The Rediscovery Of Nehru

Nehru was born a Muslim, in a brothel in Allahabad, was an evil womanizer with all the bad personal habits who usurped the prime ministership from Sardar Patel. He foisted his progeny over the country and started a political dynasty. Everything that is wrong with India today is due to Nehru and he did not do anything right in his long stint as the Prime Minister. In the social media world of alternative facts, this is the popular history being propagated about Nehru.

Earlier, these canards about Nehru were spread among the Right-wingers through word-of-mouth but information technology has also acted as a great distorter in the recent years. Their efforts have been considerably bolstered since May 2014 because of a Prime Minister who is not known to believe in the sanctity of truth when it comes to scoring cheap political points. Modi’s attacks on Nehru, not the least from the floor of the Parliament, have been undignified and completely false.

This should have completely buried Nehru and his muddied his reputation beyond redemption. But surprisingly, nearly fifty-four years after he passed away, these trenchant attacks have led to a sort of rediscovery of Nehru in recent times. And this rediscovery and defence of Nehru, where every falsehood is fact-checked and every attack repulsed, is being led by a range of young scholars like Madhav Khosla. Nehru is being resurrected, slowly but surely, in the public imagination.

The biggest political charge by the Bhakts against Nehru is of starting a political dynasty. Even a quick reading of independent India’s history will show that after Nehru suffered a stroke at Cuttack in 1963, he brought Lal Bahadur Shastri into government with a view to smoothly succeed him. The Congress party made his daughter Indira Gandhi the Information and Broadcasting Minister, who confessed to her friends during that stint about moving to Europe for the education of her two sons. But Shastri suddenly passed away in Tashkent in 1966, and looking for a puppet, the Congress Syndicate chose Indira Gandhi who defeated Morarji Desai in a close contest for the leadership of the parliamentary party. If this was how Nehru planned and orchestrated the succession plan, then Nehru was as bad at planning as Modi is at governance.

The more sophisticated criticism of Nehru is for making poor economic choices by embracing Socialism, and by adopting Non-Alignment in foreign policy. Anyone who has read Nehru’s letters to the chief ministers would know that he wasn’t militant about any economic policy, he perceived it as a means to an end. That is why India had a mixed economy. The same is true of Non-Alignment, it wasn’t a dogma imposed by Nehru. It was a proactive strategy which allowed India to punch well above its weight in international relations.

The problems start when Nehru is seen through the prism of Indira Gandhi, whether it be on socialism, non-alignment or democratic freedoms. Eventually, the sins of the daughter and grandson were made to visit on Nehru. This gained a lot of traction in the period after the Cold War ended and India embraced economic reforms. But nearly three decades later, people are able to see that Nehru was being assessed harshly. He is thus again being hailed and embraced, his importance to India recognized, much to the chagrin of the Right-Wingers.

“He has all the makings of a dictator in him – vast popularity, a strong will directed to a well-defined purpose, energy, pride, organisational capacity, ability, hardness, and for all his love of the crowds, an intolerance of others and a certain contempt of the weak and the inefficient…From the far North to Cape Comorian he has gone like some triumphant Caesar, leaving a trail of glory and legend behind him… His conceit is already formidable. He must be checked. We want no Caesars,” these words were written about Nehru by a writer under the pseudonym of Chankaya in the 1930s. It was later revealed that the author was none other than Nehru himself, and displayed his high degree of self-awareness and emotional intelligence.

Would Modi ever do the same? We know the answer, and we should be thankful for it. For if Modi was that smart, he would not have resurrected and revived Nehru the way he has done in the past four years. Let the rediscovery of Nehru continue and gain further momentum. India deserves it.

Toba Tek Sen was born in Kerala, schooled in Bengal and lived in Dubai. While continuing to slave for daily wages, he dreams of availing bank loans like Nirav Modi and sipping beer like Vijay Mallya.