The Hindu : International / India & World : A friendship struck at first sight

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Oct 18, 2004

International

International - India & World

A friendship struck at first sight

By P.S. Suryanarayana

HANOI, OCT. 17. The bonds of friendship that Ho Chi Minh and Jawaharlal Nehru struck at first sight when they met in Hanoi on October 17, 1954 transcended India's firm political neutrality as Chairman of the "International Committee in Vietnam."

Disclosing this, the Vietnamese Foreign Minister, Nguyen Dy Nien, said here today that Vietnam was dear to Nehru's heart. As a 19-year-old official in the then new Vietnamese Foreign Ministry, Mr. Nien was witness to the epochal meeting.

Responding to questions from The Hindu in a brief interaction with the media, after the conclusion of the inaugural session of the commemorative seminar on the historic Ho Chi Minh-Nehru meeting, Mr. Nein said that India, as chairman of a relevant international commission in 1954, "played a neutral role" in regard to Vietnam. "But, I think, the heart of the Indian leader was with Vietnam." India's overall neutrality was, however, well understood, by President Ho and other Vietnamese leaders at the time. India had established "consular relations" with Vietnam, even while playing a prominent role in implementing the relevant Geneva Accord on ending the war and restoring peace in Vietnam in the 1950s, Mr. Nien recounted.

`India, a second home'

Maintaining that "India is half of my life" and that "India is my second home," Mr. Nien drew the following photo-memory account of the first-ever meeting between Ho Chi Minh and Nehru.

"The meeting was held in the Presidential Palace of Vietnam. President Ho also came to the hotel where Nehru and Indira Gandhi stayed... Of course, I was not present at the talks, because they were very intimate, very friendly talks between the two leaders, and no other people were present there. We were outside the room. When the two leaders came out, we saw the broad smiles on Ho Chi Minh's and Nehru's [faces]. And, arm in arm, they walked out of the room. I think that was very, very historical [meeting], and it is still fresh in my mind."

Promising future

Mr. Nien, who later was the "Hindi translator" for President Ho during his visit to India in 1958, said more visits to Vietnam by Indian leaders were now planned during the year-long silver jubilee of the 1954 event. As for the current Vietnam-India agenda, in the context of economic reforms in Vietnam, Mr. Nien said: "The future is very promising, because we have a very firm foundation. And, the task for the people of the two countries is now how to further strengthen our relationship... On the economic and trade [front], we are moving. Although it is not up to our satisfaction, both sides are determined to further increase our trade volume, almost double in the next two years and treble in the next five years... Further, we would like to have more Indian entrepreneurs coming to Vietnam to invest, and we also would like to send more people to India for training in many fields."

Earlier, in his inaugural speech at the seminar, Mr. Nien recited a poem that Uncle Ho, as he is fondly called in Vietnam, had penned in 1942 while in prison.

The poem, To Nehru, was later translated into English by Sivaramakrishnan, a former Ambassador to Vietnam.

The poem, in part, was as follows: "You are in jail, I am in prison Ten Thousand miles apart, we have not met We communicate without words."

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