1968 MAKING PEACE

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1947-2008-India-Roundup

“In 1970, the United Nations will complete 25 years. Can we make it a year of peace?” asked Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in her address in New York. There was no peace in sight in the neighbourhood, though, with Pakistan President Ayub Khan rejecting India’s offer of a ‘no-war pact’. On the domestic front, too, the situation was grim. Over 1,300 died in the floods of north Bengal and there was scarcity in Rajasthan, while violence followed the arrest of Naxalite leader Kasu Sanyal as Communists in Kerala turned violent, attacking police stations and staging protests.

TAMIL PRIDE C.N. Annadurai

Two decades of unrivalled Congress rule in Tamil Nadu came to an end in the 1967 elections, which also saw the rise of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam under playwright-politician Conjeevaram Natarajan Annadurai. The Congress suffered a humiliatin defeat at the hands of the regional party, which won 138 of the 234 seats in the state Assembly. The Congress is still to regain power in the state. Under Anna, as he was called by his followers, the Dravidian nationalists in the party took up cudgels against the imposition of Hindi as the national language. A witty orator and a prolific writer, his tenure as chief minister was cut short when he died in 1969. Anna was succeeded by his protégé and writer Muthuvel Karunanidhi.

FIRST CUT

• Asia’s first ever heart transplant operation was performed by Dr Prafulla Kumar Sen and other surgeons at KEM Hospital, Bombay. He was only the third surgeon in the world to achieve this feat.
• India’s first meteorological rocket, Menaka, was successfully launched at the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station in Kerala.

The mehendi ceremony in Rajiv and Sonia Gandhi’s wedding was conducted at the Bachchans’ Willingdon crescent home. The couple got married on February 28.

THE GENE SCENE

Raipur-born molecular biologist Hargobind Khurana (right) became the third Indian to win the Nobel Prize. Awarded for his work on the interpretation of the genetic code, he hoped his work would “serve as a basis for further work in molecular and developmental biology”.

“BHOLS, NEECHE SE”

Says Kishore Kumar, playing music guru to tone-deaf Bhola, played by the inimitable Sunil Dutt, asking him to sing on a lower scale. Bhola, true to his name, takes it quite literally, and slips down to the floor. Slapstick comedy met R.D. Burman’s musical genius in Padosan, a story of a simpleton who wanted to woo his musically-inclined neighbour (Saira Banu). Mehmood’s politically incorrect comedy, complete with the southern dhoti and accent, won him many fans.

“WE GAVE YOU EVERYTHING WE OWNED JUST TO SIT AT YOUR TABLE.”

The Beatles traveled to India in February 1968 for ‘transcendental meditation studies’ at Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s ashram in Rishikesh. “We gave you everything we owned just to sit at you table / Just a smile would lighten everything,” they wrote later. Many of the Liverpool band’s songs and albums, including White Album, Abbey Road, Dear Prudence and Sexy Sadie were inspired by their stay here.

ELSEWHERE…

• Mauritius attained independence from Britain.
• American civil rights leader Martin Luther King was assassinated by James Early Ray in Memphis, Tennessee. His death—caused a bullet wound in the neck—gave rise to riots.
• Robert F. Kennedy died a day after he was shot by Sirhan Bishara Sirhan at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.
• France (below) became the world’s fifth thermo-nuclear power as it tested the H-bomb.

Courtesy By India Today