The Queen's third, and supposedly the last, trip to India
would be remembered for wrong reasons!
By
S.Narendra
(Former Information Adviser to PM and
Government Spokesperson)
Queen Elizabeth Regina of Britain
visited India, the erstwhile ‘jewel in the crown’ of British empire, in 1997,the
year India was celebrating her 50th anniversary of independence.
This third visit (she had come to India in 1961 and 1983) of the present
British monarch was supposed to be her last. Unfortunately, this ceremonial visit
became the most memorable for the wrong reasons.
The sour points of the visit began with
the itinerary itself, as she was to arrive in India after a visit to Islamabad.
India has always frowned upon the big western powers linking the two nations
with a hyphen India-Pakistan. As I said in my last column, the then ruling
labour government of Tony Blair and its foreign minister, Robin Cook, had taken
the stand that Britain as a former ruler of the subcontinent had a mediator’s role
in the bilateral Kashmir dispute. Further, the Labour Government had reiterated its support for holding a plebiscite
in J&K, a demand of Pakistan that had been long ago rejected by India.
The officials of the Buckingham palace
who had arrived in advance for making
arrangements for the royal visit had irked the Indian side, thanks to their
overbearing behaviour. Like most ceremonial visits, this royal one was a big
lens photo op, mainly to be presented to the people in both the countries
through pomp and ceremony feeding the visual media
This story concerns the Queen’s proposed
visit to Jalianwalabagh martyrs memorial near Amritsar, that was included in
her itinerary. The British government had suggested this visit as a political gesture
to the Indian, especially the Sikh community back home, who form an important
political constituency. This proposal had run into considerable controversy as
the sections of people in Punjab had demanded that the Queen tender a public apology
for the atrocity committed in Jalianwalabagh in 1929 and the media in Punjab
had taken up this call. It will be recalled that
General Dyer had used his troops to shoot
on a peaceful assembly of people on Baisaki festival day, April 13, in
which thousands had been killed, although the official records showed only 329
as dead. It became a turning point in India’s freedom
struggle.
After the independence, India has built
a martyrs memorial at the site. The entire national media, particularly the
visual media (about 60-80 strong in Delhi and their brethren in Punjab) were
keen to be present for covering this historic visit by the Queen.
In the normal course, it used to be one
of my responsibilities to oversee media arrangements for such visits but for
some reason I had not been involved in this instance! It so happened that when
prime minister Inder Kumar Gujral was attending a function in Delhi, the visual
media association representatives complained to him that the arrangements being
made for the Queen’s visit to Jalianwalabagh were inadequate and they were
bring excluded. The prime minister then and there took me to task (I did not
mind it because it was more for effect) and instructed me to take a helicopter
and visit Jalianwalabagh, accompanied by the office bearers of the Visual media
association and officials of the External Affairs ministry.
I held a preliminary meeting with
representatives of the ministry of external affairs, visual media, British high
commission, and officials of the Buckingham palace. The latter were very
reluctant to revisit the arrangements they had planned. I, with my journalistic
instinct, had earlier suggested to the visual media representatives that they
should threaten to boycott the entire visit if they were excluded from the
Jalianwalabagh coverage. When they aired this threat, it had the desired effect.
Accompanied by representatives of the British government, MEA and visual media,
I visited the site. On arrival, the officials of the Punjab government poured out the
difficulties they had faced in dealing with the London officials on the one
side and from the protests they were facing from the local media on the other.
On site what I found was a small
platform built at a height of six feet that could hardly accommodate about a
dozen people. The British representatives had insisted on accommodating all
British visual media, leaving barely room for the Indian official media. The platform itself had been placed about 30
to 40 feet away from the actual memorial where the queen was to lay a wreath
and spend a few minutes. The platform was positioned at the back –end, instead
of facing centre point of the memorial where visitors pay the floral tribute.
I made notes and a sketch of the site
and the platform’s position and informed the accompanying Indian and foreign
team members that I will apprise the prime minister of what I had witnessed and
recommend my plan. On return I submitted my conclusions to PM and requested him
to direct the MEA to invite the senior officials of the British commission and Buckingham
palace for a meeting with me in my chamber.
A meeting was duly held in my room in
Shastri Bhavan where the British Deputy high commissioner along with the
Buckingham palace officials were present. Expressing my dissatisfaction with the
arrangements, I argued for maximum access to national and state level visual
media. One of my suggestions was to totally change the position of the platform
and place it in such a way that it faces the royal visitor.
The memorial consists of a structure
where a visitor has to enter from the from the left, place the wreath at the memorial and move right to
exit. The British team was willing to enlarge the platform to accommodate a
larger media contingent but averse to my suggestion to place it facing the
visiting dignitary. After exasperating negotiations, I explained : “Gentleman, I
am sure Her Majesty would be wearing a
skirt, and while placing the wreath, she would bend, making the skirt go up and
the visual media located as it is at present could capture something we all
don’t want them to capture!”
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| The Author (sunarendra@gmail.com) |
The British negotiating team had a hard
time in suppressing their embarrassed laughter and agreed to shift the
platform. Addressing the visual media representatives, I told them: “Gentleman,
given the controversy surrounding the Jalianwalabagh, our attempt should be to
enable the visual media to get a good view of the Queen and the expression of
her eyes. I am sure Her Majesty would also slightly bow her head while standing
for a few minutes in front of the site. Such visual coverage would convey the
intended message more than any words’.
The Queen’s floral tribute at
Jalianwalabagh went down very well with the people and the media. Here is a
headline from a British newspaper: In India, Queen Bows Her Head Over a Massacre in 1919.
The queen’s
consort, Prince Phillip, who had visited the Jalianwalabagh site before the
Queen, had put his foot in the mouth by questioning the casualty figures. But
the Queen’s bow made amends for her husband’s indiscretion.
