Prez turns nostalgic in Hanoi over Vietnamese struggle

President Pranab Mukherjee on Monday could not but recall the old times in his home state of West Bengal when the Left used then Vietnamese struggle -against the US to unite their country in the 1960s and early ‘70s - to build its popularity.

A Congress leader then, Mukherjee remembered how the Left used the slogan in Bengali, “Hamar naam, Tumar naam, Vietnam! Vietnam!” to mobilise its cadres and increase their influence among youth, citing the independence struggle of Vietnam’s Communist hero Ho Chi Minh. Kolkata’s Harrington Street was renamed Ho Chi Minh Sarani, recalled the President.

On Monday morning, Mukherjee began his official trip with a visit to Ho Chi Minh’s residence, which is adjacent to the grandiose Presidential Palace in the heart of Hanoi.

As the President noted, for most of his tenure as President of North Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh lived in a modest stilt house behind the Presidential Palace in Hanoi. Painful memories of French rule were too fresh in the Vietnamese people’s minds. The French Governors General who lived in the Palace were among some of the most hated people in Vietnam, and “Uncle Ho” was not eager to follow in their footsteps.

A visit to the northwest of Vietnam in 1958 inspired Ho to commission a traditional stilt house for his personal use.

“When the Army architect submitted his plans to Ho, the leader requested that the toilet included in the design be removed, as it was too much of a departure from the traditional stilt house design. Two small rooms, no toilet - and what Uncle Ho wanted, Uncle Ho got,” explained a Vietnamese official.

Ho moved into the small house on May 17, 1958, and lived there until his death in 1969. To this day, the stilt house (known in Vietnamese as Nha San Bac Ho, “Uncle Ho’s Stilt House”) is viewed by VIP visitors to Hanoi.

Venu Rajamony, Press Secretary to the President, said there is an element of personal touch too to Mukherjee’s visit now. “This is the second time Mukherjee is visiting Vietnam. The last visit was in May 2011 in his capacity as Finance Minister of India when he went to attend the annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank.”

At that time the Vietnamese leadership had made a special gesture and the Communist Party Secretary had met him. “He was the only Finance Minister who attended the ADB General Meeting, who was received by the Party Secretary over and above the President and the Prime Minister with whom everyone interacted,” Rajamony said.

Mukherjee did not hide his feelings when he thanked the Vietnamese leaders for making this visit a memorable one.