As Poland rolls out the red carpet for Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday, hundreds of 'Indian Poles' are commemorating a historic facet of India-Poland relations which has been the bedrock of people-to-people ties between the two countries since the Second World War.
"One of the unique bonds between our countries relates to the time in the 1940s, during World War II, when more than 6,000 Polish women and children found refuge in two princely states in India, Jamnagar and Kolhapur. As you may be aware, Jam Sahib of Nawanagar had provided shelter to more than 1,000 Polish children, and others were offered refuge in Kolhapur," Tanmaya Lal,Secretary (West) at the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said earlier this week while announcing PM Modi's August 21-22 visit, the first by an Indian Prime Minister to Poland in the past 45 years.
While Digvijaysinhji Ranjitsinhji Jadeja, the Jam Sahib of Nawanagar who is known in Poland as the 'Good Maharaja', gave refuge to over 1,000 Polish children in the famous Balachadi camp, the royal family of Kolhapur provided safe haven to more than 5,000 Polish women and children in the equally-famous Valivade camp.
A monument, commemorating Jam Sahib Digvijaysinhji Ranjitsinhji Jadeja, was unveiled in October, 2014 at the Square of the Good Maharaja, Ochota District in Warsaw.
Another plaque commemorating the Valivade-Kolhapur camp near the Monte Casino War Memorial was inaugurated in November 2017 in Warsaw.
As many as eight Polish primary and secondary schools are also named after Jam Sahib.
During his historic visit, PM Modi is scheduled to visit these memorials that commemorate the very special episodes of Jamnagar and Kolhapur.
A large number of Polish refugees and their descendants have, over the last many decades, expressed their gratitude towards the two royal families of India by building memorials in Warsaw and organising annual events to keep the memories alive.
The Association of Poles in India, which reunites all the Polish people who lived between 1942 and 1948 in the two camps set up by the Maharajas of Jamnagar and Kolhapur, meets once in two years to recall and reiterate their gratitude and affection for the two royal families and the people of India.
During its last meeting held in Gdansk in September 2023, the first after the Covid pandemic, Jan Chendynski, the President of the Association, recounted "some of the happy childhood memories" that most of them had of the camps.
Nagma Mallick, India's Ambassador to Poland, who attended the meeting as a special invitee, acknowledged that the story of the Polish refugees was not as well-known in India as it deserved to be and also commended the Indian Poles for keeping this memory alive in Poland.
Commemorating the historic link, another event titled 'Remembering the Good Maharajas' was organised in the Old Orangery of the iconic Royal Lazienki park in July 2022 where 22 photographs from the camps of Valivade and Nawanagar depicting the lives of the Polish children in India during that period were exhibited for the guests.
Sambhaji Chhatrapati, the descendant of the Chhatrapati Shivaji and Piyushkumar Matalia, representative of the Jam Sahib of Nawanagar, especially flew from India to attend the event while former MP and President of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) Vinay Sahasrabuddhe and Ambassador Mallick, represented the Indian government at the event which was attended by a large number of Polish citizens who were in the camps as children.
According to the Indian Embassy in Poland, there is also a strong tradition of Indology studies in Poland, with Polish scholars having translated Sanskrit into Polish as early as in the 19th Century.
"Sanskrit was being studied at the 600-year-old Jagiellonian University in Krakow (the oldest in Poland) in 1860-61, with a Chair of Sanskrit having been established there in 1893.
The Indology Department of the Oriental Institute at the University of Warsaw (established in 1932) is the biggest centre for Indian studies in Central Europe," the MEA states.
Study of Indian languages, literature, culture and Indology is also pursued at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan and the University of Wroclaw.
ICCR sponsored the first Central & Eastern European regional conference of Indology in Warsaw University in September 2005 in which 19 scholars from 11 countries participated
. An MoU for the establishment of an ICCR Chair of Indian studies at the Jagiellonian University was signed in February 2017 and two Indian professors have since been appointed as ICCR Chair Professors since the signing of the MoU.
"There are long-standing cultural ties between India and Poland, and Indology studies in Polish universities date back to the 19th century. There is respect and appreciation in Poland for Indian culture and spiritual ethos, including yoga and Ayurveda," said MEA's Secretary (West) Tanmaya Lal on Monday, ahead of the PM's visit to Poland.
In Warsaw, PM Modi will hold talks with the country's President Andrzej Duda on Thursday.
He is also scheduled to interact with members of the Indian community, select Polish business leaders and prominent Indologists.
(With inputs from IANS)
