After Mount Everest was first climbed, in summer of 1953, Jawaharlal Nehru wrote a remarkable letter to Chief Ministers about the achievement. It is a letter that is timeless; yet also particularly timely today. Read on... (1/6)
Nehru, 1953: "The final ascent of Everest has been a great achievement in which all of us should take pride. Here again there has been great pettiness and the narrowest type of nationalism shown by some people" (2/6)
Nehru, 1953; "Controversies have arisen as to whether Tenzing got there first or Hillary, and whether Tenzing is an Indian national or a Nepalese national. It does not make the slightest difference ... Neither could have done so without the help of the other." (3/6)
Nehru, 1953: "Indeed, both of them could not have done so without the help of the whole party, ... and the whole party could not have done so without the accumulated experience, labour and sacrifice of all their predecessors who tried to reach the top of Everest."(4/6).
Nehru, 1953: "Great human achievements are always the result of combined endeavours in which numerous people take part. It may be that one person takes the last step, but the other persons also count and should not be forgotten." (5/6)
Nehru, 1953: "For us to show a narrow and deplorable nationalism in such matters is not to add to the credit of our country but to lead people to think that we are petty in outlook and suffering from some kind of inferiority complex."(6/6)
Since this is Twitter, as well as election season, I am obliged to add this otherwise unnecessary caveat: do not confuse or conflate Jawaharlal Nehru with those who carry his genes. They perhaps understand him as little as the man who now holds the office that Nehru once did.
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