Building Bridges
India & Pakistan: The single event that affected Azad more than any other was the partition of India. Before the partition, he worked as personal assistant to the Secretary, Communal Harmony Movement (Lahore) for a time and, when Sir Sikander Hayaat Khan (Unionist Muslim League) published a newsletter, Azad (a Hindu) travelled around Punjab spreading the word of the League. After the partition he always wished Pakistan well and firmly believed that "political divisions cannot divide the Indian poets from their love of Pakistan, nor the Pakistani poets from their love for India".
Azad was a passionate advocate of close friendship and bonding between the people of India and Pakistan.
Kashmir: During his 10-year tenure of Srinagar (Kashmir) as representative of the Government of India, Azad forged and cemented strong links with every shade of opinion in Kashmir ranging from Mirwaiz Molvi Mohammad Umar Farooq (Kashmiri religious & political leader) to Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah (Prime Minister of Kashmir). Kashmiris recognised Azad as an unbiased intellectual who was imbibed only with the spirit of humanity, not as ‘an agent of the Government’.
It is not a co-incidence that Kashmir witnessed a golden era of peace & progress in the 1970s & 80s – the time of Azad’s efforts in building bridges in the State.
He received the National Unity Award 2001-02 from Himotkarsh, Sahitya, Sabskriti aivam Jan Kalayan Parishad of Kashmir.
Read more about this topic: Jagan Nath Azad
Famous quotes containing the words building and/or bridges:
“For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”
—Bible: New Testament, 2 Corinthians 5:1.
“There is nothing in machinery, there is nothing in embankments and railways and iron bridges and engineering devices to oblige them to be ugly. Ugliness is the measure of imperfection.”
—H.G. (Herbert George)