Why is India's Dr Kotnis revered in China?

[punjabiboy]

Every time a Chinese leader visits India, he usually meets the family of an Indian doctor who died while treating wounded Chinese soldiers in the conflict with Japan in the 1940s.

Dwarkanath S Kotnis was sent to China in 1938 as part of an Indian medical mission after China was invaded by Japan. He served on the frontline and saved the lives of many Chinese soldiers. After four years in China, he fell ill and died at the age of 32.

In China, Dr Kotnis fell in love and married a Chinese nurse who worked with him. Quo Qinglan, who remained in China, died last year in the city of Dalian. They had a son, who was studying to become a doctor but he died when he was 24.

"The army has lost of a helping hand, the nation a friend. Let us always bear in mind his international spirit," China's former communist leader and revolutionary hero Mao Zedong reportedly said in a tribute.

Following a long tradition, Premier Li Keqiang will visit the doctor's family in Mumbai, where his 92-year-old sister will receive him. "We are overwhelmed that even after so many years, my brother is remembered and loved by the Chinese and that the premier is taking pains to meet us," Manorama Kotnis, who has met three Chinese leaders, told the Indian Express.

At home, Dr Kotnis appears to be a little-known figure these days, although he was immortalised in a 1946 film and is still mentioned in text books.

In China, he is revered as a hero to this day: stamps bearing his picture have been printed and there is a memorial to him in Hebei province. Dr Kotnis was chosen as one of the "top 10 foreigners" in a 2009 internet poll of China's foreign friends in a century. The doctor "continues to be revered by the Chinese people," says China Daily.


Dr Kotnis's sister, Manorama, has visited China
What accounts for Dr Kotnis's popularity in China and why have the country's leaders felt the need to visit his family since 1950?

China experts like Srikanth Kondapalli say a visit to the Kotnis family by Chinese leaders is loaded with symbolism of a shared history of anti-imperial and colonial struggles long before border disputes led to a full-blown war in 1962 and soured ties between the two countries.

"By visiting the family, they are harking back to the solidarity between the two countries when both India and China were fighting colonialism and imperialism," says Prof Kondapalli.

In 1924, India's first Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore visited China and spoke about his admiration for "its world of beauty", "wisdom" and "touch of the human". He spoke about the need for "eternally revealing a joyous relationship unforeseen" between the two countries.

In 1940 - seven years before India's independence and nine years before the Chinese revolution - Mao wrote to the man who would become independent India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and said that "our emancipation, the emancipation of the Indian people and the Chinese, will be the signal of the emancipation of all down-trodden and oppressed".

And in 1942, Mahatma Gandhi wrote to late Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek saying that he had "always felt drawn towards you in your fight for freedom, and that contact and our conversation brought China and her problems still nearer to me".

Prof Kondapalli says when Chinese leaders pay homage to Dr Kotnis they evoke the bonhomie of the high noon of Sino-Indian relations.

The world has changed since then.

China and Japan are two of the world's three biggest economies, and India does business with both. Japan's relations with China are repeatedly strained over a deadlocked territorial dispute and historical grievances. India's relations with China come under strain over the ill-defined border they share.

Through all this the memory of Dr Kotnis endures.
BBC News - Why is India's Dr Kotnis revered in China?

 

[third eye]

Good always endures.

No one forgets good deeds.

 

[Koovie]

Interesting... never heard about him.

 

[Shardul.....the lion]

There is even a Indian film based on his life...

 

[PANTHERA TIGRIS]

similar story,

so my father met a doctor long back who came from IRAQ ( the first gulf war ) , showing his gold watch with saddam hussain's background in dial . the guy had been returning to INDIA after rendering his services in war torn IRAQ , after long stay even while war treating injured . he was stopped at check point , and nearby a battle was going on . he was stopped and because he was INDIAN , he was brought to saddam hussain ,who somehow was directing ops there, who was impressed that the fellow was working for so long even belonging to other nation , inspite of such grave dangers in IRAQ , and he gave him his watch praising him and in general indians for having the courage of such high level ! and hoping to see good relations between INDIA and IRAQ (what he said sentimentally)

that is why i was a bit sympathetic to saddam when he was hanged !

 

[Ayush]

never heard about him..

 

[J-30]

Dr Kotnis is not a well known name now but he was in older times, China always keep their friends close to their heart

 

[Dandpatta]

Same here in India. Mostly the yesterday's generation know more about him than the young generation of India. There is also a misconception about him (in INdia) that he and his wife tended to wounded Chinese soldiers in the Sino-Indian war and therefore young minds have a name tag for him which sadly is ... "traitor". Little do they know that Kotnis China background went all the way back to the Sino-Japanese war (of the 2nd WW episode)

 

[anant_s]

Dr Kotnis

Dwarkanath Shantaram Kotnis (October 10, 1910 in Solapur, Maharashtra, India – December 9, 1942, in China; Chinese: 柯棣华; pinyin: Kē Dìhuá; Devanagari: द्वारकानाथ शांताराम कोटणी&#2360 was one of five Indian physicians dispatched to China to provide medical assistance during the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1938. Besides being known for his dedication and perseverance, he has also been regarded as an example for Sino-Indian friendship and collaboration.

Along with the Canadian Dr. Norman Bethune, he continues to be revered by the Chinese people. In April 2005, both their graves were covered completely in flowers donated by the Chinese people during the Qingming Festival, a day used by the Chinese to commemorate their ancestors.


In 1937, after the Japanese invasion of China, the communist General Zhu De requested Jawaharlal Nehru to send Indian physicians to China. Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, the President of the Indian National Congress, made arrangements to send a team of volunteer doctors and an ambulance by collecting a fund of Rs 22,000 on the All-Indian China Day and China Fund days on July 7–9. He had made an appeal to the people through a press statement on June 30, 1938. In Modern Review S.C. Bose wrote an article on Japan's role in the Far East and denounced the assault on China. The key element of this mission was it was from a nation itself struggling for freedom, to another nation also struggling for its freedom. The mission was reinforced with Nehru's visit to China in 1939.

A medical team of five doctors (Drs. M. Atal, M. Cholkar, D. Kotnis, B.K. Basu and D. Mukerji) was dispatched as the Indian Medical Mission Team in September 1938. All, except Dr. Kotnis, returned to India safely.
Dr. Kotnis’ photo in the Tang County museum

Dr. Kotnis, who was 28 at arrival, stayed in China for almost 5 years working in mobile clinics to treat wounded soldiers. Dr. Kotnis first arrived in China at the port of Hankou, Wuhan. He was sent to Yan'an, and was eventually to be posted as director of the Dr. Bethune International Peace Hospital there.

In 1939, Kotnis finally joined the Eighth Route Army (led by Mao Zedong) at the Jin-Cha-Ji border near the Wutai Mountain Area, after his efforts all across the northern China region. The hardships of suppressed military life, stresses that were especially relevant to the front-line doctors who often had to work over 72 hours at a stretch, finally began to tell on him. He died of epilepsy on December 9, 1942 at age 32, and was buried in the Heroes Courtyard, Nanquan Village. It is rumoured that he joined the Communist Party of China just before his death.

During his mission he was also a lecturer at the Dr. Bethune Hygiene School of the Jinchaji Military Command, and the first president of the Dr. Bethune International Peace Hospital, Yanan.

Both China (1982 and 1992) and India (1993) have honored him with stamps.

The Chinese government continues to honour his relatives in India during every high-level official trip. His relatives (primarily sisters) were visited in Mumbai by:

* the then Premier Zhou En-lai in 1950
* the then President Jiang Zemin visited India in 1996, he sent flowers to the Kotnis family.
* the then Premier Li Peng in 2001
* the then Premier Zhu Rongji in 2002
* Present President Hu Jintao in 2006[6]
* Premier Li Keqiang in 2013[7]

Dwarkanath Kotnis is commemorated together with Dr. Bethune, and Scottish missionary and athlete, Eric Liddell in the Martyrs' Memorial Park (Lieshi Lingyuan) in Shijiazhuang, Hebei province, China. The entire south side of the memorial is dedicated to Dr. Kotnis, where there is a great statue in his honour. A small museum there contains a handbook of vocabulary that Kotnis wrote on his passage from India to China, some of the instruments that the surgeons were forced to use in their medical fight for life, and various photos of the doctors, some with the Communist Party of China's most influential figures, including Mao.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarkanath_Kotnis


Dr Kotnis married in China and his wife passed away some years back

Indian Doctor's Selfless Service Remembered

No single Indian has been more revered by ordinary Chinese than a doctor from a middle class family in northern India.

On the day when the Chinese pay respect to their ancestors, the grave of this doctor on the plains of North China is covered with flowers donated by the local Chinese.

Early last week, as honored guests, the doctor's extended family comprising 11 members of three generations, arrived in Beijing to join the national commemoration of the 60th anniversary of victory in the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1937-45).

On September 4, the family stood before his grave in North China Martyrs' Memorial Cemetery, Hebei Province. The family also toured Shijiazhuang early this week and visited the Dr Bethune International Peace Hospital, where Kotnis once served as its director.

In exclusive interviews with China Daily in Beijing and Shanghai, the family members shared their memories of the doctor, not only as a hero but also as a loved brother, husband and an adventurous young man.

Dr Dwarkanath Kotnis was born to a doctors' family in Sholapur, Maharashtra in 1910. He had two brothers and five sisters. He studied medicine at the medical college of the University of Bombay in the early 1930s.

"He was very young when he left home. He had just graduated from medical school and was doing his post-graduation internship," recalled his sister Manorama Kotnis.

"He wanted to travel around the world and to practice medicine at different places. His first stop was Viet Nam, and then further away, Singapore and Brunei. Finally he went to Hong Kong," she said.

From every place he stayed the young doctor wrote home letters.

"He sounded very happy in the letters. People used to come to thank him for his help. He was telling the good part," said the sister.

In 1937, after the breakout of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, the young doctor wrote a letter home and mentioned a team of physicians being sent by the Indian Government to China. He asked his family what they thought about him joining it.

"Most members of the family knew little about China at that time. We only knew that people used to come and sell Chinese silk," said the sister.

She and Vatsala Kotnis, the youngest sister, said they were in their teen years at the time and thought what he was going to do was great.

"But mother was very sad because he was going that far and China was in a war situation," she added.

The son promised his mother in a second letter that he would be away for just one year, and his father persuaded her to "let him go and help people," Manorama quoted their father as saying.

In 1938, a medical team of five doctors (M. Atal, M. Cholkar, Kotnis, B.K. Basu and D. Mukerji) was dispatched as the Indian Medical Mission Team.

All, except Dr Kotnis, returned to India safely.

Dr Kotnis stayed on in China working in mobile clinics to treat wounded soldiers. He was eventually appointed as director of the Dr Bethune International Peace Hospital built by the Eighth Route Army, led by the Communist Party of China on the plains of North China.

"Every place he went in China, he described it in detail in his letters home. The whole family found them to be great fun because what he described was so different from our life," said Vatsala Kotnis.

But for one-and-a-half years before his death in 1942, the family received no letters from the young man.

"We were very stressed, and wrote to both the Indian and the Chinese governments for their help to find him. And all of a sudden this letter came to inform us of his death," said Manorama Kotnis.

The letter from Zhou Enlai and Commander Zhu De explained how he died of a sudden seizure and what he had done for thousands of wounded soldiers.

Kotnis' Chinese wife

To the family's relief, the doctor spent his last years happy in his work, his wife Guo Qinglan told them after the war.

His job as a battlefront doctor was stressful especially in Yan'an, where there was always an acute shortage of medicines.

In one long-drawn out battle against Japanese troops in 1940, Kotnis did operations for 72 hours non-stop, without any sleep. He treated more than 800 wounded soldiers during the battle, according to his widow Guo, a nurse who joined Kotnis' hospital.

Guo first met Kotnis at the inauguration of Dr Norman Bethune's tomb and was immediately attracted to the Indian doctor. Kotnis could speak Chinese and even knew how to write Chinese characters. Guo was amazed.

It spurred her to interact more with him. Guo's family and educational background also certainly helped the development of a romantic relationship, even in the harsh climate of war.

Born to a Christian family in North China's Shanxi Province, she had an open-minded mother, "who did not force me to bind my feet as other mothers did to their daughters in their home town," Guo recalled.

And her mother sent her to a church-sponsored school first, and later to a nursing school. In both places, the teachers were American missionaries.

"He was vivacious, and liked singing. Sometimes I couldn't stop laughing when he told his jokes," said Guo, recalling Kotnis with a smile.

In December 1941, Guo and Dr Kotnis were married.

The birth of their son Yinhua (meaning India and China) brought a lot of joy to the couple. But only three months after Yinhua's birth, epilepsy struck Dr Kotnis. It had struck once earlier, mildly, but this time it proved fatal for the young doctor. Guo was left alone with her baby son.

The doctor became famous in his hometown after his death with the publication of his best-selling biography "One Who Did Not Come Back" in 1945 and the screening of the 1946 Bollywood movie "Dr Kotnis Ki Amar Kahani."

The two families from India and China also met after the war.

Guo, who continued her medical career until her retirement several years ago, has been to Kotnis' hometown in India five times and retains a good relationship with the Kotnis family.

Guo's most memorable trip was in 1958 when she took the 16-year old Yinhua to India.

Dr Kotnis' mother hugged them as soon as they entered her home. His brothers and sisters broke down and wept. Guo and Yinhua jointly planted a tree in memory of the doctor before their departure.

"His two sisters never stop corresponding with me in English," said Guo, adding that second and third generations of the Kotnis family have visited China several times in the past couple of decades.

Vatsala studied acupuncture at the Bethune hospital in Shijiazhuang in the early 1980s and started an acupuncture clinic in India. At least four members of the Konis family are medical workers in India.

Yinhua, who was to become a doctor, died at the age of 24 owing to medical malpractice.

Today, Dwarkanath Kotnis is commemorated together with the Canadian Dr Bethune in the Martyrs' Memorial Park in Shijiazhuang. The entire south side of the memorial is dedicated to Dr Kotnis.

A small museum there has a handbook that contains vocabulary words that Kotnis wrote on his passage from India to China, some of the instruments that the surgeons used at that time and many photographs of doctors, some with the Communist Party of China's most influential figures, including Mao Zedong.

China also made a movie on Dr Kotnis in 1982, called "Dr DS Kotnis."

"Now that it is more than six decades since he died, we really appreciate how the government and the people are giving him so much respect after so many years," said Manorama Kotnis.

(China Daily September 10, 2005)

http://www1.china.org.cn/english/culture/141496.htm

There is even a Indian film based on his life...

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Next time around when we discuss about China's new air base that will be used against India or India's new ballistic missile that can reach Beijing, please do spare a thought about this noble soul who won heart of a nation by being their greatest friend in hour of its need.

 

[anant_s]

never heard about him..

he is one of the most revered foreign national in China.

Same here in India. Mostly the yesterday's generation know more about him than the young generation of India. There is also a misconception about him (in INdia) that he and his wife tended to wounded Chinese soldiers in the Sino-Indian war and therefore young minds have a name tag for him which sadly is ... "traitor". Little do they know that Kotnis China background went all the way back to the Sino-Japanese war (of the 2nd WW episode)

Its really sad, he was a doctor and treated people without bothering about their nationality. He is a true Hero not only to Chinese but to us as well.