India Welcomes the Queen:
SABAVALA, SHAROKH
India Welcomes the Queen By Sharokh Sabavala Elizabeth's visit spurs friendship and strengthens Commonwealth ties New Delhi Watching a parade here on a bright spring morning last month was an...
...The old gentleman under his umbrella was President Rajendra Prasad of India, who when Her Majesty's father was Emperor of India spent a good part of his time in British prisons...
...The parade on Republic DayJanuary 26-which the President was reviewing was, however, the only occasion when Her Britannic Majesty was asked to take a back seat...
...About 50 yards away, on a raised platform under a ceremonial "Umbrella of State" sat an old man in Indian clothes and a white cap...
...In some parts of the country several former princes of Hindustan, now private citizens, are making efforts to use the popularity of the British Monarch to rehabilitate themselves...
...India today has proved that it values British partnership in the Commonwealth and that it intends to persist in its efforts to make this association worthwhile...
...She also visited schools, hospitals and universities, and read the trenchant criticisms of the Government in the Indian press...
...This causes misunderstanding even in India...
...Thus the visit of the first reigning British monarch to free India turned out to be a demonstration of the intrinsic worth-and flexibility-of democracy and proof that free institutions can be shared by peoples irrespective of differences of background, race, creed or color...
...The bewilderment behind this observation is widely shared by Europeans here who cannot understand how Indians so readily can forget the history of the past 150 years...
...But you are positively mad...
...One woman, a Communist Member of Parliament sitting next to me at a ceremonial in the Queen's honor, had no reply to her daughter's accusation: "But Mummy, you said they wouldn't like her...
...And in contrast there are political parties which now seek to use the royal visit to point up their accusation that the present Indian Government is only a rather smudged carbon copy of the former British "Raj...
...Witnessing the displays of friendship, a French observer said to me, "I knew the British were eccentric...
...India received the Queen both as Head of the Commonwealth and as a wife and mother...
...India Welcomes the Queen By Sharokh Sabavala Elizabeth's visit spurs friendship and strengthens Commonwealth ties New Delhi Watching a parade here on a bright spring morning last month was an elegant young lady dressed in white, sitting on a red velvet-upholstered gilt chair, at street level, next to her husband...
...She rode into the city between two walls of people-20, 30, 50 deep along a 12-mile route from the airport to the President's Palace...
...All of them conveniently forget that it is impossible to force millions of ordinary people to participate in such an overwhelming welcome or to make spontaneous gestures of esteem and personal affection...
...This scene symbolizes the changed relations between Britain and India, changes brought about peacefully, with honor, dignity and mutual respect...
...Equally nonplussed, the Chinese press service commented, "India has not yet truly shed its Imperialist chains...
...for the second it reserved its tenderness and affection...
...From the moment she set foot in Delhi, the Queen became the object of a reception which left observers speechless...
...She was also asked to convince herself that all rancor and bitterness in Indo-British relations had died...
...The lady who took the unaccustomed back seat was Elizabeth, by Grace of God, Queen of Great Britain...
...For the rest of her nine-day stay in the Indian capital, she was the center of a magnificent pageant, superbly staged and mounted and, more significant, sustained throughout by the spontaneous good will and affection of the Indian people...
...For the first it displayed its pride in belonging to a family of nations...
...The Indians do not bother to explain themselves, for their friendly reaction and their desire to retain close British ties are instinctive...
...They danced in front of her cavalcade, showered her with rose petals and golden marigolds, but, with their strict observance of protocol and decorum, they made the massive police arrangements appear superfluous...
...And it demonstrated its enduring belief in certain British traditions and institutions: The Queen saw the British-developed Indian Army march in a manner which, according to a British newsman, "makes our Guards Brigade look like a troop of slouching Boy Scouts...
...And to this bewilderment is added a distinctly sour note when the observers are Communists...
...During her entire visit, the Queen was deliberately asked to feel proud of what the British achieved in India and to judge for herself whether or not the Indians now were building well upon this achievement...
Vol. 44 • February 1961 • No. 8
