Polish Youth Delegation Ends Jamsaheb Memorial Exchange in India

A group of young Poles spent a week retracing a wartime debt their country still remembers. The second edition of the Jamsaheb Memorial Youth Exchange Programme ran from 7 to 14 October 2026, and a 19-member Polish youth delegation travelled through Gujarat, Maharashtra and New Delhi before it ended.

Where the programme came from

The exchange was announced by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi during his State visit to Poland in August 2024. It sits inside the Five-Year Action Plan (2024-2028) drawn up for the India-Poland Strategic Partnership, and it provides for Polish young people to come to India every year to see the country's history, culture, institutions and present-day development.

The Good Maharaja

The centrepiece of the visit was the Balachadi Polish Children's Camp Memorial at Jamnagar in Gujarat. It marks what Maharaja Jam Saheb Digvijaysinhji Ranjitsinhji Jadeja did during the Second World War, when he gave shelter, schooling and medical care to Polish children uprooted by the fighting. Poland remembers him as Dobry Maharaja, the Good Maharaja, and the name has outlasted the generation that was rescued. The delegation afterwards went to the Valivade Polish Refugee Camp Memorial at Kolhapur in Maharashtra, which marks the shelter given to thousands of Polish refugees during and after the war.

Through India

Beyond the two memorials the group saw Dandi Kutir in Gandhinagar and Kirti Mandir in Porbandar, the birthplace of Mahatma Gandhi. The itinerary also took in institutions that show India's scientific, economic and cultural progress. In New Delhi the Union Minister for Youth Affairs and Sports, Dr Mansukh Mandaviya, hosted the delegation over dinner and spoke with them about how India approaches youth development and participation. The visitors also called on External Affairs Minister Dr S. Jaishankar and discussed India-Poland relations and the place of youth exchanges in them.

Why it matters

Youth diplomacy is slower than a trade deal and harder to measure, but it works on the generation that will run the relationship next. By tying a modern exchange to Balachadi and Valivade, the programme keeps a humanitarian chapter alive rather than leaving it to historians, and gives the India-Poland partnership a story its young people can carry. The delegates described the week as an enriching experience and thanked their hosts for the welcome.