The Ocean of Churn: How the Indian Ocean Shaped Human History

by Sanjeev Sanyal

Amidst the chaos, a daredevil pilot from Odisha called Biju Patnaik flew secret missions into Java and rescued two key Indonesian rebel leaders from being captured (he would later go on to become the chief minister of Odisha).25 Prime Minister Nehru, meanwhile, organized the Asian Conference in New Delhi that pressured the UN Security Council to take action against the Dutch. It is remarkable that the first foreign policy action taken by newly independent India was to support Indonesia’s freedom movement. It was as if an ancient civilizational kinship had been suddenly rekindled. It was also appropriate that someone from Kalinga had played an important role in the sequence of events. It is said that Sukarno named his daughter Megawati, meaning ‘Goddess of the Clouds’ in Sanskrit, in honour of Biju Patnaik’s heroics in the sky.