Jawaharlal Nehru in Barcelona

With a special visa for Spain and a letter from the Spanish government, Indian National Congress leader Jawaharlal Nehru spent five days in Barcelona in June 1938. This newsreel shows Nehru, who it describes as the “leader of the Indian socialist party and leader of the National Congress”, accompanied by his daughter Indira – future prime minister Indira Gandhi - visiting the Generalitat, where he was received by Lluis Companys, the president of Catalonia, and Communist deputy Margarita Nelken.  He also met General Lister, La Pasionaria Dolores Ibarruri, and Foreign Minister Julio Alvarez del Vayo who bemoaned the behaviour of France and Britain because they were strangling the Republic through Non-Intervention. He also visited members of the British Battalion of the International Brigades, some of whom greeted him with shouts of “Long live Independence!”.

Nehru stopped in London on his way home and he addressed a crowd of some 5,000 people who filled Trafalgar Square as part of a pro-Republican demonstration on 17 July. After Nehru’s return to India, the Republican President Juan Negrín wrote to him in November 1938, “I am glad that you gathered such good impressions during your short visit to our country. (…) you see for yourself what unequal odds we have to struggle against, fighting not only against the declared enemies of democracy but unfortunately handicapped as well by those who pretend to be our friends.” Negrín also sent a message to Gandhi: “It is a great satisfaction to learn that men of your standing are on our side and understand full well the justice of our cause. I am also glad to learn that your countrymen are following with sympathetic interest the events in Spain.” 

Interestingly, Nehru who was prime minister from independence in1947 to 1964, mentioned only two of the six Indians who served in the International Brigades in his writings: Dr. Mehanlal Atal and Mulk Raj Anand. The names of Balaji Huddar, Ayub Ahmed Khan Naqshabandi, Manuel Pinto, Ramasaamy Veerapan have almost fallen into oblivion. 

MS/AT