On the birth anniversary of India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, we see a a routine duel between two polarised camps, one of those who call themselves the Nehruvians and uphold the lofty ideals that Nehru built the nation upon and the other camp of those who concertedly try to debunk, disrobe and discredit Nehru of his democratic legacy in building a progressive nation in its nascent stage. This continuous tug of war has created a space for walkers of the middle path, who choose to evaluate facts & fiction surrounding the magnanimous aura of a political figure like Nehru and dig out few gaps left unfilled between propaganda & ground reality of his regime.

“What makes Nehruvian myths like non-alignment, socialism, successful democracy, a strong state, high modernism striking, is their persistent hold over the imagination of India’s intellectuals.” quotes Siddharth Singh in his September 2022 story ‘Jawaharlal Nehru: The Man and the Myth‘.

In view of such academic allegations & neo-Nehruvian PR attempts, let us revisit few Nehruvian policies & approaches and re-evaluate those on the touchstone of present context:

• Rest is Rust (Aaram Haraam Hai) : Workers from all over India are marching against the new labour codes that legitimise suppression of labour rights under the garb of boosting productivity but we must admit that the seeds of relentless work were quietly sown during Nehruvian times. The obscene corporate slogan of today’s Hustle Culture can be traced back to Nehruvian era, when the work is worship styled slogans were popularized. After independence, every citizen should unite to build a new India, that’s why the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had given the slogan ‘Aaram Haram Hai‘.¹ He took it from the slogans of the West during the economic depression of the thirties. A similar quote by William Faulkner, saying, “It’s a shame that the only thing a man can do for eight hours a day is work. He can’t eat for eight hours; he can’t drink for eight hours; he can’t make love for eight hours. The only thing a man can do for eight hours is work.” was probably an inspiration behind Nehru’s slogan. Another such phrase ‘Arbeit macht frei’ (Work sets you free) used to appear on the entrances of Auschwich and other Nazi concentration camps, lauding ‘all work and no play’ ideologue. The bottom line is that cheerleading continuous work very subtly laid siege to the socialist idea of The ‘eight-hour working day‘ — an idea that is often attributed to Robert Owen.


• Glorification of Multipurpose Projects/ Dams : Temples of Modern India : When Nehru poured the first bucket of concrete during the construction phase of the Bhakra dam, he said: “This is a gift to the people of India and to the future generations and therefore is worthy of worship. May you call it a Temple or a Gurdwara or a Mosque, it inspires our admiration and reverence.” This is the origin of the usage of Multipurpose Dams being proclaimed ‘’Temples of Modern India”.² But a history of people’s protests attest the fact that people want the government to put an end to hydroelectricity projects, which they say, ruin their area’s ecology and now threatened the existence of tribal people from Assam, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh to Kinnaur and Tehri. The hills of Himachal Pradesh are alive with the sounds of villagers voicing their protest against the numerous hydropower projects that they say will further compromise their water and forest rights. The hydropower projects not only damage natural resources and affect livelihoods but also use up a considerable chunk of forest and agricultural land, argue locals and environment activists.³

•Weaponizing The Common Kashmiri : The incursion of tribal invaders from the North West Frontier Province, now part of Pakistan, into Kashmir in October 1947 is known popularly as the Kabaili raid in local parlance. Interestingly, in view of such grave external threat, a Women’s Self Defence Corps, a women’s militia was set up largely by Communist supporters of the National Conference in October-November 1947, when Srinagar was in danger of being overrun by an army of Pakistani tribesmen.The men and women’s militia (Jan Sena) drilled and was trained in how to fire a rifle and throw a grenade.⁴ The whole night, groups of people would patrol the streets and lanes proclaiming “Hamlawaro khabardar, ham Kashmiri hain taiyyar” (Aggressors beware, we Kashmiris are ready).

A contingent of militia members was inspected by Nehru, India’s prime minister, when he visited the Kashmir Valley that spoke of his covert support for weaponsing the commoners. Moreover, as part of this general mobilisation of Srinagar’s population, a children’s militia – the Bal Sena – drilled with wooden rifles stood in the shadow of the Palladium cinema building, which provided the background to India’s prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru who came to Srinagar in November 1947 and addressed a huge crowd alongside Sheikh Abdullah.⁵ Thus, Nehru, alongwith Sheikh Abdullah, the poster boy of Kashmiri democracy, played their parts in initiating the common Kashmiris into an armed movement.

• Painting Aurangzeb as a Communal Figure: Jawaharlal Nehru wrote the book ‘The Discovery of India’ during four years of confinement to solitude in prison and is his way of paying an homage to his beloved country and its rich culture. But noted Historian & author Audrey Truschke believes that JL Nehru & Jadunath Sarkar had their roles in demonising Aurangzeb for their readers. Truschke quotes Nehru in her 2017 book, ‘Aurangzeb: The Man and The Myth’, “When Aurangzeb began to oppose [the syncretism of earlier Mughal rulers] and suppress it and to function more as a Moslem than an Indian ruler, the Mughal Empire began to break up.” She adds, “For Nehru, Aurangzeb’s adherence to Islam crippled his ability to rule India.”⁶ Truschke also notes that Jawaharlal Nehru’s description of Aurangzeb as “a bigot and an austere puritan” has helped the right-wing’s agenda of othering the Mughal Scion, attesting his communal character.

• First Amendment & Restrictions on Free Speech: Article 19(1)(a) in Part III of the Constitution guarantees the fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression. But this freedom is not absolute or unfettered. It is followed by Article 19(2), which lists exceptions or “reasonable restrictions” on that right. These conditions applied on Freedom of Speech came through Nehru’s First Constitutional Amendment amendment 1951 that added new grounds on which this FREEDOM OF SPEECH could be curbed. In addition to the existing grounds of libel, slander, defamation, contempt of court and anything that undermines the security of the state or tends to overthrow it, Nehru added relations with foreign states, public order and, most important, the interests of the security of the state. Now, this amendment created the grounds to validate sedition. This is because “the interests of the security of the state” can be variously interpreted and, thus, permits a wide range of speech to be classified under it. And this gave the state enormous powers. Thus the first amendment “opened the floodgates for drastic and oppressive laws” like the National Security Act, the Maintenance of Internal Security Act and the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, all of which have been used to ban books, arrest journalists, jail activists and harass political opponents.⁷

• Contradictory Take on Modernity & Tradition: In 1946, Jawaharlal Nehru invoked the “temper of science” almost as a meta concept – in the realm beyond reason and the application of science. Nehru quoted, “[This] should be, a way of life, a process of thinking, a method of acting and associating with our fellowmen…It is the temper of a free man” But his contradictory conduct, endorsing Brahmanical superstitions and upholding traditional ritualism, has been outlined by Larry Collins and Dominique LaPierre, where they chronicled the events of 14 August 1947 in their seminal book Freedom at Midnight . They wrote how Nehru was readied for the occasion by two south Indian priests. “They sprinkled Jawaharlal Nehru with holy water, smeared his forehead with sacred ash, laid their scepter on his arms and draped him in the cloth of God….Nehru submitted to it with almost cheerful humility. It was almost as if that proud rationalist had instinctively understood that in the awesome tasks awaiting him no possible source of aid, not even the occult that he so scornfully dismissed, was to be totally ignored…”

At the residence of Rajendra Prasad, the president of Constituent Assembly, a sacred fire was lit and a Brahmin priest chanted Vedic mantras. Collins and LaPierre write: “As the priest repeated his atonal chant, the learned men and women who would shortly become the first ministers of an independent India filed past the fire. A second Brahman sprinkled each with a few drops of water.”

This happened just a few minutes before they all entered the hall for the ceremony that marked India’s independence.

The authors describe how the date and time of Indian independence was debated because some astrologers believed that the morning of 15 August was ‘inauspicious’ due to the celestial positioning of ‘shani’ and ‘rahu’. Phillips Talbot, then South Asia correspondent for the Chicago Daily, also wrote about it in a letter to his friend in the US: “Astrologers had discovered that the morning of August 15-the day designated for the transfer of power was an inauspicious time. Partly for this reason and partly because they were well aware of the drama of the occasion, Congress leaders decided on a midnight session of the Indian Constituent Assembly to assume authority at the stroke of 12.”⁸ Such contradiction between practice & speeches highlight the Nehruvian dichotomy in India context.

• Communal Call in Amarkot : In 1946, Jawaharlal Nehru had specially gone to Amarkot ( now Umarkot in Sindh, Pakistan) to extend invitation to Rana Arjun Singh Sodha, the ruler of a small princely state, to get associated with Congress Party. Nehru held his first public meeting, but he attempted to rally support for the Congress along religious lines, as he specifically appealed to the area’s Hindu population.⁹ But Rana Arjun Singh of Amarkot resisted all pressures by the Congress to join it on the basis of being Hindu.¹⁰ Such communal calls by a perceptible Secular leader like Nehru outline the political opportunism opted by him over oft-lauded lofty Nehruvian idealism.

• Continued Stigma of Criminal Tribes: Following the 1857 mutiny, 237 castes and tribes were given the criminal-by-birth tag under the ambit of the Criminal Tribes Act, 1931 by the Britishers. In 1952, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru brought the curtains down on such a shameful practice. Denotifying such Nomadic Tribes was a measure to bring out people from stigma and social ostracization. After Independence, Nehru formed a committee & replaced Criminal Tribes Act, 1931 with the Habitual Offenders Act, 1952. But far from improving their lives, the new Act only re-stigmatised these tribes. Researchers find it difficult to avoid that the post-independent governments have fared no worse than the colonial government which conceptualised such a draconian law in the first place, leaving millions of denotified tribal out of the mainstream of dignified living.¹¹ India is perhaps the only country that continues with the orientalist notion of tagging the entire tribe as hereditary criminals & Nehruvian vision did nothing more than white washing, rechristening and rebranding the old draconian law.

• The Long Shadow of Preventive Detention: The Preventive Detention Act of 1950 was enacted by the Indian Parliament to provide means of dealing with extraordinary conditions effectively and expeditiously. The original Detention Act was very severe, as Nehru admitted later, and was therefore amended in
1951 and again in 1952. It is obvious that several important principles, generally regarded as essential in a democratic legal system, have not been adhered to in this Act. For example, the preventive aspect of the procedure is apparently a clear violation of basic legal principles, for a man may be arrested and detained without any crime having been committed. Nehru’s observation was that the Bill was criticized mostly ‘in rather academic terms, in terms of the nineteenth – century concept of British democracy. Nehru declared that while he cherished the freedom of the individual, if the safety of the state is at stake, ‘ the freedom of certain individuals has to be curbed’. The main emphasis of Nehru’s theory of fundamental rights is that freedom must always be limited by the circumstances prevailing in any given situation. The weakness of Nehru’s theory is that it appears be aimed primarily at adjusting freedom to circumstances in one direction only.¹²

• Tribal Rights & Romantic Idealism: In the Constituent Assembly, when Jaipal Munda raised the issue of tribal rights and oppression done to them over thousands of years, India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was asked what the stance towards tribal groups should be, and he vehemently responded by saying, ‘Humility’. Jawaharlal Nehru had advocated ‘Panchsheel’ for Tribal development to address issues of Tribal justice. But both Elwin & Nehru were criticised by tribal leaders as in their assessment, both were guilty of preference for segregation of the tribal communities. In the assimilation segregation continuum, Nehru’s policy rather tilted heavily towards the side of segregation. Many had severely attacked the policy and equated it with the Old British policy of segregating the tribal people (Pakem :1992:97)¹³

Chandigarh & Acquisition Cover-up: Nehru, as India’s first Prime Minister, spelt out his brief for the city of Chandigarh. Chandigarh was planned as the new capital city of east Punjab in order to house refugees from Pakistan. Contrary to popular belief, Chandigarh was not planted on ’empty’ harsh plains waiting to be inhabited. For the first phase of Chandigarh, 8,500 acres of fertile land, consisting of 17 villages were acquired in one go under the land acquisition act of 1894. In another few years 24 additional villages dotted with agricultural land and mango groves was acquired. Much of the conflict that surrounded this land acquisition and the displacement of farmers (landed and not-landed) does not form part of the dominant narratives surrounding the history of this planned city.¹⁴ The desire to assert an Indian identity in Chandigarh in preference to an existing local identity is evident in the eviction of over 6000 local families from the area. Refugees (from
the new Pakistan) were also kept away to ensure a clean slate. At a time when India was trying both to encourage non-violence and accommodate a large number of refugees, it was quite extraordinary to force over 28000 people to leave their land so the Punjabi government
could have a home. Not surprisingly, there was considerable opposition to the appropriation of the site from existing villagers. The government bought all the land at once
under the Land Acquisition Act of 1894, allowing the inhabitants to remain ‘as tenants of the
government’, but only until the land was needed for building purposes.
Nehru’s position regarding displaced people seems ambiguous and lay between his aspirations for the future and extant conditions in India to which he was obliged to respond.
Earlier, he had advised administrators to go ahead with the project quickly so they could begin to provide for many refugees. He cautioned Mayer: ‘there is one fact to be borne in mind, and I hope it does not come in the way of your general planning. This is to make provision for the displaced persons from West Punjab’.¹⁵ In the early ’50s, the government offered compensation as low as Rs 56 per acre in a few cases. People who were made to leave their villages and farmland were not given jobs as a displacement incentive. No seats were reserved for their wards in education institutions. Nor were the villagers given alternative land to live. Most of them live in miserable conditions at villages with unhygienic surroundings.¹⁶
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To see one’s national heroes falter is rather demoralising but to explore that policy failures have been systemically withheld to upkeep popular image of a leader like Nehru is even more damaging for an informed citizenry. A coterie of historians and courtesan poets can choose to sing paeans but as citizens, we must break the glass facades of perceptions & reclaim our heroes like Nehru with both their fault-lines & strengths, alike.


References:

¹MEIN NEHRU KA SAAYA THA. (2022). (n.p.): Blue Rose Publishers.

²https://mumbaimirror.indiatimes.com/opinion/columnists/ajit-ranade/building-temples-of-modern-india/articleshow/77425062.cms

³https://www.punjabnewsexpress.com/national/news/clamour-over-hydro-project-ahead-of-pm-modis-visit-to-himachal-186116

⁴ https://www.kashmirconnected.com/articles–reports/the-womens-self-defence-corps-srinagar-1947-48-a-conversation-with-kanta-wazir-by-rekha-wazir

⁵ https://www.andrewwhitehead.net/blog/a-week-in-kashmir-the-cinema

⁶https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/blogs/Undertheinfluence/how-nehru-helps-the-rss/

⁷https://www.deccanchronicle.com/opinion/columnists/111220/karan-thapar-how-nehru-had-gutted-the-constitution-in-1951.html

⁸https://theprint.in/opinion/liberals-blaming-modi-for-unscientific-india-should-recall-nehrus-pujas-at-independence/397483/?amp

⁹https://beenasarwar.com/2013/07/25/rajput-appeal-from-amarkot/

¹⁰ https://www.asian-voice.com/Opinion/Columnists/Merger-of-a-Hindu-State-Amarkot-with-Pak

¹¹https://www.deccanherald.com/content/646171/tagged-criminal-life.html

¹²Smith, Donald Eugene. Nehru and Democracy: The Political Thought of an Asian Democrat. India, Orient Longmans, 1958.

¹³Society, Politics, and Development in North East India: Essays in Memory of Dr. Basudeb Datta Ray. (2008). India: Concept Publishing Company.

¹⁴https://utopiancities.wordpress.com/cities-2/chandigarh-2/

¹⁵NIHAL PERERA * (2004) Contesting visions: hybridity, liminality and authorship of the Chandigarh plan, Planning Perspectives, 19:2, 175-199, DOI: 10.1080/0266543042000192466

¹⁶ https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/archive/features/chandigarh-the-revenant-276916