Nehru in the USA

NEW DELHI: At the Howdy Modi event at Houston it was left to the United States House Majority leader Steny Hoyer to quote the “father of India’s independence” Gandhi on democracy: “‘Something that gives the weak the same chance as the strong’ - that my friends is what the ideal of the American democracy and the Indian one are all about. Equal opportunity to dream and make the dreams come true.”

And to recall the India that gained independence to secure “a future according to Gandhi’s teachings and Nehru’s vision. As a secular democracy with respect for secularism and human rights, to safeguard every individual.” Hoyer addressing the Indian-Americans, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi standing beside him spoke of how on the eve of India’s independence Nehru had praised and quoted Gandhi, and together both had pledged that “so long there are tears and suffering so long our work will not be over.” The Majority leader went on to quote the late US President Abraham Lincoln who had called for “malice towards none and charity for all.”

This speech widely circulated on the social media brought India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru back into the public eye on the ever active social media, with Congress leader Shashi Tharoor tweeting a photograph that he claimed was of Nehru’s visit to the USA, except that it was of Moscow.

However, Nehru did make three important visits to the US in 1949, 1956 and 1961. The video clips below of these visits speak of the warm welcome he received in those times from the successive Presidents of the US, Harry S. Truman, Dwight D.Eisenhower and John F.Kennedy with whom he had three meetings during the one visit.

1949

1956

1961