Plain Talk

By Mursi Saad El-Din

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This week India celebrated its independence day, an occasion that brought back many fond memories on both a national and a personal level.

Relations between the two countries date over many centuries though here I shall invoke only modern times, beginning in 1919 with Saad Zaghloul, hero of the Egyptian Revolution.

In Indo-West Asian Relations: The Nehru Era, Najma Heptulla, speaker of the Upper House of India's parliament, describes how national leaders from India and Egypt "maintained close links on matters related to their political plans and actions".

These close links were exemplified by the visit of a delegation from the Wafd Party to Mahatma Gandhi aboard SS Rejputana on his way to London for the Second Round Table Conference.

A delegation from the Wafd also participated in sessions of the Congress Party of India.

Heptulla describes how in June 1939 Nehru's ship stopped at Suez on way to Europe. Nehru received an invitation from Nahas Pasha to visit him in Alexandria where he was given a warm reception. They discussed various aspects of their national struggle and the possibility of coordination between the two nationalist parties. On 2 August Nehru received a letter from Nahas Pasha inviting him "personally, and a delegation of your party, to visit Egypt during the session of our party".

Heptulla then goes on to depict the relationship between Nehru and Nasser. Their meeting led not only to a friendship between the two but ushered in a new era of Indo-Egyptian friendship and cooperation.

As early as June 1953 an Egyptian military delegation visited India, followed by an Egyptian press delegation. According to Heptulla India was "the first Asian country to extend diplomatic recognition to the new regime in June 1953".

And now we come to my personal memories. My first contacts with Indian personalities was in December 1957 during the first Afro- Asian Solidarity Conference, when I had the opportunity of meeting Anup Singh and Ramshweri Nehru.

Then in October 1958 the first Afro-Asian Writers Conference was convened in Tashkent. There I met a number of Indian writers, among them Mulk Raj Anand, the great novelist, and Sajach Zaheer, a leading poet in Urdu. A Permanent Bureau of Afro Asian Writers was established in Colombo and in 1962 it moved to Cairo. I was Egypt's representative on the Bureau, while Mulk represented India. Together we attended meetings in Tokyo, Bali, Tashkent, Beirut and in other cities. Later Jussuful- Sebin was elected secretary- general and I was made his deputy.

Later on, for political reasons, the Bureau was moved to Beirut where its activities petered out. Even later, it returned to Cairo, and Lutfi El- Kholi acquired the post of secretary-general. An office still remains purporting to be the Bureau of Afro-Asian Writers though it has precious little to do with the movement that had its birth in Tashkent.

One of the memories I cherish most is my first visit to India at the invitation of the Indian Council of Cultural Relations.

Following the Tripartite Aggression all relations with Britain were interrupted. We used to order textbooks for English teaching from Longmans Green, a leading publisher in England, but in the light of the break in relations and the shortage of sterling we were not able to import the books. At that time I was a member of the Books Committee and I knew that Longmans had a branch in India -- Orient Longmans. With the help of the then Indian ambassador, Apa Pant, I made inquiries and discovered that Indian Longmans had all the books we needed. An agreement worth millions was signed and we received the textbooks we needed. Our teaching of English was saved.

An invitation to visit India subsequently arrived and for the first time I set foot in that great and fascinating country.