On Jawaharlal Nehru's 52nd death anniversary, watch scenes from his funeral procession // Apoorvanand - Forged in adversity: Attacks on Jawaharlal Nehru's legacy will only strengthen his legacy
NB: Two years ago a friend of mine sent me this note: On May 27, 2014 it will be 50 years since the passing of Jawaharlal Nehru. Can one ever imagine him instigating or conniving in a pogrom? Or becoming a plaything in the hands of corporate capital? Or spending on a general election amounts bearing comparison with American Presidential elections?
We may also note that the same 'Parivar' that insists that the RSS is not political and that it should be allowed to recruit members in the bureaucracy, is now hounding an IAS officer for praising Nehru! DS
Thousands were in
attendance and many more lined up at every station along the way.
Jawaharlal Nehru,
India's first and longest serving Prime Minister of India, died On May 27,
1964. The videos above and below, uploaded by British Pathé, follow the funeral
procession – first, to a pyre in New Delhi, and then the journey of his ashes,
accompanied by grandsons Rajiv Gandhi and Sanjay Gandhi, to the Sangam in
Allahabad. The pyre was in the same spot where, 16 years earlier, Mahatma
Gandhi's body had been incinerated.
While there is no
definitive count of the people who gathered for the funeral, the number is
thought to be around 20 lakh. Although it was well known that Nehru's health
was failing, the nation seemed to have been plunged into shock and chaos
following his death. There was no political heir to take over, and though most
thought it would be his daughter Indira Gandhi, it was eventually Lal Bahadur
Shastri who became India's second prime minister.
This the most poignant and seems to bear
the collective weight of Indian history. It is completely silent as we see
visitors arriving to pay homage to Nehru and disparate scenes from his funeral
at India Gate... See videos:
http://video.scroll.in/808877/on-jawaharlal-nehrus-52nd-death-anniversary-watch-scenes-from-his-funeral-processionAfter Praising Nehru On Facebook, IAS Officer Is Transferred
Forged in adversity: Attacks on Jawaharlal Nehru's legacy will only strengthen his legacy
The recent erasure of
Jawaharlal Nehru from school textbooks in Rajasthan created some alarm in the
media, but it was left largely to the Congress Party to protest this deletion.
It was as if the man who led India for its first 17 years was a Congressman and
not much more. That seems obvious from the fact that last year, the Bharatiya
Janata Party government chose to ignore his death anniversary on May 27.
Looked at another way,
it’s a good thing that the country’s first prime minister is finally getting detached
from the mythology of the Indian state. The official narrative about Nehru
after his death gradually turned him into a kind of legitimiser of the state.
Over the past half-century, Nehru has become so synonymous with the
state-building project that we’ve forgotten the debates between him and his
guru Gandhi and other leaders of the Congress party where he often comes out as
a dissenter and rebel. It isn’t surprising that many Gandhians resented
Gandhi’s fondness for Nehru because for them, Nehru was not sufficiently
Gandhian. They have often tried to explain away Gandhi’s judgment about Nehru
as the Mahatma’s fatal personal weakness. Nehru, however chose
to describe himself a child of the Gandhi-era. Once while being interviewed b
RK Karnajia, he refused to be described as a statesman, saying that the last
statesman had been Gandhi.
There were many things
that bound Gandhi with Nehru but in their last years, it was largely the
commitment to the dream of an anti-majoritarian nation- state that they shared,
which drew them even closer. Nehru was not particularly enthusiastic about the
economic vision Gandhi propounded in his book Hind Swaraj and
the old man was well aware of this. Yet, he could confidently say that Nehru
would speak his language when he was no longer around.
Gandhi’s trust in
Nehru’s firmness about anti-majoritarianism had greatly to do with his
awareness of the younger man’s cosmopolitan mind and his individualism. Nehru
was not sufficiently Hindu but had an agonising relationship with this aspect
of his life. This distance gave him a rare advantage over other Congressmen and
women who were either fully Hindu or Muslim or were atheists. Gandhi knew that
Nehru would not allow himself to submerge in a larger, abstract identity and
would also encourage India’s people to fashion selves that had not been given
to them.
What is most
interesting in this relationship is that Gandhi could put away the
organisational tag of the Congress when he chose to but Nehru remained burdened
with a party he often found himself uncomfortable with. The petty worldliness
of members of his party and their narrow outlook put him off and he tried to
find sources of goodness and hope in the unlettered masses of India.
Gandhi had his
Constructive Programme to go to whenever he felt stifled with the political
struggle. Nehru welcomed the solitude of prison over the hurly bury of
politics. In his letters to his
daughter from various prisons, he seems to suggest that he does not want to
come out of jail. Jail was for him an opportunity to be fully with himself. In
a letter of the Naini Central Prison, he wrote:
"I am in what is
called an association barrack ‒ that is we do not have separate cells. Each of
us has tried to have a corner to herself so as to ensure at least a minimum of
privacy. It is strange ‒ here we are all together and yet each a world to
herself, separate and aloof. More alone than if one had been in solitary
confinement. I even feel that I am developing the awkwardness that comes of
being companionless.
Alone… The word is
life endured and known.
It is the stillness
where our spirits walk
And all but the inmost
faith is overthrown."
Nehru never complains
about the hardship or lack of facilities in prisons. Instead, he wrote:
"...what a
powerful effect jail has on our mental make-ups. It makes us grow up mentally
and gives a different, and perhaps a truer, perspective on life and the
world…It is curious that jail life, which is terrible narrowing of the world of
experiences and sensations, often gives us deeper experiences and
sensations."
The toughening of
souls that both the disciple and the guru achieved through their long stints in
prison away from the public made them gave them the strength to face and fight
the temptations of giving into the demands of the public.
India’s people moulded
Nehru’s personality in a vital way, just like it did his mentor’s, but it was
his companionship with nature and books that also helped him to analyse them
critically and not succumb to ordinariness. It was his repulsion for crudity
that made him turn away from all calls to herd India’s people. He believed that
it was important to achieve humanity for and on one’s own. Nation building was
like swallows building a nest. Nehru observed them in his Ahmedbad Fort Prison
and wrote to his daughter:
"The swallows
have grown in number and have made their nests inside rooms and verandahs. I
like them, they are so swift and quiet, so unlike the noisy and quarrelsome
sparrows. It is rather fascinating to see a swallow’s nest being built up,
quietly, efficiently and without fuss. It seems to stick on to the bare wall or
a corner without any visible support. All feathers, soft and downy, collected
from different places and stuck together with some kind of cement."
Nehru was not destined
to achieve this quietness in public life, which for him was another name for
civility. But he was also not pardoned by his contemporaries nor by generations
for reminding them that they too lacked this quality too. It is not surprising
that Nehru is remembered and applauded for his technocratic vision that built
dams and industries but his call for civility and humanity is ignored and
resented. It is good, in a way,
that Nehru is facing hostility again. During his lifetime, it was in such
conditions of adversity that his unique qualities became apparent. It's very
likely that Nehru’s banishment from contemporary spaces helps burnish his
legacy. It’s almost as if he predicted his fate in his letter from the
Ahmedabad prison, which he concluded by quoting Ghalib:
When the tavern itself
we were made to leave,
Why restrain in a specific place?
A seminary, a monastery or else a mosque,
Any place it may now be!
When professions of the greed worshipers
admiring beauty soar,
The grace of the truly discerning ones
Finds respect no more.
http://scroll.in/article/808867/forged-in-adversity-attacks-on-jawaharlal-nehrus-legacy-will-only-strengthen-his-legacyWhy restrain in a specific place?
A seminary, a monastery or else a mosque,
Any place it may now be!
When professions of the greed worshipers
admiring beauty soar,
The grace of the truly discerning ones
Finds respect no more.
Apoorvanand - Netaji Bose or Nehru? Which one did Bhagat Singh believe was the
greater revolutionary?
After Praising Nehru On Facebook, IAS Officer Is Transferred
The Non-politics of the RSS
In the year 2000 the Gujarat government of Keshubhai Patel, with the support of the Vajpayee government, lifted the ban on RSS recruitment among civil servants. In the ensuing controversy Patel said the RSS was not political (the usual story). This was stoutly resisted and the BJP was forced to withdraw. Read more:
