Nehru asked Indians to give jewellery to fund the 1962 war – and some of it is still in RBI
On September 8, 1962, Chinese troops attempted an incursion into Indian territory by surrounding Dhola post. In what would be the first major incident leading up to the war, 60 people from the People’s Liberation Army crossed the Line of Actual Control and began occupying the posts dominated by Indian territory. The next day on September 9, an operation code named “leghorn” was launched by India to evict Chinese troops “by force if necessary”.
Two months later, the Chinese military attacked India with full force in what would become the 1962 war, where a bumbling leadership in New Delhi performed disastrously. From the region of Chushul in Ladakh to Walong in the north-eastern part of India, Chinese troops dominated the war from all sides. Woefully unprepared and even underfunded, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru turned to his countrymen for support.
Propaganda ads like the one above were broadcast to help foster a sense of solidarity with the troops fighting in the Himalayas, calling on the women of India to give their jewellery to the cause. Nehru also asked people to donate money and woolens.
According to Rediff, in Rajasthan, close to 250 families from Village Bardhana Khurd, decided to send one son from each family into the army. It is estimated that more than $220 million were collected in cash for the Defence of India Fund. The prime minister's daughter Indira Gandhi herself donated gold to the effort.
The films division propaganda ad shown above in fact even promised victory if gold was donated to the effort – a guarantee that would turn out to be completely misguided, despite the huge amounts of cash and jewelry that ended up being donated. And it was never clear exactly how useful the donation effort ended up being, though the cash alleviated major budgetary concerns. The solidarity efforts ended up having other effects too: A secession movement in Tamil Nadu was quickly quelled, trade unions cancelled all strikes and the National Integration Council said that the war had brought India together so well that it could disband itself.
India lost the 1962 war, with the conflict actually ending thanks to a unilateral withdrawal by Beijing. The full analysis of what went wrong however has yet to be made public. And there's some other interesting fallout to the massive donation drive that came during the war: According to Observer Research Foundation Distinguished Fellow Manoj Joshi, many gold ornaments and jewellery donated then to Defence of India Fund still lie forgotten in the vaults of the Reserve Bank of India today.