Nehru-the nation builder

The story of India’s independence is a tale filled with hope and aspiration on one hand, tragedy and despair on the other. If one corner of the country was celebrating its impending tryst with destiny, the other was engulfed in flames of hatred and revenge. The more I read about the era, the more I marvel at the miracle of modern India. India has come a long way in the last 60 years. This does not mean that we drown ourselves in the din of self-congratulation and forget the immense challenges that our country faces. No, what it means is that we realize the odds against which our present state has survived and for once feel proud at the achievement.  And what an achievement it is. India was lucky that it had politicians of the highest order governing it for a protracted period of time after independence. The challenge of practicing secularism in a country recently divided on religion, ensuring democracy to a society 90% of whose people were illiterate, equality to a community deeply divided on caste lines and economic prosperity to a country ravaged by centuries of exploitation seems incomprehensible today. The fact that India predicated the current European model of union by almost 50 years is no mean achievement. Only an idealist and statesman could have had the courage and fortitude to lead India in its exploited, disunited and wounded state and it was Nehru who provided that leadership at the time of independence.

What ever be Nehru’s mistakes, one thing can not be denied - that he was a true patriot. His views and actions are in many ways responsible for the shape of modern India. An eager student of world history and politics, democracy was something that he staunchly believed in. During his lifetime, Nehru made sure that Congress stayed true to its democratic ideal by insisting on performance and merit over birth and debate over demonstration. India could not have survived or be united into the present state if not for the idealism of Nehru and tireless work of Sardar Patel. Nehru’s beliefs on socialism were derived from his immense understanding of the suffering of people as well as the influence of Gandhiji. Today, the empirical evidence has exposed the fallaciousness and deficiencies of the philosophy but at the time capitalism and socialism were still slugging it out in the battle for supremacy. Nehru’s scorn for capitalism was in part a reaction to two hundred years of imperialism, which he thought to be a direct product of man’s unbridled greed and hunger. For him capitalism was the personification for all that India had been fighting on for so long.  He was greatly impressed by what Soviet Union was able to achieve in a relatively short period of communism. He thus believed that central planning and control of the means of production was the best strategy to eliminate widespread inequality, poverty and hunger.

But even more than the internal affairs, Nehru’s greatest passion was India’s foreign affairs. He was committed to restoring India to what he felt was its rightful place among the comity of nations in the world. He has been credited with forming the elite Indian Foreign Service from among the erstwhile Indian Civil Service. Widely traveled and well read, he was thoroughly versed in the various pulls and pressures of the period. It was tumultuous time to say the least, with cold war brewing and two separate blocks squabbling with each other all over the world. Nehru, prime minister of newly independent India, was eager to espouse the Gandhian principles of peace and non-violence internationally.  He denounced the politics of alignment and declared his intention of staying non-aligned by working with the newly independent and still colonized countries in Asia and Africa. In spite of repeated efforts of Patel and other people in Congress to align with the west (who being democratic were seen as natural allies) Nehru, flush with idealism, still continued on the path of non- alignment. His deep suspicion and derision for capitalism (which he associated with colonialism), made him fundamentally averse to the idea of aligning with the west. Though in theory, India was non-aligned but in practice it was closer to the communist countries of Soviet Union and China in those early years. The mutual suspicion between India and United States was to sour relations between the largest and the richest democracy for decades to come.

The biggest setback for Nehru was definitely China. Despite repeated warnings from Patel on the expansionist ambitions of China, he kept on considering China as a friend and rejected any evidence to the contrary. “India after Gandhi” describes in detail on how Mao was described as having a “peaceful, poetic and serene” persona by his envoy in Beijing, a gross misjudgment on the character of one of the most ruthless dictator of our times. He ignored most counsels to make the military stronger and did not think that China’s conquest of Tibet presented any danger for Indian sovereignty.  Perhaps he was blind sighted by similarity in the two country’s colonial history. The defeat of India resulting from China’s invasion in 1962 was the last straw that eventually broke his idealism. He knew that he had let India down and the outcome was a direct result of his own prior decisions.  After the conflict, he had to ask the US and UK for arms, thus dealing a big blow to his non-aligned policy. In one blow, his lifelong philosophy had come to a naught. After 15 years of independence the India that emerged was poor, divided country that after suffering centuries of humiliations at the hands of Muslim invaders and Christian colonialists had now been humbled by China as well. Nehru knew that for all his statesmanship history would forever find him wanting for his inability to foster peace in Kashmir and his handling of dispute with China.

And hence, it is not surprising that he died a broken man. He could never see the fruits of his travails in this lifetime. He died without knowing if his decisions condemned India to eternal strife or will his idealism and backing for secularism, democracy, equality and socialism indeed pay dividends in future. There have been many obituaries written on India’s demise at various points of its history, if India has proved the doomsayers wrong, some credit is definitely due to the tireless efforts of patriots like Nehru.

Freedom at Midnight

I recently read Freedom at Midnight by Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins. It describes in great detail the events leading up to the Partition of India and the subsequent bloodshed due to communal riots. It also gives a fairly extensive account of Gandhiji’s assassination as also his final views and activities during partition. An extremely well written book with a thrilling narrative, Freedom at Midnight surprises you with its level of detail and research. On reading the book, what struck me most was how a small break from the chain of events could have had a big impact on the way subsequent events were played out. The book relies primarily on personal reflections from Lord Mountbatten, the last viceroy of India, and it is evident how in hindsight he wished that some things could have been done differently.

That led me to think. At any given instance, people occupying the most important positions in the society, country or world are grappling with decisions that could have an impact not only on the present generation but also beyond. The costs of partition and the riots that followed are still being felt in the present day sub-continent.  Could Nehru have known at the time what the impending partition meant for the masses? Or did he become too engrossed in the day-to-day administrative work to actually understand the consequences of his decision? Did he spend the rest of his days guilt ridden- weighed in by the impact of his decision? How did Radcliffe spend his life – after presiding over the bloodiest partition in the history of mankind? Did freedom only serve the purpose of few classes of politicians and elites? What did an ordinary Punjabi think on being told to leave his/her belongings and travel thousands of miles across a riot-hit area because he is now ‘free’?  Were the identity of people partitioned defined by being a Sikh and Muslim or was he a Punjabi and Bengali first?  I know there are no easy answers to any of these questions. But one thing is certain; any action or decision taken by a leader is saved forever for posterity. He might escape the judgment of his people but in the end, his actions would have to stand the test of history. The legacy that he leaves– good or bad is entirely in his own hands.