Replying to the Motion of Thanks to the President in the Lok Sabha, Prime Minister Modi regaled the House by recalling episodes from history, particularly those involving Nehru and his visit to the United States during the Kennedy administration.

Listening to the Prime Minister mention the iconic RK Laxman’s cartoons, one wonders how Laxman, had he been present today, would have sketched and portrayed the first-ever Leader of the Opposition in a T-shirt, spewing inanities while trying to punch above his weight—both cerebral and corporeal. Seeing him capture the emotions of the pocket volcano that the LoP is would indeed have been a treat.

While putting together Jackie Kennedy’s itinerary for her visit to India in 1962, the US Ambassador to India, Kenneth Galbraith, assured an anxious JFK that Jackie could “count on a warm and agreeable welcome" and that “Nehru, who is deeply in love and has a picture of himself strolling with JBK [Jackie] displayed all by itself in the main entrance hall of his house, is entirely agreeable." Jackie must have reminded Nehru of Edwina Mountbatten, who had died in 1960.

In his book JFK’s Forgotten Crisis, referred to by Prime Minister Modi in the Lok Sabha, Bruce Riedel also tells us that the US embassy in India “had rented a villa for Mrs Kennedy to stay in, but Nehru insisted after she arrived that she stay in a guest suite at the prime minister’s residence. It was the suite often used by Edwina Mountbatten."

Rahul Gandhi churlishly resorted to a canard on the floor of the House, claiming that Prime Minister Modi had asked for an invitation to Trump’s inauguration. He has not been able to substantiate his statement, and it is only right that a privilege motion be initiated against him for uttering a blatant mensonge that would have made even Goebbels cringe! What is substantiated, however, is Nehru’s grovelling request to JFK to rescue him from the Chinese.

On 28 October 1962, JFK wrote to Nehru “assuring him that the United States fully backed India against the Chinese attack" and promised “both moral and tangible support if India sought help." With all his past bravado evaporating, Nehru asked for US support. Riedel writes: “Asking for American arms was a humiliating moment for the prime minister, who had prided himself on Indian independence and neutrality. He knew he........

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