May 27, 2014 is a date laden with irony. It was Narendra Modi’s first day in office as the 15th Prime Minister of India and Jawaharlal Nehru’s 50th death anniversary.
Political Conspiracy Or Pure Coincidence?
As India’s first, second, third AND fourth Prime Minister, Nehru oversaw the establishment of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), the All Indian Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) and the National Institute of Technology (NIT).
He also envisioned India as a nuclear power and set up the Atomic Energy Commission. He believed in a non-aligned foreign policy, rapid industrialisation and a socialist economy. He was a freedom fighter, eulogised as the architect of modern India whose political legacy and lineage has steered India through good times and bad.
A year on, as the NDA celebrates #NaMo365, Nehru has never appeared more human and flawed than he does today. Is it a political conspiracy or pure coincidence?
Humanising Nehru
Dismantling Planning Commission
The Planning Commission was Nehru’s brainchild. An agency that set “5 year Plans” for the country (which some of us would remember cramming before History/Civics exams) and disbursed funds to the states. One of Modi’s first headline-grabbing executive decisions was to disband the Planning Commission which was described by Arun Shourie as a “parking lot for political cronies and unwanted bureaucrats”. The Congress saw the “dismantling of time-tested institutions” as an affront to Nehru’s legacy.
Old Letters, New Attack
When Rajiv Gandhi was born, Nehru had written to his sister to get his grandson’s horoscope recorded. This letter, written in 1944 was discovered by Ravi Shankar Prasad who along with Cabinet colleague Venkaiah Naidu held a news conference in December last year, to attack Nehru’s “scientific temper”. A political low blow, it was in response to Congress’ criticism of HRD Minister Smriti Irani’s four-hour long meeting with her astrologer, who incidentally told her she would become the President of India.
Congress’ criticism was also on account of Modi boasting of the prevalence of genetic science and plastic surgery during the age of Mahabharata.
Genetic science was present that time. That is why Karna could be born outside his mother’s womb. We worship Lord Ganesha. There must have been some plastic surgeon at that time who got an elephant’s head on the body of a human being and began the practice of plastic surgery.
— Narendra Modi at inauguration of H N Reliance Foundation Hospital
Several international news agencies mocked Modi’s contention and the Congress used it to compare it to Nehru’s progressive, scientific way of thinking.
Statue of Unity
Sardar Vallabhai Patel very nearly became India’s first Prime Minister had it not been for Gandhi’s inclination towards Nehru. Even though 12 of 15 regional Congress committees nominated Patel, he withdrew from the contest as per Gandhi’s wishes. And so, Nehru became Prime Minister, and Patel his deputy and the Home Minister who played a key role in getting princely states to join the Indian Union.
In October 2013, Modi kickstarted his Prime Ministerial campaign with the ‘Run For Unity’ - a country-wide marathon to raise money for his pet project - Statue of Unity dedicated to Sardar Vallabhai Patel. A work in progress, it will be built at a cost of Rs 2000 crore and will be the tallest statue in the world. The move was seen as a less-than-subtle way to appropriate Patel’s legacy and position it against Nehru’s. If that appears to be a sweeping statement, sample this:
Every Indian still regrets that Patel did not become India’s first Prime Minister. Had he been Prime Minister, the country’s destiny would’ve been different.
— Modi at the inauguration of Patel Memorial Museum in October 2013.
If Kashmir issue had also been given to Sardar Patel instead of Nehru, part of Kashmir would not have gone to Pakistan and Article 370 also would not have been there.
— Amit Shah at stone laying ceremony for Patel’s statue at Bidar, Karnataka in September 2013
Patel was a forgotten legend, yes. But that by itself is not a surprising fact because of two main reasons.
1. Nehru was the helm of affairs for nearly two decades, whereas, Patel passed away merely two and a half years after Independence.
2. Nehru’s successors - Indira and Rajiv Gandhi kept his memory, his ideology, his name alive.
There are two main ironies in Modi’s invocation of Patel, Ramchandra Guha points out in the Hindustan Times.
First, because Patel himself was a lifelong Congressman; indeed; as Home Minister, it fell on him to ban the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) after Mahatma Gandhi’s murder. Second, because Nehru and Patel were in fact not rivals, but comrades and co-workers.
Iconology
But there is a flip side. An RTI query has revealed that 27 out of 60 institutions and schemes run by the Centre are named after the Nehru-Gandhi family. There has been a conscious effort by the Modi government to steer away from naming new schemes after them. The NDA hopes to spread awareness about regional leaders who’ve made significant contributions to modern India.
Was Nehru insecure of Netaji?
Declassified IB documents reveal that the Nehru government had been spying on Subhash Chandra Bose’s wife and extended family for nearly two decades after his mysterious disappearance in 1945. While this information was stumbled upon by author Anuj Dhar during research, the debate that followed this revelation was, not surprisingly, one-sided. Asking ‘What did Jawaharlal Nehru fear when he continued snooping?’, MJ Akbar writes:
Nehru knew better than anyone else that Bose was the only national leader who could challenge Congress dominance over India and Nehru’s dominance over Congress. I certainly believe that if Bose had been on the political scene, Congress would have been badly dented in the 1957 general election and certainly defeated in 1962.
— MJ Akbar, author, columnist and National Spokesperson for the BJP
Last year, the CIA handed four declassified documents to Anuj Dhar which further fuel the mystery around Netaji’s death.
There now exists a strong possibility that Bose is leading the rebellious group undermining the current Nehru government.
— Declassified CIA documents dating back to 1964
The mystery remains unsolved and the incomplete puzzle further dents the Nehru legacy.
A second revelation that Nehru had done nothing about the looting of gold donated to Bose’s Indian National Army raised yet more question marks about Nehru’s motives.
Do you see this as a course correction or political vendetta or simply contemporary politics? The answer perhaps depends on which side of the political fence you sit on.
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