A portrait of Yusuf Hamied, the boss of the Indian pharma company, Cipla, has been put up in the Formal Hall of his alma mater, Christ’s College, Cambridge, where he did his undergraduate degree followed by a PhD. The oil painting by Tom Phillips, a well known British artist, will have company from such old boys as the poet, John Milton, and the author of The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin. Other than Amartya Sen, whose portrait hangs in Trinity because he was its Master, this is thought to be the first time in 800 years that an Indian has been honoured in this fashion.
“The [college] governing body voted unanimously to commission this portrait to honour Yusuf as a truly global representative of humanitarianism at its best,” said Jane Stapleton, the first woman to be Master of Christ’s in 500 years. “His actions have saved probably millions of lives (of AIDs patients in Africa).” At the unveiling ceremony, I had a quick word with Professor Stephen Toope, vice-chancellor of Cambridge, who said he is determined to strengthen even further the university’s “historic” links with India. ‘You’ve got (the mathematical genius, Srinivasa) Ramanujan, you’ve got many historical figures of great importance who have Cambridge links. We now have more Indian students than ever and we will continue to welcome more and more people, I hope...”
Cambridge has long recognized the brilliance of Indian students, added the VC. “There’s no question we feel Indian students are often extremely well prepared across a whole range of disciplines. Obviously, in mathematics and sciences, there’s a great tradition, but equally in the humanities and the vitality of English as a medium of expression in India plays out in the great Indian students we have in history and English.”
Scanned from the cover of On the Road Again
Daring task
It is the nature of British journalism that once-familiar bylines disappear only to make a farewell appearance in the obituary pages. Such is the case with Simon Dring, who has died, aged 76, during a routine surgery for hernia. In March 1971, Dring, then a 26-year-old reporter with The Daily Telegraph in London, filed an exclusive front page story from Dhaka, revealing the genocide carried out by the Pakistan army. Unlike 200 other foreign correspondents flown out by Pakistan, Dring hid and went around the city with AP photographer, Michel Laurent. Dring’s report — ‘Tanks Crush Revolt in Pakistan. 7,000 slaughtered’ — amounted to a first draft of history.
Nine months later, following Pakistan’s defeat at the hands of India, Dring caught up with Major Siddiqui, a Pakistani intelligence officer who had liaised with the press. Now one of 93,000 PoWs, he told Dring that had he been caught, the Pakistani army would have killed him to prevent the story of mass killings getting out. “And it’s true, they could not have afforded to let us out,” Dring reflected later. “They could easily have found a way to have us killed, and our bodies left on the street. And they would have got away with it.”
Royal insight
Simon Dring had moved on to the BBC by the time I joined The Daily Telegraph but Ann Morrow, who has died, aged 86, was an impossibly glamorous figure for us junior reporters. As the paper’s royal correspondent, she travelled the world with the Queen. But what impressed me most was Ann’s friendship with the former princes of India. To remember Ann, a lovely colleague, I have this week been reading her book, Highness: The Maharajahs of India. Her best contact was probably Fatehsinghrao Prataprao Gaekwad, “a wise friend and mentor”. During cricket tours by India, he did BBC Test match commentary alongside Brian Johnston, who called him ‘Prince’. But to Western friends, Ann reveals, he was known as ‘Jackie’.
Arvind Singh of Mewar, the Maharajah of Jodhpur, the Nawab of Pataudi and Dr Karan Singh (“any moron can be a Maharajah but not everyone can be a doctor”) all grace her book. I recall that Ann and her friend, Trevor Turner, Air India’s PRO in London, raised money for the Mathieson Music School in Calcutta.
Wrongs righted
When Kate Middleton married Prince William in 2011, the bride’s parents, Michael and Carole Middleton, invited their local Indian sub-postmaster, Hasmukh Shingadia, and his wife, Chandrika, to the wedding in Westminster. When I drove to their village — Upper Bucklebury in West Berkshire — Hasmukh said he did not know what to give as a gift. So I arranged for two outfits by Indian designers to be couriered to Hasmukh. One was a silver chain dress by Calcutta girl, Rishti Diwan, who now lives in California. “Kate’s father had picked them up,” Hasmukh had confirmed.
I was shocked when Hasmukh was convicted of stealing £16,000 from the Post Office in 2011. He was spared jail but given a two-year suspended sentence — and humiliated. A few days ago, an appeals court ruled Hasmukh was innocent — it was the Post Office Horizon computer system which had been at fault.
In all, 736 sub-postmasters across the country were wrongly convicted in similar fashion in what has been called “one of the biggest scandals in British legal history”. What is also a scandal is that under pressure from lawyers, Hasmukh was forced to plead guilty to a crime he hadn’t committed.
Representational image Twitter
Footnote
Calcutta should avoid London’s mistake of allowing too many basement structures because there is nowhere for the water to escape after heavy rains. Last month, London had two flash floods which inundated large parts of the city. Climate change is here, and in a worst-case scenario, experts say the Palace of Westminster could end up 30 feet under water; they have even issued a picture to illustrate the nightmarish scenario.
