Industry stalwarts reminisced about their personal experience of Independence Day in 1947 and the learnings from that epoch-making episode at a discussion hosted by The Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCC&I) on August 11.
The discussion was held on the BCC&I premises to commemorate the 75th year of Indian Independence.
Partha Sarathi Bhattacharyya, former chairman of Coal India and vice-chairman of Peerless Group; Indrajit Sen, former president of BCC&I and managing director of International Combustion (India); and Aloke Mookherjea, former president of BCC&I spoke on the occasion.
Moderated by Ambarish Dasgupta, former president of BCC&I and senior partner at Intueri Consulting, the event also featured a special address by Alapan Bandyopadhyay, chief advisor to West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee.
Abraham George Stephanos gives the welcome address. Soumyajit Dey/My Kolkata
After the National Anthem and the welcome address by BCC&I president Abraham George Stephanos, Mookherjea recalled the first Independence Day. “Born before Independence, I distinctly remember the night of August 14, 1947, in a small town called Dinajpur. I was very small, of course, and remember being shooed away by adults from serious discussions. But I somehow managed to slip back and felt something really serious was going on. Leadership and resilience are my inheritance from Indian Independence.’’
Bhattacharyya, the next speaker, was born after Independence. But his father was a freedom fighter and joined the Indian National Army under Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. “I inherited the spirit of Independence from my father, BK Bhattacharyya. He was born in erstwhile East Bengal. Police suspected that he had been exchanging notes with important revolutionaries at that time. His family immediately got him shifted to Calcutta and admitted him to a school. He became a doctor from Calcutta Medical College.”
A view of the audience at the he Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Soumyajit Dey/My Kolkata
“My father’s first posting was in Meerut and then in Singapore, which was bombed by the Japanese. He was thought to be missing in action. But someone heard his voice on the radio and then his family knew that he was alive. From there he joined the Indian National Army,’’ he recalled.
Bhattacharyya went on to say how the spirit of Independence had taught him how to face difficult as well as easy situations.
The final panellist, Indrajit Sen, experienced the historic moment in New Delhi. “The ‘Tryst with Destiny’ speech was one of the greatest ever made. The words came straight from the heart. The speech talks about the future. Everything — our life and way of thinking — has changed in the last 75 years.”
Musical performance at the end of the programme. Soumyajit Dey/My Kolkata
“I was an eight-year-old boy on that day in 1947. Perched atop my dad’s shoulders, I saw the Union Jack going down and the National Flag going up. There were hundreds and thousands of people around. Some had tears and some had moist eyes. I was wondering what was happening and what had caused such outbursts of emotion,’’ Sen reminisced.
In the concluding special address, Bandyopadhyay summarised the discussion. “It’s interesting that all the speakers are from East Bengal and none of them discussed the Partition. One very interesting takeaway from this session for me was all the speakers emphasised courage in a specific sense, values in general and patriotism in general. We still wonder whether Tagore approved of ‘nationalism’. But I think there’s a very important distinction between ‘nationalism’ in its violent xenophobic sense and patriotism in a spiritual sense.”