Nehru - The Nation-Builder

NEHRU THE NATION-BUILDER

Mahatma Gandhi and Pandit Nehru are the two greatest men in the history of twentieth century India. It was the Mahatma that secured political freedom for the country through his non-violent struggle against the British. It was Nehru that gave a definite shape to the ideals, on the basis of which the politically free India should be reconstructed, and from this point of view he has to be regarded as the builder of the modern Indian nation. It may take a long time for Nehru’s ideals to be completely realised, but there can be no doubt whatever that Indian freedom will have its justification only to the extent to which his successors give reality to these ideals. There may be a departure from the methods he adopted to realise them but to forsake the ideals themselves will result in internal decline and disruption and danger from outside.

The ideals for which Pandit Nehru stood are, broadly–Nationalism, Secularism, Socialism, Parliamentary Democracy and World Peace. It was on the basis of these ideals that he tried to build the future of the Indian nation.

Nationalism

Nationalism, in the sense of the inherent right of every nation to be free from foreign rule and to enjoy complete independence, was the ideal which inspired him in the days of the struggle for Swaraj. The significance of the stand he took in favour of the complete independence of the country can be understood only in the light of the views held by most other leaders at the time of the struggle. Swaraj was accepted as the creed of the Congress at the Nagpur session in 1920, the session which immediately preceeded the launching of the non-co-operation movement. But there was ambiguity about the meaning of the term Swaraj and even Gandhiji left it vague. Many understood it as Dominion Status–the kind of self-government which the white colonies of the British Empire enjoyed in those days. Nehru was not satisfied with this, and he fought for defining it as complete independence. He ultimately succeeded in making his view prevail, and it was this that made the Lahore session of the Congress, over which he presided, quite historic.

It was his faith in nationalism in this sense that made him an advocate of the freedom of all colonial peoples in Asia and Africa who, like India, were subject to European rule. It was this that made him participate in the Congress of Oppressed Nationalities, held in Brussels in 1927, which led to the formation of the League Against Imperialism. His writings and his example became a source of inspiration to the freedom fighters throughout the world. It was this that made him convene the first Asian Conference in New Delhi in 1947 at which he declared: “Far too long have we of Asia been petitioners in Western Courts and Chancellories. That story must now belong to the past. We do not intend to be playthings of others.” It was his nationalism that made him take up the cause of Indonesian independence in 1949 and play a leading part in calling the Bandung Conference in 1955, a conference of twenty-nine Asian and African states which became free after a long period of colonial rule. In the U. N. Assembly and in the Trusteeship Council, India under Nehru took up the cause of territories which continued to be ruled by imperial powers. All this is a testimony to Nehru’s faith in nationalism.

One aspect of this faith is his advocacy of complete racial equality. In all countries subject to European rule the white rulers adopted an attitude of arrogance towards the ruled and treated them as inferiors, however cultured the subject peoples happened to be. Nehru tells us in his Autobiography that during his childhood: “I listened to the grown-up talk of my cousins without always understanding all of it. Often this talk related to the overbearing character and insulting manners of the English people, as well as of Eurasians, towards Indians, and how it was the duty of every Indian to stand up to this and not to tolerate it. I was filled with resentment against the alien rulers of my country who misbehaved in this manner and whenever an Indian hit I was glad.” It is no wonder that as he grew older he stood for the principle of complete racial equality. Nehru’s condemnation of the Apartheid policy in South Africa, the support he gave to the coloured people in the Central African Federation before it was dissolved, and to the demands of the African majority in Southern Rhodesia, his advocacy of the freedom of Angola and Mozambique from Portugese rule, are all the outcome of his anti-racialism. One reason why he objected to regional pacts like the SEATO was that they led indirectly to the growth of Western domination in areas recently freed from it.

The nationalism for which Nehru stood was not the nationalism of an aggressive and expansionist character, as was the case with fascism. Fascism became anathema to him, because it was based on racial arrogance, and was imperialist in character. This was the reason why if the choice lay between fascism and communism, he would prefer, he said, the latter to the former. Though both were dictatorial and totalitarian, communism according to him had the merit of recognising racial equality. He often stated in public that Indian nationalism would never be aggressive, that it did not aim at the conquest of the smaller countries in its neighbourhood, and that it did not aspire even to leadership over them. All this is in contrast to Chinese nationalism of today which, in spite of its communism, is determined on reviving the old and antiquated imperialist tradition.

Nehru also made it clear that Indian nationalism did not mean India’s isolation from the rest of the world. He was a great internationalist, and perhaps the only Congressman who believed that at the present day no country could stand alone and uninfluenced by what happened in the rest of the world. This idea was specially strengthened in him in the course of his tour in Europe in 1926-27. To the Moderates and the British imperialists, who said that independence was a narrow creed in the modern world which was becoming increasingly inter-dependent, he gave a lengthy answer: “I do not know what India will be like or what she will do when she is politically free. But I do know that those of her people who stand for national independence today stand also for the widest internationalism. For a socialist, nationalism can have no meaning, but even many of the non-socialists in the advanced ranks of the Congress are confirmed internationalists. If we claim independence today it is with no desire for isolation.” As Prime Minister for seventeen years he took an active part in the discussion and settlement of all international issues and came to be recognised as a world statesman. It was his internationalism that was responsible for India remaining a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, even after she became a Sovereign Republic.

Secularism

The second great ideal which inspired Nehru was secularism. He realised, more than anybody else, that the political freedom which was achieved after such a hard struggle could not be maintained unless there was complete unity among the various religious communities in the country–the Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians etc., and such a unity was possible only if India became, not only in theory but also in practice, a Secular State. Negatively secularism means the absence of any State religion or favour to any one particular religion. Positively it means equal treatment by the State of the members of all religious communities. Nehru saw to it that this principle of equality and non-discrimination was embodied in the Constitution and guaranteed as one of the citizen’s fundamental rights. He knew full well that any the least suspicion entertained by the minorities–and especially the Muslim minority –towards the majority, would lead to the disruption of the country. It was such a suspicion that led to the Muslim League’s intransigence in the days of the struggle for Swaraj and the partition of the country into India and Pakistan. Secularism should remove such suspicion.

The importance of Nehru’s secularism can be best understood if it is contrasted with what may be called the religious outlook of Gandhiji and the communalism of most of his Congress followers. It is true that Gandhiji can never be accused of having been a Hindu communalist. He stood for the equality of all Indians and this made him start his non-co-operation movement, not so much for securing Swaraj, as for redressing the wrong done by the British to the Khilafat, in which the Muslims were interested. All the same he was a Hindu traditionalist and supported the Varnashrama Dharma. He spoke the language of the ancient Hindu religion. It was his aim to establish what he called Rama Rajya. All this gave cause for Muslims to misunderstand him. Nehru himself criticised, in his Autobiography, this attitude of Gandhiji and called it reactionary revivalism. Even his doctrine of Ahimsa was looked at with suspicion by the Muslims. Nehru had also the feeling that, “many a Congressman was a communalist under his national cloak.”

It was conditions like these and the fierce communal riots to which they led after 1923 that made Nehru conclude that secularism–pure and simple–was the only basis on which the Indian nation could be built. Secularism also came naturally to him. By birth, upbringing, and education, he became a rationalist and an agnostic. He had no belief in religion, which he regarded as doing more harm than good. He says: “India is supposed to be a religious country, above everything else, and Hindu and Muslim and Sikh and others take pride in their faiths and testify to their truth by breaking heads. The spectacle of what is called religion, or at any rate, organised religion, in India and elsewhere has filled me with horror, and I have frequently condemned it and wished to make a clean sweep of it. Almost always it seems to stand for blind belief and reaction, dogma and bigotry, superstition and exploitation, and the preservation of vested interests.”

It was Nehru’s secularism that saved the country from the continued horrors of communal frenzy in the days following the partition and the achievement of independence. Even his bitterest critic, admit that, in the aftermath of partition, it was Nehru alone who held the nation together. Another biographer says: “Without his decisive leadership at the time, the fate of millions of Indian Muslims would have been infinitely worse.” In a world which witnessed the extermination of six million Jews at the hands of Hitler and the evacuation of millions of Germans from Eastern Europe, it would not have been surprising if communal frenzy in Delhi and elsewhere had resulted in the massacre of millions of Muslims. It was Nehru’s courageous statesmanship that saved them from such a fate. It was again his secularism that created confidence among the Muslims in 1950, and led to the conclusion of the Nehru–Liaquat Ali Pact. There were, at that time, in his Cabinet, some who said that for every one Hindu expelled from East Pakistan ten Muslims should be sent out of India, that Muslims could never be relied upon to be loyal to India, that they were all pro-Pakistanis at heart, and that exchange of populations was the only effective remedy for communalism. Nehru stood against them, and during all the subsequent years, he held fast to the concept of the Secular State, even though several accused him of appeasing the Muslims. Even today communalism is not dead. There are communal parties in the country whose thinking is similar to that of the cabinet ministers of 1950. Rut all right-minded men should hold firmly to the view that Nehru’s secularism is not only right as a matter of policy but it is the only just basis for maintaining the unity and integrity of the country. It is also the only course consistent with Indian tradition of tolerance.

The secular outlook of Nehru also made him fight against untouchability and casteism. He might not have succeeded completely in eradicating untouchability and the evils of the caste system. Untouchability continues to persist, especially in the rural areas. Caste has also been a source of strife inside the Congress party in most of the states. The remedy however for all this, and for the persecution of some of the old higher castes by the other castes, lies in giving greater reality to the secular policies of Nehru. In the view of several observers, secularism is the most important contribution made by Nehru to the national unity of India. Irrespective of what happens in regard to the treatment of minorities in Pakistan, it ought to be the duty of the majority community in India to respect the rights guaranteed to the minority communities by the Constitution. The doctrine of vicarious punishment has no place in our polity. Self-determination for Kashmir may be objected to on many grounds, but it should in no way affect the civic rights of our Muslim minorities. They are as much a part and parcel of the Indian Republic as Hindus, Sikhs and Christians. This is the true spirit of Nehru’s secularism.

Socialism

The third ideal on which he tried to build the Indian nation is socialism. In this respect also he differed from Gandhiji and many other Congress leaders. He held the view that nationalism by itself is a narrow ideal, and that national freedom has significance, only when it leads to economic and social freedom–a concept which was alien to the thought of the Congress till the Karachi session of 1931. Even then Nehru’s thesis was not accepted wholeheartedly. In 1927, on his return from the European tour he said: “My outlook was wider (than that of other Congressmen) and nationalism by itself seemed to be definitely a narrow and insufficient creed. Political freedom and independence were no doubt essential, but they were onlysteps in the right direction; without social freedom and a socialiststructure of society and the State, neither the country nor the individual could develop much.”

The theoretical basis of his socialism was the Marxian interpretation of history, and its practical basis, the Soviet experiment. He said “if there is one thing that history shows it is this: that economic interests shape the political views of groups and classes. Neither reason nor moral considerations override these interests. Individuals may be converted, they may surrender their special privileges, although this is rare enough, but classes and groups do not. The attempt to convert a governing and privileged class into forsaking power and giving up its unjust privileges has therefore always failed, and there seems to be no reason whatever to hold that it will succeed in the future.” To him the nationalist movement in India was a bourgeoise movement, the leaders of which cared little to change the status quo in economic matters. Even when it became a mass movement, as it did in 1930–’32, it was dominated by the lower middle class. All this was in strict accordance with Marx’s economic interpretation of history, with its implication that what is needed is revolution and not reformism.

It would however be a mistake to draw the conclusion that he accepted the whole philosophy of Marxism. He was primarily an individualist; his general outlook was liberal– and he had intense faith in democracy. Naturally he was averse to become the slave of any dogmatic creed. To him communism was such a creed. On one occasion he observed: “I am not a communist, chiefly because I resist the communist tendency to treat communism as holy doctrine. I do not like being told what to think and do.” On another occasion he said: “Huge monolithic States under communist guidance may answer the economic question in certain countries, but at a tremendous cost. I do think that individual liberty, that is, normally considered political liberty, does not exist in monolithic authoritarian countries.” A little later he went to the extent of saying that Marx is out of date. “To talk about Marxism today, if I may say so, is reaction. I think communists with all their fire and fury are in some ways utterly reactionary in outlook.” His hatred of communism became all the greater when he found Indian communists taking their orders from outside and even supporting the Chinese aggression on India.

Nehru’s socialism does not mean, the equal or equitable distribution of poverty, but of ever-increasing wealth. Though it stands unequivocally for lessening the disparity between the rich and the poor and establishing a more equalitarian society, its basis is increased production. This conception of Socialism is entirely different from that of Gandhiji. Nehru had no faith in the revival of village industries or the establishment of village self-sufficiency as a panacea for economic ills. His aim was the modernisation of the country through the application of science and technology to all economic concerns and processes. It meant large-scale production, heavy industries, and mechanisation of agriculture and transport. It also meant centralised, planned economy–an idea which he borrowed from Soviet Russia and which influenced him even before he became Prime Minister. From the point of view of both justice and increased production, he advocated the abolition of antiquated systems of land-tenure like the Zamindari tenure, and numerous land reforms of other kinds. He created a large public sector controlled by the State. Heavier burden of taxes was imposed on the rich and the middle classes with a view to promote schemes of social welfare. By socialistic policies and measures like these Nehru placed the country on the path of modernisation and there is now no prospect of going to the kind of rural economy advocated by Gandhiji. Years ago Nehru said that he stood for the establishment of a socialist order, first within national boundaries, and eventually in the world as a whole, with controlled production and distribution of wealth for the public good.” This is a far cry from Gandhiji’s stand, that that government is best which governs least.

Nehru laid the foundations for a socialist pattern of society. It now remains for his successors to raise the superstructure. National unity in the modern age can be built only on the basis of greater equality among all sections of the people. Socialism is the instrument for achieving such equality. The masses today are too impatient to bear their poverty any longer. Nehru declared some years ago with a great deal of truth: “I believe that self-government is good for any country. But I am not prepared to accept even self-government, at the cost of real, good government. Self-government if it is to justify itself must stand ultimately for better government for the masses.” This is his case for Socialism. This is the one effective way of satisfying the masses.

Parliamentary Democracy

Another great ideal for which Nehru stood was parliamentary democracy. Through what he did as Prime Minister over the long period of seventeen years he gave reality and stability to this form of government. He took a leading part in framing the Constitution of India on a democratic basis, and in granting to citizens the fundamental rights of freedom of speech and of association, without which democracy becomes a meaningless farce. He saw to it that general elections were held at regular intervals, as laid down in the Constitution, and that they were fair and free. He recognised the supreme role of parliament, made it a point to attend its meetings, answer questions and take part in debates and discussions. He made it clear that he and his cabinet were responsible to that body. He allowed complete freedom to the opposition parties to carry on their activities inside and outside parliament. It is not his fault if these parties continue to be weak and disunited. He paid respect to the Rule of Law, and to the principle of judicial independence, though at times he swerved a little away from it. It is these features of his tenure of office as Prime Minister that contributed to the stability of the parliamentary form of government, and have made many observers conclude that it has come to stay. It is true that he dominated his cabinet and the parliament, but this domination was like that of powerful ministers like Gladstone or Churchill over the British Parliament. It is the outcome of his powerful personality, but there was nothing dictatorial about it.

All this stands in contrast to what has happened in most other countries of Asia and Africa–countries like Pakistan, Burma, Indonesia, Egypt etc.–which, along with India, achieved freedom after a long period of colonial rule. Democracy has practically disappeared from them and its place has been taken by some form of dictatorship, military or other. The tendency everywhere is in the direction of one-party totalitarian regimes. India alone has so far escaped from this tendency, and this is essentially due to the leadership of Nehru, a sincere believer in democracy. The army in India continues to be loyal to the civilian authorities. There is nothing to show that it is dissatisfied with the conditions as they are, or that it will ever attempt a Coup. Such an attempt may not in any case succeed, when we take into consideration that the army is not quite homogeneous, drawn as it is from several sub-nationalities–the Sikhs, the Rajputs, the Marathas etc.–inhabiting the country.

It is true that the ruling Congress party is riven with factions and groups making a stable government difficult. Speaking of the Congress during the period of the freedom struggle Nehru said that Gandhiji was the Congress. We will not be far from the truth if we say that, since his fight with Tandon in 1951-52, Nehru was the Congress, and his grip over it prevented the factions from undermining the political stability of the country. Now that it has been deprived of his unique leadership there is cause for misgiving. In addition to this there is widespread corruption from the highest to the lowest in all departments of administration and there is the consequent danger of the machinery of government breaking down. There is also the growing danger of war as a result of the aggressive attitude adopted by Pakistan and China in combination. Here and there we also see the existence of communal parties with fascist tendencies. But these are defects which can be remedied and steps are being taken to remedy them. There is therefore no cause for alarm at present and there is a fair prospect of parliamentary democracy functioning smoothly.

World Peace

We now come to the last ideal of Nehru–the ideal of World Peace. He lived at a time when the cold war was going on between the Soviet and the American blocs, threatening to become a hot war with the use of nuclear weapons, which are sure to destroy the larger part of humanity. He stood on the side of peace between them, and his policy of non-alignment, though misunderstood at one time by them, went a long way in preventing the outbreak of a world war between them. He fought against regional military pacts which extended the area of the cold War. He mediated between the warring camps in Korea and Indonesia. World peace he felt was necessary not only in the interests of humanity, as a whole, but also of India in particular, if the Indian nation is to be built on the basis of economic prosperity and socialism. War or even preparation for it by the richer nations of the world would result in diminishing the amount of economic aid given by them to developing countries. For these and other reasons his became the voice of peace throughout the World.

Nehru is dead and laid to eternal rest. But the ideals which he cherished, and to which he strove his best to give reality throughout his public life, should Continue to inspire and guide us.