He was indeed a crusader for peace abroad and at home. Above all, he could not tolerate to see any one suffer from hunger. Kashmir, his ancestor's home, had always been an object of special love for him. He was enchanted by the beauty of its snow-capped mountains and smiling valleys. But more than the enchanting beauty of the place, or its strategic importance, Jawaharlal looked upon it as a challenge to his dearly held ideals and values. The backwardness and dreadful poverty of its people concerned him. The one object of the Government on which he managed was, he said, 'to ensure the freedom and the progress of the people there'. Jawaharlal looked upon Kashmir as a success of secularism. Till he breathed his last, on May 27, 1964, he worked interminably for his ideals, for bettering the lot of the common man, for bringing about an incontrovertible unity in India and for preserving peace in the world.
Jawaharlal has indeed made an ineffaceable imprint on history. But this is not how he wanted to be remembered by his countrymen. To quote from his will, he only wanted the people to remember him as one who ' with all his mind and heart, loved India and the Indian people and they in their turn were indulgent to him and gave him of their love most plentifully and profligately.
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