• Capt. Praveen Davar

The 57th death anniversary of Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister and ‘Architect of Modern India’, falls on May 27, 1964. Possessing a philosophical bent of mind and a brilliant intellect, he was a man of lofty idealism endowed with magnificent vision of human society. The impact of his ideology and vision was seen in every aspect of our national life – political, economic, social, science and technology and foreign relations. His magnetic and popular personality made the acceptance of his ideas by the majority of Indian people possible. As Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, who was the Rashtrapati when Pt. Nehru died, said in a broadcast to the nation:

“Jawaharlal Nehru was one of the greatest figures of our generation, an outstanding statesman whose services to the cause of human freedom are unforgettable. As a fighter for freedom, he was illustrious, as a maker of modern India his services were unparalleled. His life and work have had a profound influence on our mental make-up, social structure and intellectual development.” Mahatma Gandhi had once famously commented in ‘Young India’ on a remark from Tagore: “I want the cultures of all lands to blow in my house, as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet, by any one of them.’ Like Gandhi and Tagore, Nehru was not swept off his feet either by India of the past or by the Europe or America of his time. He was one of the few world figures who well understood the western intellectual tradition, culture and history as much as India’s of which he has written extensively in the ‘Discovery of India’: ‘The old epics of India, the Ramayana and Mahabharata… were widely known among the people and every incident and story and moral in them were engraved on the popular mind and gave a richness and content to it… I do not know of any books, anywhere which have exercised such a continuous and pervasive influence on the mass mind as these too. Dating back to a remote antiquity, they are still a living force in the life of the Indian people.’

Regarding the ‘Bhagavad Gita’ he writes: ‘The message of the Gita in not sectarian or addressed to any particular school of thought. It is universal in its approach for everyone: “All paths lead to Me,” it says. It is because of this universality that it has found favour with all clans and thoughts. But it is the rational approach of the ‘Upanishad’ that impresses Nehru the most: ‘I like the vigour of the thought, the questioning, the rationalistic background--- the domination characteristic of the Upanishad is the dependence on truth: “Truth wisely ever, not falsehood. With truth is paved the road to the Divine.” As in his Autobiography, Nehru is reminiscent of his childhood: ‘Among the earliest memories of my childhood are the stories from these epics told to me by my mother or the older ladies of the house, just as a child in Europe or America might listen to fairy tales or stories of adventure--- and then I used to be taken every year to the popular open-air performance where the Ramayana story would be enacted and vast crowds came to see it.’

Even though we must have pride in our past, Nehru wanted us to realize that the world progresses and advances in knowledge and culture even though there are ‘occasional lapses and retrogression.’ He reminds us of the virtue of toleration in Hinduism. Jawaharlal Nehru spent over nine years in British jails during which he wrote not only his three world renowned books – Glimpses of World History, An Autobiography and The Discovery of India – but also many letters, notes and articles. In one such article (August 1934) he questions the wisdom of launching the Shuddhi (purification movement by the Hindu Mahasabha): ‘We must… welcome the movement to broaden the basis of Hinduism and to rid it of its abuses. But I have noted with sorrow that the motive force behind it is not so much the good of Hindusim as the distrust and fear of the Musalmans—no great movement of reform ever flourished if it was based on fear and fed on hatred. Logically a movement of this kind can end in only one way. Fear and distrust will multiply and will call out their sister qualities in the other community. Gradually India will be converted into armed camps and every one’s hand will be raised against his brother. That can end only in a terrible catastrophe. That is a prospect which cannot be tolerated and which we must avoid at all costs.’ India having been partitioned on the basis of religion, which he and many stalwarts of freedom struggle tried their utmost to prevent, Nehru was alive to the dangers of communal politics and an exclusive nationalism based on religion. He, therefore, strove to build an India in which all individuals and communities live as equal citizens enjoying equal rights and privileges.A week before Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated, Pt. Nehru addressed the students of Aligarh Muslim University on January, 24 1948. In his convocation address, he said that ‘he was proud of our inheritance and our ancestors who gave an intellectual and cultural pre-eminence to India’ and added ‘You are Muslim and I am a Hindu. We may adhere to different religious faiths or even to none; but that does not take away from the cultural inheritance that is yours as well as mine.’ The oft quoted quote of Nehru on nationalism was also part of this speech: ‘India will be a land as in the past, of many faiths, equally honoured and respected, but of one national outlook, not, I hope, a narrow nationalism living in its own shell, but rather the tolerant creative nationalism which, believing in itself and the genius of its people, takes full part in the establishment of an international order.’

Soon after independence, Pt. Nehru remarked that ‘Hindu communalism was the Indian version of fascism’ and there are similarities with the organization and methods of RSS. Prof. Donald Eugene Smith in his masterpiece, ‘India as a Secular State’ writes: ‘The leader principle, the stress on militarism, the doctrine of racial-culture superiority, ultra-nationalism infused with religious idealism, the use of symbols of past greatness, the emphasis on nation-concept- all of these features of the RSS are highly reminiscent of fascist movement in Europe. Fascism, however, is associated with a concept of state-worship; the state as the all-absorbing reality in which the individual loses himself and in so doing, finds ultimate meaning.’

Dr. BR Ambedkar had said: ‘If Hindu Raj becomes a fact, it will no doubt, be the greatest calamity for this country.’ Speaking at a public meeting in Delhi on September 6, 1951, Prime Minister Nehru ridiculed the concept of Hindu Rashtra. ‘It may sound very nice to some people to hear it said that we will create a Hindu Rashtra, etc. I cannot understand what it means. Hindus are in a majority in this country and whatever they wish will be done. But the moment you talk of a ‘Hindu Rashtra’ you speak in language which no other country except one can comprehend and that country is Pakistan because they are familiar with this concept. They can immediately justify their creation of an Islamic nation by pointing out to the world that we are doing something similar. ‘Hindu Rashtra’ can only mean one thing and that is you leave the modern way and get into a narrow, old-fashioned way of thinking, and fragment India into pieces. Those who are not Hindus will be reduced in status. You may say patronizingly that you will look after the Muslims or Christians or others, as in Pakistan they say that they will look after the Hindus. Do you think any race or individual will accept for long the claim that they are looked after while we sit high above them? Is this what your Constitution guarantees? We have proclaimed to the world that every citizen of this country has equal rights whatever religion or caste or creed he may belong to and everyone is an equal shareholder in India’s freedom. You believe in this, then what these communal organizations say is wrong, fundamentally wrong, useless and harmful and ought to be suppressed.’

Jawaharlal Nehru believed that real strength came from our unity in diversity, a unity that is devoid of regimentation: ‘We are a great country, a country with enormous variety, a variety that is good. There is no reason why we should be regimented and made to look like one person. We should keep the variety, but that variety is only good when we are united and there is an essential unity behind it.’ He warned: “The alliance of religion and politics in the shape of communalism is the most dangerous alliance, and it yields the most abnormal kind of illegitimate brood.” Many years earlier, his illustrious father Motilal Nehru, while delivering his presidential address at the Calcutta session of INC in 1928, categorically stated: “Whatever the higher conception of religion may be, it has in our day-to-day life come to signify bigotry and fanaticism, intolerance and narrow-mindedness... Not content with its reactionary influence on social matters, it has invaded the domain of politics and economics... Its association with politics has been to the good of neither. Religion has been degraded and politics has sunk into the mire. Complete divorce of the one from the other is the only remedy.” All Secular Forces must demand this separation which is the only path to save India from disintegration.

(The author is an ex. Secretary, AICC)