Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#2)
Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2020 1:18 am
Part 7 of 7
13. SPELLBOUND
It is a strange hold Nehru has over the people of India. It is a hold which is as fascinating as it is difficult to understand. It defies logic, but it is there, unquestionably, surely and firmly. Perhaps it is one of those tricks of fate which go to make a man of destiny what he is despite himself. Perhaps it could be explained away by reckoning the planetary position at the time of his birth. Other than by an explanation on the astral plane, I find it difficult to understand the continuance of his unchallenged leadership in our country, which is beyond the ken of logic or reason.
Repeatedly I have asked some of his severest critics, even former colleagues of his in the government and in the Congress party, who have fallen out with him, how it was that they who so often had right on their side had eventually to drop out of power in the government or the party while Nehru continued to stay on without so much as a blot on his escutcheon. The answer has been invariably the same -- a helpless shrug of the shoulders and uplifted hands. No one has ever dared to match his strength with Jawaharlal Nehru, for that would be foolish, if not suicidal. You cannot win against Nehru, they have all said, for eventually the verdict will be based not on reason, but on emotion and a revival of that sentiment which, though it periodically dies down, Nehru is always able to whip up whenever the critical moment comes.
I saw this for myself during the last general elections, the first of their kind in free India. The Congress party, which was Nehru’s party, had been in power since independence and even a little before that, with the consent of the British. On the eve of the elections in 1951, I felt there would be a landslide of public opinion against the Congress.
I remember analysing the situation and expressing my fears to an important foreign diplomat in an informal interview I had with him soon after he took over office. The situation appeared very clear to me even then, for I could see a disintegration setting in at the provincial level and moving up to the top. My analysis was that the Congress would not break at the centre. At the centre there was a solid block of unity, consisting of the topmost leaders both of the Congress and the country, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel, Dr Rajendra Prasad, Mr Rajagopalachari, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, names which were household words in India and represented the old guard which had spearheaded our fight for freedom.
The foreign diplomatic missions, which had only just taken up residence in New Delhi, were inclined to judge the political situation in the country from the seemingly healthy state of affairs in the capital, but that was not where the rot was setting in. They were dazzled by the Prime Minister’s brilliance at diplomatic parties and receptions, and equated Nehru to the Congress party as a whole. Most of them had read his autobiography; but now they were meeting the leading character of that book in person -- the colourful, dashing young liberator of India, the little symbolically-brown man who, with sheer rhetoric, was going to push all the whites out of Asia. Little did these well-meaning diplomats, who fussed around the new Indian court, know that the character in the book was fast becoming fictitious.
Few of these new diplomats had seen the real India of famished men and women, of dying cattle, of floods and famines, of poverty, hunger, squalor, dirt and disease. To them India was what they saw of it in the capital city, with fashionable clubs and hotels crowded with contractors, ‘admin’ officers and the new glamour boys of the services, the Ministers in great big cars, their deputies, their secretaries, and who could not fail to see the foreign ‘experts’ who were to teach us how to build the new India. All this presented a facade of a secure and stable government. The Congress appeared as steady as the rock of Gibraltar. It was, however, the various branches of this nation-wide organization which were decaying at their extension points. It was here that you could see the scramble for power in its most sordid forms, accompanied by corruption, nepotism and graft, and all the permutations and combinations of these diabolical traits in man.
The first note of warning had come at the end of 1947, when a veteran Congressman from Andhra in a letter to Mahatma Gandhi observed: ‘The situation is growing more intolerable every day. The people have begun to say that the British government was much better. They are even cursing the Congress.’ As the year turned, Mahatma Gandhi met with his tragic death, and a little later the aged writer of the letter also passed away. But the disillusionment remained; it stayed on in India long after that. It is still here.
The Congress disintegrated as I had said it would, and when I met the diplomat again, I reminded him about this little forecast which, contrary to popular belief, had proved remarkably true.
This was the data and the analysis which I had before me as the elections drew near, and, as a result, I could come to no other logical conclusion than that at the elections itself the Congress would lose power in some of the important states of the Union, chiefly Bombay and West Bengal.
That was all one could have wished for, just a break in this monopoly of power, so that some healthy opposition could be built up in our country, which would make the Congress-dominated governments stand up and take notice, and act as a democratic check on them.
My information about West Bengal was secondhand, but in my home state of Bombay, I was sure of my facts. I was sure that the people had made up their minds to reject the leadership of the Congress in our state, if only as a token protest. All this appeared a cinch on paper, and I had mentally gone past the stage of the elections and was almost working out the personnel of the new government of Bombay as I visualised it after the elections.
There was one factor I had miscalculated; and that was Nehru.
In the early campaigning stages he stayed aloof from the pre-election scuffle. Perhaps he did not think his presence on the scene was so necessary. Gradually it transpired that the prospects of the Congress party were not as rosy as most people believed; Sardar Patel, the party boss, was dead, and a queer fossilised old man presided over the Congress. Babu Purshottamdas Tandon was a revivalist; the period he wanted to revive was somewhat antediluvian. He was an odd character by any standards, a man who would not wear shoes because of the hurt it might cause the animal from which the leather came! An appeal to the electorate under such a leadership might be misunderstood, it was thought, and shrewd judges of the political situation prevailed upon Nehru to assume control of the party organisation. Tandon gracefully and tactfully handed the party over to Jawaharlal Nehru.
The Congress was now Nehru; the government was Nehru. It was reasonable to believe the country would be Nehru also.
What little opposition there was in the country, other than the communists, dissipated its force in an effort which was far too ambitious. Instead of denting the broad Congress front at a few vulnerable and strategic points, the socialists made the mistake of making an all-out bid for power, which met with dismal failure.
The Congress was swept into power everywhere. But these sweeping victories in state after state were not party victories; they represented the personal triumph of one man, Jawaharlal Nehru.
I saw how this happened. Nehru had come to Bombay, a city disillusioned with its Congress ministry in power because of its irksome legislation, the most unpopular of which was prohibition. He spoke here, there, everywhere. What I recollect is the cumulative effect, not all, of the actual speech he made on the sands at Chowpatty, the same forum which Gandhi and Tilak had used in the days gone by, where two hundred thousand people had gathered to hear him that evening. The crowds were so large, they stood in the sea; there, soaking in the water, they heard him in utter silence.
'Bhai-o! Behn-o'1 [1. Brothers! Sisters!] Nehru opened after the initial joining of his hands in respectful namaskar.2 [2. Indian salutation.] There was an instant affinity between the speaker and his vast audience, as in the days of yore.
He had come to Bombay after a long time, he told them.
Many years.
He paused and looked at them with that wistful look he specialises in. In that pause, ominous for his political opponents, a thousand votes must have swung in his favour.
Yes, he felt a personal attachment to this city.
Pause.
Two thousand votes.
It was like coming back home.
Pause.
Five thousand votes.
In Bombay he had passed some of the happiest moments of his life. Yes, the happiest.
Five thousand, five hundred votes.
He remembered those great moments so vividly. And some of the saddest moments too - the sad, hard days of the struggle.
Ten thousand votes for the Congress.
Pause. ‘By looking at the people who have struggled together with me in the fight for freedom, I derive inspiration and strength,’ he said.
The affinity was complete.
Twenty thousand votes!
Pause.
A deep, sorrowful, soulful look in the fading twilight hour; with the air pregnant with emotion and the waters of the bay strangely still at that breath-taking moment. He told the gathering that he had taken upon himself the role of a mendicant beggar. Amidst cheers, he said: ‘If at all I am a beggar, I am begging for your love, your affection and your enlightened co-operation in solving the problems which face the country.’1 [1. November 24th, 1951.]
Thirty thousand votes were sure for Nehru.
Pause.
A stir in the audience. A tear on the face of the man or woman sitting on the beach or standing on the shore. Two tears, a sari2 [2. Garment which the women wear.]-end wiping them gently off a woman’s face. She would give her vote to Nehru no matter what anyone else said.
Memories of Gandhi came back to the people -- the days when Nehru stood beside the Mahatma. Nehru was Gandhi’s young and handsome disciple, the man he left to us as his political heir.
Fifty thousand votes! a hundred thousand! two hundred thousand!
By next morning, when the newspapers carried the report of his speeches, there was not much doubt left as to the way the great majority of the two million seven hundred thousand people who constituted the population of Bombay’s adult franchise would cast its vote; Nehru had swept the city off its feet. It became difficult to compete with such a dynamic force with any argument. No one can succeed in anything against such an onrush of emotion.
But one thing bothered Nehru that day. His former colleague in the cabinet, Dr Ambedkar, the Harijan1 [1. Literally God’s own child, formerly referred to as ‘untouchable’.] leader who had resigned from office, had attacked Nehru for his foreign policy and for his policy towards the Harijans.
That shook Nehru. He said: ‘That Dr Ambedkar, who now appears to be completely opposed to the nation’s foreign policy, should have tolerated it while he remained in the government for nearly four years, seems utterly strange. I am completely amazed by such an attitude on the part of Dr Ambedkar, who no sooner has left the government that he has started a campaign of hatred and vilification against the government and the Congress.’
Criticism of foreign policy is a sore point with Pandit Nehru. It is his own creation, unique. ‘I bear a special responsibility for the country’s foreign policy,’ he has repeatedly said. That makes criticism of foreign policy a direct personal attack on Nehru, which he resents. No disparaging remarks can be made about it. One either has to applaud it or grin and bear it. Everything he does on this score has the personal ‘chop’2 [2. Colloquialism for ‘stamp’.] of Jawaharlal Nehru. Perhaps this explains why, in the early days, official reports and letters to the Foreign Minister were said to have begun informally in the ‘Dear Bhai'3 [3. Brother.] vein. It was as if Ambassador Duff Cooper (now Lord Norwich), writing officially to Foreign Minister Anthony Eden, should begin the diplomatic note with ‘Hello, old chap,’ or some such endearing greeting.
Nehru is confident that the whole world will have to adopt his foreign policy one day, despite all the atom and hydrogen bombs which have yet to be exploded. Yet periodically he goes to Parliament, to the Congress party, even to the dumb-driven people, to collect votes of confidence on this strange, dreamy Utopian foreign policy of his.
At Chowpatty on that day, after his emotional outburst, he was naturally repeatedly cheered when he discussed foreign affairs. What else would you expect from a gathering of two hundred thousand to whom Nehru had said, ‘If one took the trouble of visiting foreign countries, one would realise the appreciation with which India’s foreign policy was regarded’? It did not matter to Nehru that not many of the applauding crowd had the intelligence to understand the words ‘foreign policy’, fewer still could appreciate their full implications, and, with the possible exception of a handful, no one would ever have an opportunity of visiting foreign countries to check on the Prime Minister’s claim. His word was the last on the subject. No one could challenge him from that audience, and if anyone had done so, the policemen would have removed the poor foolhardy heckler for disturbing the speaker, if the mob had not set on him before then.
So Nehru’s statement not only remained unchallenged, but it was also applauded. The applause was enough; it was sustaining. But what I fail to understand is why, when he is so sure of his foreign policy, he constantly needs to be reassured about it. Is this just lip-service to democracy?
14. IMPERIOUS
It is distasteful for an Indian to break an image of his own creation. More so in my case, when I bear in mind the impressionable days when Nehru was the lodestar for us young men to follow. First the father, Motilal, the constitutionalist, with his smooth, lucid speeches in the Legislative Assembly, as it was then called, convincing us of the need to recognise the germ of self-respect which is in us all, and then the son, Jawahar, the young, ardent ‘revolutionary’ with courage in his heart and fire in his speech, spurring us to the ramparts for the great fight which was on. Gandhi was the spirit, the young Jawahar was the enthusiasm which urged us on. Of the two, Nehru was often nearer to us, for he spoke a language which we could more easily understand. We felt we were growing up with him; he was one of us.
I remember, a little after I had returned from Oxford, calling on him on a few occasions, although I am rather hazy about the sequence of these calls. There was a brief meeting in Bombay when he was very rushed; he was growing impatient with the British and revealed a frustration which was strangling his free spirit. I saw him again in a different mood in Allahabad. I was passing through his home town, where he was resting after a spell in jail. He was reading a book in the quiet of the afternoon in the living-room of a trim, north Indian bungalow. He gave me a cup of tea, I remember, and he spoke to me calmly, kindly, gently. There was a sad, hungry look in his eyes, but he was at peace with himself and the world. I once also saw him for a few moments in London. He was on a tour of Europe, accompanied by his quiet, unassuming daughter, Indira, his sole companion now. These were just fleeting glances I had of him, snatches from his overcrowded life. But in reality I was closer to him than he knew. I followed every move he made, watched every turn of mood, read much of what he wrote and said. I absorbed him until he became a part of me; I looked upon him as a symbol of what I thought an Indian should be.
Elsewhere I had seen him often, but not alone. I had watched him close and from afar, at public meetings and private parties. That one knew him was not so important as the fact that he in turn knew of us too. That was important -- the recognition. In turn I did my part; for with what gifts I had, and opportunity, I interpreted him as best I could to yet another generation that was growing up around me and to people all over the wide world over which, during the years, I roamed. That I was thought worthy of his trust meant much to me when I left for Chungking and carried a brief note of recommendation to the Chinese, ‘our valiant neighbours’ as he called them then. Nehru’s little note counted for more than all the official crested stationery I carried with me to that battered city, to which I was sent as a press correspondent and a commentator over the tiny slice of ether, Radio Chungking. It flattered my ego to see the Chinese nudge each other as they shuffled my name around and turned it out in Chinese as ‘Ko La-ka’, and then in discreet whispers, with raised eyebrows, murmuring to each other that which I imagined was ‘recommended by Nehru’. That was the hallmark. They felt they could speak to me without reserve after such a recommendation.
On my side there has been no faltering of personal regard. In spite of the various brushes with his minions, the harassment and provocation they have caused, resulting in frequent deprivations of my rights as an individual and an editor, I still keep the personal feeling detached from the professional. But Nehru does not. He can never forget little things between himself and the people who have differed from him on large, fundamental issues. Often I am told he is too big a man to be responsible for some of the small things that are attributed to him, but from personal experience I am reluctantly compelled to draw a different conclusion. Nehru’s weakness is that his irritations are not skin deep; they go deeper and they persist.
The result is somewhat sad to watch; a highly explosive temperament, easily aroused, now with more frequency than before; nerves that are frayed, almost shattered; a marked lack of self-composure, little self-control and less balance.
He would never make a good judge, for he is in the habit of passing judgment in favour of whomsoever reaches his ears first. Loyalty and personal attachment count with him more than the facts of the case. It is said that often at a cabinet meeting they would argue a point and thrash it out and he would be persuaded to take a decision on it one way or the other, but a few days later he would discuss the same point with one or another of his loyal friends who may or may not be competent to judge the point at issue, but should that friend’s opinion be at variance with the decision taken at the cabinet meeting. Pandit Nehru would have no qualms about reversing his judgment, and naturally, also the cabinet decision. While it may be laudable to uphold loyalty, such whimsicalities can be disastrous to an executive body which is supposed to work on the principle of joint responsibility.
Those who know Nehru intimately as an administrator are of the opinion that he is not at home with matters of a concrete character, which unfortunately comprise seventy-five per cent of the whole range of governmental activity. He cannot come to grips with any issue which involves a proper study of data. Because of his impatience and out of an inherent inaptitude to master details and statistics, he is often unable to understand the point at issue; naturally, therefore, he can seldom make up his mind. If he does, he does not always have the courage to stick to his decision. There is one exception to this: his adherence to his foreign policy.
The enunciation of foreign policy, especially of our neutral brand, comes easily to him. It only needs sweeping generalisms in which he specialises: the broad long-range view, the progressive eradication of mutual suspicions, the smoothing of differences, the blessings of peace, the amelioration of human suffering, neighbourly feelings, bonds of friendship, the self-respect of the downtrodden. Fluency of presentation rather than accuracy of statistics makes a great impression on a parliament chosen by a people eighty per cent of whom cannot read or write. Few can strike a challenging note in such an assembly.
Nehru has no opponent in India. On whatever scene he appears, he looks down endless vistas of bowing men; the odd head that bobs up is soon knocked down. Nothing can mar the abject harmony.
But his hold over the country and the people is essentially a moral hold. Without it, however, we would not have survived the delicate, if not dangerous, days that followed the partition, through which he alone was able to hold the nation together. Murder, rape, loot and arson had assumed proportions as at no other time in our chequered history. The passions of man were so roused by fanatical hatreds that they moved like a vast, uncontrollable herd, with the fury of a stampede, charging heedlessly forward to massacre and to eventual doom. Those were no easy days, but in that crisis he stood firm, not so much with a clear-cut plan, for there could be none, as with an honesty of purpose which would allow of no deflection. He might easily have been swept away in this turmoil, but once again his destiny guarded him, for he was surrounded by a cordon of unfaltering servicemen, who, living up to the best traditions of the Indian army, translated his honesty of purpose into concrete action and stemmed the mad onrush of purposeless vandalism.
The basis of that honesty of purpose which enabled us to pull through that critical period was his uncompromising secular approach, which is almost an instinct with him. In this at least he has shown remarkable consistency. He cannot tolerate sectarianism in any form. The disruptive forces which even now spasmodically come to the surface quickly disappear because he is able to hold them down by the sheer force of his personality. His influence as a party leader is not great; as a thinker he is not impressive; his record as a capable administrator is nil, but his personality as an individual is irresistible. He has a sincerity which is compelling; it makes even reason yield to it. That is his saving.
There are many who believe that Pandit Nehru should stay aloof from the administrative and political scene somewhat as Mahatma Gandhi did when freedom was won, and bring his personal influence to bear only on the major national issues, and that he should be a unifying force, holding dissenting elements together in days of crisis, cementing differences, advising in the selection of high-powered personnel for the advancement of the country and the welfare of the people. But Nehru is temperamentally unsuited to play this aloof, distant role. He is not happy unless he gets mixed up with actual day-to-day problems. Consequently he exposes himself to criticism which is levelled against him as the administrative head of the state, and thereby imperils his influence. He cannot conceive of filling the role of a non-playing captain. On the contrary, in his cricket eleven he wants to bat, bowl and field, all at the same time, and if he could, play the role of umpire as well. Power and authority mean a lot to him. He would be unhappy without them; their absence would accentuate his loneliness.
He allows himself to be dragged into innumerable activities, far too many of which are ceremonial rather than functional. In England, the Prime Minister devotes the best part of his time and energies to the work of Parliament and the problems of the administration of the country. Rarely is the executive head of the government to be seen laying foundation stones, planting trees, inspecting troops or receiving addresses. Such ceremonial appearances are the prerogative and function of the monarchy. In America the President, who is roughly the equivalent of the British Prime Minister, devotes his time to affairs of state and the U.S. Congress. He is the co-ordinating force that functions on an altogether higher plane. Seldom does he perform as a master of ceremonies. But in India, although we have a President who is free to attend to such functions, Pandit Nehru plays a variety of trivial roles; some Indians believe he alone is auspicious enough to be garlanded, and Nehru has little or no resistance to offer them. He is naturally exhausted, for there is a limit to what one person can do. He has little time to absorb the bigger problems which alone should engage his undistracted attention. Consequently, his knowledge of many important affairs of state is often only superficial. He relies on his instinct more than on the cold facts of the case. But how long can you govern a country purely by instinct?
It is but natural that some far-sighted people look with trepidation on the prospect of an India without Nehru. No one has dared to consider dispassionately the question of a successor. Gandhi had during his lifetime settled the issue as after him, and had appointed Nehru as his political heir, thus deciding once and for all which of his two political lieutenants. Pandit Nehru or Sardar Patel, should have the casting vote after his death. The choice was sound, for it preserved a continuity of hero-worship for which the colourful Nehru was more suited than the ‘leather-faced’1 [1. Expression used by Time magazine.] Sardar Patel. The late Sardar was a tremendous organisational force, ruthless but of great calibre, but in Gandhi’s opinion India needed a force of the emotional kind.
There is no one from the Congress party who can step into Nehru’s shoes. The only individual who makes a similar appeal to the nation is the socialist leader, Jayaprakash Narayan. But Jayaprakash’s personality cannot function by itself; it needs a political organisation acceptable to the broad mass of the people, and that at present is at best only in the making. So that after Nehru, the crown is likely to be put away and the sceptre shattered into little fragments, each wielding sway over restricted territorial limits. The scramble for power will be surprising to watch, and no one can foretell what or who will eventually emerge from it. The men who today command the respect of the party are far too old to be put into harness now, but God’s will works in mysterious ways its wonders to perform, and the possibility that after Nehru a junta with a Neguib at its head would make a bid for power should not be entirely ruled out. The situation in the country may at a future date throw open such a possibility, though not right now. That may sweep away the dead-weight which at present holds our country down, the endless legion of sycophants who hang around the Pandit, collecting rewards for sacrifices, as they are called. But even though sacrifices have been of known duration, the collection of reward seems endless. The trouble is that Nehru has not the heart to Say ‘no’.
Look at the Governors of some of our provinces! These plums of office he has distributed with a largesse with which he should not have thrown peanuts around. Look at our missions abroad, manned and staffed with the weakest of our herrenvolk. Nothing can be achieved in endless argument on this score. Once again the record speaks for itself.
A leader is judged, not often by his own intrinsic values, but by the values of those whom he leads. Of what use is Nehru’s unquestionable honesty, when he shows little ability to enforce it in the very machinery of the administration over which he presides? Of what use are Pandit Nehru’s high-principled shibboleths on civil liberty when an ordinary sub-inspector of the police can, and does, arrest you on the most frivolous of pretexts? What use is this theoretical liberty of thought and expression when so often we have been gagged and curbed? What use are constitutional rights when most of the time we are proceeded against under what is euphemistically called ‘emergency’ legislation? All these are landmarks of Nehru’s India. It looks as if they have come to stay.
It is my misfortune that I usually begin lone crusades and plead lost causes, not once, but repeatedly. Perhaps the impressionable years I spent beneath the spires of Oxford draw me to them, but in time I always find an echo of my lonely voice in some other more articulate quarter. Often the echo becomes the real thing and the original voice is forgotten.
It is so now with Pandit Nehru. Very recently, for the first time. The Times of India, whose editor1 [1. Frank Moraes.] is considered a staunch Nehru fan, broke out in an editorial which made readers of that staid morning daily blink over their morning tea. Headed, unconventionally for The Times of India, ‘Congress Rot’, it said: ‘From time to time the Congress President (Pandit Nehru) is in the habit of issuing meaningless and pathetic appeals to members of his party. These are never supported by stern action and have failed in the past to stem the rot in the organization. A typical example of such futile gestures is in his recent statement . . . The fact that careerists and opportunists have been worming themselves into the organisation has been one of the more obvious developments in post-freedom India. It has been responsible for the exclusion from the party of young and honest elements and for the increase in the corruption within the Congress organization. Mr Nehru should have been aware of these facts some years ago, but it appears that even today he has not discovered the entire truth . . . The Congress President refers to party principles and implores his followers to observe them faithfully. It is time he knew that the majority of Congressmen recognise no principles, other than those of self-seeking, casteism and socio-economic obscurantism. What action has been taken against those who blatantly flout party principles? ... Those responsible for this should have been immediately expelled, but all that has been done is to demand -- somewhat belatedly -- an explanation ... If Mr Nehru desires to improve the quality of the Congress and restore it to its former prestige, he should substitute immediate action for futile appeals.’1 [1. The Times of India, November 24th, 1952.]
But those editorials have little effect on him or on the masses whom they never reach. They merely serve to annoy the Pandit, who, amongst his recent annoyances, listed comic strips. He found them pointless. A man who grows immune to humour becomes impervious to any form of comment.
15. THE GLAMOUR IS GONE
Nehru cannot be fought at home. In India he is supreme. His writ runs from one end of the country to the other. He is, however, not so invulnerable abroad. The more seasoned politicians of the world are now able to see him in the right perspective as different from the early days, when he appeared to stride like a colossus on the Asian scene, moving over it dramatically, wearing the mantle of a great Asiatic sage. The West has realised that Nehru’s beat is India and no further.
Apart from the adoration of typical promoters of East-West goodwill, Nehru’s stock has fallen in the West, chiefly in America. The American people want everything presented to them clear-cut. Mao Tse-tung they can understand. He is a ‘Commie’, a Soviet satellite. He is positive and is to be reckoned with as a bastion of communism in Asia. But Nehru is fluid, flexible. He does not answer the American question: ‘well, are you for us or agin’ us?’ Nehru is just neutral. He has no affinities, except perhaps with the top rail of the fence.
America under the Democrats has reacted to him differently from time to time. When India got her freedom, the average American was truly glad that our people were now liberated. Imperialism is a bondage the Americans find abhorrent in the context of international relations, even though their own record is not exactly without blemish. They did not stint in their expression of joyous feeling when Pandit Nehru paid his official visit to the United States. They gave him a hero’s welcome with confetti and streamers.
But Nehru in America was disappointing to the Americans. He first gave them the impression that India would fight for democracy wherever it was assailed. But later clarification of this speech whittled down our stand as champions of democracy in Asia.
Gradually he revealed a growing concern over ‘strings attached’, and he has been most sensitive about anyone wanting to bind us to any positive stand in international affairs. To The Current’s correspondent at a press interview on his return from that trip abroad, he said: ‘We will judge each event according to its merits and decide after deliberation who is the aggressor and then take sides.’ As an afterthought he added that neutrality does not mean that we will not bother if democracy is in danger elsewhere in the world. All this was as confusing for the average American as it was to us.
The Americans naturally cooled off towards him. Those who had begun to look upon Nehru as a new synonym for India, once again began to look upon snake-charmers and nabobs with seven wives as more representative of our mystic land. Later, America thought it expedient to come to India’s aid in view of the deteriorating food situation in this country. They gave this aid to Nehru on his terms, though not to the extent it was requested. The new Republican regime is likely to have less patience with the Pandit’s vacillations.
Britain regards Nehru with a more maternal tolerance. After all, he has been the deciding factor which has kept India in the Commonwealth. Often the youngster is somewhat obstreperous, but nothing is so serious that a week-end at Romsey with Lord Louis Mountbatten cannot set it right. So long as we keep within the Commonwealth, we will be treated as one of the family.
Pandit Nehru’s popularity with some of the other members of the Commonwealth is, however, not so assured. From that little island of Ceylon, off the tip of the south coast, our nationals, who some two generations ago settled there as indentured labourers, are facing the threat of being rendered stateless. Nehru maintains that these Indians have a right to claim Ceylonese citizenship. Ceylon does not. She wants our nationals repatriated, which would still further swell the already large numbers of displaced persons whom we are struggling to rehabilitate.
A more awkward situation exists in South Africa, where our fellow countrymen have been made to suffer segregation akin to the worst days of the ghetto. Pandit Nehru is naturally most rightly disturbed about the treatment meted out to those who are, after all, fellow members of the Commonwealth. As a racial issue, no self-respecting Indian could but support Pandit Nehru on the strong stand which he has taken at the United Nations on this sordid South African question. But to the South Africans the issue apparently is more than just a racial issue, because of the way in which the Indians’ case is represented there. It is unfortunate that our nationals there appear in some ways to be mixed up with elements which seem to take their inspiration from the agents of world communism, and it is equally unfortunate that some of the Indians, to whom so much objection has been taken in South Africa, both by the whites and the native Africans, are the pernicious breed of middle-men who move in like an octopus with multi-pronged limbs to feed on others and gradually to gain a stranglehold on them.
Our case at the United Nations would have been much stronger were the high moral standards of human rights, which Pandit Nehru demands for our people elsewhere, available to them at home. The maxim which says that whoever comes to equity must come with clean hands operates adversely on us in view of some of the shocking manifestations of caste which are still to be seen in our ‘deep south’, where the situation threatens at times to be almost explosive. Caste has been with us for generations now, and although Herculean efforts have been made by Mahatma Gandhi and the Congress leaders to eradicate it from our midst, it is too deep-rooted to disappear with just an article in our constitution. Caste still marks our children deeply. It will take generations before the bigotry can gradually be worn down by education and a more enlightened outlook on life. The temples may be opened by law, but the heart of many a Brahmin is still closed to his ‘untouchable’ brethren. Consequently, anti-Brahmin feeling in the south is not healthy today; it periodically manifests itself in incidents of which we feel ashamed. A deteriorating economic situation aggravates it, for then it becomes a fight for survival between the privileged and the outcast.
Nor is this the only weak point in the representations we make to the United Nations. Admittedly Kashmir is strategically important to us and that is why we must hold on to it, but could not the Suez Canal be equally vital to Britain? The French say they need Cyrenaica, and Italy and Yugoslavia both press their need for Trieste. At the United Nations, however, we try to cloak our claim to Kashmir with moral sanctions which the astute, cold-blooded statesmen of the world do not recognise. They ask the embarrassing question: How can you regard one problem as strategic and the other as moral? Consequently, our delegates are reported to be often confused. Confronted at the United Nations with a critical world audience which does not accept Pandit Nehru’s norms with the same ease with which they are swallowed in India, they repeatedly write home for instructions. [b]At the conference table of the world, Nehru’s fight for human rights is weakened by his record at home, and on the vital issues before that world assembly we frequently find ourselves on the wrong side of the division lobby.
Naive Indians, however, are very impressed when they read in their local papers that one of our delegates has been appointed an official on some United Nations committee or other. They are led to believe that we have a very vital say in all matters that come up at Lake Success, Paris and Geneva. Little do they reahse that because of our professed neutrality we are constantly being used by one side or the other to initiate proceedings so that should they fail there will be no recriminations falling upon one or another of the important members of the two power blocs. To the half-baked matriculate from some of our obscure universities, it is heartening to read that his representative is regarded as scholarly and educated enough to be elected the President of UNESCO, which Sir (now Shri) S. Radhakrishnan is today. The form still means much to the Indian, even though there is very little substance behind it, and Pandit Nehru has taught us that even the role of puppets can be played ‘without any strings attached’.
Yet never did any man have the opportunity which Pandit Nehru had in 1947, when liberation came, and the years which immediately followed. While Mahatma Gandhi was the spirit of the movement, it fell on Jawaharlal to play the role of a representative symbol. The world associated Gandhi with religion and Pandit Nehru with international politics. Here was a leader, pledged to democracy, and hailed by all the world as a fighter for human liberty. He had fought against British imperialism for a quarter of a century and he had won that fight against heavy odds and against all expectations. The story of that fight written around Jawaharlal Nehru was one of the great chapters of contemporary history, culminating in the liberation of a fifth of the world from a hundred and fifty years of bondage. No other individual in our lifetime had made such a glorious entry on the international stage. He was more than a victorious general, for he did not win a territorial war. Nehru had fought and won on transcendent issues of morality. He stood for government of the people by the people for the people; he stood for government for all the people and not for any select or special groups within it. He stood for clean government as opposed to the administration of the British. He fought for our country to become an entity in itself and not a colony of a great power. He fought for our right to express, in foreign and domestic policy, the moral beliefs which at that time lay at the root of Indian life and greatness. Wherever he went, the people of the world looked up to him, not only as a great Indian but as a man who expressed by his word and action, the faith of mankind.
One felt proud to be an Indian in those days. Our goal was achieved. The road to freedom lay ahead with the pilgrims lined up ready to march upon it. The liberation of India was to lead to the greater liberation of all the down-trodden people, first in Asia and later elsewhere in the world. India was the inspiration for the underdog.
Such was the glorious opportunity which Jawaharlal Nehru threw away. He faltered, he floundered, he allowed others to clog his way. He did all the things he said he would never do. He spoke so much and achieved so little. He shirked coming to a decision on vital issues. He preferred to take the cautious road of mediocrity rather than strike out on the path of a pioneer. In critical moments, he lacked the vision expected of a great leader. He was too afraid to show the way to his people. He surrounded himself with opportunists who traded in patriotism and on his name. He gave shelter to the little fuhrers who sprang up like mushrooms on our newly liberated soil. The shining armour in which we had clad this knight-errant became in time only so much tinselled splendour. Soon the glamour was gone. Gone too was the moment and the opportunity.
Pandit Nehru still gives an illusion of moving forward, even though the little people of India have remained behind. But he is out there in front with a new breed of men who follow him for the morsels of patronage he scatters on his way. Now and then he turns back but can see little difference between the men who once followed him and those who are now close on his heels. 'The people are still with me’, he believes in his luxurious dreaminess which even reality does not make him abandon. Lotus-eaters are made that way.
END
13. SPELLBOUND
It is a strange hold Nehru has over the people of India. It is a hold which is as fascinating as it is difficult to understand. It defies logic, but it is there, unquestionably, surely and firmly. Perhaps it is one of those tricks of fate which go to make a man of destiny what he is despite himself. Perhaps it could be explained away by reckoning the planetary position at the time of his birth. Other than by an explanation on the astral plane, I find it difficult to understand the continuance of his unchallenged leadership in our country, which is beyond the ken of logic or reason.
Repeatedly I have asked some of his severest critics, even former colleagues of his in the government and in the Congress party, who have fallen out with him, how it was that they who so often had right on their side had eventually to drop out of power in the government or the party while Nehru continued to stay on without so much as a blot on his escutcheon. The answer has been invariably the same -- a helpless shrug of the shoulders and uplifted hands. No one has ever dared to match his strength with Jawaharlal Nehru, for that would be foolish, if not suicidal. You cannot win against Nehru, they have all said, for eventually the verdict will be based not on reason, but on emotion and a revival of that sentiment which, though it periodically dies down, Nehru is always able to whip up whenever the critical moment comes.
I saw this for myself during the last general elections, the first of their kind in free India. The Congress party, which was Nehru’s party, had been in power since independence and even a little before that, with the consent of the British. On the eve of the elections in 1951, I felt there would be a landslide of public opinion against the Congress.
I remember analysing the situation and expressing my fears to an important foreign diplomat in an informal interview I had with him soon after he took over office. The situation appeared very clear to me even then, for I could see a disintegration setting in at the provincial level and moving up to the top. My analysis was that the Congress would not break at the centre. At the centre there was a solid block of unity, consisting of the topmost leaders both of the Congress and the country, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel, Dr Rajendra Prasad, Mr Rajagopalachari, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, names which were household words in India and represented the old guard which had spearheaded our fight for freedom.
The foreign diplomatic missions, which had only just taken up residence in New Delhi, were inclined to judge the political situation in the country from the seemingly healthy state of affairs in the capital, but that was not where the rot was setting in. They were dazzled by the Prime Minister’s brilliance at diplomatic parties and receptions, and equated Nehru to the Congress party as a whole. Most of them had read his autobiography; but now they were meeting the leading character of that book in person -- the colourful, dashing young liberator of India, the little symbolically-brown man who, with sheer rhetoric, was going to push all the whites out of Asia. Little did these well-meaning diplomats, who fussed around the new Indian court, know that the character in the book was fast becoming fictitious.
Few of these new diplomats had seen the real India of famished men and women, of dying cattle, of floods and famines, of poverty, hunger, squalor, dirt and disease. To them India was what they saw of it in the capital city, with fashionable clubs and hotels crowded with contractors, ‘admin’ officers and the new glamour boys of the services, the Ministers in great big cars, their deputies, their secretaries, and who could not fail to see the foreign ‘experts’ who were to teach us how to build the new India. All this presented a facade of a secure and stable government. The Congress appeared as steady as the rock of Gibraltar. It was, however, the various branches of this nation-wide organization which were decaying at their extension points. It was here that you could see the scramble for power in its most sordid forms, accompanied by corruption, nepotism and graft, and all the permutations and combinations of these diabolical traits in man.
The first note of warning had come at the end of 1947, when a veteran Congressman from Andhra in a letter to Mahatma Gandhi observed: ‘The situation is growing more intolerable every day. The people have begun to say that the British government was much better. They are even cursing the Congress.’ As the year turned, Mahatma Gandhi met with his tragic death, and a little later the aged writer of the letter also passed away. But the disillusionment remained; it stayed on in India long after that. It is still here.
The Congress disintegrated as I had said it would, and when I met the diplomat again, I reminded him about this little forecast which, contrary to popular belief, had proved remarkably true.
This was the data and the analysis which I had before me as the elections drew near, and, as a result, I could come to no other logical conclusion than that at the elections itself the Congress would lose power in some of the important states of the Union, chiefly Bombay and West Bengal.
That was all one could have wished for, just a break in this monopoly of power, so that some healthy opposition could be built up in our country, which would make the Congress-dominated governments stand up and take notice, and act as a democratic check on them.
My information about West Bengal was secondhand, but in my home state of Bombay, I was sure of my facts. I was sure that the people had made up their minds to reject the leadership of the Congress in our state, if only as a token protest. All this appeared a cinch on paper, and I had mentally gone past the stage of the elections and was almost working out the personnel of the new government of Bombay as I visualised it after the elections.
There was one factor I had miscalculated; and that was Nehru.
In the early campaigning stages he stayed aloof from the pre-election scuffle. Perhaps he did not think his presence on the scene was so necessary. Gradually it transpired that the prospects of the Congress party were not as rosy as most people believed; Sardar Patel, the party boss, was dead, and a queer fossilised old man presided over the Congress. Babu Purshottamdas Tandon was a revivalist; the period he wanted to revive was somewhat antediluvian. He was an odd character by any standards, a man who would not wear shoes because of the hurt it might cause the animal from which the leather came! An appeal to the electorate under such a leadership might be misunderstood, it was thought, and shrewd judges of the political situation prevailed upon Nehru to assume control of the party organisation. Tandon gracefully and tactfully handed the party over to Jawaharlal Nehru.
The Congress was now Nehru; the government was Nehru. It was reasonable to believe the country would be Nehru also.
What little opposition there was in the country, other than the communists, dissipated its force in an effort which was far too ambitious. Instead of denting the broad Congress front at a few vulnerable and strategic points, the socialists made the mistake of making an all-out bid for power, which met with dismal failure.
The Congress was swept into power everywhere. But these sweeping victories in state after state were not party victories; they represented the personal triumph of one man, Jawaharlal Nehru.
I saw how this happened. Nehru had come to Bombay, a city disillusioned with its Congress ministry in power because of its irksome legislation, the most unpopular of which was prohibition. He spoke here, there, everywhere. What I recollect is the cumulative effect, not all, of the actual speech he made on the sands at Chowpatty, the same forum which Gandhi and Tilak had used in the days gone by, where two hundred thousand people had gathered to hear him that evening. The crowds were so large, they stood in the sea; there, soaking in the water, they heard him in utter silence.
'Bhai-o! Behn-o'1 [1. Brothers! Sisters!] Nehru opened after the initial joining of his hands in respectful namaskar.2 [2. Indian salutation.] There was an instant affinity between the speaker and his vast audience, as in the days of yore.
He had come to Bombay after a long time, he told them.
Many years.
He paused and looked at them with that wistful look he specialises in. In that pause, ominous for his political opponents, a thousand votes must have swung in his favour.
Yes, he felt a personal attachment to this city.
Pause.
Two thousand votes.
It was like coming back home.
Pause.
Five thousand votes.
In Bombay he had passed some of the happiest moments of his life. Yes, the happiest.
Five thousand, five hundred votes.
He remembered those great moments so vividly. And some of the saddest moments too - the sad, hard days of the struggle.
Ten thousand votes for the Congress.
Pause. ‘By looking at the people who have struggled together with me in the fight for freedom, I derive inspiration and strength,’ he said.
The affinity was complete.
Twenty thousand votes!
Pause.
A deep, sorrowful, soulful look in the fading twilight hour; with the air pregnant with emotion and the waters of the bay strangely still at that breath-taking moment. He told the gathering that he had taken upon himself the role of a mendicant beggar. Amidst cheers, he said: ‘If at all I am a beggar, I am begging for your love, your affection and your enlightened co-operation in solving the problems which face the country.’1 [1. November 24th, 1951.]
Thirty thousand votes were sure for Nehru.
Pause.
A stir in the audience. A tear on the face of the man or woman sitting on the beach or standing on the shore. Two tears, a sari2 [2. Garment which the women wear.]-end wiping them gently off a woman’s face. She would give her vote to Nehru no matter what anyone else said.
Memories of Gandhi came back to the people -- the days when Nehru stood beside the Mahatma. Nehru was Gandhi’s young and handsome disciple, the man he left to us as his political heir.
Fifty thousand votes! a hundred thousand! two hundred thousand!
By next morning, when the newspapers carried the report of his speeches, there was not much doubt left as to the way the great majority of the two million seven hundred thousand people who constituted the population of Bombay’s adult franchise would cast its vote; Nehru had swept the city off its feet. It became difficult to compete with such a dynamic force with any argument. No one can succeed in anything against such an onrush of emotion.
But one thing bothered Nehru that day. His former colleague in the cabinet, Dr Ambedkar, the Harijan1 [1. Literally God’s own child, formerly referred to as ‘untouchable’.] leader who had resigned from office, had attacked Nehru for his foreign policy and for his policy towards the Harijans.
That shook Nehru. He said: ‘That Dr Ambedkar, who now appears to be completely opposed to the nation’s foreign policy, should have tolerated it while he remained in the government for nearly four years, seems utterly strange. I am completely amazed by such an attitude on the part of Dr Ambedkar, who no sooner has left the government that he has started a campaign of hatred and vilification against the government and the Congress.’
Criticism of foreign policy is a sore point with Pandit Nehru. It is his own creation, unique. ‘I bear a special responsibility for the country’s foreign policy,’ he has repeatedly said. That makes criticism of foreign policy a direct personal attack on Nehru, which he resents. No disparaging remarks can be made about it. One either has to applaud it or grin and bear it. Everything he does on this score has the personal ‘chop’2 [2. Colloquialism for ‘stamp’.] of Jawaharlal Nehru. Perhaps this explains why, in the early days, official reports and letters to the Foreign Minister were said to have begun informally in the ‘Dear Bhai'3 [3. Brother.] vein. It was as if Ambassador Duff Cooper (now Lord Norwich), writing officially to Foreign Minister Anthony Eden, should begin the diplomatic note with ‘Hello, old chap,’ or some such endearing greeting.
Nehru is confident that the whole world will have to adopt his foreign policy one day, despite all the atom and hydrogen bombs which have yet to be exploded. Yet periodically he goes to Parliament, to the Congress party, even to the dumb-driven people, to collect votes of confidence on this strange, dreamy Utopian foreign policy of his.
At Chowpatty on that day, after his emotional outburst, he was naturally repeatedly cheered when he discussed foreign affairs. What else would you expect from a gathering of two hundred thousand to whom Nehru had said, ‘If one took the trouble of visiting foreign countries, one would realise the appreciation with which India’s foreign policy was regarded’? It did not matter to Nehru that not many of the applauding crowd had the intelligence to understand the words ‘foreign policy’, fewer still could appreciate their full implications, and, with the possible exception of a handful, no one would ever have an opportunity of visiting foreign countries to check on the Prime Minister’s claim. His word was the last on the subject. No one could challenge him from that audience, and if anyone had done so, the policemen would have removed the poor foolhardy heckler for disturbing the speaker, if the mob had not set on him before then.
So Nehru’s statement not only remained unchallenged, but it was also applauded. The applause was enough; it was sustaining. But what I fail to understand is why, when he is so sure of his foreign policy, he constantly needs to be reassured about it. Is this just lip-service to democracy?
14. IMPERIOUS
It is distasteful for an Indian to break an image of his own creation. More so in my case, when I bear in mind the impressionable days when Nehru was the lodestar for us young men to follow. First the father, Motilal, the constitutionalist, with his smooth, lucid speeches in the Legislative Assembly, as it was then called, convincing us of the need to recognise the germ of self-respect which is in us all, and then the son, Jawahar, the young, ardent ‘revolutionary’ with courage in his heart and fire in his speech, spurring us to the ramparts for the great fight which was on. Gandhi was the spirit, the young Jawahar was the enthusiasm which urged us on. Of the two, Nehru was often nearer to us, for he spoke a language which we could more easily understand. We felt we were growing up with him; he was one of us.
I remember, a little after I had returned from Oxford, calling on him on a few occasions, although I am rather hazy about the sequence of these calls. There was a brief meeting in Bombay when he was very rushed; he was growing impatient with the British and revealed a frustration which was strangling his free spirit. I saw him again in a different mood in Allahabad. I was passing through his home town, where he was resting after a spell in jail. He was reading a book in the quiet of the afternoon in the living-room of a trim, north Indian bungalow. He gave me a cup of tea, I remember, and he spoke to me calmly, kindly, gently. There was a sad, hungry look in his eyes, but he was at peace with himself and the world. I once also saw him for a few moments in London. He was on a tour of Europe, accompanied by his quiet, unassuming daughter, Indira, his sole companion now. These were just fleeting glances I had of him, snatches from his overcrowded life. But in reality I was closer to him than he knew. I followed every move he made, watched every turn of mood, read much of what he wrote and said. I absorbed him until he became a part of me; I looked upon him as a symbol of what I thought an Indian should be.
Elsewhere I had seen him often, but not alone. I had watched him close and from afar, at public meetings and private parties. That one knew him was not so important as the fact that he in turn knew of us too. That was important -- the recognition. In turn I did my part; for with what gifts I had, and opportunity, I interpreted him as best I could to yet another generation that was growing up around me and to people all over the wide world over which, during the years, I roamed. That I was thought worthy of his trust meant much to me when I left for Chungking and carried a brief note of recommendation to the Chinese, ‘our valiant neighbours’ as he called them then. Nehru’s little note counted for more than all the official crested stationery I carried with me to that battered city, to which I was sent as a press correspondent and a commentator over the tiny slice of ether, Radio Chungking. It flattered my ego to see the Chinese nudge each other as they shuffled my name around and turned it out in Chinese as ‘Ko La-ka’, and then in discreet whispers, with raised eyebrows, murmuring to each other that which I imagined was ‘recommended by Nehru’. That was the hallmark. They felt they could speak to me without reserve after such a recommendation.
On my side there has been no faltering of personal regard. In spite of the various brushes with his minions, the harassment and provocation they have caused, resulting in frequent deprivations of my rights as an individual and an editor, I still keep the personal feeling detached from the professional. But Nehru does not. He can never forget little things between himself and the people who have differed from him on large, fundamental issues. Often I am told he is too big a man to be responsible for some of the small things that are attributed to him, but from personal experience I am reluctantly compelled to draw a different conclusion. Nehru’s weakness is that his irritations are not skin deep; they go deeper and they persist.
The result is somewhat sad to watch; a highly explosive temperament, easily aroused, now with more frequency than before; nerves that are frayed, almost shattered; a marked lack of self-composure, little self-control and less balance.
He would never make a good judge, for he is in the habit of passing judgment in favour of whomsoever reaches his ears first. Loyalty and personal attachment count with him more than the facts of the case. It is said that often at a cabinet meeting they would argue a point and thrash it out and he would be persuaded to take a decision on it one way or the other, but a few days later he would discuss the same point with one or another of his loyal friends who may or may not be competent to judge the point at issue, but should that friend’s opinion be at variance with the decision taken at the cabinet meeting. Pandit Nehru would have no qualms about reversing his judgment, and naturally, also the cabinet decision. While it may be laudable to uphold loyalty, such whimsicalities can be disastrous to an executive body which is supposed to work on the principle of joint responsibility.
Those who know Nehru intimately as an administrator are of the opinion that he is not at home with matters of a concrete character, which unfortunately comprise seventy-five per cent of the whole range of governmental activity. He cannot come to grips with any issue which involves a proper study of data. Because of his impatience and out of an inherent inaptitude to master details and statistics, he is often unable to understand the point at issue; naturally, therefore, he can seldom make up his mind. If he does, he does not always have the courage to stick to his decision. There is one exception to this: his adherence to his foreign policy.
The enunciation of foreign policy, especially of our neutral brand, comes easily to him. It only needs sweeping generalisms in which he specialises: the broad long-range view, the progressive eradication of mutual suspicions, the smoothing of differences, the blessings of peace, the amelioration of human suffering, neighbourly feelings, bonds of friendship, the self-respect of the downtrodden. Fluency of presentation rather than accuracy of statistics makes a great impression on a parliament chosen by a people eighty per cent of whom cannot read or write. Few can strike a challenging note in such an assembly.
Nehru has no opponent in India. On whatever scene he appears, he looks down endless vistas of bowing men; the odd head that bobs up is soon knocked down. Nothing can mar the abject harmony.
But his hold over the country and the people is essentially a moral hold. Without it, however, we would not have survived the delicate, if not dangerous, days that followed the partition, through which he alone was able to hold the nation together. Murder, rape, loot and arson had assumed proportions as at no other time in our chequered history. The passions of man were so roused by fanatical hatreds that they moved like a vast, uncontrollable herd, with the fury of a stampede, charging heedlessly forward to massacre and to eventual doom. Those were no easy days, but in that crisis he stood firm, not so much with a clear-cut plan, for there could be none, as with an honesty of purpose which would allow of no deflection. He might easily have been swept away in this turmoil, but once again his destiny guarded him, for he was surrounded by a cordon of unfaltering servicemen, who, living up to the best traditions of the Indian army, translated his honesty of purpose into concrete action and stemmed the mad onrush of purposeless vandalism.
The basis of that honesty of purpose which enabled us to pull through that critical period was his uncompromising secular approach, which is almost an instinct with him. In this at least he has shown remarkable consistency. He cannot tolerate sectarianism in any form. The disruptive forces which even now spasmodically come to the surface quickly disappear because he is able to hold them down by the sheer force of his personality. His influence as a party leader is not great; as a thinker he is not impressive; his record as a capable administrator is nil, but his personality as an individual is irresistible. He has a sincerity which is compelling; it makes even reason yield to it. That is his saving.
There are many who believe that Pandit Nehru should stay aloof from the administrative and political scene somewhat as Mahatma Gandhi did when freedom was won, and bring his personal influence to bear only on the major national issues, and that he should be a unifying force, holding dissenting elements together in days of crisis, cementing differences, advising in the selection of high-powered personnel for the advancement of the country and the welfare of the people. But Nehru is temperamentally unsuited to play this aloof, distant role. He is not happy unless he gets mixed up with actual day-to-day problems. Consequently he exposes himself to criticism which is levelled against him as the administrative head of the state, and thereby imperils his influence. He cannot conceive of filling the role of a non-playing captain. On the contrary, in his cricket eleven he wants to bat, bowl and field, all at the same time, and if he could, play the role of umpire as well. Power and authority mean a lot to him. He would be unhappy without them; their absence would accentuate his loneliness.
He allows himself to be dragged into innumerable activities, far too many of which are ceremonial rather than functional. In England, the Prime Minister devotes the best part of his time and energies to the work of Parliament and the problems of the administration of the country. Rarely is the executive head of the government to be seen laying foundation stones, planting trees, inspecting troops or receiving addresses. Such ceremonial appearances are the prerogative and function of the monarchy. In America the President, who is roughly the equivalent of the British Prime Minister, devotes his time to affairs of state and the U.S. Congress. He is the co-ordinating force that functions on an altogether higher plane. Seldom does he perform as a master of ceremonies. But in India, although we have a President who is free to attend to such functions, Pandit Nehru plays a variety of trivial roles; some Indians believe he alone is auspicious enough to be garlanded, and Nehru has little or no resistance to offer them. He is naturally exhausted, for there is a limit to what one person can do. He has little time to absorb the bigger problems which alone should engage his undistracted attention. Consequently, his knowledge of many important affairs of state is often only superficial. He relies on his instinct more than on the cold facts of the case. But how long can you govern a country purely by instinct?
It is but natural that some far-sighted people look with trepidation on the prospect of an India without Nehru. No one has dared to consider dispassionately the question of a successor. Gandhi had during his lifetime settled the issue as after him, and had appointed Nehru as his political heir, thus deciding once and for all which of his two political lieutenants. Pandit Nehru or Sardar Patel, should have the casting vote after his death. The choice was sound, for it preserved a continuity of hero-worship for which the colourful Nehru was more suited than the ‘leather-faced’1 [1. Expression used by Time magazine.] Sardar Patel. The late Sardar was a tremendous organisational force, ruthless but of great calibre, but in Gandhi’s opinion India needed a force of the emotional kind.
There is no one from the Congress party who can step into Nehru’s shoes. The only individual who makes a similar appeal to the nation is the socialist leader, Jayaprakash Narayan. But Jayaprakash’s personality cannot function by itself; it needs a political organisation acceptable to the broad mass of the people, and that at present is at best only in the making. So that after Nehru, the crown is likely to be put away and the sceptre shattered into little fragments, each wielding sway over restricted territorial limits. The scramble for power will be surprising to watch, and no one can foretell what or who will eventually emerge from it. The men who today command the respect of the party are far too old to be put into harness now, but God’s will works in mysterious ways its wonders to perform, and the possibility that after Nehru a junta with a Neguib at its head would make a bid for power should not be entirely ruled out. The situation in the country may at a future date throw open such a possibility, though not right now. That may sweep away the dead-weight which at present holds our country down, the endless legion of sycophants who hang around the Pandit, collecting rewards for sacrifices, as they are called. But even though sacrifices have been of known duration, the collection of reward seems endless. The trouble is that Nehru has not the heart to Say ‘no’.
Look at the Governors of some of our provinces! These plums of office he has distributed with a largesse with which he should not have thrown peanuts around. Look at our missions abroad, manned and staffed with the weakest of our herrenvolk. Nothing can be achieved in endless argument on this score. Once again the record speaks for itself.
A leader is judged, not often by his own intrinsic values, but by the values of those whom he leads. Of what use is Nehru’s unquestionable honesty, when he shows little ability to enforce it in the very machinery of the administration over which he presides? Of what use are Pandit Nehru’s high-principled shibboleths on civil liberty when an ordinary sub-inspector of the police can, and does, arrest you on the most frivolous of pretexts? What use is this theoretical liberty of thought and expression when so often we have been gagged and curbed? What use are constitutional rights when most of the time we are proceeded against under what is euphemistically called ‘emergency’ legislation? All these are landmarks of Nehru’s India. It looks as if they have come to stay.
It is my misfortune that I usually begin lone crusades and plead lost causes, not once, but repeatedly. Perhaps the impressionable years I spent beneath the spires of Oxford draw me to them, but in time I always find an echo of my lonely voice in some other more articulate quarter. Often the echo becomes the real thing and the original voice is forgotten.
It is so now with Pandit Nehru. Very recently, for the first time. The Times of India, whose editor1 [1. Frank Moraes.] is considered a staunch Nehru fan, broke out in an editorial which made readers of that staid morning daily blink over their morning tea. Headed, unconventionally for The Times of India, ‘Congress Rot’, it said: ‘From time to time the Congress President (Pandit Nehru) is in the habit of issuing meaningless and pathetic appeals to members of his party. These are never supported by stern action and have failed in the past to stem the rot in the organization. A typical example of such futile gestures is in his recent statement . . . The fact that careerists and opportunists have been worming themselves into the organisation has been one of the more obvious developments in post-freedom India. It has been responsible for the exclusion from the party of young and honest elements and for the increase in the corruption within the Congress organization. Mr Nehru should have been aware of these facts some years ago, but it appears that even today he has not discovered the entire truth . . . The Congress President refers to party principles and implores his followers to observe them faithfully. It is time he knew that the majority of Congressmen recognise no principles, other than those of self-seeking, casteism and socio-economic obscurantism. What action has been taken against those who blatantly flout party principles? ... Those responsible for this should have been immediately expelled, but all that has been done is to demand -- somewhat belatedly -- an explanation ... If Mr Nehru desires to improve the quality of the Congress and restore it to its former prestige, he should substitute immediate action for futile appeals.’1 [1. The Times of India, November 24th, 1952.]
But those editorials have little effect on him or on the masses whom they never reach. They merely serve to annoy the Pandit, who, amongst his recent annoyances, listed comic strips. He found them pointless. A man who grows immune to humour becomes impervious to any form of comment.
15. THE GLAMOUR IS GONE
Nehru cannot be fought at home. In India he is supreme. His writ runs from one end of the country to the other. He is, however, not so invulnerable abroad. The more seasoned politicians of the world are now able to see him in the right perspective as different from the early days, when he appeared to stride like a colossus on the Asian scene, moving over it dramatically, wearing the mantle of a great Asiatic sage. The West has realised that Nehru’s beat is India and no further.
Apart from the adoration of typical promoters of East-West goodwill, Nehru’s stock has fallen in the West, chiefly in America. The American people want everything presented to them clear-cut. Mao Tse-tung they can understand. He is a ‘Commie’, a Soviet satellite. He is positive and is to be reckoned with as a bastion of communism in Asia. But Nehru is fluid, flexible. He does not answer the American question: ‘well, are you for us or agin’ us?’ Nehru is just neutral. He has no affinities, except perhaps with the top rail of the fence.
America under the Democrats has reacted to him differently from time to time. When India got her freedom, the average American was truly glad that our people were now liberated. Imperialism is a bondage the Americans find abhorrent in the context of international relations, even though their own record is not exactly without blemish. They did not stint in their expression of joyous feeling when Pandit Nehru paid his official visit to the United States. They gave him a hero’s welcome with confetti and streamers.
But Nehru in America was disappointing to the Americans. He first gave them the impression that India would fight for democracy wherever it was assailed. But later clarification of this speech whittled down our stand as champions of democracy in Asia.
Gradually he revealed a growing concern over ‘strings attached’, and he has been most sensitive about anyone wanting to bind us to any positive stand in international affairs. To The Current’s correspondent at a press interview on his return from that trip abroad, he said: ‘We will judge each event according to its merits and decide after deliberation who is the aggressor and then take sides.’ As an afterthought he added that neutrality does not mean that we will not bother if democracy is in danger elsewhere in the world. All this was as confusing for the average American as it was to us.
The Americans naturally cooled off towards him. Those who had begun to look upon Nehru as a new synonym for India, once again began to look upon snake-charmers and nabobs with seven wives as more representative of our mystic land. Later, America thought it expedient to come to India’s aid in view of the deteriorating food situation in this country. They gave this aid to Nehru on his terms, though not to the extent it was requested. The new Republican regime is likely to have less patience with the Pandit’s vacillations.
Britain regards Nehru with a more maternal tolerance. After all, he has been the deciding factor which has kept India in the Commonwealth. Often the youngster is somewhat obstreperous, but nothing is so serious that a week-end at Romsey with Lord Louis Mountbatten cannot set it right. So long as we keep within the Commonwealth, we will be treated as one of the family.
Pandit Nehru’s popularity with some of the other members of the Commonwealth is, however, not so assured. From that little island of Ceylon, off the tip of the south coast, our nationals, who some two generations ago settled there as indentured labourers, are facing the threat of being rendered stateless. Nehru maintains that these Indians have a right to claim Ceylonese citizenship. Ceylon does not. She wants our nationals repatriated, which would still further swell the already large numbers of displaced persons whom we are struggling to rehabilitate.
A more awkward situation exists in South Africa, where our fellow countrymen have been made to suffer segregation akin to the worst days of the ghetto. Pandit Nehru is naturally most rightly disturbed about the treatment meted out to those who are, after all, fellow members of the Commonwealth. As a racial issue, no self-respecting Indian could but support Pandit Nehru on the strong stand which he has taken at the United Nations on this sordid South African question. But to the South Africans the issue apparently is more than just a racial issue, because of the way in which the Indians’ case is represented there. It is unfortunate that our nationals there appear in some ways to be mixed up with elements which seem to take their inspiration from the agents of world communism, and it is equally unfortunate that some of the Indians, to whom so much objection has been taken in South Africa, both by the whites and the native Africans, are the pernicious breed of middle-men who move in like an octopus with multi-pronged limbs to feed on others and gradually to gain a stranglehold on them.
Our case at the United Nations would have been much stronger were the high moral standards of human rights, which Pandit Nehru demands for our people elsewhere, available to them at home. The maxim which says that whoever comes to equity must come with clean hands operates adversely on us in view of some of the shocking manifestations of caste which are still to be seen in our ‘deep south’, where the situation threatens at times to be almost explosive. Caste has been with us for generations now, and although Herculean efforts have been made by Mahatma Gandhi and the Congress leaders to eradicate it from our midst, it is too deep-rooted to disappear with just an article in our constitution. Caste still marks our children deeply. It will take generations before the bigotry can gradually be worn down by education and a more enlightened outlook on life. The temples may be opened by law, but the heart of many a Brahmin is still closed to his ‘untouchable’ brethren. Consequently, anti-Brahmin feeling in the south is not healthy today; it periodically manifests itself in incidents of which we feel ashamed. A deteriorating economic situation aggravates it, for then it becomes a fight for survival between the privileged and the outcast.
Nor is this the only weak point in the representations we make to the United Nations. Admittedly Kashmir is strategically important to us and that is why we must hold on to it, but could not the Suez Canal be equally vital to Britain? The French say they need Cyrenaica, and Italy and Yugoslavia both press their need for Trieste. At the United Nations, however, we try to cloak our claim to Kashmir with moral sanctions which the astute, cold-blooded statesmen of the world do not recognise. They ask the embarrassing question: How can you regard one problem as strategic and the other as moral? Consequently, our delegates are reported to be often confused. Confronted at the United Nations with a critical world audience which does not accept Pandit Nehru’s norms with the same ease with which they are swallowed in India, they repeatedly write home for instructions. [b]At the conference table of the world, Nehru’s fight for human rights is weakened by his record at home, and on the vital issues before that world assembly we frequently find ourselves on the wrong side of the division lobby.
Naive Indians, however, are very impressed when they read in their local papers that one of our delegates has been appointed an official on some United Nations committee or other. They are led to believe that we have a very vital say in all matters that come up at Lake Success, Paris and Geneva. Little do they reahse that because of our professed neutrality we are constantly being used by one side or the other to initiate proceedings so that should they fail there will be no recriminations falling upon one or another of the important members of the two power blocs. To the half-baked matriculate from some of our obscure universities, it is heartening to read that his representative is regarded as scholarly and educated enough to be elected the President of UNESCO, which Sir (now Shri) S. Radhakrishnan is today. The form still means much to the Indian, even though there is very little substance behind it, and Pandit Nehru has taught us that even the role of puppets can be played ‘without any strings attached’.
Yet never did any man have the opportunity which Pandit Nehru had in 1947, when liberation came, and the years which immediately followed. While Mahatma Gandhi was the spirit of the movement, it fell on Jawaharlal to play the role of a representative symbol. The world associated Gandhi with religion and Pandit Nehru with international politics. Here was a leader, pledged to democracy, and hailed by all the world as a fighter for human liberty. He had fought against British imperialism for a quarter of a century and he had won that fight against heavy odds and against all expectations. The story of that fight written around Jawaharlal Nehru was one of the great chapters of contemporary history, culminating in the liberation of a fifth of the world from a hundred and fifty years of bondage. No other individual in our lifetime had made such a glorious entry on the international stage. He was more than a victorious general, for he did not win a territorial war. Nehru had fought and won on transcendent issues of morality. He stood for government of the people by the people for the people; he stood for government for all the people and not for any select or special groups within it. He stood for clean government as opposed to the administration of the British. He fought for our country to become an entity in itself and not a colony of a great power. He fought for our right to express, in foreign and domestic policy, the moral beliefs which at that time lay at the root of Indian life and greatness. Wherever he went, the people of the world looked up to him, not only as a great Indian but as a man who expressed by his word and action, the faith of mankind.
One felt proud to be an Indian in those days. Our goal was achieved. The road to freedom lay ahead with the pilgrims lined up ready to march upon it. The liberation of India was to lead to the greater liberation of all the down-trodden people, first in Asia and later elsewhere in the world. India was the inspiration for the underdog.
Such was the glorious opportunity which Jawaharlal Nehru threw away. He faltered, he floundered, he allowed others to clog his way. He did all the things he said he would never do. He spoke so much and achieved so little. He shirked coming to a decision on vital issues. He preferred to take the cautious road of mediocrity rather than strike out on the path of a pioneer. In critical moments, he lacked the vision expected of a great leader. He was too afraid to show the way to his people. He surrounded himself with opportunists who traded in patriotism and on his name. He gave shelter to the little fuhrers who sprang up like mushrooms on our newly liberated soil. The shining armour in which we had clad this knight-errant became in time only so much tinselled splendour. Soon the glamour was gone. Gone too was the moment and the opportunity.
Pandit Nehru still gives an illusion of moving forward, even though the little people of India have remained behind. But he is out there in front with a new breed of men who follow him for the morsels of patronage he scatters on his way. Now and then he turns back but can see little difference between the men who once followed him and those who are now close on his heels. 'The people are still with me’, he believes in his luxurious dreaminess which even reality does not make him abandon. Lotus-eaters are made that way.
END