Jawaharlal, The Architect of History

“My duty is to serve” is the dictum and Jawaharlal Nehru was a standing monument of it. It is but meet to say that the very story of his life ran parallel with the history of India for about four decades in the twentieth Century. His love for the people transcended caste, colour and country and religion and language. His heart ached, rocked and reverberated at the sight of the sad state of the oppressed, the suppressed and the downtrodden. His feelings then exploded like a volcano. The toiling masses and the peasantry with their spines bent with grueling work migrated to the temple of his heart and sat there in majesty. If before his mind’s eye came the sight of the victims of suffering, his inner self burst like thunder and his heart fled much ahead of his words.

Jawaharlal Nehru speaks: “But a revolution is very dif­ferent. It has its home in the field and the street and the market place, and its methods are rough and coarse. The people who make it have not had the advantage of the education of the princes and the statesmen. Their language is not courtly and decorous, hiding a multitude of intrigues and evil designs. There is no mystery about them, no veils to hide the working of their minds; even their bodies have little enough covering. Politics in a revolution cease to be the sport of kings or professional politicians. They deal with realities, and behind them are raw human nature and the empty stomachs of the hungry.”

The versatile H.G. Wells wrote world history with ability. His romances and scientific fables kindle the hearts of many. His literary creations fetched for him the Nobel Prize for litera­ture. “Jawaharlal is one of the dozen top prose-writers in English today,” observed H.G. Wells. In a way, Nehru can be characterised as reflecting the epoch in which he lived. As such, his works are but pieces of art, ideas surcharged with emotions. His mind which ransacked the past, the present and the future wandered in search of a path for the redemption of the people.

Jawaharlal writes: “It is very interesting to think of the past story of the world and of the great men and women and of the great deeds it contains. To read history is good but even more interesting and fascinating is to help in making history.” In preference to past history, Nehru gave prominence to the history being enacted before his very eyes. While narrating what history taught, he reminds us of a Sanskrit quotation: “For the family sacrifice the individual, for the com­munity the family, for the country the community and for the Soul the whole world.”

Common good was the sheet anchor with Nehru. While he did not call himself a philosopher, his life, speech and writing propounded a philosophy. He was one of the architects of history of the twentieth century. Those who languished in slavery and poverty leaned on him for a way out of the morass. He sighed when they suffered; every fibre of his flesh throbbed to precipitate their suffering; he was struck dumb at their pitia­ble predicament. Witnessing their plight, he lost control of himself, culminating in torrents of words carried away by feelings. At times, the flow got dammed and he resembled a reservoir and was immersed in thought. One could see all these while watching Nehru. Not only that, one could have glimpses of it in his works too. He studied Science, entered Politics and wrote History. Cogency and continuity are the sine qua non of a good work. The Tamil Grammar, Nannul would describe this as “the flow of a river”, “the gaze of a lion” and “the leap of frog”. One can perceive this in Nehru’s books. “Letters from a Father to his Draughter”, “Glimpses of World History”, “Discovery of India” and “Autobiography” are the gifts of Nehru to the historical literature of the world. It is said that the more frequently gold is consumed to fire, the more it shines. Jawaharlal’s works are repositories of knowledge. His intellect which at no time stood at awe before kings and emperors bowed in reverence before men of wisdom.

Jawaharlal Nehru, typical of him, writes about Sankara: “I have mentioned the names of some kings and dynasties, who lived their brief life of glory and then disappeared and were forgotten. But a more remarkable man arose in the south, destined to play a more vital part in India’s life than all the kings and emperors. The young man is known as Shankara­charya. Probably he was born about the end of the eighth century. He seems to have been a person of amazing genius..…..He travelled all over India, and wherever he went he triumphed. He came to Benares as a conqueror, but a conqueror of the mind and argument. ... ... ... It is difficult for an appeal to the mind and the intellect to go far. Most people unfortunately do not think; they feel and act according to their feelings. Yet Shankara’s appeal was to the mind and to reason.”

What panacea did he offer to those who plunged them­selves in the battle for freedom? Writing from prison under the heading “A holiday and a dream journey”, he minces no words in what the goddess of freedom demands. “But all roads in India in these days sooner or later lead to one destination; all journeys, dream ones or real, end in prison. ... ... ... Again the fight is on and our people, men and women, boys and girls go forth to battle for freedom and to rid this country of the curse of poverty. But freedom is a goddess hard to win; she demands as of old human sacrifices from her votaries.”

The pages of history reveal to us that the worshipper at the altar of freedom should be prepared to face the worst agonies in life. The illiterate masses yearned for freedom in all honesty and sincerity. Jawaharlal’s face bloomed like a lotus on seeing them. Fraternity as an unfaded garland adorned his shoulders. Humility and culture are inseparable twins. Jawaharlal Nehru was an eminent political philosopher, a linguist and a seeker of knowledge and truth. And yet, he had in him in plenty culture and humility, in the right sense of the word.

Dense forests, high mountains, quick flowing rivers and fleeting clouds were the balms that soothed his otherwise agitated mind, growing every moment impatient, to rid the country of slavery. It is a pleasure to read his description of a scene which he enjoyed in the Lucknow jail. He writes: “Lying there in the open, I watched the skies and the clouds and I realised, better than I had ever done before, how amazingly beautiful were their changing hues;

“To watch the changing clouds, like clime in cline,
Oh! sweet to lie and bless the luxury of time”.

Jawaharlal is a jewel emitting lustre picked from the treasure house of history, but certainly not to be locked as archae­logical find. He was an architect who shaped history and took part in it. The sculptures chiselled by the stone mason several centuries before still extort our admiration. The sculptures of beauty which Jawaharlal created in the rock of language with the chisel of intellect as his tool are indeed creations of art. “Should there be real light within, there is bound, to be light in speech,” said a famous poet. This is absolutely correct in respect of Nehru.

From the prison Jawaharlal Nehru was writing letters to his beloved daughter, Indira Priyadarshini. We find in one of the letters from the Naini jail that his daughter’s name in three words of two parts induced him to think. “Priyadarshini dear to sight, but dearer still when sight is denied!” Jawaharlal Nehru’s phrases are appreciated the world over. With an amazing rapidity they gained currency. When he was returning home at the end of his visit to a friendly country, he said: “I am leaving a part of my heart here.”

We come across several instances in Jawaharlal Nehru’s works where he makes the past face the future and analyses their worth. He says: “The past brings us many gifts; indeed all that we have today of culture, civilization, science or knowledge of some aspects of the truth, is a gift of the distant or recent past to us. It is right that we acknowledge to the past. But the past does not exhaust our duty or obligation. We owe a duty to the future also, and perhaps that obligation is even greater than the one we owe to the past. For the past is past and donewith, we cannot change it; the future is yet to come, and perhaps we may be able to change it a little. If the past has given us some part of the truth, the future also hides many aspects of the truth, and invites us to search for them. But often the past is jealous of the future and hold us in a terrible grip, and we have to struggle with it to face and advance towards the future.”

Jawaharlal Nehru beamed with pleasure at the sight of flowers. He was transferred to a different habitat on seeing scenic beauties Nature depicts. He wrote poetic prose. He made politics a shrine of decency, moral code and ethics. His living was love-oriented. He lived every letter of what Tiruvalluvar laid down: “The seat of life is in Love.”

So long as we do not recognize the supremacy of the moral law in our national and international relations, we shall have no enduring peace.

Broadcast, New Delhi, 3 April 1948