How Modi’s memorial visits put focus on poignant slice of Indo-Polish history
After the Soviet attacks in 1939, about 6,000 women and children came to India, where they went to Kolhapur and Jamnagar
On Wednesday, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid wreaths at the two memorials dedicated to the princely states of Kolhapur and Nawanagar in Warsaw, he put the spotlight on a unique chapter in Indo-Polish history.
The story goes back to days just before the start of the World War II in 1939 when the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov (whose name is immortalised in that incendiary device, the Molotov Cocktail) signed a pact divvying up eastern Europe between them. On September 17, 1939, Soviets attacked the eastern part of Poland and a fortnight later the Germans attacked the western part of the country. Thousands of Poles, desperate to escape the twin invasions, fled to various parts of the world. About 6,000 women and children came to India, where they went to Kolhapur in Maharashtra and Jamnagar in Gujarat. The then ruler of Kolhapur, Chhatrapati Rajaram, set up a camp for 5,000 Polish refugees in the village of Valivade, which became the biggest World War II refugee camp in India.
But how did these Poles choose Jamnagar and Kolhapur thousands of miles away from Europe?
According to the Polish Institute in New Delhi, the then Polish counsel in India, Eugeniusz Banasinska, and his wife Kira, actively started soliciting support from the princely states for the refugees and set up a committee to aid refugees in India which raised funds for them. One of the first royals to offer support was the Maharaj of Nawanagar (now Jamnagar) who built a camp for Polish children at Balchadi Hill, which was part of his summer estate. The solicitous Maharaj also got cooks from Goa who could serve European cuisine to the refugees.
In 1943, when Hitler attacked USSR, going against the spirit of the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement, Stalin was forced to go with the allied powers and agreed to free the Poles he held in captivity in Siberia. Many of these Poles made their way to India where a second refugee camp was set up by Chhatrapati Rajaram, who comes from the lineage of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj.
“He built barracks on an open ground at Valivade village for the refugees, ensured water supply, built a small church for them and also an open-air theatre for their recreation. A telephone booth and post office were also set up for the refugees, most of them elderly, women and children,” says Kolhapur historian Sudhakar Kashid, whose book Kolhapurchya Paulkhuna (Footprints of Kolhapur) deals with this interlude. Every year, the Polish ambassador to India visits Valivade to offer tribute at the graves of the 80 Poles who lie buried here.
In his book, Kashid narrates how every refugee family was provided a wooden bed, chairs and a dining table, dressing table and charcoal heater. “Each family also got ₹52 per month as livelihood allowance, while pork imported from Australia was served to the refugees at the camp.”
Dnyaneshwar Mulay, retired secretary in the ministry of external affairs, and Kolhapur resident, says the Polish refugees arrived in India in two batches – the first batch of 650 refugee children arrived in 1942 and were accommodated in Balachadi camp in Jamnagar. The second batch of 5,000 refugees made their way to Kolhapur after a challenging journey across the Caspian Sea, travelling through Krasnovodsk to Tehran in Iran, from there to Karachi, and from Karachi to finally Kolhapur. At Valivade, two separate camps were organised — one for children who had been orphaned and arrived without parents, and another one for women with children.
Kolhapur lore has it that a member of one of the city’s most prominent trading families, the Kashikars, fell in love with and married a Polish woman. “The couple is recently deceased, and their descendants are well known in Kolhapur,” says historian Kashid.
According to the Polish Institute, an organisation called Circles of Poles from India meets every two years with members arriving in Poland from all over the world where they honour the memory of Indian hospitality.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Modi, who is on a three-day trip to Poland and Ukraine, met some of the descendants of the refugees in addition to visiting Warsaw’s Good Maharaja Square, which honours the extraordinary humanitarian efforts of the Jam Saheb of Nawanagar Digvijaysinhji Ranjitsinhji, and the Kolhapur Memorial.
“The Kolhapur Memorial in Warsaw is a tribute to the great royal family of Kolhapur by the people of Poland. It is an honour expressed by them towards the citizens of Maharashtra and Marathi culture...The people of Maharashtra worked day and night to ensure that the Polish women and children faced no hardship and the camp,” Modi said about Valivade, which was shut down in 1947.
