GUWAHATI, May 11 - Senior journalist DN Chakravartty has expressed indignation at the confusion created by a section of the uninformed intellectuals and uneducated journalists and writers regarding former Prime Minister Pandit Nehru�s radio broadcast on November 29, 1962, condemning the unabashed and unprovoked invasion by China.
�Pandit Nehru, a great humanist and one of the greatest freedom fighters of the country besides being a great historian, lamented the historical betrayal by China in inflicting a war on India. Nowhere in his speech is there any word about abandoning Assam or the North-east in their hour of distress. While the Chinese soldiers were advancing up to Bomdila (now in Arunachal Pradesh), Nehru with a broken heart and in a choked voice but with a lot of resolve told the nation in general and the Assamese people in particular that whatever might have been the temporary setbacks, India would repulse the invasion of the Chinese.�
The last words of Nehru�s oft-misinterpreted speech are ��we will not rest until each of the intruders are thrown out of our territory.�
Chakravartty said that Nehru�s speech in the All India Radio broadcast which contained 41 sentences confined mainly to the North-east. His words at this hour of crisis, �my heart goes out to the people of Assam and I want to assure my brothers and sisters of the northeastern State that we will give the right answer to the Chinese acts of betrayal and hold before mankind the uncivilised action of the Chinese Army,� in fact do not leave any scope for misinterpretation. � �My heart goes out� is a phrase used for expressing solidarity with the distressed�, Chakravartty said.
Nowhere in his speech did Nehru bid farewell to Assam; rather he reassured the Assamese people about his determination to thwart Chinese aggression and to expose their betrayal and uncivilised action to the nations of the world, he added.
Chakravartty said that even after 56 years after the Chinese War, a section of the �pseudo- intellectuals and sunshine patriots of Assam� in season and out of season continues to play the old record of Panditji�s farewell to Assam by distorting his speech.
�Thousands of pseudo-patriots of Assam would come and go but a leader of the standing and patriotism of Nehru would be born only after a millennium,� he said.
As one of the senior-most editors of the country, he appealed to the editors of the country to exercise their discretion and not to permit such �unnecessary and mischievous slandering against Nehru.�
�Reproduce the full text of Nehru�s speech in order to remove all the misgivings for all the time to come,� he asserted.