FORMER CHINESE premier and now a senior leader Li Peng could not believe his eyes. In front of him was a hand-written 1945 citation by the legendary Mao Tse Tung praising late Indian doctor Dwarkanath Kotnis for his yeomen service to Chinese soldiers during the Sino-Japanese war.
“He said it is up to the new generation of Chinese and Indians to build and cement friendly ties that existed during the Hindi-Chini bhai bhai days,” says Ms Manorama Kotnis, Dr Kotnis’ younger sister.
Manorama was one among the 19 relatives of Kotnis who called on Li Peng at Hotel Taj in Mumbai on Wednesday morning. In fact the Chinese leader, who incidentally is the adopted son of former premier Zhou En Lai, went out of his way to arrange a meeting with the surviving members of the Kotnis family.
Li Peng’s move to solicit a meeting with the three surviving sisters and a brother of Dr Kotnis is in keeping with the eternal gratitude that the Government of China and the Chinese people feel they owe to Dr Dwarkanath Kotnis who gave up his life for them.
“He left for China from Bombay in 1938 when he was 28 years old. For the next four years he gave his heart and soul to the Chinese people, tending to wounded Chinese soldiers during the Sino-Japanese war. He was very ill and undernourished himself, yet he carried on till the time he died in 1942,” recalls another sister, Dr Vatsala Kotnis who is 73 years old.
In 1937, when Japan invaded China, General Chu asked Pandit Nehru for help and urged him to send Indian doctors to China. Five doctors including Dr Kotnis responded to the clarion call.
When Dwarkanath embarked for China from Solapur, it was the last they ever saw of their son. “I last saw him when he was 28. We did not know that he had died till a month later. He did not return home, not even when our father expired within four months of his leaving for China. For him, humanitarianism was a religion,” says Manorama, his pride shining through her eyes.
Dr Kotnis went on to marry a Chinese woman, called Kuo Ching Jan and had a son who was named Ing Hawa (Ing-India: Hwa-China). Tragically, though, his son died at the age of 24. Kuo married again and lives in Dalian in north-east China.
She is in regular touch with the Kotnis sisters and has visited India, especially Solapur in 1958, 1985 and 1999.The Kotnis family, too, have been to China a couple of times and relations continue between Kuo Ching Jan and the Kotnis family.
What hurts the Kotnis family is that nobody in the Indian Government, even in the days of Pandit Nehru, has shown interest in setting up a memorial for Dr Kotnis. Congress leader Sushil Kumar Shinde who, too, is from Solapur tried to convert Dr Kotnis’ ancestral house into a memorial. But the entire process is entangled in a legal quagmire.
The Kotnis family had earlier sold their home and the new owners are fiercely resisting handing it over to the government. Now, the only desire that the Kotnis sisters have is for India and China to become as close as they were in the good old days. But it is all a question of political will.