Today is the the 108th birth anniversary of Biju Patnaik.

Biju (Bijayananda) Patnaik (1916 – 1997) is the only Bharatiya person on whose death, his body was wrapped in the national flags of three countries – Bharat, Russia and Indonesia.

Here are the inspirational stories about why this was so.

Indonesia

When WW2 had ended and Indonesia had declared itself independent from the Dutch, the Dutch tried to militarily keep control of it and laid siege to Indonesia.

President Sukarno asked Sjahrir, the former prime minister of Indonesia, to leave Indonesia attend the first Inter-Asia Conference, and to galvanise international public opinion against the Dutch. Sjahrir was unable to leave as the Dutch still controlled the Indonesian sea and air routes and had blockaded Indonesia.

Biju Patnaik, an expert pilot flew into Java, with his wife, in a Dakota airplane under the guise of a holiday and brought Sultan Sjahrir out in secret (hidden in a secret compartment specially built into his plane) so he could attend the conference and speak about what the Dutch were doing to Indonesia.

For this act of bravery, Patnaik was given honorary citizenship in Indonesia and awarded the ‘Bhoomi Putra’, the highest Indonesian award.

Later, when Indonesian President Sukarno & his wife were blessed with a daughter, they asked Biju Patnaik & his wife to name her and they named her Meghawati. Meghawati Sukarnoputri. She went on to become Indonesia’s president in the future.

Russia

Biju Patnaik was a pilot & when the Soviet Union was in trouble during World War II. He was one of the key members of the Russian air raid squadron, flying a fighter aircraft Dakota, bombing Hitler’s armies. He was granted honorary citizenship of the Soviet Union.

Bharat

While his contributions to his homeland were multiple and varied across defence, politics, governance and administration, here’s one that stood out for me.

This was during the peak partition battle over Kashmir. When the Pakistanis attacked Kashmir, it was Biju Patnaik who made several trips a day from Delhi to Srinagar on 27th Oct 1947 by flying a plane himself to transport soldiers to Srinagar. This was needed as there was a severe shortage of military pilots on the Indian side as most of them had chosen Pakistan over India.

After the death of Biju Patnaik, seven days of state mourning was observed in Indonesia and one day state mourning was observed in Russia and all flags were lowered.

Indian leaders have done some amazing extraordinary things in their lives and we should know more about them, teach our kids about them so that they may be inspired to achieve greatness as well… 🙂🙏🏻

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