'Indira Gandhi embodied both courage and sensitivity'

Dhaka: Bangladesh Monday conferred the highest state honour for "1971 foreign friends" on India's assassinated Prime Minister Indira Gandhi for her tremendous contribution to its Liberation War 40 years ago.

Sonia Gandhi, daughter-in-law of Indira Gandhi and Indian Congress party chair, received the Bangladesh Swadhinata Sanmanona from President Zillur Rahman at a ceremony at Bangabhaban.

So far Gandhi is the lone recipient of the honour though the Cabinet last week also decided to acknowledge the contribution of 47 other foreign friends and five international organisations to the country's 1971 independence but they would be conferred with awards under two other categories.

"By her Indira Gandhi political wisdom and vision, she influenced the course of history and the fates of generations," the President Zillur said handing over the posthumous award in the form of a crest to her daughter-in-law.

The crest weighing three kilograms is designed on 400-year-old terracotta of a ‘Kadam tree' made of gold, which was handed over to Gandhi as Cabinet Secretary Abdul Aziz read out the citation recalling Gandhi's role in 1971.

"The honour is not hers [Indira Gandhi] alone, it's India's," Sonia Gandhi said receiving the award on behalf of her assassinated mother-in-law while concluding her brief statement saying "Joy Bangla", the Liberation War time slogan of Bangladeshis.

on Monday, she said: “The quality she prized above all else was fearlessness. This was a quality which her father Jawaharlal Nehru and the father of our nation, Mahatma Gandhi, had also inculcated and cherished. Throughout her life, courage and Indira Gandhi were synonymous: the courage of a young girl separated for long periods from her imprisoned father and enduring the loss of her beloved mother; of a young woman, facing up to police lathi blows and imprisonment; and of a leader, dealing with the many crises of her long prime ministership”.

“Never was this courage more manifest, never was it more tested, than in the months from March to December 1971 when Bangladesh was being born.