Jaishankar’s visit to the memorials came a day after he held wide-ranging talks with Polish Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski on Friday, covering trade and investment, defence, space, artificial intelligence, semiconductors, energy and supply-chain resilience.
Jaishankar is on a two-nation visit to Ukraine and Poland from September 3-5. He visited Kyiv on Thursday, where he held talks with top Ukrainian leadership.
At the memorial of Maharaja Digvijaysinhji Ranjitsinhji Jadeja of Nawanagar, Jaishankar recalled the words with which the Indian ruler welcomed Polish children who had fled the devastation of the war: “I am Bapu, the father of all Nawanagaris, including yourselves.”
In a post on X, Jaishankar on Saturday said Jadeja was “fondly remembered for looking after 1,000 Polish children during World War II” and that his “warmth & compassion remain an abiding bridge” between India and Poland.
Jadeja, the ruler of the erstwhile princely state of Nawanagar, now part of Gujarat’s Jamnagar, provided shelter and care to the children at a settlement in Balachadi. The children were provided accommodation, food, education and medical care, and came to remember him as their “Bapu”, or father.