17956.pdf

JAWAHARLAL

NEHRU

I N DI AN

00 M 1\1 ITT E E

FOR

C U L T U R A L

F RE E D0 M

JAWAHARLAL NEHRU A

CRITICAL

TRIBUTE

~'AU C!~T.AL

~~: Da~ a

LllauV

III., {l ('S56 ~1- 9 - PJ,

MANAKTALAS: BOMBAY

I ,

P.

C.

MANAKTALA AND SON,S PRIVATE LTD 6 Fair Field, Road No.4, Churchgate, Bombay.1 \

First Published 1965

©

Indian Committee for Cultural Freedom, 1965

O'l!~rseat

Distributors

GREAT BRITAIN W. & R. Chambers Limited II Thistle Street, Edinburgh AUSTRALIA & NEW ZEALAND Australia & New Zealand Book Co. Pty. Ltd 12 Thomas Street, Chatswood, N.S:W.

PRINTED IN INDIA BY V. D. LIMAYE AT 'MJI!o,'tlMlt'~~ WORKS, 9 BAKEHOU'SE LANE, BOMBAy·r, AND PUBLISHED BY JAY ANT, MANAKTALA FOR P. C. MANAKTALA A1\D SONS PRIVATE LTD, 6 FAIR FIELD, ROAD No.4, CHURCHGATE, BOMBAy-1

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS BESIDES expressing gratitude to the authors of the various contributions, the Indian Committee for Cultural Freedom is grateful to the Congress for Cultural Freedom for the article by Nicolas Nabokov; to Encounter for the article by Arnold Toynbee; to the Radical Humanist for the articles by P. Spratt, S. P. Aiyar, A. Bharati, Norman D. Palmer, and Humayun Kabir; to Twentieth Century and the Indian Renaissance Institute for the article by M. N. Roy; to the Editor, Quest, for the article by Abu Sayeed Ayyub; and to Mrs Indira Gandhi for the two articles by JawaharlaI Nehru.

CONTENTS INTRODUCTION:

13

A. B. Shah

REMEMBERING NEHRU: JAWAHARLAL NEHRU:

Nicolas Nabokov

Arnold Toynbee

23

27

JAWAHARLAL NEHRU-AN ENIGMA OR A TRAGEDY?

M. N. Roy

Roy

AND NEHRU:

33 P. Spratt

42

JAWAHARLAL NEHRU AND CHARISMATIC LEADERSHIP : S. P. Aiyar NEHRU-THE MAN AND THE WRITER:

48

Humayun

57

Kabir J AWAHARLAL NEHRU AND MODERN INDIA :

Norman D. Palmer

60

JAWAHARLAL NEHRU ON RELIGION:

Abu Sayeed

Ayyub

66

PROSPECTS OF SECULARISM IN INDIA:

Agehananda

Bharati

86

JAWAHARLAL NEHRU-FOREIGN POLICY:

92

V. B. Karnik

APPENDIXES

1.

No

2.

THE BASIC ApPROACH ';

CAESARISM ;

Chanakya (Jawaharlal Nehru) Jawaharlal Nehru

III 117

THE CONTRIBUTORS NICOLAS NABOKOV: General Secretary of the Congress for Cultural Freedom. ARNOLD TOYNBEE: British historian; author of the monumental A STUDY OF HISTORY. M. N. Roy: Died in January 1954; his MEMOIRS, published recently, became an immediate success; a companion volume THE REVOLUTIONARIES, containing pen-portraits of the leaders of the International Communist Movement, is due for publication very shortly. PHILIP SPRATT: Came to India in 1927 as a representative of the Communist Party of Great Britain; was convicted in the Meerut Conspiracy Case; his HINDU CULTURE AND PERSONALITY is currently in Press. S. P. AIYAR: Reader in Public Administration in the University of Bombay; has edited STUDIES IN INDIAN DEMOCRACY in association with R. Srinivasan. HUMAYUN KABIR: Minister for Petroleum and Chemical Industries in the Government of India; a close associate of the late Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. He is a keen student of Philosophy and Literature. NORMAN D. PALMER: Professor of Political Science University of Durham.

III

the

A. S. Ayy_uB: One of India's best known intellectuals; taught Philosophy at Santiniketan; at present Editor of QUEST. AGEHANANDA BHARATI: Austrian, turned Hindu; taught in Indian Universities; at present at Syracuse University; his autobiography was published under the title THE OCHRE ROBE. V. B. KARNIK: Honorary Secretary of the Indian Committee for Cultural Freedom; -was the first associate of M. N. Roy on his return to India incognito in 1930. At present Director of Labour Education Service and President of China Study Centre at Bombay; author of INDIAN TRADE UNIONS.

I do not care what happens to my reputation after I am gone, but if any people choose to think of me then, I should like them to say: 'This was a man who, with all his mind and heart, loved India and the Indian people. And they, in turn, were in~ulge~t to him and gave him of their love most abundantly and extravagantly: -JAWAHARLAL NEHRU

INTRODUCTION the important differences between J awaharlal Nehru and other Indian leaders of his stature consisted in the almost universal acceptance of his leadership. Until two years before his death, Nehru was the unquestioned supreme leader not only of the Indian masses but also of an overwhelming majority of Indian intellectuals. His pre-eminence as the leader of resurgent India was so natural that, with a few exceptions, even the best Indian intellectuals considered it a privilege to work as an instrument of his will. Such popularity did not come even to Mahatma Gandhi. The latter could never strike in the hearts of the educated intelligentsia the same chord as he could in those of the common men. Many accepted Gandhi's political leadership without at the same time accepting the ideas and values for which he stood. Indeed, in spite of his deep-seated religiosity it was not easy for a modern Indian to respond to the political and social ideas which were the hallmark of Gandhi's thought. At the other extreme of the Indian leadership stood Manabendranath Roy, whose sacrifice. in the cause of the Indian Revolution and uncompromising advocacy of modern values and. knowledge distinguished him from all the leaders of modern India. Even then Roy could command the allegiance of only a small number of intellectuals and a few others who had somehow succeeded in liberating themselves from the myths and taboos of the Hindu tradition and Indian nationalism. Jawaharlal Nehru was the only leader whose personality stood out as the one rallying point for the sentiment and loyalty of every section of the Indian society. The root of this unique achievement has to be sought in the complex personality of Pandit Nehru. He was an aesthete, a writer, a champion of modern values with a deep sympathy for the oppressed and the disinherited, and, in spite of unlimited power, detached and lonely in a certain sense. Many of these qualities were also to be found in Roy. And yet the fundamental ONE OF

.

~

13

14

NEHRU-A

CRITICAL

TRIBUTE

failure of Roy in the politics of power in India shows that these qualities are not by themselves en'ough to earn a position of successful leadership. A special aspect of Nehru's personality was that, besides the quaiitie!\ mentiqned above, it also had some which appealed to the Indian min,d. For instance, while an uncompromising spokesman for freedom and democracy, Nehru temperamentally was like the Great Mogul. Rational and pragmatist in public life, on critical occasions Nehru generally allowed his heart to decide for his head. Drawing his titanic energy from the love of the masses, he could never identify himself with the common man or even with his closest associates; till the end, there remained a certain gulf between him and his colleagues and followers. A lover of discipline and streamlined organization, he was a victim of prolonged intellectual confusion and perpetuated deep contradictions in the public life of the land. An interesting sidelight on this aspect of his personality is provided by a simple incident in his own life. As is well known, Nehru was always critical of superstitions parading in the name of traditional religion. And yet he could, without any feeling of contradiction, advise his sister to have the horoscope of a new-born grandson prepared by a competent astrologer. Similarly, while elucidating his ideas of democratic socialism as the only sensible political philosophy for India, N~hru could refer in tones of admiration to the classical Hindu notion of detachment and identification with the universe as recommended by the philosophy of Vedanta. Jawaharlal Nehru's personality was full of inner contradictions of this type. Every section of the Indian society was able to see in it, however inadequately articulated, an ideal of its own self. His faults could, therefore, be easily ignored. Even the intellectuals who differed with him sharply -on certain basic issues could feel that he was one of them, because he could understand the language that they talked. Consequently, even the politics of power in a society which has yet to develop the norms and standards of a modern democracy gained a certain status in the eyes of the Indian people. Also, Nehru's lov'e for the spirit of democracy and the institutions through which it finds expression gave them an indispensable period of comparative stability during the firs,t fifteen years of independent India. This helped parliamentary democracy to stri~e.....here considerably deeper roots

INTRODUCTION

15

than in almost any other country that became free after the Second World War. Another important contribution that Nehru made to the building of the Indian nation consists in the development of a tradition of secularism in public life. India faced a unique problem in this respect. While an overwhelming proportion of her people are Hindu, there is also a fairly large number, nearly fifty million, of them who subscribe to Islam. This large number of Muslims suffered just as the Hindus did a traumatic shock at the very moment of the birth of Independence. The partition of the sub-continent into two sovereign states, India and Pakistan, as the price of freedom left a legacy of frustration, bitterness, and schizophrenic personality. Added to this was the fact that never in the preceding centuries had the Muslims been able to participate in the mainstream of Indian life except when they. were in a position of political power. This meant that the problem of integration of the conglomeration of regional and linguistic groups that the Indian people are into a modern democratic polity was aggravated by the presence of an obstinate religious factor. Obviously, no solution which relied mainly on the unifying force of religion could ever meet the needs of the Indian situation. At the same time, considering the background of the inter-religious relationship in India, it would have been undesirable to adopt here the principle of secularism as understood in the West, especially in the United States of America. The state here could not possibly adopt the position described by Jefferson's picturesque phrase about an impassable wall between the state and the church. Not only could the relations between the two major religious communities of India be left to the process of spontaneous interaction between them; it was also necessary to ensure that within each community the stranglehold of religious tradition and prejudice was steadily relaxed so as to make room for the growth of a free society. The state in such a situation could not, therefore, stand aloof from the sphere of religion. It had of necessity to concern itself with the operation of religion in interpersonal life and to take such measures as would enable' the citizen to order it in harmony with the values of freedom and equality for which modernity stands. The Indian state had, therefore, to be what Ved Prakash Luthera calls a jurisdictionalist state. This need not detract

16

NEHRU-A

CRITICAL

TRIBUTE

from the significance of India's commitment to secularism under the leadership of her first Prime :Minister. As a matter of fact, the secular ideal in India would have been whittled down, if not completely defeated, in the absence of a policy of positive intervention on the part of the state. in the sphere of God. The studies of Indian secularism such as' those of D. E. Smith, undertaken from a larger sociological, rather than a linguistic standpoint, have borne out the wisdom of this approach. It is too early yet to assess with any degree of objectivity the achievements of Jawaharlal Nehru as a nation-builder. However, one may with reasonable confidence assert that future historians of the experiment will agree that this was one of the most important . contributions that Nehru made to the growth of a modern, secular, and democratic society in India. An equally significant contribution that Nehru made to this task consists in his remarkable efforts to have the idea of planning for freedom accepted by the common people of this country. The Indian mind is essentially asocial. In other words it is not easily given to sustained co-operative effort in the pursuit of secular aims. Without going into a detailed analysis of the Indian tradition * which accounts for this trait, one may observe that the Hindu tradition does not recognize as of primary importance the obligation of man to society or to himself except in the context of kloksha, the supreme goal of all human endeavour. It, therefore, emphasizes the individual in his spiritual aspect and the Brahman as the source and the ultimate end of the visible world. This predisposes the Hindu mind to an attitude of indifference to all intermediate, secular institutions like the state in the ordering of his priorities. In a society like this it would be an extremely difficult task to persl,lade its members to' recognize tlle worthwhileness of planned effort for economic development. The measure of the difficulty becomes a little easy to appreciate when one takes into account the fact that the Indian experience has all along been claimed to be unique in the field of economic planning. Unlike the experiments of the Nazis o'r the Communists, planning in India seeks to realize economic growth and social justice without "Cf. A. B. Shah and C. R. M. Rao (eds.), Tradition and Modemity in India (P. C. Manaktala & Sons Pvt. -Ltd: Bombay); especially, Introduction and the papers by R. L. Nigam ~?.9: :.Yogendra Singh.

INTRODUCTION

17

the sacrifice of freedom and the democratic rights of the common CItizen. Considering the initial handicaps, both of an underdeveloped economy with a large population and of a backward culture, the challenge that Jawaharlal Nehru posed before the country and made it accept in a spirit of defiance and adventure would naturally m!lke one grateful to him for his vision and will. In the seventeen years of his undisputed leadership in Inde· pendent India Pandit Nehru sought to achieve many other things besides the growth of democratic secularism and the eco· nomic wherewithal necessary for their sustenance. For example, he was the first aIlJ.ongst the leaders of nationalist India to recognize the importance of science and technology for the modernization of Indian society. For him science did not mean merely the theories of nature that it embodied and the applications to which they led. It was also a way of looking at the processes of nature and society, an attitude of curiosity and a spirit of inquiry, willingness to question authority, and tolerance of the nonconformists based on the recognition of the uniqueness of each individual. Often in his speeches he emphasized the need for India's shedding off the mentality associated with the' bullock-cart age '. In that he did not succeed much. The majority of the Indian people, including their leaders, still continue to subscribe to all manner of antiquated beliefs and practices in personal and public life. However, the institutions which he created and helped to grow, such as the National Laboratories and the universities, and the methods he introduced in the solution of the social and economic problems of the country are bound to release in the course of time forces which would make inevitable a rapid transition of the Indian society frQm a traditional to a modern one. Already one can detect in the pronouncements of the leaders and the attitudes of the people a certain degree of healthy pragmatism in the place of the old attitude, which gave a detached observer the impression that they were victims of the bewitchment of language. However, if this process of modernization is to succeed in a reasonable period of time it is necessary that India should be able to concentrate most of her time and energy on the tasks of reconstruction. This requires peace and no one was more aware of this need than J awaharlal Nehru. One of the main 2

18

NEHRU-A

CRITICAL

TRIBUTE

goals of his foreign policy was to ensure that local conflicts did not escalate into large-scale wars and that developing nations did not have to devote a large part of their limited resources to armaments. While an unexcep~ionable approach in its own right and capable of yielding satisfactory results in the hands of someone more pragmatic, under Nehru's leadership it created, rather than solved, certain problems for India. But even here, the main factor responsible for this failure was Nehru's faith in the universality of the values for which he stood. Being essentially a lover of peace and freedom, he projected his own attitude onto others whose record should have made one a little more cautious. Nehru realized his mistake.and had the courage that only a supremely confident leader can have to admit it in public. Within a week of the Chinese invasion of India in October 1962 he addressed a conference of the Information Ministers of States. At this conference he confessed: • For some years past we have been living in an artificial world of our own creation.' This realization of the facts of international life was a great blow to his faith in the possibility of creating a better world on the basis of international goodwill and co-operation. However, it also had a useful effect on his understanding of the difference between the deep feelings of friendship and the affinity that the West felt for India and the attitude of political horsetrading that the Communist world practised in relation to her. But it strengthened his faith in the Indian people to see them rise like one man in the defence of their freedom against the perfidious attack of an erstwhile • friend'. The remarkable isolation of India from the countries of Asia and Africa was also highlighted by her experience in the wake of the Chinese invasion. The policy of non-qlignment, which had in the earlier years been ra:ised to the status of an ethical principle. had come home to roost. Hardly ally of the smaller countries of the Afro-Asian land mass came out unequivocally in support of India against the Chinese aggression. Most of them preferred to practise what India had preached to the world, namely, non-alignme;lt, even on tIle moral plane in relation to the disputes between big nations. The problem of Kashmir and that of the strained relations between India and Pakistan caine for special attention in a new light as a result of the invasi~l¥'~ The unsatisfactory situation in

INTRODUCTION

19

the Nagaland also demanded a different approach. During the last few months of his life Nehru tried his best to find a new solution to these old problems. Curiously, so long as it was belie\'ed that he was keen on solving these problems even at some cost to Indian pride, the nation, and even the national press, did not raise any difficulties for him. For example, a month before Sheikh Abdullah's release no one would have guessed that public opinion would accept it without serious discord. As a matter of fact, the Sheikh's release evoked practically no protest from any section of the press or the public. On the contrary, many heaved a sigh of relief and began to hope that at long last the festering sore in the body politic of India was on its way to being healed. Unfortunately, these hopes were soon to prove extravagant. It is now for the new leadership, which is new only in the sense that it is free to function on its 'own in the absence of Nehru, to devise a satisfactory solution that will enable India to devote her resources to more important ends. Another problem that Nehru left for his successors and for the nation consists in the type of economic planning that he encouraged. The hangover of his appreciation of Marxism, when Marxism appeared to most intellectuals as a liberating philosophy, made him specially susceptible to the contradictions of the Russian type of planning. These reside mainly in the emphasis on the creation of an industrial base before the claims of consumer welfare and the growth of agriculture have received adequate attention. One need not go into the economic merits of such an approach to planning for growth. What is relevant here is the type of political and administrative leadership that such a plan requires for its successful implementation. Indeed, a plan of this type can only succeed even in its limited economic objective provided the state is indifferent to the human factor involved in developmental efforts. In other words, one has to be prepared to condone, if not openly advocate, human suffering and to resort to force on a large scale for ensuring that popular dissatisfaction would not disrupt the plan. The real contradiction in the Indi'an approach to economic planning stems from its failure to recognize this truth. With all his love of. power and impatience with the weakness and selfishness of others, Nehru was committed to democracy and democratic

20

NEHRU-A

CRITICAL

TRIBUTE

methods of functioning. He, therefore, could never imagine himself or his Government adoptil}.g the methods characteristic of a Communist state. The result was an inherent incompatibility between the blueprints' of economic development that he blessed and the commitment to democratiC methods which he insisted upon. It was only during the last year or two of his life that he seemed to have realized this wea~ness of Indian planning and began to emphasize the need for greater attention to agriculture and consumer goods industries. He began to criticize the craze, which was started by none other than himself, for giganticism and advocated greater attention to small and medium scale undertakings. It is yet to be seen how far the new insight that he was developing in this phase is reflected in the Fourth and subsequent Five-Year Plans. It is not necessary to elaborate here Jawaharlal Nehru's conception of democratic socialism. He has expressed himself unambiguously in an article" The Basic Approach that he wrote for the A.l.C.C. Economic Review in 1958. It is reprinted here together with another article of his, the famous self-study that he published under a pseudonym in 1938. These articles reveal a fine, sensitive mind inspired by a concern for human values and at the same time conscious of its own limitations and inner contradictions. They reflect in a sense the basic dilemma of the Indian intellectual, namely, the conflict between modern values and antiquated ideas and attitudes. This was the point on which M. N. Roy, the only major political thinker of modern India, took Nehru to task. Roy was also doubtful about Nehru's ability to resist the corrupting influence of unlimited power and the temptation to strangle democracy in the interests of the • nation '. Fortunately for India and, one may add, the world, Nehru was aware of this danger. In .the Chanakya article reprinted here, he is clear that Caesarism of' any type ~will be against the best interests of the Indian people. He succeeded in steering clear of this danger. This perh£lps is his greatest gift to the people whom he 'loved and who, in return, loved him in a greater measure than. anyone else. The Indian Committee for Cultural Freedom shares with the Indian people their love of Jawaharlal Nehru. His interest in the • moral and spiritual' aspects of life; his insistence that socialism is merely a means, not an end'in itself; his support, "

INTRo.DUCTIo.N

21

even if sometimes a little late because of bad advice, to. the cause of freedom everywhere in the wo.rld; his concern over issues invo.lving pro.blems o.f a free develo.pment o.f culture; and, finally, his o.wn love and yearning for the life o.f the spirit even though duty co.mpelled him to. spend mo.st o.f his time in the depressing atmosphere of po.wer politics-all these give him a unique place in the esteem o.f those who stand for the freedom and creativity o.f the human being. Even these who. on certain occasions found it necessary to. criticize him while he was alive would agree that the world is poorer witho.ut him. With the death o.f Jawaharlal Nehru an age has co.me to. a clo.se in the histo.ry of India. A new age has begun, in which the responsibility of men who disagreed with Nehru ever pro.blems of policy but co.uld share with him the basic values of a mo.dern secular democracy is going to be greater than ever before. The Indian natio~ has yet to. grew into. adultho.od, but now in the absence of the paterfamilias and in a co.ntext which, in certain important respects, is less favo.urable today than at the time of its birth. This makes the task of those who cherish freedo.m one of exceptional importance now. No lo.nger can they take for granted that the sapling of democracy that Nehru tried to. tend with such care and lo.ve will necessarily continue to grew without succumbing to the undergrowth of atavistic traditio.nalism in the years to. co.me. Nor can they assume .that because the new men at the helm of the nation's ship are mere modest and pragmatic than the leader whom they succeed, it will be no more necessary to practice the Socratic virtue of continual criticism of events and policies. On the contrary, the role of criticism will now be specially important. The reason is not far to seek. In a society which has yet· to develop the democratic tradition, it is easier for ordinary men and women to seek, in times of strain, shelter in the comfortable world o.f authoritarian certainties than for o.ne who, even if inspired with a strong will to power, is also imbued with an equally strong sense of commitment to. the values of an open society. Such a person, even if ambitious, is self-critical and, whatever his immediate reaction to. them, wo.uld respect his critics pro.vided they have the courage o.f their convictio.n and do. net seek favo.urs from him. Jawaharlal Nehru was such a one; others have yet to.

22

NEHRU-A

CRITICAL

TRIBUTE

prove themselves, though there is reason to hope that they will not fail. The nature of this critical tribute .to the memory of Jawaharlal Nehru, as also the date of its offering, is the result of a deliberate decision. The edifice of democracy ~ests on a willing acceptance by men, and especially by those who are in positions of power, of the Periclean postulate that' although only a few may originate a policy, we are all able to judge it.' That has been the informing spirit of the Indian Constitution and the polity of free India, in the birth and development of which Nehru played a great and unique role. A critical appraisal of his achievements and failures-which are also the achievements and failures of the nation he led-is therefore the only way in which men who shared his values can pay their tribute to him. He is' no longer there, either to feel flattered or to be irritated by anything that others may now say of him. But it may be of some value to those who inherit the rich and complex legacy he left, to the new leaders who have to carryon with the tasks he could not finish, and to the people of India who, in Nehru's own words, , gave him of their love most abundantly and extravagantly.' A majority of the articles appearing here were commissioned for the special issue of the Radical Humanist of October 4, 1964, with a view to their subsequent inclusion in this book. I am grateful to the contributors and to the editors of the periodicals in which their articles first appeared for their permission to use them here. Special thanks are due to Mrs Indira Gandhi for her permission to include in this volume the two articles by Jawaharlal Nehru. BOMBAY,

26 January 1965

A. B.

SHAH

RE1HEMBERING NEHRU NICOLAS NABoKov

IT WAS IN New York in 1949, at a party in a private home in the upper seventies that I first met Jawaharlal Nehru. He had come to America on a visit-I believe his first one. It was partly an official state visit, partly private. The official part had already taken place and he was now informally visiting New York. Nehru came to America in the wake of cruel tragedies that had followed Indian independence and his assumption of Prime-Ministerial powers. He was one of the most celebrated personages in the world and everyone in America was excited by his visit and wanted to have a look at him. Our hostess-a friend of Nehru's-had invited a small group of intellectuals to meet him but many more people "turned up than she had expected, and when I arrived the two first rooms were crowded with people. Nehru had come to the party with his daughter and sister. The two ladies in saris sat on a sofa in the foyer surrounded by a cluster of chattering guests. Nehru wore a dark business suit, looked unassuming and a bit perplexed. He stood' in the living room, a glass of juice in his left hand, his back turned to a large modern bay-window. As I approached him I watched his face. It was a beautiful face, well cut, well proportioned, with manly yet subtly refined features. It looked distant, brooding-a bit ~ad and also a bit stern. Yet when a smile came upon it, even the conventional one of a greeting (and it came on slowly, gradually) the face was suddenly lit with the gentle glow of friendship and charm. When my turn came to be introduc.ed, the hostess followed her ritual: 'This, Mr Prime Minister, is .. :, with a few words explaining that I was a composer and that I was of Russian origin. And she emphasized the word Russian in the way grocers in New York emphasize the word' imported '. 23

24

NEHRU-A

CRITICAL

TRIBUTE

Nehru looked at me with his dark eyes, smiled and said: • I'm afraid, we will have little to talk ,about. . . . I am completely ignorant in music.... It's a closed book for me.' And the eyes darted at me first ironically then with polite apology.... • But perhaps we can talk about Russia, about some of its great men' ... Then he turned to the oncoming next one in line. A little later Mr Nehru was asked to take his place in an armchair near the bay·window and the whole party flocked to the living room and took up standing, leaning and sitting positions all over the room. The chatter gradually died down. The hostess, sitting at Nehru's feet, announced that the Prime Minister had agreed to s~y a few words and answer questions. I do not remember the exact words, but I do remember the content of what he said. He spoke of the birth of a nation, the birth of independent India after centuries of foreign rule. He spoke of the anguish and -tragedies that accompany the birthpangs of a nation. He spoke of the ease with which people make, or accept misleading generalizations. 'We, in Indi;:t,' he said, • have the reputation of being a tolerant people .... This, it is often said, is our historic tradition . . . and you see what happened when independence and partition came to us. We gave the world a spectacle of terrible cruelty, intolerance and injustice. Yet .. .' and he paused and looked broodingly downwards, 'yet it would be just as wrong to make a generalization about it. I mean, it would be wrong to say that the Indian people are cruel and intolerant, that they are all religious fanatics. . . . I believe they are just as any other people, and they behaved well or badly depending on circumstances. You can perhaps say that they are ignorant and retarded in their social development but this is not their fault . . . . You see: he continued, 'there has been a great deal of mystification made about India, in the West ... on the other hand much too little has been known about the true circumstances in which ~e lived for many centuries, the exploitation of our resources, the neglect in which most of our people existed under foreignJ.ule ... .' All this was said in a quiet, urbane, conversational manner. There was no emphasis, no emotIonal oratory in his manner of speaking, nor was there any apparent desire of persuasion. It was a terse statement of fact-honest, sincere, yet free from any bitterness or reproval.

REMEMBERING

NEHRU

25

Since that remote day in the 1940's, I have been in India several times and saw and was graciously received by the Prime Minister four or five times. The first time I came was in the winter of 1953. I was making a tour of S.E. Asia visiting friends of the Congress and meeting intellectuals and artists. Stephen Spender was also there (on a lecture tour in India, I believe) and we met in Delhi, where I had arrived from Bombay. The Prime Minister was informed of our coming and the day we arrived we found in our hotel boxes engraved cards with an invitation to lunch to the Prime Minister's residence. Spender and I came together to the residence of the Prime Minister and were received first by Mr Nehru's housekeeper. We signed our name in the book and went to the garden where the lunch table was set among greenery. Mrs Indira Gandhi, the Prime Minister's daughter, and a scholarly-looking Indian gentleman were standing around and waiting for us. We were offered drinks (cherry-juices) and - were told that the Prime Minister was held up in Parliament ... but would arrive any minute, as indeed he did. We saw his gaunt figure walking towards us across the lawn. 'Yes, I remember you,' he said, as he greeted me. 'I met you at Mrs N's in New.York, is it not so? ... And you came here to meet our musicians and hear our music, did you? ... Or, have you other things in mind?' And then he saw Spender, whom he had known before, went up' to him and shook his hand. The luncheon was lively and charming. Nehru was an excellent conversationalist but also an attentive listener. But the nicest thing about him, which struck me that time and indeed every time that I saw him, was his simplicity, the utter lack of ceremonial, or any kind of pomp abo~t him. In the course of my five or six visits to the Prime Minister or lunches with him (the last one was in 1961, I believe, and again Spender was with me, but this time also Jayaprakash Narayan) I had occasion to speak with Nehru about many subjects: history, politics, the arts and literature, but mostly about India and its culture and artistic tradition. He said to me often that he couldn't understand why I, a musician, should be interested in things so much beyond the normal orbit of my art, like the international political tensions in the world ... '. He would change the subject, by saying: 'This

26

NEHRU-A

CRITICAL

TRIBUTE

should really not be your concern . . . leave this to us . . . the politicians: , Nehru's gaze was slow, gradual, full of human warmth. After you had been with him an hour pr two, you came out with the feeling of having received a gift 'of some kind, the mysterious gift of human contact and friendship. All this, I suppose, is what people so often used to call the magic of Nehru. I experienced it every time I saw him. This deep sense of involvement and attraction. The last time I saw the Prime Minister was for breakfast at his house together with my wife and the Galbraiths. I think it was the spring of 1961. He looked aged and tired, spoke very little and was visibly preoccupied. I was sorry that we had imposed upon him by accepting his invitation for breakfast. But he shook my hand and said so gently, so kindly: 'You cannot impose upon me, I am always glad to see you ... only I am presently always in a rush and ... I'm not that agile, not that elastic any more. . . .' This last February when I was at the East-West music conference in Delhi, I saw his daughter, but I could not see him. He was not allowed to receive guests the way he wished and saw people only on urgent business. Still his old friends Yehudi and Diana Menuhin went to call on him and had lunch with him and told him jokes and he laughed a lot. But they came back disturbed and distressed by his state of health and the way he looked. I was told that the doctors had suggested to him that he resign and take a definite rest so as to protect his life for a few more years ... but he couldn't accept this solution. It was not Nehru's solution. So he knew, as his daughter knew and as many more people around him knew, that he would die, that he would die soon, at the latest this autunin ... , But he preferred to die this way, the way he had lived, in full action and thus give his last strength to his country and to his people.

jAvVAHARLAL NEHRU A~"OLD

TOYNBEE

I DID NOT KNOW Nehru at all intimately; in fact, I did not even meet him many times. But his personality made an immediate impression at one's first meeting with him, and this impression did not change over the years. Nor was the effect he made just an impression-the word is too weak and too cold. , Captivation' comes nearer to the truth. Here was a human being who could win one's heart and keep it. This would be something remarkable in anyone in any walk of life; but in someone whose position was humble and obscure it might not be so surprising as it was in a world-famo.us statesman who has left a deep mark, and this on the whole world and not just on his own country. In this great statesman, the lovable human being was not smothered by the eminent public figure. I should say that, in Nehru, there was not even the faintest touch of pomposity, self-importance, or self-consciousness. He retained the spontaneity and the buoyancy of youth even after carrying for years an unusually heavy burden of office. It was not till his last years that the unforeseen breach between India and China began to bow him down under its weight. My first meeting with Nehru happened to bring out the essence of his personality in a way that was amusing but also illuminating and, above all, morally impressive. The date was one of the inter-war years and Nehru had just finished serving one of his terms of imprisonment by the British Government of India. He had come out of prison and had come to England for a holiday. An English lady invited me to lunch in her house to meet him. Nehru was already there when I arrived, but, when the door opened for the next guest, it was a British general in uniform and, when the general saw Nehru, his jaw dropped. Apparently he had been implicated in some way in 27

28

NEHRU-A

CRITICAL

TRIBUTE

the sentence that Nehru had just been serving. (I never could discover whether our hostess' act,' in inviting the general and Nehru to meet each other, had been deliberate or inadvertent. I dare say it was inadvertent. Her :husband's family had a longstanding connection with India, and she may have thought vaguely that two men who were both connected with India in some way or other would probably fit well at the same lunch party.) I wondered how Nehru was going to take the situation. During the few minutes of conversation before the general's arrival, Nehru had left us in no doubt about his militancy. Manifestly, he was going all out to win India's independence from Britain; he was in the battle up to the hilt. Would his reception of the embarrassed British general be stiff? Would it be grim? This question was answered instantaneously by a twinkle that came into Nehru's eye. The situation had struck him as being funny, and he entertained us by teasing the general ever so gently-making him become more and more nervously conciliatory at each sly poke. This incident, though trifling in itself, was a revelation. I was in the presence of a human being who could fight-and fight with might and main-without hating his human opponents. There was plenty of fuel for resentment in Nehru's experience at British hands. Terms of imprisonment take painful bites out of a brief human life; and the fighters for India's independence were being imprisoned by the British for acting under the inspiration of ideals to which the British themselves officially subscribed and which they took seriously, for their own benefit, at home. Here were grounds for bitterness, but Nehru showed none. I had known that fighting without hating was one of Mahatma Gandhi's principles. Here, in ,one of his chief companions;, ! was seeing something out of the Sermon on the Mount being practised in real life, and this without any smugness and without any apparent effort. That bowled me over, and the memory of that lunch is as vivid in my mind today as if it had happened yesterday, and not thirty years ago. Another personal memory of mine involves an incident which was still slighter, but it, too, is revealing. One day in 1956 the University of Delhi was doing me the honour of conferring a degree on me, and I was still far from ,{he university precincts

JAWAHARLAL

NEHRU

29

when the hour fixed for the ceremony overtook me. The univers· ity is in the old Civil Lines at the opposite end of the seven (or is it fourteen?) Delhis from the Ashoka Hotel, and we haa been held up by the traffic in the crowded streets of Shahjehanabad. When we were, at last, within about a quarter of a mile of the university (but about three-quarters of an hour late) I was taken aback by the sudden appearance of Nehru running towards us. How could the Prime Minister have made the time to honour and please me by taking a personal part in the academic proceedings? And why was it he, of all people, who had set out in search of me? I had wasted an additional threequarters of an hour of his time, but he was not cross. The sufferers were his security men. When we arrived together at the university, we found them in a flap at having failed to prevent the Prime Minister from darting out through their cordon. That anxiety was well justified. Had not Mahatma Gandhi been assassinated? And was not the Prime Minister the man on whom Gandhi's mantle had fallen? The last time that I met Nehru was in 1960, and it was sad to see him, not changed in spirit, but now visibly labouring under his load. He had asked me to come and visit him and, at our meeting, I tried to keep off the subject of China, since this was, I knew, what was most tormenting him at the time. It was no use. He raised the subject himself and was evidently harrowed and almost obsessed by it. It was a striking contrast to previous meetings; but then, as each time before, came the human act that took one by surprise. I 'was in New Delhi to give the second series of Azad Memorial lectures (Nehru himself had been the first lecturer). I had just got to my feet to begin my first lecture when the Prime Minister came into the hall. Once again, he had made the time to take a personal part in academic proceedings in order to give pleasure to a guest. This was generous in a Prime Minister, but it was also most moving on a day on which he had suffered a grievous personal loss. It was the day of Lady Mountbatten's death. Lady Mountbatten and Pandit Nehru had been particularly close personal friends. And, for Nehru's warm heart, close friendships counted, I should guess, for even more than they count for most of us. Again, I was deeply touched.

30

NEHRU-A

CRITICAL

TRIBUTE

It seems certain that, for ages to come, Nehru will be remembered as an historic figure, but what is the future picture of him going to be? The lovable humal1 being-whom his intimate friends knew much better than I qid-made his impression on one through one's meeting him i,n the flesh. At second or seventieth hand, this vivid personal impression will be dimmed, at best, and, in time, may be almost effaced. Will Nehru be remembered as a great statesman? Unquestionably he was that. But I have suggested and here I believe I am right, that his eminence in public affairs was not the distinctive thing about him. One must be thankful when a noble soul takes on itself the burden of political leadership, for politics are always in need of redeeming. They are a backward field of human activity in which our average standard of behaviour is decidedly lower than it is in family life or in our professional vocations. A noble soul goes into politics at its peril, for politics are as difficult to redeem as they are in need of redemption. Politics are intractable. They cannot be redeemed, in one short lifetime even by one of those rare spirits that combine high idealism with practical genius. The noblest-minded statesman cannot altogether escape becoming a bondsman of his imperious circumstances. To be caught on the sorrowful wheel 'is part of the personal price that the statesman-idealist has to pay. It is more blessed to be imprisoned for the sake of one's ideals than to imprison other people, incongruously, in the name of the same ideals. Nehru lived to have both experiences. This was the nemesis of taking over the responsibility for the government of a great country. For Nehru himself, his political career, eminent though it was, was not, I believe, the most important thing in his life because, for him, it was not an end in- Itself. For him~ it was a means of serving his fellow human beings-his Indian fellow countrymen in the first place, but not them alone; for his feeling for his fellows embraced the whole of mankind_, Nehru has virtually said as much in more than one of his p'ublic utterances. He did care intensely for mankind's welfare, and destiny, and his vision of this will be the thing in him for which he will be remembered by posterity, if t~e verdic~ of history faithfully reflects the fundamental truth ab<;mt him.

]AWAHARLAL

NEHRU

31

I find it difficult to pigeon-hole this human personality in any of those impersonal categories in which historians deal. But, if constrained to try my hand at. this, I should say that Nehru served his fellow-men most fruitfully and most characteristically by taking his place in a series of interpreters and mediators between the civilization of tqe West and the other living civilizations. In modern times the West has been making a revolutionary impact on the rest of the world. The impact has been so potent that non-Westerners have been confronted with the choice of coming to terms with it or being hopelessly overwhelmed by it. Conversely, the West is now finding that it, for its own part, has to come to terms with the non-Western majority of the human race. We seem, in fact, to be in the birth-throes of a new society embracing the whole human race, with all the manifold and contradictory traditions of its formerly segregated sections. This seems to be the goal towards which the last four or five hundred years of the world's history have been leading. If this diagnosis is correct, the role of interpretation and mediation is the key role in the present age. It is a more,important role than the mere statesman's; and, in fact, some of the most effective of the interpreters have done their work outside the political arena. They have done it as scholars, writers, artists, poets, and prophets. Nehru was one of those who have played this part on the political stage; and, among the statesmen-interpreters of one civilization to another, one can ,distinguish more than one type. There is the ruthless sergeant-major who dragoons his troops into putting themselves through the excruciating process of cultural mutation; and there is the seer who inspires his followers to tread the same painful path voluntarily. Famous representatives of the first of these two types were Peter the Great, Mohammed Ali, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, and, in a rather more deft and light-handed way, the authors of the Meiji Revolution in Japan. Jawaharlal Nehru is evidently a representative of the type that moves mankind, not' by coercion, but by persuasion; and the other representatives of this kind of leader who first come into my mind are all Indians, like Nehru himself. One of them is the Emperor Ashoka, who was converted, by his experience

32

NEHRU-A

CRITICAL

TRIBUTE

of life, from being a coercionist into becoming a missionary, but who did his life-work, throughout, on the political stage. The other two whom I think of first are Ram Mohan Roy, the founder of the Brahmo Samaj, and, of course, Jawaharlal Nehru's master and mentor, Mahatma Gandhi. This is the company to which Nehru belongs, and in which he deserves to be remembered and to be immortalized.

JAWAHARLAL NEHRU AN ENIGMA

OR A

TRAGEDY?

M. N. Roy

IN THE POST-WAR period no one aroused higher hopes and greater expectations than Nehru of India. It was generally believed that a devastated and impoverished world was' richer by Asia " and Nehru was the leader of a 'resurgent' continent. He was hailed as such by all and sundry when he visited the United States two years ago. Since then events have moved fast, and Nehru seems to have failed to rise to the expectations of the democratic world. The latest disappointment has been caused by his disapproval of the Anglo-American draft for the Peace Treaty with Japan and the refusal even to send an Indian delegation to the San Francisco conference. His anxiety to keep India out oj the cold war between the communist and the anticommunist camps could be understood, though not approved, by liberal opinion throughout the world. But the arguments for Indid rejecting the Anglo-American draft of the Peace Treaty with Japan can be hardly called impartial. Yet, no dispassionate critic of his attitude suspects that Nehru is a Communist or that he would deliberately lead India into a position antagonistic to democracy. That is why liberal world opinion is puzzled and disappointed, and disappointment may lead to frustration and resentment. If that happened India would be harmed more than any other country.• For her economic development, she requires foreign financial aid which can come only from the United States. The latter has repeatedly expressed the readiness to extend the help as in the case of Europe. But Nehru's foreign policy has prevented India from r~ceiving the help she requires. From this point 33

3

34

NEHRU-A

CRITICAL

TRIBUTE

of view, his VISIt to the U.S.A. 'was an all-round failure. It yielded no concrete result, and p~eased nobody except himself. He disappointed American statesmen by his refusal to take sides in the cold war, and annoyed Ibusinessmen by the morbid suspicion of political strings attached to foreign capital. At home, realistic politicians and big business were displeased with Nehru because he failed to bring home the bacon. All that all-round failure and disappointment were due to the actor's desire to draw applause from the world leftist gallery, and also to increase his popularity with the vocal middle class at home by pandering to their nationalist conceit. The result of the failure of Nehru's visit to the U.S.A. was a conflict between the , people's tribune' and hard-headed party-politicians. The conflict has ultimately plunged the Congress Party into a crisis which is also the decisive crisis in the political life of Nehru. At this juncture, a leading daily has reproduced an article written by Nehru about himself in 1938 under a pen-name. The article throws a flood of light on the enigma that is Nehru and provides cause for the anxiety that the enigma may turn out to be a tragedy for himself as well as for the country, which may still follow him in the absence of any rival. He wrote: Jawaharlal has learnt well to act without the paint and powder of the actor. With his seeming carelessness and insouciance, he performs on the public stage with consummate artistry. What is this going to lead him and the, country to? What is he aiming at with all his apparent want of aim? What lies behind that mask of his, what desires, what will to power, what insatiate longings? Is it his will to power that is driving him from crowd to crowd and makes him whisper to himself: I drew, these tides of men into my hands and wrote my will across the sky in stars? Men like Jawaharlal with all their capacity for great and goolj work, are unsafe in democracy. He calls himself a de~ocrat and a socialist, and no doubt he does so in all earnestness; but every psychologist knows the mind is ultimately a slave to: the heart and that logic can always be made to fit in with the desires and irrepressible urges of men. A little twist and Jawaharlal might turn a dictator. He may still use the 'language and slogans of demo-

JAWAHARLAL

NEHRU

35

cracy and socialism, but we all know how Fascism has fattened on this language. Jawaharlal cannot become a Fascist. Yet, he has all the makings of a dictator in him-vast popularity, a strong will, energy, pride, organizational capacity, ability, hardness and, with all his love for the crowd, an intolerance for others and a certain contempt for the weak. His overmastering desire to get things done will hardly brook for long the slow processes of democracy. He may keep the husk but he will see to it that it bends to his will. In this revolutionary epoch, Caesarism is always at the door and is it not possible that Jawaharlal might fancy himself as a Caesar? Let us not spoil him by too much adulation and praise. His conceit, if any, is already formidable. It must be checked. No apology is necessary for this rather lengthy quotation. Because, this honestly and masterfully drawn self-portrait is as true to life today as it was thirteen years ago. Only its lights and shadows now stand out more clearly on the background of the history of the intervening period. Here, Jawaharlal himself explains why he has' been 'one of the greatest disappointments of the post-war era', as the New York Times described him ,recently. While his generalization is not true, in his own case, certainly the mind has always been the slave to the heart. And the present-crisis in the Congress Party has been precipitated by his impatience with slow-moving democracy. Explaining the reason of his resignation from the executive of the party which he leads, in a press conference Nehru said: 'I am an exceedingly bad politician, and functioning in groups I cannot function properly, but I can function in the midst of 50,000 or 100,000 persons.' Wb.at he whispered to himself thirteen years ago in poetical language is spoken out aloud today. He has contempt for the weak, because he is a weak character; the weakness is hidden to himself by an exaggerated belief in his strong will and hardness, and rationalized, when it can no longer be hidden by the dogma that the mind is a slave to the heart. The self-portrait was such an unmistakable pointer to Nehru's future, and to the future· of the country if it followed him, that for a long time few believed that it was drawn by himself. The authorship was ascribed to others who were known to be critical of him. As a matter of fact, until the reproduction of

36

NEHRU-A

CRITICAL

TRIBUTE

the article after thirteen years, as his own handiwork, Kripalani, who had recently broken away from the Congress with a large following, was generally believed Ito be its author. When the article first appeared, Nehru was the President of the Congress and Kripalani its General Secretar:y. Nehru's self-study being so much more candid than the classical confessions of other famous men, and ominous as the shadow of a possible fearful future cast ahead, the idea that it might have been his own work did not occur to anybody. It was known to very few that the provocation was provided by one of the recurring crises in the political life which Nehru had just experienced. He had succumbed to his weakness, allowed his morbid attachment to Gandhi to overwhelm his own conviction and leave his followers in the lurch. In 1937, the Congress participated in the election to the Provincial Legislative Assemblies set up under the Government of India Act of 1.935, with the object of blocking the operation of the British-made Constitution which it condemned as the • Charter of Slavery'. The phrase was coined by Nehru. The Congress having swept the polls, there developed a controversy. Practically all the top leaders, including Gandhi himself, were of the opinion that the Congress Party should accept office and form Provincial Ministries. That was obviously contrary to the object with which elections were contested. Followed by a considerable section of the membership, Nehru opposed the policy of compromise. The opposition was so strong that a Special Convention had to be called to settle the issue. It was almost certain that the opposition would win; and it was rumoured that in that case the elder statesmen with the consent of Gandhi would resign from the executive. Nehru was the President of the Cqngress. Before the Convention assembled, the Working Committee met at gandhi's residence in the Delhi Harijan Colony to discuss the crucial resolution drafted by Nehru. It was an open secret that the Committee disagreed with the President on the issue of office acceptance. There was a protracted and heated discussion. Nehru threatened to resign if his. draft was rejected. Finally, the Mahatma prevailed upon the Committee to accept the original draft amended by a shor~ paragraph, which invalidated the rest of the resolution. Th'e next day Nehru appeared in

JAW A H A R LA L ·N E H R U

37

the Convention, not to resign his Presidentship, but to recommend the acceptance of the resolution! The Congress accepted office under the • Charter of Slavery'. Although his followers were bitter against the ._ betrayal', Nehru's popularity did not wane in the least. The crowd can always be swayed by language spoken out of the heart. Throughout his political career, time and again, Nehru has similarly acted against his own conviction, and on most of the occasions voluntarily-at the dictation of his heart, and lately prompted by the will to power. After the failure of the second Civil Disobedience Movement in 1931, the younger elements in the Congress Party, who haa been influenced by Nehru's leftism, revolted against the top leaders. They were already showing a tendency to accept the Reforms recommended by the Round Table Conference, which had been boycotted by the Congress. At that juncture, Nehru confused issues by associating nationalism with vaguely conceived socialist ideals. He was instrumental in arresting the process of differentiation between the forces of progress and conservatism by captivating the immaturity of the former with the lure of a socialist utopia. Conservative nationalism was ratio_nalized as the means to social revolution. Nehru's socialist professions galvanized the antiquated cult just when it was losing its appeal to the progressive and democratic forces. Swayed by the siJvertongued oratory of the seagreen incorruptible people's tribune, they were fired with the fanaticism of reconverts and herded back to the fold of Gandhism, which had in the meantime shed the oddities which wen: incongruous in a struggle for mundane power. Nehru missed the chance to lead the movement for national liberation towards the higher goal of a social revolution of the kind which had brought Europe out of the twilight of the Middle Ages. Personal attachment to Gandhi precluded his moving in the direction of genuine political greatness and creative leadership. His behaviour at that juncture was pusillanimous. It was the first major crisis of his political life. He succumbed: he patronized ,the formation of a Socialist Party, but himself did not join it, and advised it to remain organizationally inside the Congress under its conservative leadership. A blind revolt against agelong social injustice and economic

38

NEHRU-A

CRITICAL

TRIBUTE

inequality provided the basic impulse of the mass movement which developed under the bann~r of nationalism. If allowed to be articulate, the social-revolutionary impulse of the movement was bound to threaten the status quo. Nehru's nationalism preferred to sail under a false colour in order to deceive and mislead the politically inarticulate 'urge for social justice. With the apparently revolutionary programme of an uncompromising anti-imperialist struggle, Nehru's socialism rationalized the racial animus of nationalism. The anti-imperialist battle-cry of pseudo-socialist left nationalism became the most virulent political expression of race animosity. Being primarily directed against the British, it opposed the politician Nehru to his intellectual conviction and cultural ideals nourished by the tradition of European liberalism. The inner conflict could not but split the personality of a man who allowed emotion to overwhelm the intellect. Therefore, Nehru is so very full of contradictions, which puzzle even his admirers. Nehru's fascination for socialism was the expression of the longing of the lonesome intellectual of the twentieth century for an ideal, for a cause to which he could dedicate his life. It is a powerful urge which may enable one to rise high in the world of thought and deed; but it is also known to generate equally strong atavistic tendencies. The purely emotional longing for a vaguely conceived new world, in the context of the disintegrating bourgeois culture, has in innumerable cases found a concrete expression in the modern man's search for God. Nehru found his God in Gandhi, and dedicated his life to rationalizing the latter's mediaeval ideals and obscurantist ideas. During the last three decades, the political history of India was dominated by two personalities. They worked in the closest co-operation, but their relation ~was an enigma for all except the most superficial observers. Culturally, <"Gandhi belonged to the Middle Ages, representing the best of its moral tradition, though on a much lower level intelfectually. .Nehru, on the contrary, is a moder'n man who admittedly found it difficult to share Gandhi's obsct.J.rantist outlook. Nevertheless, throughout his public life he has been guided by the faith that Gandhi could never be wrong. His acceptance of the latter's leadership was without reservation. Nehru's entire poli,tical career was built on the basis' 9f that 'enigmatic relationship

JAWAHARLAL

NEHRU

39

between two personalities which apparently had so very little in common. / Nehru is a man of modern education and culture, endowed with a high degree of moral integrity, refinement and personal charm. As a matter of fact, in so far as his personality embraces all these virtues and many other attributes of a moder!1- civilized man he stands head and shoulders above the top leaders of his party and also his colleagues in the government. As such, he has no peer in nationalist India. Yet, the point is that all these merits and assets might not have raised him to the high pedestal of the' Tribune of the People', and subsequently to political power, but for his mystic and mysterious relations with Gandhi. The virtues of a moqern man are not appreciated in an atmosphere of traditionalism and cultural conservatism; and Indian nationalism thrived in that rank atmosphere, its ideology being revivalist. Therefore it can be reasonably doubted if Nehru could become the hero of Indian nationalism except as the spiritual son of Gandhi. The corollary is obvious: to purchase popularity, Nehru had to suppress his own personality. That was not easy to do. Moral integrity precluded hypocrisy or insincerity. It was an effort to reconcile two discordant systems of values. The rationality of a man of modern education and culture clashed with his blind faith born of the unanalysed emotions of personal loyalty. The superimposed personality of the alter ego proved to be stronger than Nehru's native self. The result was self-deception, disintegration and stultification of a personality which, but for that tragic experience, might have been more creative than a successful politician. The tragedy of Nehru, his failure to unfold his personality to a high degree of creative greatness, was brought about by a conflict of two cultures; the tradition of mediaevalism represented by Gandhi proved much too strong for Nehru's superficial modernism-superficial because it could not successfully counteract the loyalty to an antithetical cultural tradition. The enigmatic relation between the two men was the logical consequence of the essential similarity of the apparently different ideas and ideals cherished by them, respectively. The enigma was generalized in the puzzle of the Indian nationalist movement being led at the same time by two men belonging to two epochs of cultural history, personifying two patterns of culture. It resulted

40

NEHRU-A

CRITICAL

TRIBUTE

from the fact that contemporary India does live in two ages: chronologically she lives in the t\~entieth century; but historically, that is to say, in the scale of ,social evolution and cultural progress, she still languishes in the soporific twilight of the Middle Ages. Nehru's surrender to Gandhi was determined by this paradox of the Indian situation. After Gandhi's death, Nehru might have recovered his soul, could he resist the lure of power. The love of power, however, can result from a keen sense of responsibility. It has undoubtedly been so in the case of Nehru. Nevertheless, it has done him more harm than to others. The delusion that he is the heart and soul of things makes him blind to the humiliating fact that he is being used by others for not very noble purposes. But having walked deliberately into this position, he could not retrace his steps unless he was prepared to abandon a vocation not compatible with his owp personality. On several" occasions in the past, it appeared that he might do so. As long as Gandhi lived, personal loyalty to him prevented Nehru from making a bold choice. Now it seems that he has completely forgotten his own self, to become a willing tool of the party bosses who are the power behind the Prime Minister's throne. The latter, in their turn, do not grudge him the monopoly of the limelight, which tickles the vanity of most mortals. The People's Tribune has not succeeded as a statesman. To retain his position as leader of the nation, he must always be on the platform and appear from time to time on the world stage. He has failed as a diplomat, being too honest to be one. _ But notwithstanding his waning popularity, Nehru is still irreplaceable as the premier vote-catcher of the party. The disillusioned urban middle class may no longer be fascinated by the glamour of the scion of aristocracy pr~aching Socialism. The decisive factor in the next election, however, 'will be the. newly enfranchised illiterate millions. Steeped in ignorance and superstition, they can be swayed only by an appeal to their blincL.faith. The Mahatma is no longer th~re, physically. But his infallible inner voice will speak through his spiritual son. Nehru will win the election, aided, of course, by a powerful party machine and the generosity of financial patrons. Consequently, Nehru still remains the leader of the nation, because he is the heirdesignate of the Father of the Nation.

JAWAHARLAL

NEHRU

41

The present crisis in the Congress Party is the latest CrISlS in Nehru's political life. He talks of secularism; but Hindu chauvinism is the prevailing passion of the politically minded middle class. To win the coming election, the Congress Party must make concessions to the sentiment of the most powerful section of the electorate. As a matter of fact, a majority of the membership of the Congress Party fully shares the prevailing passion. The party is moving in a definite direction away from the ideas and ideals of Nehru. He cannot stop the swing. Consistently, he cannot move with the party. He is confronted with the choice between loyalty to the party and his own principles. He has chosen the former. The capitulation may still appear as a victory, because the party managers are not taking any risk on the eve of the election. But Nehru would never leave the Congress. And he could not remain the titular leader of the Congress unless he capitulated to the reactionary forces which control the party machinery. His uncompromising atti- . tude on the Kashmir issue and the policy of being tough in the relation with Pakistan are concessions to Hindu chauvinism. Four years in office have cost the Congress Party much of its popularity with the people at large. But the popular hero will ,lead the unpopular Congress to victory in the coming election. The tragedy of Nehru is all t;he greater because he could be the real leader, if he had a stronger character. In that case, the history of India might have been different, and she could really play on the world stage the role which Nehru imagines she is playing through himself. The vicissitudes of party politics and the lure of power have strangled a good man who could shine more brilliantly as a poet or an actor. Those who know him well must wonder if he regrets having made a wrong choice. But it is too late to rectify. The lure of greatness has made the world poorer by one good man, potentially possessed of creative talent.

ROY AND NEHRU P.

SPRATr

dichotomies which Jung used in his classification of personality types is that between thinkers and feelers. Clearly Roy belonged to the type in which the thinking function rules. He had to have a system, a philosophy, and everything he said had to be logically deduced from it. It is equally clear that in Nehru the feeling function ruled. He attached no value to systems. He went by likes and dislikes, and always seemed to be hesitating between alternatives. The style is the man: read almost any sentence ever written by either, and you will tell the author at once. J ung adds, however, that in each type the other function is powerful below the surface. Roy's friends know that in private he was a man of strong sentiments and loyalties, very unlike the image of the cold, arrogant political boss people formed from his writing. In a similar way, despite his aesthetic enthusiasms and moral hesitations, Nehru was an extremely shrewd politican -though, as is characteristic of his type, his shrewdness being largely unconscious, it applied only to short-term manipulations and ignored long-term effects. Presumably such characteristics are inborn, but in these two cases they were reinforced by early experience. Nehru's up, bringing was calculated to produce a frequenter of ""'literary drawing-rooms, and his first taste of politics was in ~ritain, where above all things they hate a general prop~_sition: Roy was throwing bombs in his early. teens, and thpugh he was by some years the younger of the two, by the time Nehru had begun cycling round the D.P. villages to see what life was like, Roy had taken a significant part in revolutionary action in two countries besides his own, had 'fled fron{ the police in half a ONE OF THE

ROY

AND

NEHRU

43

dozen, and was sitting on the Executive of the Comintern, bandying theses with Lenin. Roy and Nehru met briefly in the twenties, and were associated in Congress work for two or three years just before the second World War. They probably never saw each other after 1939. Nehru seems to have looked upon Roy with a rather distant and puzzled respect. Roy liked Nehru as a man, and appreciated his wide-ranging mind-at least in contrast to Subhas Bose, who as he once told me was a man of one idea, preferring silence to talk on any other topic. But I think he always had a poor opinion of Nehru as a politician. Roy's true feeling about Nehru seems to be expressed in his booklet Jawaharlal Nehru, published in 1945. This work is highly characteristic of Roy, more particularly of Roy iIi his communist phase. It is all logically deduced from a few basic prOpOSItIOns. Nehru would have accepted these propositions, but on each subject discussed in it he had acted in a way contrary to his professed principles. 'Logic has never been the strong point of Nehru,' Roy remarks. 'Otherwise, he could not be the heir-designate of the most successful prophet of irrationalism of the twentieth century. Nehru is a misfit in politics; he was cast for the role of a poet or play-actor.' An astonishing misjudgement! Yet Roy's logic was faultless. Nehru agreed that it was necessary in India's interest, and the world's, to prevent the victory of the Axis powers. Yet he led the individual civil disobedience against the war, rejected the Cripps offer, justified the sabotage campaign of 1942, and so forth. Nehru wanted a democratic, modern India; how then could he support the Mahatma? Nehru said that politics thought of in terms of religious communities is inconsistent with democracy; how then had he accepted the Wavell Plan? Nehru wanted socialism in India; how then had he agreed, under the Wavell Plan, to enter a cabinet containing Sir Ardeshir Dalal, a director of Tatas? Nehru called himself a socialist; how then could he (in an interview with an American paper) express a desire for close relations with public opinion in America, and incidentally deny that Russia had any influence in India? Nehru would have agreed that these questions were unanswerable-and yet, on the other hand . . . Roy, dominated by the thinking function, explicitly stated the conclusions .to which

44

NEHRU-A

CRITICAL

TRI.BUTE

his argument led, and condemned himself for ever to the political wilderness. Nehru was guided Iby an unconsCious thinking function, which told him that a would-be national leader must not repudiate the most popular national her:oes; that there was no future for anyone who broke with the Mahatma; that there was no harm in being polite to the Americans, who were influential, however abhorrent their economic system; that once a national Government was in the saddle, the money-bags would have to submit to the politicians; above all, that for the politician what matters is not logic but power. Roy's booklet on Nehru was one of the last he wrote in the period when he was still a communist. Soon after that he abandoned communism and worked out his new Radical Humanism. This resembles Marxism in that it purports to be a comprehensive philosophy of nature and history and a guide to political action. But it differs considerably from Marxism. It denies that the course of social evolution is foreordained. It makes room for human decision, and therefore for ethics. It recognizes that social events have causes other than economic, and in particular grants that ideas have an independent causal efficacy. At the political level it abandons the dialectic, revolution, dictatorship and liquidation, and while suspicious of parties it stresses democracy and liberty. It retains, however, spmething of the Marxian emphasis on science and secularism, and with even more fervour than the communists demands a change of ideas. It is free from the communist obsession with economics, and fears the leviathan state of traditional socialism, but favours co-operative enterprise and local initiative. It turned out that the new theory involved the abandonment of much of the theoretical basis of Roy'S attack on Nehru. It also appeared, when Nehru became PriIpe Minister, that Roy had greatly misjudged his character. He proved to be a...., skilful political manager, and though ready enough to compromise, he showed an entirely unexpected determination in pursuing his main political purposes. Moreover, these purposes- had something in common with Roy's new ideas. Nehru seemed to be using Roy's words when he spoke of science and secularism and reforming the old social order. He spoke less of liberty, but in practice he preserved it to a surprising extent. This is the matter o~ which' his feelings took him

ROY

AND

NEHRU

45

farthest away from communism, and nearest to Roy. Radical Humanism officially considers parliamentary democracy obsolete, but in the absence of any move towards the local direct democracy which it favours, the parliamentary system is the next best thing. The Radicals appreciate Nehru's zeal in preserving at least the forms of parliamentarism. Roy's criticism in his Nehru pamphlet was nowhere more mistaken than in regard to capitalism and socialism. He took the communist view that the two are incompatible opposites, and that almost any attempt at compromise must lead to the triumph of capitalism. Roy expressed fear of the power of the big business man, Sir Ardeshir Dalal. Actually the only defender of capitalism whom Nehru had any need to fear was the politician, Vallabhbhai Patel, and when he had left the scene, Dalal, Matthai, Bhabha, Birla and all the millionaires of the land proved to have less power in their whole body than Nehru had in his little finger. He could have expropriated the lot of them at a stroke if he had chosen; he preferred to do it gradually, but he. moved steadily that way. With the same bland assurance he ignored the fact that a clear majority of the electorate are landowners, and proceeded to expropriate them, one group after another. Roy was equally mistaken about capitalism and socialism at the international level. To him Russia stood for socialism and America for capitalism, and one obviously ought to declare for one's side. Nehru agreed with Roy's diagnosis and with his preference; but no such simple black and white for him. He was a communist and he meant to make India communist, but it is almost as if he sensed in advance the feelings of Tito and Gomulka: and Mao, and decided to begin where they would leave off. But he remained loyal: under him, India became, in the name of non-alignment, an unofficial member of the communist bloc. On this point, though he might have preferred to be more plain·spoken about it, Roy even in his Radical phase probably agreed with Nehru. In his communist period Roy denounced Nehru's policy in the orthodox terms. as trying to combine nationalism with socialism, and cited Nazism as the inevitable outcome. We nm~ see that despite their theory, all communists, including the Russian, are nationalists, and that the real trouble is with

46

NEHRU-A

CRITI.CAL

TRIBUTE

socialism, whiCh itself tends strongly towards totalitarianism. In his Radical phase Roy clearly undcrrstood this, and it is a great pity that his warnings against socialism have been ignored. His solution was an extremely decentralized direct democracy. Nehru had some inkling of it too, and his remedy was panchayat raj. Roy was serious and Nehru was merely sentimental; but alas, both their remedies seem to be ineffective. Like Tito, Gomulka and Mao, Nehru deviated from the communist norm more in politics than in economics. He compromised with the forms of bourgeois democracy so far that to this day few people realize that he was a communist. In his economic policy it shows more clearly. The communist character of his plan strategy has been widely recognized. But by that time Roy had abandoned communism, and his Radical Humanism carried with it a quite different economic policy. Roy explicitly opposed, in advance, the development policy which Nehru later put intI) operation. I quote from a speech of his made in 1949: The fundamental problem of Indian economy is the problem of population . . . . Rapid industrialization by building up heavy industries as a means to raise the standard of living of the people is obviously not suitable to India .... Industrialization would have to be on the most up-to-date pattern. Even if India would be industrialized to the greatest possible extent within the next ten or fifteen years, not more than perhaps ten million people could be shifted from agriculture to industry. That would be less than a flea-bite .... When countries are industrialized without any reference to the needs and purchasing capacity of the people, a way out is found in subsidizing export trade. Govern~ent can produce the finance Jor subsidies only by taxing the people, whic~ means lowering their standard of living. . . . We must begin with the main sector of Indian eCQ,nomy, which is agriculture. Again, the type of reorganization of agriculture which is necessary and possible in ,our country has nothing in common with socialism. . . . The application of machinery is almost out of the question. Therefore it is argued that peasant agriculture must be abolished in favour of large farms owned by the State, or perhaps formally owned

ROY

AND

NEHRU

47

by peasant co-operatives. Leaving aside the question whether this can be done by democratic means, how will you then solve the problem of the displacement of labour? . . . An improved irrigation system is probably our first need, and it can be met by providing innumerable wells, water reservoirs and local canals, bundings, etc. Secondly, the fertility of the land needs to be maintained and increased. The natural fertilizer of cattledung is being wasted for fuel; that fertilizer has to be given back to the earth, which will be much better than chemical fertilizers produced in big factories. The Govemc ment can certainly see to it that coal is made accessible to the villagers. By putting the cowdung back into the land they will increase their income by more than the coal will cost them. . . _ Thirdly, the countryside needs many new roads and repairs to existing ones, also rural consumers and subsidiary local industries can be organized on a small local scale_ That would cost the Government much less and give much more immediate benefit to the people, than vast projects which may change the face of the country without effecting any change in its economic system and living standards.... Fifteen years ago that was prescient. Roy knew more about economics, and more about India, than people have given him credit for. In politics feeling may carry a man through, to power if not to success; in economics, the man of thought has the advantage.

JAWAHARLAL NEHRU AND CHARISMATIC LEADERSHIP S. P.

AIYAR

DURING THE LAST few years the leadership of Jawaharlal Nehru has often been described as 'charismatic '. One finds this adjective used in newspaper editorials and scholarly articles; in seminars and conferences; in personal discussions and in public lectures. In this article I propose first, to explain the implications of charisma and secondly evaluate Nehru's leadership in the light 'of this concept, particularly in the context of the Indian tradition. The term charisma was introduced into the literature of politics from the writings of the German sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920). The term appears in connection with Weber's discussion of power. He was concerned with the problem of legitimacy in leadership patterns. Weber's analysis led him to identify three broad kinds of authority-the traditional, the legal-rational and the charismatic. In the first, legitimacy is derived from the sanctions of tradition (as in hereditary monarchy); in the second, it ensues from the legal order and from formal institutions. These are said to be 'rational' in the sense that they are objective and impersonal, with a reason for their existence. Legal-rational authority is linked up with the growth of bureaucracy. A truly distinct type is the third. Charismatic leadership rests upon certain ·qualities of the individual personality, by virtue of which the leader exercises a spell over his followers. These are no ordinary human virtues; by these inborn qualities the leader' is set apart from_ .ordinary men and treated as endowed with s1,lpernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualitie~. These are not accessible to the ordinary person, but are regarded as of divine origin or as exemplary, and on the basis of them the individual concerned is treated as a leader.' In Weber's analysis, ttadit/

T,

NEHRU

AND

CHARISMATIC

LEADERSHIP

~

ional authority and the legal-rational authority are considered to be stable, or at least relatively so; charismatic leadership on the contrary is, by its very nature, unstable and ephemeraL Charismatic leadership has its origin in times of emergency or during a social crisis. The mass of people come under the spell of the charismatic leader, believing him to possess some divine or occult power, or at least some god-given ener_gy by which he would be able to lead them out of distress and social anarchy. The charismatic leader builds his authority on the irrational elements of mass psychology; he might appeal to their religious beliefs and, in any case, he has a psychic hold over his followers. Possessed by charisma, the leader is apt to be impatient of established authority, legally and rationally cons titute~l. He is himself the source of power and seeks to bend everything to the service of his own mission. People follow him involuntarily and turn away from established rules. This is what Weber had in mind when he said that charisma and bureaucracy are opposed to each other. The retreat from external authority under the spell of charisma constitutes a real transformation of experience which is as fundamental as when men first learn to adapt themselves to the compulsions of legal rules. From this it follows that charismatic leadership is a kind of • personal rule' in contrast to legitimacy derived from legalrational authority. But traditional authority is also a kind of personal rule and it is necessary to distinguish carefully between the two phenomena of power. Reinhard Benedix brings out the difference well, when he writes: The patriarchal master possesses authority because he represents the inviolable sanctity of tradition, whereas the charis· matic leader dominates others because through his person a mission has become manifest which very often revolutionizes the established order. Traditional rule is characteristically permanent, however temporary may be the power of an individual patriarchal master. Charismatic leadership, on the other hand, is the product of_ crisis and enthusiasm. l ~

Max Weber, An Intellectual Portrait (Heinemann, 1960), p. 303.

4

50

NEHRU-A

CRITICAL

TRIBUTE

Weber's typology of authority has been subjected to criticism from several angles. It is said, for instance, that there are many shades in-between the types m~ntioned by Weber. This criticism is somewhat unfair because Weber was concerned with identifying tl!e types and never denied the shades and combinations which might exist. Again, it has been argued that Weber confuses the phenomena of power and leadership with that of rule and rulership, thus taking a somewhat limited view of the nature of power. Weber, it is further alleged, exaggerates the psychological aspects of rule and of patterns of government. The critics admit that Weber had put his finger on an important aspect of power when he was analysing the nature of legitimacy, but they argue that the problem of legitimacy and the grounds of allegiance is much more complex than what Weber's analysis would lead us to believe. The result is that often any complex phenomenon of leadership is just loosely described as charismatic. There is, undoubt~dly, a strong temptation to use the term' charisma' to describe any kind of inspirational leadership. It has often become a term for covering one's ignorance in a highly sophisticated manner. (One is reminded of the versatile use to which the word allergy is put by medical practitioners!) "Weber himself saw the danger and said that charisma is often a crude swindle used in many senses, at once sacred and profane, secular and religious. It is undoubtedly the task of the social scientist to identify different forms of inspirational leadership and it is meaningless to use a term which can cover inspirational leaderships as different as those of Gandhi and Hitler. Professor C. J. Friedrich has suggested that the Weberian typology is basically unsound and should therefore be given up. He argues that charismatic leadership is linked up with the doctrines of a particulat; religion from which it springs and that 'pure' charisma is linked up with faith in religion and in a transcendental deity. Since religion is on the decline, charismatic leadership is now of minor significance and, in any case, in the field of political leadership, properly speaking, charisma is only ail aspect of power and leadership.2 Professor Friedrich's article is a warning against an unscientific 2 See his article on .. Political Leadership and the Problem of the Charismatic Power" in The Journal 0/ Politics, February 1961.

NEHRU

AND

CHARIS,MATIC

LEADERSHIP

51

use of the term and his criticism of the Weberian typology has a sound basis. It can be argued, however, that Max Weber was in this respect the pioneer who indicated a possible line of inquiry. If the term' charisma' is not sufficiently clear in Weber's own work, it only provides a challenge to contemporary sociologists to sharpen its meaning and give it a definite connotation. If it is true that the concept of charisma does not explain much, it is equally true that it illuminates many aspects of leadership. There is some validity in the charge that the concept of charisma has little relevance to the phenomenon of leadership as it appears in Western societies; but the term does seem to have some relevance to conditions in Indian society. We may therefore turn to a bvief examination of the conception of leadership in the Hindu tradition. Ruling being considered the right of the Kshatriya, leadership was associated with kingship. The earliest formulations of kingly leadership were connected with military prowess. Gradually there developed the other aspects of royal' leadership ' the king as protector of his people and as preserver of Dharma. The notion of king as protector of his people could only appear in the Indian tradition, with a certain religious halo. In the caste-oriented society the assumption of religious legitimacy was necessary not only to keep the society going but also to control the Brahmins who considered spiritual affairs their special province. Consequently, the king had himself described as one possessing spiritual strength. Thus Asoka described himself as 'Devanampriya Priyadarshin '. The idea of secular and popular leadership in the society could not develop, for a leader must lead people against somebody or against the state or he must have a mission to perform. The notion of rights against the state was foreign to the Hindu tradition and this arrested the emergence of leadership except in the context of royal power. The only ideals held out to the masses were those of religious leaders or personalities from Hindu epics who were generally believed to be historical figures. No other form of leadership was important, a fact which partly explains the absence of biographical literature. Incidentally, when biographies first made their appearance in modern India, the writer idolized his hero in religious terms. The idea of deification of men of extraordinary abilities fits in with certain

52

NEHRU-A

CRITICAL

TRIBUTE

religious ideas in the Hindu tradition. Since every man has the spark of divinity in him he is tq br treated as such, at least on special occasions. This probably explains why the practice of garlanding and the particular form of salutation (namast~) is common for both gods and men. If there is an element of the divine in all men, it is more articulate in some exceptional individuals than in the common clay of humanity, and this itself is part of a grand design. Exceptional individuals are ' avatars' who come down to earth to help suffering humanity: Whenever there is a decline of righteousness and a rise of unrighteousness, 0 Bharata (Arjuna) then I send forth myself. (B.G. IV 7) For the protection of the good, for the destruction of the wicked and for the establishment of righteousness, I come into being from age to age. (B.G. IV 8)' Whatever being there is, endowed with glory and grace and vigour, know that to have sprung from a fragment of my splendour. (B.G. X 41) The theory of avatara is common to both Hindu and Buddhist traditions. Gautama Buddha says: Then the Blessed One spoke and said' Know Vasettha, that from time to time a Tathagatha is born into the world, a fully enlightened one, blessed and worthy, abounding in wisdom and goodness. happy with the knowledge of the worlds, unsurpassed as a guide to erring mortals, a teacher of Gods and men, a Blessed Buddha. He proclaims the Truth both in its letter a'nd in its spirit, lovely in its origin, lovely in its progress, lovely in its consummation. A higher life doth he make known in all its purity all~ in all its perfectness.' The idolization of the leader fits in neatly within the framework of this religious conception. But no leader had a mass following until the emergence of Lokamanya Tilak and thereafter of Gandhi and Nehru. Both Tilak 'and Gandhi consciously used the values and ideas of traditiona:l Hinduism and ~ade

NE H R U

AND

C H AR I S

l\[

A TIC

LEA D E R S HIP

53

them part of the political movement. In doing this both strengthened the traditional society. Both were in a sense antiWestern and galvanized the xenophobia implicit in Hindu nationalism. 3 Both brought into the language of politics the symbols and images associated with traditional Hinduism, although Tilak did this in greater measure than Gandhi. But the difference between the two is also great. There was undoubtedly an element of charisma in the leadership of Gandhi; in Tilak there was none, although both were idolized. .Tilak appeared, despite his appeal to Hindu tradition, as a political leader to his followers; Gandhi appeared in the strange combination of saint and politician, the chemistry of which baffled his contemporaries and to some extent continues to baffle us. Tilak's appeal was primarily to reason; he. never spoke of his inner voice or conscience and he clothed his opposition to the British government in tlie language of Western constitutionalism. Gandhi's leadership concealed within the trappings of rationality a hard core of irrationality and his hold over people was nonrational. Herein lay the charismatic element, His followers not only held him in awe and reverence but they believed that he possessed a divine quality which was • evidenced' by the language he spoke, and the idiom he employed. In later years, even the secular-minded and rational Nehru could say of him: A glory has departed and th_e sun that warmed and brightened our lives has set and we shiver in the cold and dark. Yet, he would not have us feel that way. After all, that glory we saw for all these years, that man with the divine fire, • changed us also-and such as we are, we have been moulded by him during these years; and out of that divine fire, many at us also took a small spark, which strengthened and made us work to some extent on the lines that he fashioned. The leadership of Jawaharlal Nehru provides a contrast to both Tilak and Gandhi, both of whom he admired. His appeal Was not to Hindu traditi~n and in many ways he attacked it. His great dream .was to modernize India and he saw more clearly than his predecessors the obstacles in the way of modernization. 3

Cf. Nirad Chaudhuri, The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian.

54

NEHRU-A

CRITICAL

TRIBUTE

These ensued for the most part from the traditional society. What he wanted was a mental rev~lution which would transform India. At the same time, Nehru was impatient with the Westernminded rationalist who condemned the past totally and had developed contempt for it. Like' Tilak, his appeal was solely to reason so far as politics was concerned. He spoke of principles and methods, never of conscience and the inner voice. There was no mystical element in his leadership. The mainsprings of his inspiration lay in the rational appeal he made to his people to work within the bounds of the legal-rational frame-work which free India had set up and work for the modernization of India without giving up its rich cultural heritage. In doing this, he performed a function exactly the opposite of the charismatic leader in Weber's analysis. Nehru himself worked within the constitutional restraints which he could well have broken, if he had chosen to do so. He played a key role in India's Parliament, and although he was apt to be dictatorial at times, he raised the level of Parliamentary institutions in the country and gave the people of India a new awareness of the role and function of Parliament. As an example of pure charisma, Nehru's leadership does not quite fit in. However, it is possible that there were traces of it and these can be understood only in the context of the Hindu tradition about which I have written. The masses of India adored him with a religious veneration and there was widespread even among intellectuals the cult of personality bordering on • charismatic submission', Thus S. K. Dey said: 'We are a nation of hero worshippers. Why not? If Panditji asked me to drown myself in that,well tomon-ow morning, I would do it.' vVhat was the secret of this mass appeal and veneration? Many explanations have been offered and the~ seem to indicate that there was undoubtedly an element of charisma present,..although it is not of the pure type indicated by Weber: (I) Nehru does not have to be a saint because Gandhi's sainthood extended to him-Gandhi did it for him. (2) The people :do not fully realize that he is not a saint, even though he constantly tells them so. (3) National and reIlgious elemepts are so mixed in the Indian mind that the material sacrifices made by him and his familv for the national cause amount to 'renunciation of I the \\-orld.., and thus sanctity i-n,.Hinduism. (4) Ninetv per cent ,

II

NEHRU

AND

CHARISMATIC

LEADERSHIP

M

of the people pay no attention to politics in detail; to them, he is Gandhi's heir without discussion. (5) Hindus in the mass would never be able to believe that a Brahmin, a Pandit, a learned man, was other than holy in his heart. (6) Jawaharlal had suffered greatly, had spent years in prison and all this for the sake of the people. Thus Nehru is a saint, whether he thinks it or not:' At the back of these suggestions lies the inescapable fact of the Hindu religious tradition with its emphasis on renunciation and the theory of avatar. The various explanations only throw light to a limited extent on the nature of the allegiance the people of India owed to Nehru. There were undoubtedly different reasons for different classes of people. When the masses thronged to hear him speak, at least to get a glimpse of him, it was with a view to getting his • Darshan '. To the intellectuals it was often the strange combination of contradictory qualiti~s which produced one of the most colourful personalities of modern India. Says Krishna Kripalani: He is at once personal and detached, human and aloof, with the result that now he appears fond, now cold, now proud, now modest. An aristocrat in love with the masses, a nationalist who represents the culture of the foreigner, an. intellectual caught up in the maelstrom of an emotional upheaval-the very paradox of his personality has surrounded it with a halo. Above all, he represented the voice and aspiration of the modern Indian nationalist movement (and Nehru himself was doubtless conscious of this). More than any other contemporary . Indian, he had • discovered' India, and read a meaning and a purpose in the panorama of Indian history. He propagated the idea that India had a mission in the modern world and the people saw in him the Rrophet destined to carry out this work. Nehru not only linked up the past and the present into a meaningful story but he provided a vital link between the rural and the urban population. Thus his personal appeal-call it charisma if you like-carried to the masses a vague sense of the great changes he dreamt of for India, while at the same time 4

Cited- in Vincent Sheean, Nehru, The Years of Power (London, 1957),

p.27.

56

NEHRU-A

CRITICAL

TRIBUTE

he represented for the intellectuals the hope of modernization. In his own mind, the tradition of Illdia and the compulsions of modernization were not opposed to each other. He was at home with the tribal people and participated in their colourful cus· toms even as he was at home In the most sophisticated, Westernized society. Nehru saw the strength of support from the masses in general; he was impatient only with the intellectual. The more he saw the surging crowds, the more exhilarated he became and he drew from them his titanic energy. It is in this relationship between Nehru and the masses that one has to search for the element of charisma. The charismatic element is also traceable in the problem of succession which faced India in the last few years of his life. The manner in which the successor was ultimately • found' illustrates better than anything else the element of charisma present in Nehru's leadership. The search for a consensus indicated a desire to identify the person in whom Nehru had the greatest confidence and also one who came as close to Nehru in the • renunciation' aspect. Commentators on Indian politics have suggested that with the death of Nehru, the age of charisma is over. In a sense this is true, for no Prime Minister of India can in the future build up an allegiance wholly on traditional values. With the rapid urbanization of India, some of the traditional values will doubtless disappear and the hold of religion might weaken. Nehru had the advantage of having played a key role in the nationalist movement and of being Gandhi's successor. Now even Lal Bahadur cannot wholly defend his policies by mentioning the name of Nehru. Justifying alleged deviation from the policies of the late Prime Minister, Lal Bahadur Shastri said in Parliament that Gandhi had himself departed from Aurobindo Ghosh and Lala Lajpatrai and Tilak. Further, that Neh..tu had disagreed with Gandhi's policies. At the same time it is 'important to note that such a justification was found necessary l;ather than a defence on grounds of' reason. Although charisma has declined, the concept still explains many aspects ,Of India's social and political life and provides an important-though not the exclusive-principle for analysing the politics of the Nehru era.

NEHRU: THE MAN AND THE ''''RITER HUMAYUN KABIR

ALL OVER the world, political leaders and common men, scientists and artists, young and old, mourned the departure of Jawaharlal the man. He had love and affection for the young and generosity and understanding for the old. Above all, he was a fighter for freedom, freedom from tyranny and oppression, freedom from poverty and hunger, freedom from superstition,' ignorance, and greed. Writers in particular have lost in him a kindred spirit, for he was par excellence an artist in public life and sought to realize in action and words the world his imagination had built. The quality of the man determines the quality of the writer. Nehru's outstanding characteristic as a man, and hence as a writer, is his utter sincerity. His expression is transparent to his thought and is evidence of an integrated personality. He responds with his whole being to whatever comes within the range of his experience. Mountains attract him; sunsets haunt his memory; beautiful words and acts enrich his life. His sensitiveness to the change of seasons and the variations in light and colour, his deep joy in the sport of dimunitive life, his awareness of the moods of evening and dawn-all bespeak the lyric temper of his mind. Simultaneously, he shows an epic quality which stands back and surveys the panorama of life with balance and sobriety. The power of searching analysis into the mind of man tends to make an'author introspective. The feeling for the broad movements of history encourages on the other hand an attitude of objectivity. The sensitive, winged and vital words in which he has recorded his impressions proclaim an artist of rare quality. There is at the same time in all his writings a searching, critical, and questing spirit that is characteristic of the man of science. All Nehru's 'Writings are marked by a deep aesthetic sensibility 57

58

NEHRU-A

CRITICAL

TRIBUTE

and a broad interest in the affairs of man. His earliest work, Letters from a Father to His Daughter, is the story of the formation and growth of the world. The account of geology and biology is, however, interspersed with touches of personal feeling. The large movement of planetary life is immediately related to his personal hopes and fears. The sorrows and joys of life become in their turn integrated in the larger life of tIle universe. Soon after followed his Glimpses of World History and its sequel The Discovery of India. They show the same concern with the individual and the world. In the Glimpses, the pageant of the past is painted iI]. bold touches on a broad canvas. The writer himself is always there and the panQrama of the world is his panorama. With a nai"vete that is disarming, Nehru stops in the midst of the most exciting of human adventures to tell us of his personal feelings, or perhaps of the blossoming of a single flower in the courtyard of his jail. The Discovery reveals the same quality of fusing the personal with the universal. In discovering India, Nehru in fact discovers himself. Nehru reaches his highest achievement in the field of letters in his Alltobiogmphy. As a story of India's national struggle, it is unsurpassed; as a sympathetic study into the character of the men who then shaped India's destiny, it has no equal. A feeling for the drama of life is matched by a deep insight into the motives of man. At once lyrical and epic, it displays Nehru's manifold qualities as a writer and a man. The story of his own life is fused in the story of the nation and its struggle for freedom and liberty. The poignancy of the birthpangs of a ' nation is matched by the poignancy of personal sorrow that broods over its pages. A Bunch of Letters is a collection of letters written mostly to Nehru, but there are also some written by him. The first letter dates back as early as 1917, and the last was wdtten to him in December 1948. In some ways, this was Nehru's last major literary effort, and corrects the popular conception of Nehru as primarily a man of moods and impulses. Impulsive he often is, but these letters reveal that behin4 and underneath all outbursts of momentary feelings, there is in him a deep and unchanging purpose that swayed his thought and action since the beginning of his political life. Many have been attracted by his personal charm and die. . sparkle' and brilliance of his

NEHRU:

THE

MAN

AND

THE

WRITER

59

conversation, but the strength of his will and the tenacity of his purpose have not always been fully realized. These letters help to explain why over forty years or more Nehru has often seemed to yield to stronger personalities, but also why in the end it is his way of thinking and his philosophy of life that have prevailed. In fact, while others changed he held to his own course, and in the end he succeeded in imprinting his stamp upon resurgent India.

JAWAHARLAL NEHRU AND MODERN INDIA "Si MonumentUln Requiris, CirClllnSpice" NORMAN D. PALMER THE MEASURE OF Jawaharlal Nehru's success or failure will be the capacity of the people of India, under lesser successors, to carryon without him. He was often criticized for failing to groom a successor; but perhaps this criticism was short-sighted, for his real goal was a much bigger one. It was nothing less than to build a nation, and to guide the nation along lines that would ensure 'progress through democracy' and that would lay sound foundations on which others--even less able architectscould safely build. He had faith in the people of India, and in their capacity to find capable leaders for the tasks ahead. In July 1962 he said: I have full faith in the people of India. It is that faith that has carried me all these years and has given me strength .... Nehrus come and go. That is the way of the world. But the people of India continue. They will lay strong foundations, they will produce enough people to lead them and they will march forward hand in hand. For Nehru all India was a training school in political leadership. 'Every child in India,' he said, ,. whether boy or girl, is a potential President or Prime Minister of India.' He"usually brushed aside with characteristic impatience the question, ' After Nehru, what?' but on one occasion, when he did refer To this question, he observed: 'My answ~r to them is to get awake, wide awake, and "look around you. You will find numbers of people, thousands and tens of thousands of them who are being trained to run this country after Nehru is no more.' A few years ago he said, in reply to a query b)' /N?rman' Cousins: • My legacy

·"60 -:-

NEHRU

AND

MODERN

INDIA

61

to India? Hopefully, it is 400,000,000 people capable of governing themselves.' Only the future will tell how great this legacy is, and how the Indian people and their leaders chose to use it; but certainly the people of India are much better prepared to undertake the difficult task of governing themselves because ]awaharlal Nehru was their leader during the crucial years of nation-building. Among the great leaders of modern democracy ]awaharlal Nehru occupied "a prominent position, both because of the genuineness and deptli of his democratic convictions and because of his capacity to articulate these convictions and put them into practice. He may have been a rather poor administrator and at times a hesitant decision-maker, but he was a charismatic leader par excellence, a leader not only of the Indian state but of the Indian nation, not only of India's political experiment but of the Indian revolution. He was a great nationbuilder. He deserves the major credit for the success of the .new Indian state in preserving and operating the system of Parliamentary democracy which was established upon Independence. This achievement made India almost unique among the newly emerging nations of Asia and Mrica; and because India is so big and so important, the Indian experiment in democracy, if it turns out to be successful, may more than offset the erosion of democracy which has characterized the evolution of most of the new states, and may in time persuade other peoples to return to patterns of government which are based on free institutions and popular participation, for their search for immediate nostrums has usually led them into the blind alley of authoritarianism of one kind or another. Nehru's concept of democracy was a broad one, resting on at least four main pillars: (1) individual freedom, the freedom of the individual to grow and to make the best of his capacities and abilities, and tolerance' not merely of those who agree with us, but of those who do not agree with us '; (2) representative government, based on popular sovereignty and elected representatives; (3) economic and social equality, calling for a proper balance between freedom and equality, and a ' socialist pattern of society'; and (4) social self-discipline. Above all, to him democracy was ' something of the mind, . . . a mental approach applied to out political and economic problems', and' a scheme

62

NEHRU----..,A

CRITICAL

TRIBUTE

of values and moral standards in life '. He realized how poorly India was prepared for this kind~r any kind-of democracy. He knew that democracy was' the hard way' and required' a higher standard of human being ':. He was well aware that people seldom realize their full potential, but he believed that , everybody can attain a certain measure of greatness and out of that a large number of individuals rise up to positions Qf great responsibility.' It has often been said that Indians have a great history, but little sense of history. Nehru, at least, had a profound sense of history, a deep interest in and knowledge of the past, and a great respect for India's heritage. At the same time he wanted the Indian people to free themselves of the mental shackles of the past, and to undergo the kind of mental reconditioning which would better equip them to deal with the problems of the present and the future, without leading them to turn their backs on the past and on their rich heritage. In his will and testament, made public after his death, he explained hi~ approach to the past and the present. After a moving tribute . to the Ganga as ' a symbol and a memory of the past of India, running into the present, and flowing on to the great ocean of the future " he continued: And though I have discarded much of past tradition and custom, and am anxious that India should rid herself of all shackles that bind and constrain her and divide her people, and suppress a vast number of them, and prevent the free development of the body and the spirit; though I seek all this, yet I do not wish to cut myself off from that past completely. I am proud of that great inheritance that has been, and is, ours, and I am conscious that I too, .like all of us, am a link in that unbroken chain which goes ~back to the dawn of history in the immemorial past of India. That chain f would not break, for I treasure it and seek inspiration from ,

.

it.

Nehru was a supreme pragmati,st, a man whose faith and convictions could not be confined within any particular religious or philosophical approach. He had a rational outlook on life. He was a revolutionary who believed in the middle way. To him the concept of the secular 'S~ate, one' of his greatest contri-

NEHRU

.

AND

MODERN

INDIA

.

63

butions, was not only a way of avoiding the excesses of religious fanaticism; it was an article of faith, a logical consequence of his own rationalism and humanism. He was an intellectual in politics, an agnostic in a religiously-impregnated society, but withal a man of faith and works. • Nehru's greatest contribution to India " wrote a Western observer from New Delhi a few days after the Prime Minister's death, • has been an intellectual one. Throughout his forty-four years of political life he tried to create in his countrymen a rational approach to politics and to government and even to life itself. In the years prior to Independence, he wrote and preached that Indians must think about their future and themselves in rational and scientific, not in traditional terms. He taught that man is the instrument of ,his own destiny, and not a toy in the hands of fate. After Independence, once he and others of like mind were in power, Nehru embodied his creed in national institutions.' Nehru was India's supreme nation-builder. He sought to build a nation not only in terms of political institutions, but also in ,terms of mental emancipation and economic and social progress. As President Radhakrishnan said in his address to the nation mourning Nehru's loss: • His life and work have had a profound influence on our mental make-up, social structure, and intellectual development- .. _ As a maker of modern India _ his services were unparalleled_' For many years Nehru bestrode modern India like a colossus. Contrary to his own desires no other Indian leader, after Gandhi's assassination, with the possible exception of Vallabhbhai Patel, was able to emerge from the shadow of his dominating personality_ This dominance gave outsiders a distorted view of the complexity of the Indian _scene, and inside India it may have defeated some of the objectives which he fought to achieve. It was quite apparent, however, that he accepted power not so much for himself as for India. Few democratic leaders have wielded such unchallenged power, and few, if any, have used it so wisely. As The New York Times observed in an editorial tribute after his death: • Lesser leaders have used the love of their people wantonly, to master their people. But Nehru refused to turn power into despotism. Dictatorship was within his grasp; at times India seemed to be thrusting it upon him. He refused. The insistence upon an India free in Inde-

64

NEHRU-A

CRITICAL

TRIBUTE

pendence was his gift, born out of love, for his country.' He sought and received the conficl~nce and support-and indeed the affection-of the Indian pebple. As The Statesman said of him: 'Nehru has ,this of the' god-like in him: he inspired both hope and trust.' He used' his personal popularity as a means to identify the people of India, whose loyalties and concerns were primarily local ones, based on village, caste, and community, with India as a whole. Through the device of political institutional transfer, to borrow the involved jargon of the political scientist, he persuaded thousands and perhaps millions of Indians to be loyal not only to him but to his beloved India. One of the intriguing questions for the future is the extent to which this transfer device will be operative, and hopefully grow even stronger, now that the symbol of India for the masses of the people has been removed, except in memory. If democracy survives in India, it must have the genuine support of the Indian people, and the dedicated allegiance of leaders who really believe in the democratic way and who will not be tempted to seek authoritarian short-cuts to political influence and power. If democracy survives in India, it will be Nehru's greatest achievement-and his greatest legacy-a legacy not only to the people of India but to freedom-loving people throughout the world. Despite all their love for him, the people of India often made Nehru's task more difficult, and his own colleagues and associates, as well as his political opponents, often harassed him in ways which touched his inmost sensitivities. His last years, when his physical powers were visibly failing, must have been unusually lonely and usually sad ones for him, as were Gandhi's last months. Developments at home and abroad-the Chinese attack, the worsening of relations with Pakistan, the worst wave of communal troubles since the partition period, the fQod crisis and other economic reverses which seemed to jeopardize the entire development effort, and other difficulties whicD. again raised the spectre of economic, social, and political failure in crucial sectors of the national. life-seemed to threaten the obje~:tives to which he had devoted his life., But he never lost his faith in the Indian people, and in India's capacity to meet the challenges of the present and the future. In a real sense, he gave his life for India, bUf this was~ a matter of deliberate

NEHRU

AND

MODERN

INDIA

65

choice on his part, a choice he never regretted. By so doing he linked himself to a' cause bigger than he was, and thereby gave meaning and significance to his life. Twenty years ago he wrote in The Discovery of India: My generation has been a troubled one in India and the world. We may carry on for a little while longer, but our day will be over and we shall give place to others, and they will lead their lives and carry their burdens to the next stage of the journey. How have we played our part in this brief interlude that draws to a close? I do not know. Others of a later age will judge. By what standards do we measure success or failure? That too I do not know. We can make no complaint that life has treated us harshly, for ours has been a willing choice, and pehaps life has not been so bad to us after all. For only those can sense life who stand often on the verge of it. . .. In spite of all the mistakes that we might have made, we have saved ourselves from triviality and an inner shame and cowardice. That, for our individual selves, has been some achict:1ement. There is no reason to believe that Jawaharlal Nehru ever regretted the dedication of his life to the service of India; and surely India was fortunate to have such a man for its leader during the formative years of nationhood. Thirty-five years ago, when he supported Nehru for election as President of the Indian National Congress, Mahatma Gandhi said of him: • He is as pure as crystal. He is truthful beyond suspicion .... He is a knight sans peur et sans reproche. The nation is safe in his hands.' Gandhi's prescience was justified by the way Nehru performed in his later years, especially after the Mahatma himself was no more. Any criticisms of his work should be placed in the broader perspective of his manifold contributions to India and to the modern world. Of him it may truly be said, as it was of Sir Christopher Wren: Si monumentum requiris, circumspice (' if you seek his monument, look around you '). Both Wren and Nehru were master-builders; but Wren designed buildings, whereas Nehru built a nation.

5

JAWAHARLAL NE'HRU ON RELIGION ABu

SAYEED AYYUB

religion" always remain a synonym for" hatred"? ' asked A. N. Whitehead in 1933 in his Adventure of Ideas, and a few years later Jawaharlal Nehru said in his Autobiography, as if to bring home to us the tragic implications of Whitehead's question, • 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.' Only a few hundred heads had been broken in the name of religion by the time Nehru's Autobiography was written. A dozen years later _the number jumped to a few thousand, and a year later it leaped to lakhs. The following years showed a decline in numbers, but hardly a year went by in this subcontinent when the gods were not athirst. 1950 was a good year so far as human sacrifice goes, and 1964 has already done better. The Punjab holocaust of 1947 will take some beating, but the tribal gods are still very powerful. We all hope (all?) yet none dare assert with any confidence that the worst days of religious barbarism are over for us. I for one therefore wholly shared Nehru's sentiments when he went on to declare as early as in 1936: • The spectacle of what is called religion, or at any rate organized religion, has filled me with horror, and I have fre· quently condemned it and wished to make a clean sweep of it: In the same context 'Whitehead had used harsher words;"but no less justified by a dispassionate examination of the facts: • History, down to the present day, is a melancholy ,~ecord~of the horrors which can attend religion .... Religion is the last refuge of human savagery. The uncritical association of religion with goodness is directly negatived by facts', (Religion in the Making, p. 26). Yet neither Nehru, one of the greatest/men of action of ' our

• MUST"

.,66-

JAWAHARLAL

NEHRU

ON

RELIGION

67

time, albeit endowed with a rarely sensitive and astonishingly contemplative mind, nor Whitehead, whom I regard as the greatest thinker of our era, the era of science, made the mistake of equating religion as such with organized religion and therefore denouncing the essence of religion because its communal manifestations were so abhorrent to them. It is necessary to draw attention to the possibility of making this particular mistake, for it has in fact been made ~ contemporary leaders of thought and action of no less stature than, for example, Russell and Lenin-to mention only one pair of illustrious names. Perhaps I am wrong ~n characterizing the confusion as a confusion between essence and manifestation. Through a deplorable inexactitude in terminology, two easily distinguishable and sharply distinct phenomena have come to be denoted by the same word' religion '. Nehru was painfully aware of the fact that the use of this word 'causes confusion and interminable debate and argument when often enough entirely different meanings are attached to it: We .shall be primarily concerned with two meanings of the word, one in the personal sphere and the other in the communal. Though Nehru has some eminently sound observations to make about personal religion which I shall discuss later, his mind was greatly preoccupied with communal, or as he prefers to call it, organized religion. This is not at all surprisi!lg, considering the ghastliness of its appearance on the Indian stage during the last four decades, and on the European stage too during the nineteen-thirties and forties when the combination of religious and racial 'hatreds resulted in the massacre of six million innocent and helpless men, women, and children. What is surprising is that. when, in spite of the disaster which , organized religion brought over this land and its people (resulting but not ending in the partition of India), Nehru did attempt a definition of religion, he ignored its communal manifestation and produced a definition of what, following William James, I shall call personal religion. 'What then is religion (to use the word in spite of its disadvantages)? Probably it consists of the inner development of the individual, the evolution of his consciousness in a certain direction which is considered good. What that direction is will be a matter of debate, but as far as I understand it, religion lays stress on this inner change, and

68

NEHRU-A

CRITICAL

TRIBUTE

considers outward change as but the projection of this inner development' (Autobiography, Apied Publishers, Indian Ed., 1962, p. 379). . . Nehru presents this definition wfth evident approval, and no reasonable person can disapprove of religion defined thus. The point, however, is that the inner development of the individual does not and cannot take place in a vacuum; the individual lives in society and develops himself under given social conditions-which conditions can help or hinder his personal development. Some rare individuals may no doubt renounce 'seciety, squat under a banyan tree in a forest and 'reach great inner heights '. But this is not possible for the large majority of men and women. The logic of the situation compels Nehru to add that 'even for inner development external freedom and a suitable environment become necessary'. But was he right in maintaining that religion 'considers outward change as but a projection of this inner development '? Islam had from the outset paid much heed to the details of the social organization which it considered suitable for promoting the good life as conceived by it. In the Brahmanical religion the principles of social organization were not formulated at one stroke or within a short period. They emerged gradually, and only after the passage of a millenium did they assume the definite and elaborate codification which we find in Manu's Samhita. Earlier, when under the impact of Vpanishadic teaching, emphasis had shifted to inner development to such an extent that social duties came to be seriously neglected and when the Buddha and the Jina were attracting the best minds of the time to their monastic orders, the author of the Gita found it necessary to expound the new doctrine that one of the three ways of reaching the highest inner development (moksa) was through' the performance of one's social duties in the right aI,ld pure spirit. He was not, however, presenting any new social goals or values and therefore not recommending any change jn the social order, but dnly insisting that the old order be preserved and the prescribed duties (vihita karma) be disinterestedly performed. Christianity too, though not at the time of Christ but two or three centuries later, began to concern itself greatly with the task of constructing a suitable social framework for the Christian way of life.

JAWAHARLAL

NEHRU

ON

RELIGION

69

No religion really ignored the question of social environment, or neglected to lay down the principles of social organization appropriate to its own conception of the good< life. The fault lay elsewhere. It lay in its inability to visualize that society must continuously grow from lower to higher forms of organization. All the communal religions of the world have beenin spite of occasional wars and massacres carried out in the name of religion-the most potent factors of social stability. They have, alas, also invariably been the most powerful agencies for building dams in the stream of mankind's progress and thus creating the stagnant pools of history. Centuries of effort were needed in Europe to break these dams and make the waters run again. In India, by and large, we are still living in the midst of stagnant pools. No one in this country was more keenly or sadly aware of this than Jawaharlal Nehru. For Nehru's especial talents lay in the visualization and promotion of social growth, and this is the cause for which he worked all his life from early morning to midnight till the day before his death at the age of 74. ' Let us not forget, however, that all communal religions in their origin were revolutionary forces, their founders were in revolt against existing beliefs and practices. In some cases they became so dangerous to the powers that be that the latter found it necessary to ' liquidate' them either by invoking due processes of the law or by inciting the fury of the mob against them. In the face of persecution and under great hardship they preached their doctrines and made the first converts mostly from the victims of the existing social order. Apart from their own fervent faith and moral rigour, and a humanitarian zeal for spreading the light, they had an infectious quality about them or, to use the popular jargon, a 'magnetic personality'. They attracted people around them; wherever they went they made converts; those who came to scoff, stayed to obey and follow. Within their lifetime or soon after their death the number of converts became large enough to organize themselves for self-defence against the hostile members of the old order and also to carry the new light they had received to those still immerged in darkness. In the course of time, as William James, a most sympathetic student of religion, observes, • when these groups got strong enough to " organize", they became ecclesiast-

70

NEHRU-A

CRITICAL

TRIBUTE

ical institutions, with corporate ambitions of their own. The spirit of politics and the lust of qogmatic rule are then apt to enter and to contaminate the originally innocent thing' (Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 32~). It is almost a universal characteristic of religion to start as an emotionally uplifting and morally inspiring personal experience of its founder, then turn into the burning faith and zeal of the new converts, and finally to crystallize into rigid dogma and ritual around which grow dehumanizing and soul-killing institutions. The passage from Jesus Christ to medieval Christianity of course presents the best, or worst, example of such transformation, but nonetheless presents the type, and ghosts of Papacy and the Church Militant still roam about in one guise or another amongst all the large religious communities of the world, particularly amongst the two major religions of India. Hinduism can rightly boast of being to a considerable extent free from the stranglehold of dogma, and it disdains to proselytize; nevertheless it too has given rise to militant and intolerant communal organizations. Nehru had to confront militant Hindu and Muslim communalism all through his political career. One can therefore understand his irritation with and indignation at 'the spectacle of what is called religion '. But curiously enough, and fascinatingly too, one important cause of his impatience with religion was the great love and ioyalty he bore towards Gandhi. No one has ever doubted that Gandhi was basically a religious person. And he was religious not in any purely universalistic or essentialistic sense-a sense in which Socrates, Spinoza, Whitehead, Einstein, Tagore, or even Nehru could be said to be religious-but in the narrower st;nse of religion in which it is divided into communities. Gandhi never thought ..,of himself as anything but a Hindu, and Nehru describes him as 'a I:Iindu to the innermost depths of his being'. If we were"asked to name the best representative of all that is best in the Hindu religion in our time, whom else could we name but Gandhi? I find it difficult to think of even VivekanandatQn this category; for did he not say that he ' wanted to lead mankind to the place where there is neither the Vedas 1).01' the Bible nOf the Koran '? Furthermore, 'Practical Advaitism, wq.kh looks upon and

JAWAHARLAL

NEHRU

ON

RELIGION

71

behaves to all mankind as one's own soul, is yet to be developed among the Hindus universally. On the other hand, our experi" ence is that if ever the followers of any religion approach to this equality in an appreciable degree in the plane of practical workaday life . . . it is those of Islam and Islam alone: And his conviction that' for our motherland a junction of the two great systems, Hinduism and Islam-Vedanta brain and Islam body-is the only hope' takes Vivekananda beyond the confines of Hinduism proper to a sort of universalistic religion (quoted in The Discovery of India, p. 341). Gandhi would not think of such a junction. But what he did think of was equally startling. Gandhi is on record as having told the Federation of 'nternational Fellowships in January, 1928, that' After long study and experience I have come to these conclusions: (1) all religions are true, (2) all religions have some errors in them, (3) all religions are almost as dear to me as my own Hinduism. My veneration for other faiths is the same as for my own faith' (quoted in The Discovery of India, Meridian Paperback, 1960, p. 366). It is true that many saints and sages, especially amongst the Hindus, had said before Gandhi that religions if sincerely practised lead to God. But that did not nece~sarily mean that all paths are equally long or equally smooth. Even when the poet said: • The shaikh reached (God) via Kaaba and I via the temple of heart; Dard, the goal was the same, only the routes were different' l-it is not difficult to see which route he approves. But when Gandhi said, • my veneration for other faiths was the same as for my owu', we may rest assured that he meant precisely what he said, and that he did not say it for the sake of politeness or for gaining any political ends. He could, in fact, make such a statement with perfect sincerity and with full conviction because • his conception of religion had nothing to do with any dogma or custom or ritual. It was basically concerned with his firm belief in the moral law, which he calls the law of truth or lov~. Claiming to understand the spirit of Hinduism, he rejects every text or practice which does not fit in with his idealist interpretation of what it should be,

all

1 Shaikh ka'aba hoke pOllhcha, ham kallishte dilme ho,jDard, manzil ek thi, rahi ka ek pher tha.

72

NEHRU-A

CRITICAL

TRIBUTE

calling it an interpolation or a subsequent accretion' (The Discovery of India, p. 366). I Is Gandhi, too, then going beyond the fold of Hinduism like Vivekananda, or did both of them believe that their remarkably liberal attitudes and concepti6ns formed part of the broad stream of Hindu tradition? Or were they of the opinion that although they were breaking new ground, the potentiality for such extension of the tradition existed in the tradition of their ancient faith? The last alternative seems to be the most probable. But if this Hinduism of Vivekananda and Gandhi represents the true spirit of Hinduism, who would not be a Hindu, and who can have any quarrel with Hinduism? Parenthetically, I might mention that Muhammad Iqbal had similarly extended the confines of Muslim tradition in his bOOK Six Lectures on the Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, a book which should be better known than it is. In one of these lectures Iqbal gives a remarkably significant interpretation of the Islamic concept of Khatimul-ambia (the last qf the prophets). Why did Muhammad declare himself to be the terminator of the long line of prophets? I believe the orthodox interpretation is that in the Quran religious development had reached its final stage and had produced at last the perfect religion: no further improvement was possible on it, and therefore no new prophet would come. But Iqbai interpreted this in a very different fashion. Man is a rational animal, we say. But is a child of two rational, or a Neanderthal adult of 50,000 years ago? Rationality is a matter of slow growth, in the individual as in the species homo sapiens. So long as human rationality was at a low stage of development, inadequate for the purposes of life, particularly for the purpose of guiding' man along the right path,2 it was necessary to supplement his natural reason with supernatural aid, i.e. divine guidance through revelation. Iqbal maintains that soon after the- coming of Islam hU!llan reason made a leap in its progress through the discovery of the inductive method. Although the principles of induction were formulated much later by Bacon, tl'\e Arab scieri~ts of the tenth 2 " Ihdinas.siratal mustaqima" (guide us along, the right path), says, the first and m_Qst famous surah of the Qura}l.

JAWAHARLAL

NEHRU

ON

RELIGION

73

and eleventh centuries, Razi, Avicenna, Alhazen, etc. were employing the inductive method with confidence and with success in their scientific work. So that by the time it might have become necessary for a new prophet to appear with a fresh revelation in order to meet the changed requirements of the new historical situation, human reason, according to Iqbal, had reached a stage when it could by itself suffice to guide us in the solution of our individual and social problems. This was the significance of the Islamic conception that Muhammad was the last of the prophets, that is, of those through whom mankind receives divine guidance. The religion of Muhammad was the last religion to be based on revelation; henceforward religion must find a new basis-in reason. But to resume. What quarrel could Nehru have with Gandhi's Hinduism which had 'nothing to do with any dogma or custom or ritual '? And yet he had many a painful issue to join with his great mentor. In the first instance, Nehru insisted on using reason in the solution of moral and political problems. This seemed to him to be the only way. But Gandhi's way was different. Whenever a crisis arose in the affairs of the nation and everyone including Nehru looked to him for guidance, Gandhi turned towards God; he waited for the light to come, he waited to hear his' inner voice '. Nehru admits that Gandhi's instincts (he prefers this word to intuition or 'inner voice ') were often right. And he has no objection to a leader acting on ' instinct • in a moment of crisis. But the leader must have a rational grasp of the situation, and is expected to give adequate reasons for his political decision, especially when he wants others to follow him. Not his actions but the reasons which Gandhi gave for his actions agonized Nehru. 'Gandhi had acted rightly in suspending the Civil Disobedience Movement. But the reasons he had given seemed to me an insult to intelligence and an amazing performance for a leader of a national movement. He was perfectly entitled to treat his ashram inmates in any manner he liked; they had taken all kinds of pledges and accepted a certain regime. But the Congress had not done so; I had not done so. Why should we be tossed hither and thither for, what seemed to me, metaphysical and mystical reasons in which I was not interested? Was it conceivable to have any political movement on this basis? • (Autobiography, p: 506).

74

N E H R U -

A

CR

I VI CAL

T RIB UTE

The 1,934 Bihar earthquake with its heart-rending scenes of suffering involving scores 'of thousands of people affected the two leaders in very different Jays. Gandhi interpreted it according to his religious frame of:mind, and commented on it in his usual other-wordly terminology. Nehru's reaction was sharp: 'During my tour in the earthquake areas I read with a great shock Gandhi's statement to the effect that the earthquake had been a punishment for the sin of untouchability. This was a staggering remark and I welcomed and wholly agreed with Rabindranath Tagore's answer to it. Anything more opposed to the scientific outlook, it would be difficult to imagine' (Autobiography, p. 490). What disturbed Nehru most was that he felt this sort of attitude towards human suffering was bound to have an adverse effect on the zeal of social workers, for would they not feel that they were interfering with the workings of Providence by trying to lessen the consequences of divine decrees? Of course, the basic conflict was that Nehru was a social engineer, whereas Gandhi was a spiritual healer. Gandhi no doubt wanted' to wipe every tear from every eye' but he wanted to do this not by changing the forces and relations of production but by changing the minds of men, by teaching men to live simple and pure lives having few wants and working hard to satisfy most of them through their own individual (preferably manual) effort. Gandhi was full of the ancient ideal of asceticism, whereas Nehru did not 'appreciate the ascetic life as a social ideal, though it may suit some individuals '. Above all, what caused dismay and' desolation' (this last is the caption of a chapter in his Autobiography in which Nehru speaks of • the vast distance which separated him from me ') in his mind was his awareness of the fact that Gandhi was not only not much interested in raising the living standards of the people .,.beyond a certain level which Nehru regarded as ascetic, but was positively giving his support to those very vested interests yhich stood in the way of their economic and social betterment . • Gandhi is always laying stress o~, this idea of the trusteeship of the feudal prince, of the big landlord, of the capitalist. In this he follows a long succession of men of religion '. Nehru gives a brief history of the shameful ways in which most zamindars came into possession of their. 'large properties in land, and

JAWAHARLAL

NEHRU

ON

RELIGION

75

remarks, • according to Gandhiji they are now the trustees for the unhappy people whom they have themselves dispossessed of their lands!' Again we notice the anguish in his voice when he says: • It comes to this then that whatever is, should continue, . . . there should be no attempts to change the present conditions; all that is necessary is to change the people's hearts. That is the pure religious attitude to life and its problems' (Autobiography, p. 536). Naturally therefore and almost inevitably • some of my accumulated irritation turned to religion and the religious outlook '. Nehru's indignation would, have been less i'estrained if he had not had to confront religion for decades and at the closest range in the person of one of the greatest men 'of religion. For in spite of all conflict and irritation, his deep love for and almost childlike devotion to Gandhi never showed any cracks. He spoke with all his heart when he said a few hours after Gandhi's assassination at the hands of a Hindu fanatic: • The light has gone out of our lives.' Gandhi had always appeared, to Nehru • like a beam of light that pierced the darkness and removed the scales from our eyes. . . . He did not descend from the top; he seemed to .!!merge from the millions of India, speaking their language and incessantly drawing attention to them and their appalling condition' (The Discovery of India, p. 361). Nehru was as keenly sensitive to • their appalling condition' as Gandhi, but did not quite understand Gandhi's language-precisely because it was the language of the millions; he spoke and understood only the language of the intellectual elite. This is not of course to suggest that their conflict was only a conflict of language. It had deep roots. Not as an abstract thinker but as a man of action and right from the midst of his practical work in the political and social fields Nehru has raised certain far-reaching objections against communal or organized religion. These objections may be broadly put under three heads:

(1) 'Organized religions. invariably become a vested interest and thus inevitably a reactionary force opposing change and progress: (2) 'The usual religious outlook seems to me to be the enemy

76

NEHRU-A

CRITICAL

TRIBUTE

of clear thought, for it is based not only on the acceptance without demur of tf{rtai.n fixed and unalterable theories and dogmas but also on sentiment and passion. . . . It is narrow and into,erant of other opinions and ideas.' I (3) < Usually religion becomes an' asocial quest for God or the Absolute and the religious man becomes far more concerned with his own salvation than with the good of society . . . . Moral standards have no rel(ltion to social needs, but are based on a highly metaphysical doctrine of sin: The rest of this essay is my commentary on these three points. 1. Nehru's ideas on the first point are substantially in agreement with the Marxist critique of religion. The agreement does not extend to the point of his calling religion • the opium of the people '. On the contrary, Nehru was well aware of the fact that, far from supplying any narcotic to make the common people forget their unhappy lot, leaders of religious thought from the Buddha in the sixth centtury B.C. to the Popes of our own time have emphasized more than anybody else' the ills and troubles which beset human life'. • Where the socialist leaders agree and stand opposed to the religious leaders is in their belief that those who are deprived of the good things or even the necessities of life need nQt be so deprived any longer (thanks to modern science and technology) but for the obstruction of vested interests. Religion too constitutes a vested interest and acts hand in glove (whose hand is in which glove may be a moot point) with other vested interests-in power and wealth. Such an unholy alliance becomes a formidable check on social growth and easily takes an unashamedly militant shape whenever threatened by any revolutionary challenge. This sinister combination of evil forces has been more in evidwce in Pakistan which is only a thinly d,isguised religio-fascist dictatorship; but who can deny that in India too fascism has received a tremendous fillip as a result of the recent widespread communal , killings (emulating similar events in Pakistan), which were calamitously followed by the death of Nehru-far and away'the

JAWAHARLAL

NEHRU

ON

RELIGION

77

most powerful modernizing and progressive force in the presentday semi-medieval India. It may be difficult but it is certainly not beyond the capacity of Nehru's successors to maintain his policies of non-alignment abroad and democratic socialism at home; but is it within their capacity to carry on the great libel'alizing mission which he embodied in his person? We can but hope. President Radhakrishnan said in his broadcast talk a few days after Nehru's death: • In the building up of our country his main emphasis has been on the freeing of our minds from the obsessions of dogmatic religion: If we can remember this in thought and deed, we shall be erecting the most fitting memorial to Jawaharlal Nehru. 2.. This brings me to the second of Nehru's objections against religion-its dogmatic character. He writes in The Discovery of India: • I find myself incapable of thinking of a deity or of any unknown supreme power in anthropomorphic terms, and the fact that many people think so is continually a source of surprise to me. Any idea of a personal God seems very odd to me' (p. 14). Yet belief in a personal God seems to be a sine _ qua non of the religious attitude. It is true that the religious consciousness of man is known to have reached a stage where it could discard belief in a personal God as in the earlier Upanisads or in any kind of God (as in early Buddhism). But these were transient phases and, even while they flourished, did not spread far beyond the circle of the intellectual elite. Belief in an anthropomorphic God (a composite figure of omnipotent ruler, stern judge, and loving father who when duly propitiated grants favours to the earnest supplicant and rewards everyone for the proper p,erformance of ordained tasks or punishes in the case of failure to perform them) re-emerged not long after, and has remained the dominant element in the mental make-up of the great religious communities of the world down the ages. Some communities or sects believe that their God accepts a sacrificed animal and is pleased when a goat, cow, buffalo, or camel is slaughtered in His name. All believe that there is a mysterious entity called • soul' inside each of us which in some way not understood by anyone is distinct from the mind, and of course quite distinct from the body; this soul survives the disintegration of the body and presumably of the mind also after

78

N E H R VI -

A

C R I TIC A L

T RIB V T E

death (for the intimate connectiofl between the mind and the central nervous system is not a matter of dispute any longer); it then either transmigrates into ~me other human or animal foetus and in another birth enjoys or suffers the fruits of its deeds in the previous birth; or dw'ells in some unknown region for millions of years until the day: of divine judgement arrives when it rejoins its resurrected body to receive the reward or punishment due to it. It is interesting to observe how dogmatic belief in Karma and rebirth, which Max Weber characterizes as • the unique Hindu theodicy of the social, that is to say, caste system " runs through all the schools and sects of Hinduism, unaffected by their differences on other important doctrinal matters. There are other dogmas, differing from religion to religion. Some people, enamoured of the idea of unity of all religions, want to deny or ignore these differences, but that would be running in the face of ~acts. Even if we consider only the advanced religions of today and ignore primitive tribal religions, we notice points of unity as well as points of difference. A pro" position considered basically important by one of them, may well be abhorrent to the others. The orthodox Christian regards the man Jesus, son of Mary, as God incarnate. To the orthodox Muslim, there could hardly be any greater sin, except perhaps idol-worship. The Christian notion of unity in trinity is not alien to the Hindus but anathema to the Muslims. Sati-diiha (burning alive of chaste women on the funeral pyre of their husbands) came to be regarded by the caste Hindus as a religious duty 'towards the close of the ancient period'. This cruel practice and the sanction behind it ' endured for centuries among an intelligent and cultured people', according to Dr Kalikinkar Datta. The same authority specifies the sanction in these words: 'Not only would such a woman enjoy eternal bliss in""heaven along with her husband, but her action would expiate the sins of three generations of her husband's family, both on his father's and mother's side.' This' religious duty' shocked the moral susceptibilities of the eighteenth century Christian rulers of India and later of Raja Rammohan Roy, founder of theBrahmo religion, who after many years of unwearied effort succeeded at last in rallying enlightened Indian opinion against the practice. As could be expected, 'the Raja ~
JAWAHARLAL

NEHRU

ON

RELIGION

79

dox Hindus under the leadership of Raja Radhakanta Deb; feelings ran so high that even Raja Rammohan's life was threatened' (An Advanced History of India by Ray Chowdhury, Mazumdar and Datta, pp. 823-829). When two persons firmly believing in the infallibility of dia.metrically opposite propositions and incapable of advancing any reason except authority (which authority is summarily rejected by the other party) in support 0.1: their respective beliefs confront each other, they must either begin to doubt what they had hitherto held as self-evident and sacrosanct, or else they must learn to hold one another in contempt as living in intellectual darkness or in moral perversion. Unless religious communities live in complete isolation from and ignorance of each .other, dogma cannot survive without contempt and intolerance. The terms heathen, kafir, and mleccha are terms of contempt. The reverse side of antipathy for those not sharing one's particular set of dogmas is close attachment to the group which does share it. A man's religion may be based on his immediate personal experience, in whit;:h case it will stand proof against all external attack and can change only if the nature of the experience itself changes. It may be based on reason, in which case it will remain unshaken so long as his reason can hold out against his critic's, like all philosophical or scientific beliefs. Support of a group is welcome, but is not essential or indispensable to rational religion. Or one's religion may be based on dogma, as it is for ninety-nine out of every hundred persons who profess a religion, in which case it is most vulnerable and feels extremely shaky inside, at least to the educated mind. This internal weakness had to be veiled even from oneself by an external show of strength (have we not noticed the loud and aggressive tone of voice in which dogmatic faith is proclaimed?); and, lacking the support of experience or reason, dogmatic faith can only be kept propped up by the full-throated support of one's group-the larger the group, the better one feels. Attachment to dogma necessitates strong attachment to one's group and equally strong feelings of alienation from and antipathy , towards all out-groups. Dogmatic faith breeds and feeds on communalism. (Perhaps this is the place to indicate that throughout this essay I have had the educated section of the religious c~mmunity in mind. The illiterate or semi-literate

80

NEHRU-A

CRITICAL

TRIBUTE

masses present a different, and in my opinion a simpler, sociological problem. If our university educated people were a little more rational in their approach, the less educated would not be misled into evil and dangerous paths.) It is true that the Hindu co~munity is constituted not so much by dogmatic factors (like the Christian and Muslim communities) as by racial factors, or by some illusory notions of racial purity or superiority. But this does not make the problem of intercommunal goodwill and harmony easier. Racial hatred 3 is if anything more difficult to get over than religious hatred, for in the latter case the hated fellow is at least potentially a brother in faith. Finally, I must mention one basic and universal dogma which in a way covers the rest. It is the belief that a particular book or set of books composed more than one or two thousand years ago is the word of God, or at any rate not the word of man, that is to say, it is apauruseya-uttered by the God incarnate, brought to the prophet by, a· super-human intermediary from the heavenly God, or visualized by the seers who had direct vision of all truth-past, present and future-and is therefore unquestionably, infallibly, and absolutely true. I find the wide 3 If racial considerations are brought in (the word • race' can be used only in a very loose sense in this context), the Hindu community naturally separates into its two constituents-those belonging to the upper castes (claiming Aryan ancestry) and those of the lower castes (who are supposed to be descended from the pre-Aryan dark-skinned inhabitants of India). The term mleccha applies to them no less than to Muslims and Christians. In spite of laudable attempts by the medieval saints of India and the enlightened political leadership of our time, it would be rash to assume that the untouchables and members of the lowest castes have achieved complete equality of status with those of the upper caste-except on paper and except for one or two swallows. The great majority of Indian Muslims are from all accounts cqnverts from the Hindus who had been suffering from severe caste disabilities, and are therefore regarded as doubly inferior-belonging to an inferior race as well as to an inferior faith. (This may be truer of West Bengal than of other regions of India.) The Indian Muslim, on t!Ie other hand, regards his Hindu compatriot as only singly inferior! on account of his inferior religion-his own religion having taught him to pay no heed to racial differences. When the scheduled castes have been fully integrated into the Hindu community, I believe the' problem of Hindu·Muslim integration will have been more than half solved. But national integration is a complex problem with many facets; only one facet, the role of dogmatic religion, falls within the scope of this essay. '

JAW A H A R LA L

l'\' E H R U

,0 N

R ELI G ION .

81

acceptance of this belief even more amazing than of belief in a personal God. All such beliefs were painstakingly imprinted on our extremely young, fresh, receptive minds. Grave faces informed us in sombre tones that doubting or questioning any of these_.anything, in short, contained in the sacred scriptures-is mortal sin; details were given to us of the horrible and prolonged (or was it eternal?) tortures in hell awaiting the denier and the doubter. Nehru's keen mind, which never lost its freshness and boldness to the day of his death, found it impossible to ' accept without demur these fixed and unalterable dogmas' whose one important claim to veneration rests on their great age. But is not their ancient origin by itself almost sufficient to render them unable to meet the intellectual and moral needs of the present day? This is not denied; what is insisted upon is that the past age was immeasurably superior to the present, was much closer to Truth and God. It is not the past beliefs and values which have to be transformed to suit the present age, but it is the people of today who have to transform their hearts and lives so as to be in tune with the truths and standards of two or three thousand years ago. I think the religi9us temper could well be defined (a partial definition but true so far as it goes) as the temper for which the golden age (satya yuga) lies in the ancient past from which we have been continuallt falling away intellectually and morally. In contrast, the scientific as well as the moral temper could be defined as the temper for which the golden age lies in the future which we have to rise up to step by step, or build bit by bit by our individual and corporate endeavour. At any rate, this defines Nehru's temper. But the people amongst whom he had to live and work had the religious temper, pure and,unsullied in the case of some, thinly veneered by the scientific temper in the cise of others. Their minds belonged to the past, their basic beliefs, concepts and values had been acquired in their childhood. It never occurred to them, and it does not occur to the great maj()rity of those who are proud of their education and culture (I say nothing of those who have been deprived of the opportunities of higher education) and who occupy the highest positions of power and prestige in the political, administrative, literary, and academic hierarchy of our 6

82

NEHRU-cA

CRITICAL

TRIBUTE

country, that it is their duty as intelligent educated adults to analyse, scrutinize and sift these llncient dogmas and attitudes, to accept what could still be regarded as valid in them, to reject without compunction everything whose falsity, hollowness, or harmfulness has been shewn in tIi~ course of centuries of human enquiry and experience, and to keep an open but alert mind about the rest. They never realized one really great truth of antiquity, namely, that' an unexamined life is not worth living '. It is in the midst of such people that Nehru' felt lonely and homeless, and India to whom I had given my love and for whom I had laboured, seemed a strange and bewildering land to me. Was it my fault that I could not enter into the spirit and ways of thinking of my countrymen? Even with my closest associates, I felt that an invisible barrier came between us. The old world seemed to envelop them, the old world of past ideologies, hopes and desires' (Autobiography, p. 374). Parenthetically, I should like to ask: ., Could Nehru have entered into the spirit and ways of thinking of the great majority of men of any country? Super. stition and dogma, though more prevalent here, are not Indian monopolies. . It is one thing to appreciate and honour the great gifts which the ancients have left to their distant progeny in the shape of artistic productions, religious and moral discoveries, philosophical speculations, scientific beginnings, etc., it is quite another thing to • accept without demur' whatever opinion one or some of them happened to have pronounced in regard to all manner of things, natural and supernatural. Nehru's profound veneration for the great cultural heritage of India is evident in every page of The Discovery of India; his condemnation of the attitude of m~ntal surrender and slavery to ancient beliefs and practices is equally profound .• The burden of the past, the burden of both good and evil, is overpowering, ;;n9- sometimes suffoc];ting ' particularly so when we bind ourselves exclusively and wholly to one particular past. • To what am I heir?' Nehru a_§_ks and replies: • To all that humanity has achieved during tens of thousands of years, to all that it has thought anq felt and suffered and taken pleasure in ... to all this and more, in common with all men' (The Discovery of India, p. 22). He is never tired of repeating that today with so many channels of communication opened between the different peqples of fhe world and so much

JAWAHARLAL

NEHRU

ON

RELIGION

83

knowledge of the past achievements of man in many lands and ages before us, we are heir not only to a particular geographical, racial, or religious tradition, but to what may be described as the tradition of mankind. Nehru disparaged the exclusive pride which the Hindus take in their' Hindu' culture and the Muslims in their' Muslim' culture. In fact he believed that the ideas of • Hindu' and • Muslim' culture' would vanish at the touch of reality '-by which he meant modern scientific culture and its product, the industrial civilization. He asks the protagonists of Hindu culture to regard the achievements of the Islamic races and peoples as • a common heritage for all of us', and to be proud of the elements of Persian and Arab culture which the Muslims brought with them, particularly in the spheres of painting, architecture, and music-elements which have merged so thoroughly into the broad stream of Indian culture that it is not easy to point out which ingredients are Hindu, and which Muslim. To the Muslims he told more pointedly that' Iran, without in any way weakening its religious faith, has deliberately gone back to its pre-Islamic days of greatness. The Greeks after their conversion to Christianity did not lose their pride in the mighty achievements of their ancestors .... The past of India with all its cultural variety and greatness was a common heritage of all the Indian people, Hindu, Muslim, Christian, and others, and their ancestors had helped to build: it. The fact of subsequent conversion to other faiths did not deprive them of this heritage' (The Discovery of India, pp. 343-44). I believe every cultured Muslim should regard as a test of his cultural attainment his ability to appreciate and enter into the spirit of • the wonder that was India '-if I may plagiarize from the title of Professor Basham's excellent book. It has been said before that the man of culture today should regard himself as heir to the entire cultural past of mankind. But of course he has a special historical relationship-a sort of blood relationship-with the past cultural achievements of his own people. If any Muslim of India today forgets or, worse still, denies this relationship, he is guilty of disloyalty to his fatherland; and if any Hindu today thinks that the great Vedic, Epic or Classical culture of India is the exclusive heritage of the Hindus, he dishonours that culture. .

84

NEHRU-A

CRITICAL

TRIBUTE

3. Coming to Nehru's third objection, I must first point out that religion is not ' asocial' in the sense that the religious man pays no heed to the sufferings olf his fellow-men. No doubt there are hermits, forest-dwelling; ascetics, and god-intoxicated men in every religion. But their ' number is so small that we may be sure Nehru was not thinking of them when he drew his charge-sheet against religion. As for the others, though the religious ideology (with its trust in Providence and the tendency to leave God to look after the welfare of His creatures) might be expected to discourage social service, it has not in fact done s(). For, religion never fights shy of contradiction, and so, while in every religion we find the doctrine that God does not cause any man to suffer except for adequate reasons, and as soon as the purpose of the suffering (whether it be punishment for past sins, testing his faith in the Lord, or the making of his soul in the vale of tears) is fulfilled, his, suffering will be ended, we also find alongside of it the injunction to serve and sacrifice, to help those who are in need of succour. In other words, there is the directive to serve man, for thereby too can one serve God. We must also admit that it is religion which has inspired the most selfless, the most heroic examples of humanitarian deeds and personalities known to history. Did Nehru then miss the mark ,in making this point against religion? No, indeed; only his conception of the good of society differs widely from the r.eligious man's conception, While religion inculcates the duty of relieving the suffering of individuals, it does not see the necessity of changing those social conditions which are largely responsible for their suffering. Nehru wanted to destroy the roots of suffering, not merely its surface manifestation. A long time ago Gautama Buddha had found the roots in desire, and the remedy in the total cessation of all desire. Nehru, notwithstanding his profound respect for th~ great teacher, thought such heroic remedies were possible only for rare high-souled individJlals. For the ordinary mortalsJ>ound to the biological plane by the hard struggle for procuring the barest necessities of life, much could be done by the more mundane methods of social engineering. Nehru felt an overriding moral obligation to change the social order so that men could live more human lives. Religion stood in the way; it was the great defender of the status quo. AI}il so Nehru. must have /

-

JAWAHARLAL

NEHRU

ON

RELIGIO:..r

85

felt at times like saying' ecrasez l'infame!' But he never used exactly those words of Voltaire, for he was a more refined, humane, and reasonable person than Voltaire (or Marx, for that matter), and hated all overstatement. He thought and said that religion was bad, but not that it was an unmitigated evil. In the midst of his sharpest strictures he is anxious to concede the good that there is in religion and to point out the good that it has done to mankind. But the days of organized religion are numbered; humanism and science (by which Nehru meant the scientific temper of mind, the devotion to truth and the determination to accept nothing without questioning and testing) have come to take its place. Will nothing then remain of religion; is there no need of and no place for it in our lives today? It was said in the beginning of this essay that we are concerned with two different meanings of the word religion, one communal and the other personal. We have dealt so far with the first. When communal religion is gone-and Nehru was impatient for its departure from the world and particularly from the Indian scene-there remained for him the religion of personal experience and emotion. Communal or dogmatic religion (which is the same thing) must go not only because it stands in the way of social and intellectual progress, but also because it stands in the way of the evolution of religion itself to its highest form-personal religion. Religion emerged into human experience thousands of years ago with 'the crudest fancies of barbaric imagination' (Whitehead). They have not all been shed yet. There is no reason to assume that the evolution of the religious consciousness came to a dead stop three or two thousand or fourteen hundred years ago, and then a process of devolution set in. Like every achievement of man it must continue to evolve. But unlike science or technology which are co-operative endeavours, the religious quest is a solitary quest. It is an eternal quest, perhaps a hopeless quest, in the unchartered domains of the spirit, but a quest which everyone must undertake for himself if he is to realize his full stature as a man. Secondhand science or philosophy is a poor substitute; it is only information, lacking the thrill of the great adventure. Secondhand religion is worse than a lack; it tends to become dogma which is positive evil.

PROSPECTS OF SECULARISM IN INDIA AGEHANANDA BHARATI

SECULARISM is in no sense a fait accompli in India: the constitutional statement to that effect is ritualistic and is in itself a non-secular decree in any critical, psycho-cultural sense. The official commentary runs somewhat like this: a secular state such as India is one in which there is no interference with any religion; in which there is malice toward none; in which no one religion is sponsored or preferred over any other, etc. Yet, of course, the need to stress these matters is the result of the conflict the fathers of Indian modern politics experienced-the clash of the truly secular values they had been exposed to when at the bar in England or when discussing both religious and secular matters in a radically secular style with their peers, in the days of their training abroad. As such, the statement of secularity as part of the constitution, and the ensuing discourse as part of the official culture of post-Independence India is therapeutic and cathartic: some of India's most perspicacious leaders--probably Mr Nehru himself among them-knew that there had never been such a thing as a secular tradition in India. Yet that knowledge, where it was of a cognitive sort at all, was not sufficiently diffuse and intensive: it requires the indologist and the culture critic in the South Asian field in general to show and emphasize that this lack was pervasive, and quite exc~ptional on the wider Asian historical scene: the Chinese, the Japanese, the Thai, and smaller groups had had genuine secular traditions, a secular polity, and were organized on secular directives, whatever their lip-service to religious and other charismatic trends. I believe the proof that the knowledge of the cQmplete lack of secular institutions in autochthonous Indian history lies precisely in the formulation of • secularism' by official India, such as adumbrated above. For, if the extension of the term is to -'85

PROSPECTS

OF

SECULARISM

IN

INDIA

87

be acceptable to the modern intellectual who alone can handle

it, and who alone can assess its application, non-interference etc. are just not enough. Not supporting any specific creed or denomination, and not preferring one above the other, are somewhat meagre and peripheral aspects of secularism in its functional sense. And I am afraid that the last generation of leaders, including the late Prime Minister himself, did not try very hard to emend the meaning and the application of secularism: of a value-system, endorsed and implemented by official institutions, in which the rationalist attitude prevails radically over any other, including the patriotic. It may be that the upper echelon of Indian leadership was itself too much attached to nationalism as its source of inspiration; that it had too many emotional investments in such non-secular themes as the flag, the language, Indian spirituality-whatever that means-and that they were eventually barred from evolving a completely rational, i.e. secular matrix in national affairs, and devolving it in administrative and political training to the coming generation. The matterof-fact style of the occidental administrative and political scientist, and the Western historian, does not yet carry with an Indian audi.ence; and although Mr Nehru and some of his colleagues may have felt, and do feel, viscerally, that the themes by which they keep the audience that is India co-operative are non-rational, and hence non-secular, there is really no way to switch styles in a large way. If the • ought' propositions were replaced immediately by • is' propositions, in Parliament, the houses, the press, and in training, there may well result an apathy that might spell chaos. Whatever the seeds of corruption, inertia, apathy, factionalism, Indian leaders can still be sure about the enormous hold of the official mythologies over all those who are, and are not, potentially corrupt, inert, or just plainly stupid. Without the' Mother India' and' spiritual we-materialistic the rest' and • our ancient heritage' parlance, the minimum degree of functionality might not be achieved; hence mythical language has to be kept up more or less indefinitely, and the serious secularist has no audience in India. It is now necessary to sample a few themes that stand against serious secularism-serious as opposed to the ritualistic secularism of an official- decree-before the prospects for serious secularism in India can be gauged. In the first place, of course, the

88

N E H R U -, A

C R I TIC A L

T RIB UTE

very fact that Gandhian doctrine cannot be jettisoned either de jure or de facto, mars fundameljltal change and gags fundamental challenge: the critics of these non-secular values are barred from entering India when th,ey have alien passports, and are ignored by the agents of education and information, when they are Indians by passport. Gandhi's teachings, one and all, are teachings of the religious specialists of the Indian traditiona charming, somewhat naive monk of the Ramakrishna mission keeps saying in his lectures: 'What do they talk about Gandhian philosophy? It is all the philosophy of the Bhagavadgita, the Upanishads, and the Buddha... .' Very true; and it is nothing else in the sense that hardly any item in the Gandhian doctrine was inspired or informed by secular teachers; the absorbing disgust about sex has its antecedents in the Vaishnava-Gujarati background of Gandhi's childhood, in the verses of Kabir, Nanak, Sahajananda of the Swaminarain sect strong in the area of Gandhiji's birth: and the charismatic conceptions of nation, interpersonal matters, economy, international relations, whose sources were non-Indian, were equally non-secular; Tolstoy, Ruskin, Carlyle-none of the Mahatma's Western gurus had been secularists. Where the administrator does not have a fundamentally different outlook from the politician, secularism cannot really flourish. It can be shown, for example, that both aliens and Indians can get away with currency-involving irregularities, tax wangling, and many other things which are positively harmful to India's growth and integrity; but' they cannot; get away with purely personal things like, say, free discourse on sex and equally personal, sex-involving relations which have absolutely no bearing, positive or negative, on India's development and growthin no sense, that is, of a secular kind; the official attitude in these comparative matters reflects a cosmic dogmatism, nonsecular world-view, a hierarchy of values of a purely traditional sort with no rational or cognitive base. Remember the N anavati case, which is a gem of. non-secular behaviour: a jury acquits a defendant who has committed premeditated murder, because the victim had cuckolded himprayers for the release of the defendant, buntings of effigies of the deceased victim, ad hominem appeals from the executive to the judiciary, and a pathological f>~es_s covefage. Murder is l~ss

a

PROSPECTS

OF

SECULARISM

IN

INDIA

89

wicked than adultery, and discourse to the contrary when the case was hot was suspect and condemned; there was a feeling that objective jurisprudence and its defenders used objectivity as a mantle for condoning the greatest vice-which, in the puritanical hierarchy of the official Indian culture, is not murder but unsanctioned sex. Of course, this is a familiar syndrome all over the world-Russell was barred from teaching in the City of New York by an audience which had similar orientations, no doubt, as the Nanavati jurors, in a totally different cultural setting and at a totally different time. But it is a matter of the audience: the people who barred Russell were and are ridic\llous in the eyes of all thinking people in the Western world. In India, many people who are otherwise sound, sane, even intellectual, sided with tradition-vested emotion against objective jurisprudence. And this is rampant non-secularism. Another theme against secularism is the cultural ethnocentrism of Indian intellectuals and virtually all Indian leaders. The idea that somehow religion and noble thoughts, elegant language and the renunciation of worldly pleasures are both important and originally exclusively Indian, is strong and sturdy. The famous gag, whereby the stereotype Indian statement of comparison between occidental and Indian values is • whereas we are spiritual, the West is materialistic' has become an obiter dictum in classes on Indian anthropology in the Western world, is much more serious as an impediment to secularism: the • spiritual' values and their agents, genuine and fraudulent which is quite irrelevant where secularism is concerned, are still the cynosure of Indian thought, in some form or the other. Whatever sort of hero-worship (Bose, Hitler, or any other individual to whom avatarhood is potentially ascribed at one time or the other), the fact remains that the hero of official India is entirely non-secular: Netaji Bose in his imaginary uniform attains the nimbus of a puranic hero, and the polychrome oleographs have him depicted to suggest that; Gandhi watches his own funeral pyre from the upper margin of his picture; and Nehru, Sardar Patel, and others are blessed on the painted matrix of Mother India who wears the emblems of Shakti. The ideology of cultural ethnocentrism was, I believe, responsible in no small degree for the unpreparedness vis-a-vis communist China .• There has been no war between India and China

\

90

NEHRU-:-A

CRITICAL

TRIBUTE

for four thousand years'. etc., the vague and totally uninformed notion that China was a Buddhist country-which it never wasand that it would therefore regar~ India as a sort of cultural tutor and respect its integrity, an~ the even more jejune idea that Chinese were Asians like Indi~ns and that this geographical -only geographical, not ethnical or cultural-fact would somehow prevent them from violating India's border·s; all these are instances of institutionalized non-secularity in modern official India. The panacea for all this, if any, is simply a persevering, consolidated, and politely radical effort on the side of India's thinkers and leaders, jointly if possible, to demythologize. national politics and the official ideology. Not the' leader' with his Sanskritic epithets, nor the saint, nor any charismatic person should remain the focus of indian interest; the loyalty of the secular Indian can only be one to the un-ruling, impersonal, efficient administrator in the sense indicated in Popper's Open Society many years ago; or to be more exact, not to the administrator, but to the process of impersonal, efficient administration. Secular democracy presupposes such loyalty, which has nothing of the exciting splendour of yeomanry about it, but which helps toward afHuence and secularism: it is this non-spectacular, demythologized loyalty which has rebuilt Germany, France. and Japan after the second World War. The chances of secularism-de facto, not de jure secularismare slight if the official education of the young does not reassess its fundamental values: not the strong-muscled, littleeating bmhmachari hero nor the soldier fighting some actual or imaginary enemy, nor Rama and Hanuman should be th:e ideal figures taught to the young as examples of living in early formal education, but the active scholar, teacher, scientist-not the politician or even that just king and statesman, because every just king and statesman in Indian school texts smacks of Ash ok a, cathected not so much because of his administrative p}"owess but because he is supposed to have become a Buddhist, i.e. turned 'spiritual' after having been 'material.istic·. . On the more adult level, in administrative and other institution-directed training, the individuals staring down the walls of all Indian houses will have to be partly replaced. A most interesting thing struck ni?-_ ~uring' my past few months'

PROSPECTS

OF

SECULARISM

IN

INDIA

91

sojourn in East Africa among Indians and in India,and Ceylon: Dr Rajendra Prasad's picture has not been replaced by Dr Radhakrishnan's,except in some very few South Indian houses. Of course, gods are never dethroned in the Indian pantheon, new ones are added and interjected, but then we do not refer to a pantheon, but to secularism. Radhakrishnan was never an ascetic, Rajendra Babu was-hence he stares down the walls with fellow-ascetics; the cool, piecemeal thinker and worker has no _ place on the gallery. That must change if secularism is to have a fair chance. During the past few months, much was spoken about Nehru's last days and his will: his statement of wanting to merge with India's earth was perhaps meant secularly-if it was, it didn't sound so-but its interpretation in India was not. An old lady nodded and said Panditji pakke sanatani the; I do not think he was, but the danger for secularism lies in the fact that the vast majority of Indians either deny or feel embarrassed about the possibility that he might have been areligious. If India is to be truly secular in future, avatarhood must be taken out from its leaders; the only criterion for leadership must then be whether or nor a person can devolve executive instructions and -their implementation on all levels, without interim appeals to kinship, godliness, and Mother India. This is no doubt a rigid criterion, and it may be objected that such is not even the case in more evolved, administratively speaking, countries. That may be so; but this piece was about India and the chances of secularism in India. With more logic and less piety, with greater respect for the scholar than for the myth-maker on all levels, but especially on the top, there is indeed a good chance for a truly secular India in future times; and the shift in respect can, I believe, be taught once it is learnt by the uppermost echelon of scholars and executives in a society.

JAWAHARLAL NEHRU: FOREIGN POLICY V. B.

KARNIK

PANDIT JAWAHARLAL NEHRU was the sole architect of the foreign policy of independent India. As Michael Brecher has pointed out in his penetrating political biography, he was • the philosopher, the architect, the engineer and the voice of his country's policy towards the outside world: He has further stated: • In no other state does one man dominate foreign policy as does Nehru in India: 1 But it was not only after Independence that he came to occupy that position. Even during the days of the national struggle it was Nehru who was the spokesman of the Congress on international matters. He persuaded Congress leaders to take interest in developments that took place from time to time in various parts of the world and taught them to look at the struggle of the Indian people as part oE the worldwide struggle for freedom. He was the link between the Congress and the world, more particularly between the Congress and the anti-imperialist, anti-colonialist forces in the world. There is a great deal of substance, therefore, in the tribute that Mahatma Gandhi paid to him. Gandhiji wrote: • Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru is Indian to the core but, he being also an internationalist, has made us accustomed to look at everything in the international light, instead of the parochial: 2 . During the days of the national struggle many Congress leaders did not think highly 'of Nehru's interest }1.1 and preoccupation with international affairs. They were disposed to regard it more or less as his pet hobby, but they did not oppose it. They looked upon it indulgently, and allowed Nehru to 1 2

Michael Brecher, Nehru-A Political Biograph)" p. 564. D. G. Tendulkar, Mahatma Gandlii, vol. VII;' p. 90. 92" -

JAW A H A R LA L

N E H R U:

FOR E I GNP 0 LIe y

93

\

fashion the foreign policy of the Congress. The policy that was fashioned then became in most essentials the foreign policy of the country after its Independence. In the execution of that policy after Independence Nehru enjoyed not merely the tacit approval but the active support of all his colleagues in the Government and of all persons who counted in the Congress. As Prime Minister and as External Affairs Minister, he formulated the policy as well as decided about the manner of its execution. His word was' final i~ all Cabinet discussions on foreign policy '.3 Nehru was always keen on pointing out that the foreign policy that he followed had 'grown out of our past way of thinking and our declarations '.4 He rejected with anger the criticism made in some quarters that his' whims and caprices' influenced it. It is true that anti·imperialism and anti-colonialism which were prominent features of Nehru's foreign policy flowed out of the history and tradition of the Congress struggle for Independence. His emphasis on peaceful settlement of international disputes also flowed out of the same tradition and more particularly the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi. His abhorrence of war, his quest for peace, and his striving for lessening tensions can be equally attributed to the same source. However, these are general principles which may provide a basis but cannot form the framework of a foreign policy. The framework was provided from time to time by Nehru: his ideas and ideology, his aims and aspirations, his judgements and impressions, his desires and ambitions, his likes and dislikes, his passions and prejudices, and sometimes even his • whims and caprices' constituted the timber which went into the building of that framework. Nehru had, however, a clear idea of what a country's foreign policy should be. It must subserve its interests, both economic and political. On many occasions he stated that economic policy would determine foreign policy. It was not therefore a policy which could be hatched in secret by half a dozen politICIans. He stated: 'Let us not imagine that foreign policy is like a game of chess played by superior statesmen sitting in their chancelleries. It is much .more complicated than that, for it is Brecher, op. cit., p. 567. Publications Division, Jawaharlal Nehru's Speeches, 1949-1953, vol. II, p.306. 3

4

94

NEHRU-A

CRITICAL

TRIBUTE

governed by the aspirations of hundreds of millions of people whose economic needs and objectives are motivated by a variety of causes. It is governed by the Ithreat of war, a war on an unimaginable scale which has been ~ade possible by tremendous technological developments. Foreign policy is thus no more a matter, as in the olden days, of siding with one Power against another in return for some territorial possession or advantage.' 5 Nehru kept to this definition of foreign policy throughout his life, and the steps that he took from time to time in that sphere were always governed by his concern for the well-being of the Indian people. After Independence what India needed most was peace and friendship with all nations so that she could devote herself to the task of building up her strength. This demanded that she should follow a policy of non-interference and non-involvement. The United States of America followed that policy in the first hundred years and more of her existence. Even today there are some countries which concern themselves with only their own affairs and scrupulously refuse to take interest in or get involved in what happens beyond their borders. In the first couple of years after Independence Nehru talked on many occasions of non-interference and non-involvement. In a speech delivered in March 1949, he said: 'What are we interested in wo~ld affairs for? We seek no domination over any country. We do not wish to interfere in the affairs of any country, domestic or other.' 6 In 1950, he spoke in a similar strain in Parliament, referred to the decision of the United States in early years to keep away from international conflicts and characterized it as a ' natural policy to pursue '.1 Nehru was also conscious of the fact, more particularly in the first few ,years, that anyway India was not in a position to influence world events. In a speech delivered in the Constituent Assembly in March 1948, he said: 'We are not, frankly speaking, influential enough to affect international events very much.' 8 Towards the end of the same sp<:ech, he stated again: 'I have come more and more to the conclusion that the less we interfere in international conflicts the better, unless, of course, our own 5 7

Speeches, vol. II, p. 283. Speeches, vol. II, p. 223.

6 • 8

Speeches, vol. I, p. 246. _SpeecheI, vol. I, p. 212.

JAW A H A R L A L

N E H R U:

FOR E I GNP 0 LIe y

95

interest is involved, for the .simple reason that it is not in consonance with our dignity just to interfere without producing any effect. We should either be strong enough to produce some effect or not interfere at all.' 9 A policy of non-interference and non-involvement might, therefore, have been more in accordance with the realities of the situation and might have proved of much benefit to the country. Non-alignment would have followed logically and inevitably and nobody could have complained against it. But, it seems, India was too big to live alone or to be left alone. Geographically, she was on the crossroads of the West and the East. She was a huge and populous country and had all the potentialities of becoming a powerful nation. Moreover, having tasted the bitter fruit of slavery for several centuries, she was interested in the emancipation of all peoples from the shackles of imperialism and colonialism. This drew her inevitably into the vortex of. world politics. This involvement in world politics also suited the temper and genius of Nehru. India by herself would have been too small a stage for him. He was big enough to playa leading role on the world stage. And for some years, it will be readily admitted, he did playa leading role on that stage with distinction to himself and to the country to which he belonged . . Nehru's passionate attachment to the Cause of peace also served the interests of the country. Few others were as conscious as he of the dangerous drift towards war and of its disastrous conse,quences. According to him, the foremost issue in international affairs was peace or war. In a speech delivered in 1949, he said: 'The supreme.question that one has to face today in the world is how we can avoid a world war. Some people seem to think that it is unavoidable and, therefore, they prepare for it and prepare for it not only in a military sense, but in a psychological sense and thereby actually bring the war nearer. Personally, I think that is a very wrong and a very dangerous thing. Of course, no country dares take things for granted and not prepare for .possible c~mtingencies. We, in India, must be prepared for all possible danger to our freedom and our existence. That is so. But to think in terms of the inevitability of 9

Ibid., p. 217.

96

NEHRU-A

CRITICAL

TRIBUTE

world war is a dangerous thinking. I should like this House and the country to appreciate what a world war means, what it is likely to mean. It just does not matter who wins in the world war, because it will mean such utter catastrophe that for a generation or more everything t~at we stand for in the name of progress and advancement of humanity will be put an end to. That is a terrible thing to contemplate and everything should be done to avoid this catastrophe: 10 The desire to preserve peace and avoid war was mainly responsible for Nehru's insistence on the policy of non-alignment. The two big power blocs, he thought, were afraid of each other and were, out ,of that fear, arming themselves to the teeth as a precaution against a surprise attack by one against the other. Joining one bloc or the other would hasten a drift towards war. On the other hand, if India remained non-aligned, she might be able to exercise some influence on both blocs and avoid the outbreak of War. On one occasion he said: ' It follows, therefore, that we should not align ourselves with what are called power blocs. We can be of far more service without doing so and I think there is just a possibility-and I shall not put it higher than that-that at a moment of crisis our peaceful and friendly efforts might make a difference and avert that crisis. If so, it is well worth trying: 11 On another occasion he was a little more optimistic. He stated: • I feel that India can play a big part, and perhaps an effective part, in helping to avoid war. Therefore, it becomes all the more necessary that India should not be lined up with any group of Powers which for various reasons are full 'of fear of war and prepare for war. That is the main approach of our foreign policy and I am glad to say that I believe that it is more and more appreciated.'12 The most 'important objective of non-alignment was thus to preserve peace and avoid war. Peace has been preserved and a world war has been avoided during the last fifteen years or so, but 'one wonders if our policy of non-alignment c:ap clahn any credit for that course of world ev,ents. A subsidiary purpose of the policy was to maintain friendly relations with all countries and to secure help from all quarters for India's economic dev10 12

Speeches, vol. I, p. 247. Ibid., p. 248.

.

11

.

Ibid., p. 262.

JAW A H A R L A L

N E H R U:

FOR E I GNP 0 LIe y

97

e1opment. That purpose has been served very well and in that sense, non-alignment can be said to have benefited the country. This bears out what Nehru said on one occasion: 'Non-alignment is a policy which is nationally profitable for any country:13 That was not, however, the main purpose that Nehru had in view. His main purpose was to prevent the division of the world into two rival embattled blocs and to create between the two blocs a force of non-aligned nations which might prevent the drift towards war. This could have been called a third force, or a third bloc, but he preferred to designate it as an area of peace. He said: 'Instead of calling it a third force or a third bloc, it can be called a third area, an area which-let us put it negatively first-does not want war, works for peace in a positive way and believes in co-operation. I should like my country to work for that. Indeed, we have tried to do so but the idea of a third bloc or a third force inevitably hinders our work. It frightens people, especially those we wish to approach. Those countries, who do not want to align themselves with either of the two powerful blocs and who are willing to work for the cause of peace, should by all means come together; and we, on our part, should do all we can to make this possible: 14 He laboured hard to create and extend this area of peace. His labour met with a large measure of success as one emerging nation after another chose the path of non-alignment. In the course of time he became the spokesman of all those nonaligned nations and the prophet of the gospel of non-alignment. That raised his stature in world politics. In the beginning there was considerable suspicion about non-alignment. It was disliked in the East as well as in the West. Both desired then that there should be a definite alignment. In those days Nehru said, 'We have to plough a lonely furrow in the United Nations and at international conferences: 15 But the situation changed in a couple of years and there was greater understanding and appreciation of non-alignment. The United States as well as Russia began to realize that there was nothing sinister in non-alignment, and that a big non-aligned country like India could be useful on occasions for negotiating a compromise or 13 Brecher, ap. cit., p. 566. 15

7

Speeches, vol. I, p. 205.

14

Speeches, vol. II, p. 326.

98

NEHRU-A

CRITICAL

TRIBUTE

for avoiding an awkward situation without loss of face. Nehru then became a world leader and statesman whose word was listened to with respect and whose reactions to world events were watched with care and anXie~y. This world acclaim gave Nehru, it appears, an exaggerated idea of the role that India and he could play in world affairs. There was a noticeable change in his characterization of India's role. The earlier estimate that India was not influential enough to affect world events gave place to such declarations as ' India even today counts in world affairs', ' the emergence of India in world affairs is something of major consequence in world history', ' India is growing into a great giant again " ' India can play a big part, and perhaps an effective part, in helping to avoid war', and' India has gone up in the scale of nations in its influence and in its prestige.' 16 With these ideas in mind Nehru desired to playa big role on the world stage as the interpreter of Asia and Africa to Europe and America, as a mediator in the quarrels between the East and the West, and as an honest broker between the United States and Russia. For some time he played that role successfully and covered himself and his country with glory. The cease-fire in Korea and the Geneva Conference for the settlement of the conflict in Indo-China can be. regarded as the best examples of his successful mediatory efforts. The patient and laborious efforts that he made in both areas to stop the spread of war and to bring it eventually to an end, and the noble part that the Indian army and statesmen played under his leadership in both places will remain long in the memory of the peace-loving peoples of the world. But the acclaim and respect that Nehru won were of short duration. Non-alignment was no panacea against war. It was at most a'temporary expedient for reducing tensions an~ limiting the area of conflict. It began to lose its importance as the two giants who were at the head of the two blocs began tQ~move closer to each other. The blocs themselves began to .disintegrate as differences developed between the United States and France, on the one hand, and Russia and. China, on the other. This reduced the importance of Nehru. There were, besides, a number of weaknesses in his own position such as the £este~ing 16

The quotations are from Speeches. _

-' .....

J, A WAH A R

L AL

N E 11 R U:

FOR E I GNP 0 LIe y

99

quarrel with Pakistan, the inability to solve the Kashmir problem, the military action in Goa, and the general economic backwardness of the country. To cap them all, there was the rise of China which began to exercise a contrary pull and influence on the new, uncommitted nations of Asia and Africa. The defeat that China inflicted on India in October 1962 had also a disastrous impact on the prestige and stature of Nehru. The Chinese invasion was a test for the policy of non-alignment. It did not stand that test. The patriot Nehru had to throw it to the winds and ask for and receive military aid from the countries of the West. Some military aid was also received from Russia, but that can hardly be regarded as any vindication of the policy of non-alignment. The basis of non-alignment, so far as Nehru is concerned, was the refusal to accept military aid, the refusal to enter into military pacts. It was on that ground that he opposed the SEATO and Baghdad Pacts and denounced Pakistan for entering into them. Nehru's non-alignment was also tinged with his antiimperialism and anti-colonialism. Consciously or unconsciously, he attributed the danger of war to the desire of European Powers to hold on to their colonial possessions. The conflicts between the Western Powers on one hand and Russia on the other were also, according to him, quarrels between European nations, in which he desired that Asian nations should "not be dragged. Let them fight their own quarrels, let us keep out of them, was his advice to Asian nations. In his speech at the concluding session of the Bandung Conference he said: 'I say that Europe has been in the past a continent full of conflicts, full of trouble, full of hatred. Europe's confltcts continue, its wars continue and we have been dragged into these wars because we were tied to Europe's chariot wheels. Are we going to continue to be tied to Europe's troubles, Europe's hatreds, and Europe's conflicts? I hope not.' 11 Nehru speaks here as an anti-imperialist and anti·colonialist and not as a close student of international affairs and mature statesman that many thought he was. It is this picture of Nehru which compels even a sympathetic observer like Michael Brecher to complain that 'the hangover of emotional hostility to the West because of 17

Speeches, vol. III, p. 290.

100

N E H R U -

A

C R I TIC A L

T RIB UT E

colonialism affects even a convinced rationalist like Nehru.' 18 It is this anti-imperialist and an~i-colonialist hangover which prevented Nehru from analysing the real causes of world tensions and locating the exact sourc~ of the danger of war_ Apart from India, Nehru had a' deep emotional attachment to Asia. He knew that Asia was not a compact unit. In one of his speeches, he stated: • There is a great deal of talk of Asia being a unit. Asia is in a sense a geographical unit, has been a unit in many other ways but in the main it was a unit in a negative sense. That is to _say: practically all of Asia became the colonial domain of various European Powers. It was a unit in that sense; a colonial domain where various different peoples were struggling for freedom against European imperialists; it was a unit because of their struggles and a certain commonness of purpose. But there is, at the same time, a great deal of diversity. It is not quite correct to think of Asia as a compact unit: 19 And yet, Asia, as a helpless victim of the predatory imperialism of European Powers, played a big part in his mental make-up. To work for the liberation of Asian countries was one of the central points of his foreign policy. It was on that basis that he convened the Asian Relations Conference even before India attained her Independence. Two years later, as the Prime Minister of India, he convened another conference in Delhi to help solve the problem of Indonesia's Independence. It is admitted on all hands that his initiative and efforts in that direction went a long way towards persuading the Dutch authorities to accept the demands of the nationalists. This is one of the big achievements of Nehru. Again, it was-as a growing Asian nation .that Nehru greeted. China's rise to power. That her government was a communist government was immaterial to him. He was happy that one more Asian country had set its house in order and embarked on the path of progress. Imperialism and colonialism were defeated and weakened to that extent, and' that ~as an that mattered to him. Greeting the rise of independent nations in Asia, he said on one oc<;asion: "Far too long 'have we of Asia been petitioners in the Western courts and chancelleries. That story must now belong to the past. vVe propose to stand on 18

Brecher, 0/). cit., p. 584.

•

I ~9 .Speeches,

vol.. II, p. 209.

JAWAHARLAL

NEHRU:

FOREIGN

POLICY

101

our own legs and to co-operate with all others who are prepared to co-operate with us_ We do not intend to be the playthings of others.' 20 Echoing the same sentiments, he asserted at the . end of the Bandung Conference: 'But there is yet another spirit in Asia today. Asia is no longer passive; it has been passive enough in the past. It is no longer a submissive Asia; it has tolerated submissiveness too long. The Asia of today is dynamic; it is full of life. Asia might make mistakes, but they do not matter so long as she is alive. Where there is life, there is advance.' 21 Nehru was conscious not only of the importance of resurgent Asia but also of the crucial role that India was to playas the leader of Asia. There were occasions on which he repudiated the idea of India's leadership. But there were other occasions on which he talked about it. For example, in his speech in the Constituent Assembly delivered on January 27, 1947, he said: 'the Indian revolution will lead also to the freedom of other countries of Asia because in a sense, however unworthy we may be, we have become-let us recognize it-the leaders of the freedom movement of Asia, and whatever we do, we should think of ourselves in these larger terms.' 2; Whether as a leader or not, there is no doubt, however, that, according to Nehru, India being the • meeting ground between the East and the West' was to ' playa very important role in Asia '. 'India is the central point: said Nehru, ' of the Asian picture .... We cannot escape the various responsibilities that arise out of our geography and history.' 23 Nehru shouldered those responsibilities and began to stride the world stage as the leader of Asia in his capacity as the undisputed leader of India. He enjoyed that position for some time; the smaller countries of Asia might not have liked it, but they were unable to do anything about it until China arose to challenge and demolish it. Military aid from the West and pacts and alliances with Western countries were an anathema to Nehru. He regarded them as attempts on their part to reimpose their supremacy on the newly Independent nations of Asia. Military pacts, he thought, were an encroachment on the area of peace that he was 20 22 23

Speeches, yol. I, p. 301. 21 Speeches, vol. III, p. 289. Quoted in M. K. Haldar, • I\'ehru's Foreign Policy', Quest 43. Brecher, op. cit., p. 593.

102

NEHRU-A

CRITICAL

TRIBUTE

trying to establish and extend. They took Asian countries in the wrong direction and intensified the danger of war. They were, moreover, an affront to Asian dignity.. Nehru was particularly incensed by the American decision: to extend military aid to Pakistan. Forgetting for the time b~ing that equal military aid was offered to India, he described it as an attempt to • check the growth of freedom movements in those Asian countries which were fighting colonial domination of one kind or another.' 24 Mrs Vijayalakshmi Pandit, who can be regarded as echoing her brother's views, stated: • If one country receives arms from another, she will lose her Independence. At a time of emergency she will have to obey the country supplying the arms. From this point of view, India believes SEATO threatens the Independence of Asian people. Besides, the purpose of SEATO is not peace, but war. Asians will become implements of war.' 25 Nehru regarded. it as an attempt of • the great Powers' to solve Asian problems • minus Asia' or • minus the views of Asian countries '. He even characterized it as ' a kind of evil enchantment over the world which prevents us from going in the right direction.' 2& One may question the wisdom of American military aid to Pakistan, but one cannot but say that ten years have passed and none of the ugly developments forecast by Nehru has yet taken place. And, ironically enough, eight years later India herself had to ask for and receive military aid from America without any adverse effect on her sovereignty or her freedom of action I If Nehru were so much against the Western Powers intervening in Asia to guarantee protection against aggression to those Asian countries which sought it-which was the only meaning of the SEATO and Baghdad Pacts-he should have countered . the move by taking the initiative and lead in organizing one or two-one for South-East Asia and the other for West Asiadefence and mutual assistance alliances for Asian countties or their groups. Smaller countries of Asia might have wel~med such a move and it might have developed into a powerful shield. against any aggression or any other attempt to impose domination. Nehru neglected to take any such step. When Pakistan suggested mutual defence, instead of giving the suggestion 24 26

Haldar, op. cit. Speeches, yol. II, p. 344.

25

Ibid.

JAW A H A R LA L

N E H R U:

FOR E I GNP 0 LIe y

103

serious consideration, he airily dismissed it by asking, 'defence against whom?' The result was that the smaller countries were left helpless. Some of them sought security through agreements with Western Powers. Some were drawn into the communist sphere of influence; while some others were apparently non-aligned but kept their relations intact with one group or the other. In the course of time India was left alone and friendless, as she found to her cost on the occasion of the Chinese invasion. She was left alone holding aloft her banner of non-alignment and, maybe as a result thereof, none of the non-aligned countries of Asia was aligned with her! Nehru's non-alignment suffered from another grave defect. It was not non-aligned in the real sense as many observers have pointed out. It was more non-aligned against the West and less non-aligned in the case of Russia and other communist Powers. One reason for this tendency was his anti-imperialist and anticolonialist passion and his feeling that the Western nations were still intent on holding on to their colonial possessions and following imperialist policies. The other and more powerful reason was his preference for socialism. Nehru had at one time come under the influence of Marxism. Soviet Russia had also attracted him. He was impressed by the many far-reaching changes that had been effected there. He had nothing but abhorrence for communist methods but he had 'the belief that Soviet achievements can be reproduced in India without its repulsive methods '.27 He was also of the opinion that socialism was the' wave of the future '. Naturally he was more lenient in his judgement of Russia and was prepared to overlook many of her misdeeds. He turned a blind eye to the imperialist activities and designs of Russia as happened at Bandung when one of the participants desired to invite attention to them. That may also explain his initial hesitation to recognize what happened in Hungary in 1956 as a people's revolutionary struggle. That was in strange contrast with his angry outbursts against the Anglo-French invasion of Suez. But that was possibly the pattern of behaviour that he had deliberately decided to adopt,. Perhaps he thought that thereby he would be able to placate the Russian leaders and persuade them to adopt a more accommod27

Brecher, op. cit., p. 587.

104

NEHRU-A

CRITICAL

TRIBUTE

ating attitude, hoping at the same time that the Western leaders would not misunderstand and would allow him a certain latitude. The latter happened bIlt it is doubtful how far he succeeded in the former. Nehru never realized the expansibnist aims of communism. He did not accept that a communist Prower was by its very nature expansionist. He did not therefore understand and appreciate the fear that Western nations entertained about the expansionist activities of Russia. He gave them many lectures about fearlessness, about how India had learnt to be fearless under the guidance of Mahatma Gandhi and appealed to them to abandon their fear complex. According to him, the defensive alliances that they built up and the other steps they took for improving their defences were driving the world in the direction of war. He failed to see that the greatest danger to peace stemmed from the communist desire for world domination. He could not, therefore, see the necessity of anti-communist precautions and could not sympathize with them. To him, communism and anticommunism were 'rather superficial arguments' which 'somehow confuse the issue '.28 He was opposed to ideological crusades. According to him, a nation, whether communist, socialist, or capitalist was after all a nation and would pursue only national interests and not the ideological interests of communism. He talked many a time against communism and more particularly against the activities of Indian communists, but to identify Russia or China as a communist Power and to attribute to them the desire to advance communist aims and policies was, he thought, to indulge in cold war. And he was violently opposed to cold war. He said: 'We are not going to participate in a cold war which, I think, is worse than a shooting war in many ways. A shooting war is, of course, very disastrous but a cold war is worse in the sense that it is more degrading..... It does not matter who is right and who is wrong but we shall certainly not join in this exhibition of, mutual abuse.' 29 It is with this conviction that there was nothing inherently wrong with a communist nation and that fear and suspicion were wrong that he trusted China, and for that blind trust the country and he had to pay a heavy price before too long. 28

Speeches, yol. III, p. 268.

,

29

Speeches, vol. II, p. 310.

JAW A H A R LA L

N E H R U:

FOR E I GNP 0 LIe y

105

China was Nehru's blind spot. He greeted with great enthusiasm her emergence as a strong Power. He was confident that India and China working together would turn a new leaf in the history of Asia and make that continent powerful and prosperous. In order not to annoy China and to be in her good books, immediately after her rise to power he allowed her to annex Tibet. That was a grave and costly blunder as it later became clear when China began hostilities against India. Nehru had accepted earlier, for example, at the Asian Relations Conference that Tibet was a separate nation. The theory of suzerainty or sovereignty should not have counted with an antiimperialist like him. And yet he allowed China to destroy the Independence of Tibet. After the event he said: 'Since Tibet is not the same as China, it should ultimately be the wishes of the people of Tibet that should prevail and not any legal or constitutional arguments. That, I think, is a valid point. Whether the people of Tibet are strong enough to assert their rights or not, is another matter. But it is a right and proper thing .to say and I see no difficulty in saying to the Chinese Government that whether they have suzerainty over Tibet or sovereignty over Tibet, surely, according to any principles, the principles they proclaim and the principles I uphold, the last voice in regard to Tibet should be the voice of the people of Tibet and of nobody else.' 30 But China did not listen to him and after a few years destroyed even the autonomy that had been vouchsafed to Tibet. Later, there was a people's revolt and Nehru rose to the occasion by granting hospitality and asylum to the Dalai Lama and other Tibetan fighters for freedom. China resented thi~ action. But by that time Nehru knew China well enough not to attach much importance to her protests. Earlier, however, he was a stout defender and champion of China. He championed her cause in the United Nations and many other international conferences. He introduced China to the nations of Asia and Africa at the Bandung Conference' and secured for her a place of honour. He was angry with the Western Powers for shutting their eyes to the fact of China. No Eastern and Asian problems would be solved, he pointed out, aD Speeches, voJ. II, p. 272.

106

NEHRU-A

CRITICAL

TRIBUTE

without recognizing the fact of China. 'The fact is, and it is a major fact of the middle of the twentieth century, that China . I has become a great power-united and strong.' 31 The outstanding event of this Ilperiod. was the agreement negotiated with China in 1954 regarding Tibet. It contained the famous five principles which came to be known as Panchsheel. Nehru was very happy with Chinese acceptance of those principles and believed that he had achieved something which was of historic importance. He called upon the nations of the world to accept them and to regulate their international relations in accordance with them. Speaking in Parliament shortly after the agreement was signed, he said: 'By this agreement, we ensure peace to a very large extent in a certain area of Asia. I would earnestly wish "'that this area of peace could be spread over the rest of Asia and indeed over the rest of the world.' 32 As a matter of fact, there was hardly anything new in the Five Principles. They were already the basis of the international relations of many countries. Nehru need not have talked about them as if they were a great discovery. It is pertinent also to observe that they were promulgated after sealing the fate of Tibet as an Independent country. That is why one of the critics of Nehru, Acharya J. B. Kripalani, always referred to them as 'born in sin '. But born in sin or otherwise, they ceased to have much significance very soon as China began violating them in a short while. It is this violation which a couple of years later led to the border problem and ultimately to the Chinese invasion. The famous Panchsheel thus proved of little practical significance even for India herself. It never struck Nehru, it appears, that there could be rivalry and antagonism between China and India, that China could . have territorial claims against India, that she might dislike . India's democratic experiment or that she might not be Bleased with India's eminence in world affairs. It was sometime ih 1959 that Nehru began to entertain doubts about the intentions of China and -the consequences of her growing power.- - Speakingin ParliameI1t towards the end of the year, he said: ' We realized . . . that a strong China' is an expansionist China. Throughout history that .has been the case. And we felt that 31

Speeches, vol. III, p. 263.

32

Ibid., pI 263.

JAW A H A !t L A L

N E H R U:

FOR E I GNP 0 LIe y

107

the great push toward the industrialization of that country, plus the amazing pace of its population increase, would together create a most dangerous situation. Taking also the fact of China's somewhat inherent tendency to be expansionist when she is strong we realized the danger to India: But the realization came very late. In less than two years came the blow of the Chinese invasion and the excruciating experience of a military defeat. The story of that invasion and of its lessons does not belong here. The only point to be noted is that the problem created by the proximity of a powerful and expansionist China yet remains to be solved. There are many other problems which also remain to be solved. The problem of relations with Pakistan is the most important amongst them. Nehru and India cannot certainly be blamed for not finding a solution to it; a large part of the blame may belong to the other side. But even the small problem of Kashmir was not solved and in that respect one cannot hold Nehru altogether blameless. This is not the place to suggest a solution, but one may wonder why the assurances given to the people of Kashmir were not honoured. There is reason to believe that in the last couple of months before his death Nehru was thinking of a solution on that line. The problem of Indians in Ceylon was also not solved and it remained to his successor, Lal Bahadur Shastri, to secure a solution. There are similar unsolved problems about our compatriots in Burma, Kenya and other countries. And far more important is the problem of securing friends in Asia and Africa. It is a painful fact to realize that Nehru's foreign policy left many such problems unresolved. Nehru never liked his policy to be described as neutral. It was, according to him, an independent policy; and it was verily so, as it was determined wholely and solely by Nehru without the 'slightest influence of any external authority. It received from time to time the imprimatur of the Congress, the Parliament, and the people, but it was in all essential particulars, as stated earlier, a Nehru policy expressing his ideas, his convictions, and his aims and aspirations. In a speech in the United States he gave an eloquent expression to the fundamentals of that policy. Describing the objectives, he said: 'The objectives of our foreign policy are the preservation of world peace and

108

NEHRU-,A

CRITICAL

TRIBUTE

enlargement of human freedom.' C,larifying India's position on the issue of freedom and democr(lcy he asserted: ' We are neither blind to reality nor do we propose to acquiesce in any challenge to man's freedom, from whatever quarter it may come. Where freedom is menaced or justice threatened, or where aggression takes place, we cannot be and shall not be neutral. What we plead for and endeavour to practise in our own imperfect way is a binding faith in peace and an unfailing endeavour of thought and action to ensure it. The great democracy of the United States of America will, I feel sure, understand and appreciate our approach to life's problems because it could not have any other aim or a different ideal. Friendship and co-operation between our two countries are, therefore, natural. I stand here to offer both in the pursuit of justice, liberty and peace.' 33 He was also aware of the fact as he made clear in a speech in Canada that 'in this narrow and contracting world, war and peace and freedom are becoming indivisible '.34 Apart from these declarations, the concrete step that Nehru took of retaining relationship with the Commonwealth even after India became a sovereign democratic republic is a step full of great import. It reinforces India's relationship with the West and keeps her in the mainstream of the world struggle for human freedom and social advance. It may be remembered that at one time there was a good deal of criticism of and some opposition to Nehru's decision on this point. The policy that Nehru propounded in the speech quoted above was best suited to the interests of the country. But in its practice and implementation there were many departures and deviations due to anti-imperialist passion and misplaced faith in the good intentions of communist Powers. If they are avoided and more attention is paid to the development of closer relations with near neighbours, Nehru's foreign policy may in the hands of his successors yield better results. ..,

33

Speeches, vol. II, p. 201.

APPENDIXES

APPENDIX

1

NO CAESARISM CHANAKYA (Jawaharlal Nehru) RASHTRAPATI JAWAHARLAL KI-]AI! The Rashtrapati looked up as he passed swiftly through the waiting crowds, his hands went up and were joined together in salute and his pale hard face was lit up by a smile. It was a warm personal smile and the people who saw it responded to it immediately and smiled and cheered in return. The smile passed away and again the face became stern and sad, impassive in the midst of the emotion that it had roused in the multitude. Almost it seemed that the smile and the gesture accompanying it had little reality behind them; they were just tricks of the trade to gain the goodwill of the crowds whose darling he had become. Was it so? Watch him again. There is a great procession and tens of thousands of persons surround his car and cheer him in an ecstasy of abandonment. He stands on the seat of the car, balancing himself rather well, straight and seemingly tall, like a god, serene and unmoved by the seething multitude. Suddenly there is that smile again, or even a merry laugh, and the tension seems to break and the crowd laughs with him not knowing what it is laughing at. He is godlike no longer, but a human being claiming kinship and comradeship with the thousands who surround him, and the crowd feels happy and friendly and takes him to its heart. But the smile is gone and the pale stern face is there again. Is all this natural or the carefully thought out trickery of the public man? Perhaps it is both, and long habit has become second nature now. The most effective pose is one in which III

lIZ

NEHRU-A

CRITICAL

TRIBUTE

there seems to be least of posing, and J awaharlal has learnt well to act without the paint and p0"lder of the actor. With his seeming carelessness and' insoucianc~, he performs on the public stage with consummate artistry. Whither is this going to lead him and the country? What is he aiming at with all his apparent want of aim? What lies behind that mask of his, what desires, what will to power, what insatiate longings? These questions would be interesting in any event; for Jawaharlal is a personality which compels interest and attention. But they have a vital significance for us, for he is bound up with the present in India, and probably the future, and he has the power in him to do great good to India or great injury. We must, therefore, seek answers to these questions. For nearly two years now he has been President of the Congress and some people imagine that he is just a camp-follower in the Working Committee ,of the Congress, suppressed or kept in check by others. And yet steadily and persistently he goes on increasing his personal prestige and influence both with the masses and with all manner of groups and people. He goes to the peasant and the worker, to the zamindar and the capitalist, to the merchant and the pedlar, to the Brahman and the untouchable, to the Muslim, the Sikh, the Parsi, the Christian, and the Jew, to all those who make up the great variety of Indian life. To all these he speaks in a slightly different language, ever seeking to win them over to his side. With an energy that is astonishing at his age; he has rushed about across this vast land of India, and everywhere he has received the most extraordinary or popular welcomes. From the far north to Cape Comorin he has gone like some triumphant Caesar passing by leaving a trail of glory and a legend behind him. Is all this for him just a passing fancy which amuses him, or some deep design, or the play of some force which he himself does not know? Is it his will to power of which he speaks in his autobiography that is driving him from crowd to crowd and making him whisper to himself: 'I drew these tides of men into hands and wrote my will across the sky in stars.' What if the fancy turn? Men like Jawaharlal with all their capacity for great and good work are unsafe in democracy. He calls himself a democrat and a 'socialist, ,and no doubt he does

my

NO

CAESARISI\I

113

so in all earnestness, but every psychologist knows that the mind is ultimately a slave to the heart, and .that logic can always be made to fit in with the desires and irrepressible urges of man. A little twist and J awaharlal might turn a dictator sweeping aside the paraphernalia of a slow-moving democracy. He might still use the language and slogans of democracy and socialism, but we all know how fascism has fattened on this language and then cast it away as useless lumber. Jawaharlal is certainly not a fascist either by conviction or by temperament. He is far too much of an aristocrat for the crudity and vulgarity of fascism. His very face and voice tell us that ' private faces in publi~ places are better and nicer than public faces in private places '. The fascist face is a public face and it is not a pleasant face in public or private. Jawaharlal's face as well as his voice are definitely private. There is no mistaking that even in a crowd, and his voice at public meetings is an intimate voice which seems to speak to individuals separately in a matter-of-fact homely way. One wonders as one hears it or sees the sensitive face what lies behind them, what thoughts and desires, what strange complexes and repressions, what passions suppressed and turned to energy, what longings which he dare not acknowledge even to himself. The train of thought holds him in public speech, but at other times his looks betray him, for his mind wanders away to strange fields and fancies and he forgets for a moment his companion and holds inaudible converse with the creatures of his brain. Does he think of the human contacts he has- missed on his life's journey, hard and tempestuous as it has been; does he long for them? Or does he dream of the future of his fashioning and of the conflicts and triumphs that he would fain have? He must know well that there is no resting by the wayside on the path he has chosen and that even triumph itself means greater burdens. As Lawrence said to the Arabs: There can be no resthouses for revolt, no dividend of joy paid out. Joy may not be for him, but something greater than joy may be his if fate and fortune are kind-the fulfilment of a life purpose. S

114

NEHRU-A

CRITICAL

TRIBUTE

Jawaharlal cannot become a fa~cist. And yet he has all the makings of a dictator in him, vast popularity, a strong will directed to a well-defined purpose,) energy, pride, organizational capacity, ability, hardness, and with all his love of the crowd, an intolerance of others and a certain contempt for the weak and inefficient. His flashes of temper are well known and even when they are controlled, the curling of the lips betrays him. His overmastering desire to get things done, to sweep away what he dislikes and build anew will hardly brook for long the slow processes of democracy. He may keep the husk but he will see to it that it bends to his will. In normal times he would just be an efficient and successful executive, but in this revolutionary epoch Caesarism is always at the door, and is it not possible that Jawaharlal might fancy himself as a Caesar? Therein lies danger for Jawaharlal and for India. For it is not through Caesarism that India will attain freedom and though she may prosper a little under a benevolent and efficient despotism, she will remain stunted and the day of the emancipation of her people will be delayed. For two consecutive years, Jawaharlal has been President of the Congress, and in some ways he has made himself so indispensable that there are many who suggest that he should be elected for a third term. But a greater disservice to India and to Jawaharlal himself can harcfly be done. By electing him a third time we shall exalt one man at the cost of the Congress and make the people think in terms of Caesarism. We shall encourage in J awaharlal the wrong tendencies and increase his conceit and pride. He will become convinced that he alone can bear this burden or tackle Imlia's problems, Let us remember that, in spite of his apparent indifference to office, he has managed to hold important
NO

CAESARISM

115

least prevent him from going astray and from mental deterioration under too heavy burdens and responsibilities. We have a right to expect good work from him in the future. Let us not spoil that and spoil him by too much adulation and praise. His conceit, if any, is already formidable. It must be checked. We want no Caesars.

APPENDIX II

THE BASIC APPROACH JAWAHARLAL NEHRU

WE HAVE many grave internal problems to face. But even a consideration of these internal problems inevitably leads to a wider range of thought. Unless we have some clarity of vision or, at any rate, are clear as to the questions posed to us, we shall not get out of the confusion that afflicts the world today. I do not pretend to have that clarity of thinking or to have any answer to our major questions. All I can say, in all humility, is that I am constantly thinking about these questions. In a sense, I might say that I rathe{ envy those who have got fixed ideas and, therefore, need not take the trouble to look deeper into the problems of today. Whether it is from the point of view of some religion or ideology, they are not troubled with the mental conflicts which are always the accompaniment of the great ages of transition. And yet, even though it may be more comfortable to have fixed ideas and be complacent, surely that is not to be commende
:;t (

THE

BASIC

APPROACH

117

ternal conditions, there is at the same time the strange spectacle of a lack of moral fibre and of self-control in man as a whole_ Conquering the physical world, he fails to conquer himself_ This is the tragic paradox of this Atomic and Sputnik Age. The fact that nuclear tests continue, even though it is well recognized that they are very harmful in the present and in the future, the fact that all kinds of weapons of mass destruction are being produced and piled up, even though it is universally recognized that their use may well exterminate the human race, brings out this paradox with startling clarity. Science is advancing far beyond the comprehension of a very great part of the human race, and posing problems which most of us are incapable of understanding, much less of solving. Hence the inner conflict and tumult of our times. On the one side, there is this great and overpowering progress in science and technology and of their manifold consequences; on the other, a certain mental exhaustion of civilization itself. Religion comes into conflict with rationalis{ll. The disciplines qf religion and social usage fade away without giving place to other disciplines, moral or spiritual. Religion, as practised, either deals with matters rather unrelated to our normal lives and thus adopts an ivory tower attitude, or is allied to certain social usages which do not fit in with the present age. Rationalism, on the other hand, with all its virtues, somehow appears to deal with the surface of things, without uncovering the inner core. Science itself has arrived at a stage when vast new possibilities and mysteries loom ahead. Matter and energy and spirit seem to overlap. In the ancient days, life was simpler and more in contact with Nature. Now it becomes more and more complex, and more hurried, without time for reflection or even for questioning. Scientific developments have produced an enormous surplus of power and energy which are often used for wrong purposes. The old question still faces us, as it has faced humanity for ages past: what is the meaning of life? The old days of faith dp not appear to be adequate, unless they can answer the questions of today. In a changing world, living should be a continuous adjustment to these changes and happenings. It is the lack of this adjustment that creates conflicts.

118

NEHRU-A

G.RITICAL

TRIBUTE

The old civilizations, with the many virtues that they possess have obviously proved inadequate. I The new Western civilization, with all its triumphs and achfevements and also with its atomic bombs, also appears inadequate and, therefore l feeling grows that there is something wtong with our civilization. Indeed, essentially our problems are those of civilization itself. Religion gave a certain moral and spiritual discipline; it also tried to perpetuate superstition and social usages. Indeed, those superstitions and social usages enmeshed and overwhelmed the real spirit of religion. Disillusionment followed. Communism comes in the wake of this disillusionment and offers some kind of faith and some kind of discipline. To some extent it fills a vacuUm. It succeeds in some measure by giving a content to man's life. But in spite of its apparent success, it fails; partly because of its rigidity,' but even more so, because it ignores certain essential needs of human nature. There is much talk in communism of the con,tradictions of capitalist society, and there is truth in that analysis. But we see the growing contradictions within the rigid framework of communism itself. Its suppression of individual freedom brings about powerful reactions. Its contempt for what might be called the moral and spiritual side of life, not only ignores something that is basic in man, but also deprives human behaviour of stand;lrds and values. Its unfortunate association with violence encourages a certain evil tendency in human beings. I have the greatest admiration for many of the achievements of the Soviet Union. Among these great achievements is the valu(J attached to the child and the common man. Their systems of education and health are probably the best in the world. But, it is said, and rightly, that there is suppression of individual . freedom t4ere. And yet the spread of education in all its forms is itself a tremendous liberating force which ultimately will not tolerate that suppression of freedom. This again is another contradiction. Unfortunately ,communism became too closely associated with the necessity for violence, and thus the-'idea which it placed before the world became a tainted one. Means distorted ends. We see here the powerful influence of wrong means and methods. Communism charges the capitalist stru,cture of society with' being based on violence and class ~onflict, I think this is essen-

.' ....

THE

BASIC

APPROACH

119

tially correct, though that capitalist structure itself has underg;::>ne and is continuously undergoing a change because of democratic and other struggles and inequality. The question is how to get rid of this al!.d have a classless society with equal opportunities for ail. Can this be achieved through methods of violence, or can it be possible to bring about those changes through peaceful methods? Communism has definitely allied itself to the approach of violence. Even if it does not indulge normally in physical violence, its language is of violence, its thought is violent, and it does not seek to change by persuasion or peaceful democratic pressures, but by coercion and, indeed, by destruction and extermination. Fascism has all these evil aspects of violence and extermination in their grossest forms and, at the same time, has no acceptable ideal. This is completely opposed to the peaceful approach which Gandhiji taught us. Communists as well as anti-communists seem to imagine that a principle can only be stoutly defended by language of violence, and by condemning those who do not accept ,it. For both of them there are no shades, there is only black and white. That is the old approach of the bigoted aspects of some religions. It is not the approach of tolerance, of feeling that perhaps others might have some share of the truth also. Speaking for myself, I find this approach wholly unscientific, unreasonable, and uncivilized, whether it is applied in the realm of religion, or economic theory, or anything else. I prefer the old pagan approach of tolerance, apart from its religious aspects. But whatever we may think about it, we have' arrived at a stage in the modern world when an attempt at. forcible imposition of ideas on any large section of people is bound ultimately to fail. In present circumstances, this will lead to war and tremendous destruction. There will be no victory, only defeat for everyone. Even this we have seen in the last year or two, that it is not easy for even great Powers to reintroduce colonial control over territories which have recently become independent. This was exemplified by the Suez incident in 1956. Also what happened in Hungary demonstrated that the desire for national freedom is stronger even than any ideology, and cannot ultimately be suppressed. What happened in Hungary was not essentially a conflict between communism

120

NEHRU-A

CRITICAL

TRIBUTE

and anti-communism. It represen~ed nationalism striving for freedom from foreign control. Thus, violence cannot possibly leaH today to a solution of any major problem because violence has become much too terrible and destructive. The moral approach to this question has now been powerfully reinforced by the practical aspect. If the society we aim at cannot be brought about by big-scale violence, will small-scale violence help? Surely not, partly because it produces an atmosphere of conflict and of disruption. It is absurd to imagine that out of conflict the socially progressive forces are bound to win. In Germany, both the Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party were swept away by Hitler. This may well happen in other countries too. In India, any appeal to violence is particularly dangerous because of its inherent disruptive character. We have too many fissiparous tendencies for us to take risks.. But all these are relatively minor considerations. The basic thing, I believe, is that wrong means will not lead to right results, and that is no longer merely an ethical doctrine but a practical proposition. Some of us have been discussing this general background and, more especially, conditions in India. It is often said that there is a sense of frustration and depression in India and the old buoyancy of spirit is not to be found at a time when enthusiasm and hard work are most needed. This is not merely in evidence ,in our country, it is in a sense a world phenomenon. An old and valued colleague said that this is due to our not having a philosophy of life, and indeed the world also is suffering from this lack of a philosophical approach. In our efforts to ensure the material prosperity of the country, we have not paid any attention to the spiritual element in human nature. Therefore, in order to give the individual and the nation a sense of purpose, something to live for and, if necessary, to die for, we have to revive some philosophy of life and give, in the wider s~se of the word, a spiritual background to our thinking. _We talk of a Welfare State and of democra
THE

BASIC

APPROACH

121

ing the good of the individuals composing it? If the individual is ignored and sacrificed for what is considered the good of the society, is that the right objective to have? It was agreed that the individual should not be so sacrificed and, indeed, that real social progress will come only when opportunity is given to the individual to develop, provided t4e individual is not a selected group but comprises the whole community. The touchstone, therefore, should be how far any political or social theory enables the individual to rise above his petty self and thus think in terms of the good of all. The law of life should not be competition or acquisitiveness, but cooperation, the good of each contributing to the good of all. In such a society the emphasis will be on duties, not on rights; the rights will follow the performance of the duties. We have to give a new direction to education and evolve a new type of humanity. The argument led to the old Vedantic conception that everything, whether sentient or insentient, finds a place in the organic Whole, that everything has a spark of what might be called the Divine Impulse, or that the basic energy or life force pervades the universe. This leads to metaphysical regions which tends to take us away from the problems of life which face us. I suppose that any line of thought, sufficiently pursued, leads us in some measure to metaphysics. Even science today is almost on the verge of all manner of imponderables. I do not propose to discuss these metaphysical aspects, but this very argument indicates how the mind searches for something basic underlying the physical world. If we really believed in this all-pervading concept of the principle of life, it might help us to get rid of some of our narrowness of race, caste, or class, and make us more tolerant and understanding in our approaches to life's problems. But obviously, it does not solve any of these problems, and, in a sense, we remain where we were. In India we talk of the In a sense, every country, whether , Welfare State and socialism. . it is capitalist, socialist, <;>r communist, accepts the ideal of the Welfare State. Capitalism, in a few countries at least, has achieved this common welfare to a very large extent, though it has far from solved its own problems, and there is a basic lack of something vital. Democracy allied to capitali~m has un-

122

NEHRU-A

CRITICAL

TRIBUTE

doubtedly toned down many of its evils and, in fact, is different now from what it was a generationlor two ago. In industrially advanced countries, there has been a continuous and steady up· ward trend of economic development. Even the terrible losses of the W orId War have not prevented this trend in so far as these highly developed countries are concerned. Further, this economic development has spread, though in varying degrees, to all classes. This does not apply to countries which are not industrially developed. Indeed, in. those countries the struggle for development is very difficult and sqmetimes, in spite of efforts, not only do economic inequalities remain, but tend to become worse. Normally speaking, it may be said that the forces of a capitalist society, if left unchecked, tend to make the rich richer and the poor poorer, and thus increase the gap between them. This applies to countries as well as groups, or regions, or classes within the countries .. Various democratic processes interfere with these normal trends. Capitalism itself has, therefore, developed some socialistic features even though its major aspects remain. Socialism, of course, deliberately wants to interfere with the normal processes and thus not only adds to the productive forces, but lessens inequalities. But, what is socialism? It is difficult to give a precise answer and there are innumerable definitions of it. Some people probably think of socialism vaguely just as something which does good and which aims at equality. That does not take us very far. Socialism is basically a different approach from that of capitalism, though I think it is true that the wide gap between them tends to lessen because many of the ideas of socialism are gradually incorporated even in the cipitalist structure. Socialism is after all not only a way of life, but a certain scientific approach to soCial and economic pro· blems. If socialism is introduced in a backward and -Underdeveloped country, it does not suddenly make it any less backward. In fact, we then have a bacKward and poverty-stfie~en socialism. .Unfortunately, many of the poiitical aspects of communism have tended to distort our vision of socialism. Also the technique of struggle evolved by communism has given violence a predominant part. Socialism should, therefore, be considered apart from these political el~Slents or the inevitability of

THE

BASIC

APPROACH

123

violence.' It tells us that the general character of social, political, and intellectual life in a society is governed by its productive resources. As those productive resources change and develop, so the life and thinking of the community changes. Imperialism or colonialism suppressed and suppresses the progressive social force. Inevitably it aligns itself with certain privileged groups or classes because it is interested in preserving the social and economic status quo. Even after a country has become independent, it may continue to be economically dependent on other countries. This kind of thing is euphemistically called having close cultural and economic ties. We discuss sometimes the self-sufficiency of the village. This should not be mixed up with the idea of decentralization though it may be a part of it. While decentralization is, I think, desirable to the largest possible extent, if it leads to old and rather primitive methods of pTOduction, then it simply means that we do not utilize modern methods which have brought great material advance to some countries of the vVest. That is, we remain poor and, what is more, tend to become poorer because of the pressure of an increasing population. I do not see any way out of our vicious circle of poverty except by utilizing the new sources of power which science has placed at oui" disposal. Being poor, we have no surplus to invest and we sink lower and lower. We have to break through this barrier by profiting by the new source of power and modern techniques. But, in doing so, we should not forget the basic human element_ and the fact that our objective is individual improvement and the lessening of inequalities, and we must not forget the ethical and spiritual aspects of life which are ultimately the basis of culture and civilization and which have given some meaning to life. It has to be remembered that it is not by some magic adoption of socialist or capitalist method that poverty suddenly leads to riches. The only way is through hard work and increasing the productivity of the nation and organizing an equitable distribution of its products. It is a lengthy and difficult process. In a poorly developed countrY"the capitalist method offers no chance. It is only through a planned approach on socialistic lines that steady progress can be attained though even that will take time. As this process continues, the texture of our life apd thinking gradually changes.

124

NEHRU-A

CRITICAL

TRIBUTE

Planning is essential for this because otherwise we waste our resources, which are very limited. Planning does not mean a mere collection of projects, or schemes, but a thought-out approach of how to strengthen the '\base and pace of progress so that the community advances on all fronts. In India we have a terrific problem of extreme poverty in certain large regions, apart from the general poverty in the country. We have always a difficult choice before us; whether to concentrate on production by itself in selected and favourable areas, and thus for the moment rather ignoring the poor areas, or try to develop the backward areas at the same time, so as to lessen the inequalities between regions. A balance has to be struck and an integrated national plan evolved. That national plan need not and indeed should not have rigidity. It need not be based on any dogma, but should rather take the existing facts into consideration. It may, and I think, in present-day India, it should encourage private enterprise in many fields, though even that privat.e enterprise must necessarily fit in with the national plan and have such controls as are considered necessary. Land reforms have a peculiar significance because without them, more especially in a highly congested country like India, there can be no radical improvement in productivity in agriculture. But the main object of land reforms is a deeper one. They are meant to break up the old class structure of a society that is stagnant. We want social security, but we have to recognize that social security only comes when a certain stage of development has been reached. Otherwise, we shall have neither social security nor any development. It is clear that in the final analysis, it is the quality of the : human beings that counts. It is man th
THE

BASIC

APPROACH

125

us into blind alleys. Planning will thus always be perspective planning and hard in view of the physical achi~vements for which we strive. In other words, it has to be physical planning, though it is obviously limited and conditioned by financial resources and economic conditions. The problems that India faces are to some extent common to other countries; but there are new problems for which we have not got parallels or historical precedents elsewhere. What has happened in the past in the industrially advanced countries has little bearing on us today. As a matter of fact, the countries that are advanced today were economically better off than India is today, in terms of per capita income, before their industrialization began. Western economics, therefore, though helpful, has little bearing on our present-day problems. So also is Marxist economics which is in many ways out of date, even though it throws considerable light on economic processes. We have thus to do our own thinking, profiting by the example of others, but essentially trying to find a path for ourselves suited to our own conditions. In considering these economic aspects of our problems, we have always to remember the basic approach of peaceful means, and perhaps we might also keep in view the old Vedantic ideal of the life force which is the inner base of everything that exists.