Industrialist Anand Mahindra’s Twitter profile is filled with interesting videos that are sometimes plucked from the pages of history. His recent post is all about a bright Indian student named Padmanabha Gopinath and it is a must-watch.
Shared on Twitter, the video shows a glimpse of a debate from 1957 where Gopinath was a participant. In the clip, Gopinath was seen schooling the British host named Sara Chatt when she said India was friendly towards Britain
Prejudice is willful ignorance. It is dictated only by emotion. And the fear and suspicion it creates causes more harm than I can think of,” Gopinath explained as the topic of the debate was prejudice. When Sara Chatt started talking about history, Gopinath gave her a history lesson as he narrated how the Indus Valley civilisation was in existence, 3000 years before the Magna Carta was signed and when “savage Anglo Saxons were still running around dressed in skins”.
“This was going around furiously on social media yesterday. Wonderful to see someone so vigorously champion the cause of India back in ‘57!” Mahindra wrote. He also tagged Congress MP Shashi Tharoor in the tweet and enquired about what happened to Gopinath.