Cameraperson: Shiv Kumar Maurya
UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday, 13 November, said that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is undermining the legacy of late Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, and the values integral to “Indianness” are presently being challenged.
“We all know, that his precious legacy is being undermined daily by those who rule us today. They express disdain and contempt for Nehru, for all that he did to build India, that they are bent upon changing for the worse. Today, we must honour Nehru by fighting with determination to safeguard our democracy against those who are undermining it,” she said.
Gandhi was speaking at the relaunch of a 2003 book, Nehru: The Invention of India, written by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor. The book is being relaunched ahead of Nehru’s birth anniversary on Wednesday, 14 November.
Values Integral to Indianness Being Challenged Today: Sonia Gandhi
“Democratic institution building, socialist economics, foreign policy of non-alignment – these values, integral to Indianness, is fundamentally being challenged today, but remains at the core of our beliefs,” she said.
“In 1947, a country beset by acute poverty and torn apart by Partition, could it remain democratic? It was Nehru who instilled a democratic culture in our country through scrupulous regard for the form as well as the substance of democracy. His respect for Parliament, his regard for the independence of judiciary, his courtesy to those of different political convictions, his commitment to free election, his faith in free press and his preference to institutions over individuals, all left us a precious legacy of freedom,” she added.
Speaking of secularism, the UPA chairperson said that after the Partition of India, Nehru never believed that India was a country only for Hindu Indians.
"Nehru never accepted the logic that since Pakistan had been created for Indian Muslims, what remained was a state for Hindus. He lived up to his life-long conviction, that India belonged to all its people and that the majority community had an obligation to protect the rights and to promote India’s minorities. In policy and personal practice, he stood for an idea that embraced every religion, caste and ethnicity,” she said.
Praising Nehru’s economic policies, she said that the core of Nehru’s socialism was that in a land of poverty, the objective of the government’s policies should be to address the plight of the poorest.
A Chaiwallah is the PM Because of Nehru’s Institutional Structures: Tharoor
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, addressing guests at the event, said that it's because of Nehru's institutional structures that a ‘chaiwallah’ is the prime minister of the country today.
“There is an unfair and ridiculous charge by the ruling party today that Nehru tried to groom his daughter Indira as a successor. On the contrary, at no stage did he indicate a preference for any successor,” he said. If today we have a chaiwallah as the prime minister, it’s because Nehru ji made it possible through institutional structures –through which, any Indian can aspire to and rise to the highest office in the land,” said Tharoor.
Praising Nehru's institutional values, Tharoor said that Nehru believed in democracy despite it being the toughest choice, given the state of the country after Partition.
“It would have been easy to say, ‘We need a firm hand, democracy is not an option.’ But Nehru never considered this an option.”
For all this and more, Tharoor continued, Nehru was thronged by the masses wherever he went. “In particular, women came in large numbers,” Tharoor added.
Nehru Respected the Opposition & Took Criticism Well
Tharoor also said that Nehru was always open to criticism, whether it came from the Opposition or his own party. “Nehru gave importance to the Opposition. Nehru made sure the Opposition felt free to criticise him and he took that criticism seriously. Nehru also encouraged his own party members to speak out against him. The most famous such example being Feroze Gandhi taking him on, issue after issue,” Tharoor said.
“In the lead up to the 1962 war, Nehru made a comment about ‘not a blade of grass grows there,’ pointing to Aksai Chin. And someone retaliated, saying, ‘Nehru ji not a blade of hair grows on your head; will you also give your head away?’” – Nehru took this with a smile, and resignation.
“Shankar, a famous cartoonist back then, used to regularly poke fun at Nehru. Nehru took it all,” Tharoor added, in the same vein.
Nehru Wasn’t Religious, But Respected All Religions
Commenting on Nehru’s views on religion, Tharoor said that while Nehru didn’t care for it, he also didn’t speak one unsavoury word against a religious group or community.
“He was not particularly religious. We have to accept the fact that the well springs of Nehruvian secularism did lie in agnosticism,” he said.
“It was not that he disrespected religion, but he had no time for the professed leaders. In one of the letters that I quoted, he said he has no patience for mullahs and maulavis or sadhus and sants, and that they don’t have answers to all the problems of the nation. That is an interesting thing because while that was very much his personal proclivity, he never imposed that on a nation which is very deeply steeped in religion,” he added.
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