months before his death. It was then that I came to know that he had named his two sons, Vivekananda and Shivaji. Even in that old age and frail health, the man was consumed by his earnest concerns related to neglected issues in the then NDAs foreign policy. This government must find a way to remember doyens like him. That is one sure way of staying anchored in our imperatives.
Posted on: Wed, 17 Sep 2014 21:23:11 +0000
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