WHEN RENOWNED INDONESIAN JOURNALIST AND WRITER HERAWATI DIAH VISITED KASHMIR

                                                                           

            ( Herawati Diah meeting Chief Minister / Prime Minister J&K Bakshi Ghulam Mohd )

                          ( Herawati  Diah and Other members with Bakshi Ghulam  Mohd )

                                        ( Herawati Diah and other members  with Dr Karan Singh  kashmir 1954 )

1954... BAKSHI GHULAM MOHD WITH LATIFAH HERAWATI DIAH IN KASHMIR ..

LATIFAH HERWATI DIAH ( Born 1917 ) IN KASHMIR 1954.

L ATIFAH  HERAWATI  DIAH Renowned Journalist from  Indonesia    visited  kashmir in March 1954. She was on a visit to India as Head of an Indonesian Delegation of Journalists .This delegation visited many places in India apart from Agra, Jaipur and  Bhakhra Nangal. The delegation met Prime Minister jawahar Lal  Nehru , President of India , Parliament members  .This delegation also visited kashmir thereafter .

  It ws springtime in kashmir  when the delegation arrived .They visited  Gulmarg, Pahalghaam , Mughal  Gardens and Dal lake . They also met Sadar e Riyasat Dr karan  Singh and  Prime Minister Bakshi Ghulam Mohd . The members of this dlegation took keen interest in Kashmir handicrafts . Herawati Diah is reported  to have purchsed some shawls and Papier Mache items from Government Arts  Emporium.

WHO IS HERAWATI DIAH ?

Born in an affluent family of Java, she was educated in Japan and USA. She has been a Freedom fighter and a nationalist revered and held in high esteem not in Indonesia only but in entire south east Asia.She has personally known every Indonesian president, Queen Elizabeth, Franklin D. Roosevelt , Henry Kissinger , Gamal Abdel Nasser , Jawahar Lal Nehru and some more world leaders . Her husband B M Diah journalist and later a   Senior Bureaucrat in Indonesian Foreign service who  served as Ambassador to several countries in Europe .

Herawati once consulted Gandhi ji on Indonesia’s fight for freedom, and he said,

“When you truly believe it will succeed, then it will surely succeed."

To know more about her , Read her Book “ An Endless Journey: Reflections of an Indonesian Journalist.”

It was Herawati who led a strong movement to guard her homeland’s culture. She took her case to UNESCO and got Borobudur Temple ( Java ) and many other sites in Indonesia declared as UNESCO World Heritage monuments .

                                                                               

                                                 ( Latest Photograph of Herawati Diah )

She is 98 plus but still active and alert. Even at this advanced age ,she remembers :

“ O kashmir is beautiful. I liked the hills ,  Gardens ,   Shikaras , Lake and simple people .”

( Autar Mota )

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