AS THE BIRTH ANNIVERSARY of India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru is being celebrated on November 14 there is remarkable resonance of his ideas in the movements launched by Gen Z and Gen Alpha. The Gen Z movement especially that of the Cockroach Janata Party led by Abhijit Dipke has very refreshingly invoked the vision of Nehru along with that of Mahatma Gandhi and B. R. Ambedkar to address the problems confronted by India during the twelve years of the Modi regime marked by sharp polarisation of society and polity based on faith pursued by the majority population of India.
And Gen Alpha consisting of school children are now hitting the streets demanding better facilities in schools, posting of teachers and improvement of school infrastructure. So, Children's Day being celebrated on Nehru’s birth day on November 14 assumes greater significance this year because school children remaining in the forefront of their agitation in several States of India are holding the Government and administration to account for their acts of commission and omission with regard to their failure in providing better quality education. It is in this context that Nehru's ideas and worldview are playing out with greater importance for India where the Gen Z and Gen Alpha are setting shining examples of interrogating the leaders of ruling parties operating the State apparatus.
Nehru First Pleaded For Mid-Day Meals
It is rather eye opening to note that it was Jawaharlal Nehru who as early as 1952 first advocated the introduction of free mid- day meals for school children. (https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/india/jawaharlal-nehru-1889-1964-was-far-ahead-of-his-times )That path breaking vision of Nehru became operational across India by several judgements of the Supreme Court. It is instructive to note that Nehru, in his letter to chief ministers dated October 17, 1952, wrote that half a million people of whom 75% were children were put in a relief camp in Telangana because of severe drought prevailing in that area. He was deeply distressed to see them being fed gruel from a kitchen and suggested that children should be separated and put in schools and each school teacher should be enabled to give them a free meal. Prime Minister Nehru also wrote that his suggestion was largely accepted by the Madras Government and free mid-day meals were served to children. Nehru’s daring step in suggesting free mid-day meals to school children when India was living from, what was called, “ship to mouth” on account of severe food shortage testified to his wide social sympathy for the cause of children. It is fascinating that now school children are themselves demanding better quality of food in the mid day meals provided to them so that their nutritional requirements are met during their growing up years. So on Children's Day a grateful nation pays tribute to Nehru for having articulated the idea of mid-day meals for school children. They are now asking questions to the political leadership to find out why there are inadequate numbers of quality school teachers, lack of infrastructure for providing better educational facilities for children and even absence of toilets specially for the girl students. Against this backdrop Nehru’s vision for providing free mid-day meals to school children holds enormous importance for reducing school drop outs and retaining students especially girl students in the schools for continuance of their studies and improving human development indices.
It is stated above that the Gen Z in India is now recalling the vision of Nehru and underlining its contemporary significance to forge a new tryst with destiny at a time when paradigm shifts are taking place with the spectacular development of technology especially the application of AI driven algorithms. Such developments are completely shaping a new kind of mindset of the youth.
19 Year Old Nehru’s Profound Vision
When Nehru was just 19 years old in 1908 he was part of the Gen Z of his time and studying at Cambridge. The broad and liberal outlook he had at that young age can be juxtaposed with the similar outlook of the Gen Z of 2026 marked by a secular and more catholic worldview. For instance on December 3, 1908 Nehru, in a letter to his father Motilal Nehru, (https://nehruarchive.in/documents/to-father-3-december-1908-depo9 )referred to a talk of Bipin Chandra Pal delivered at the Indian Majlis and very candidly stated that he objected greatly to his not taking the Mohammadans into consideration. He went on to charge Pal for mentioning them once or twice and accused him of not being very complimentary. Very significantly Nehru went on to add something which brought out his profound sense of understanding of history and his extraordinary maturity. He wrote, “Another thing which annoyed me was his repeated references to the spiritual mission of India. India, he said, was “God’s chosen country” and the Indians the “chosen race”— a phrase which reminded me of Israel.’
Those utterances of nineteen year old Nehru brought out his broadminded approach in conjuring up the vision of India on secular terms abandoning the theocracy driven idea of a chosen race. That kind of imagination of India remained a defining aspect of India’s freedom struggle and constituted the building block of the Constitution in the drafting of which Nehru played a vital role. Today’s Gen Z in 2026 is very hearteningly capturing that vision and it is brilliantly captured by their slogan, “Hindu-Muslim Politics Nehin Chahiye”, “Hindu-Muslim Politics is not Required.”
Nehru on Objectives Resolution
It is of utmost importance to note that Nehru moved the Objectives Resolution in the Constituent Assembly on December 13, 1946. One of the key aspects of that Resolution was that “....all power and authority of the Sovereign Independent India, its constituent parts and organs of government, are derived from the people”; While replying to the discussion on that Resolution, Nehru on January 22, 1947 rejected the divine right to power and said, “It is a scandalous thing for any man to say, however highly placed he may be, that he is here by special divine dispensation to rule over human beings today.” “That is a thing which,” he remarked, “is an intolerable presumption on any man's part, and it is a thing which this House will never allow and will repudiate if it is put before it.” “We have heard a lot about this divine right of kings; we have read a lot about it in past histories and we thought that we had heard the last of it and that it had been put an end to and buried deep down in the earth long ages ago,” Nehru firmly put forth. He went on to add, “If any individual in India or elsewhere claims it today he will be doing so without any relation to the present in India. So I would suggest to such persons in all seriousness that, if they want to be respected or considered with any measure of friendliness, no such idea should even be hinted at, much less said. On this there is going to be no compromise.”
Those words of Nehru deserve to be recalled in context of one of the top leaders occupying a high constitutional office claiming that he is non-biological on the ground of his perception of having been sent by divine power for fulfilling a special mission. Therefore, it is worth reiterating his words articulated in the Constituent Assembly that “It is a scandalous thing for any man to say, however highly placed he may be, that he is here by special divine dispensation to rule over human beings today.”
His firm belief that people are the ultimate source of power and authority led Nehru, like all of the tallest freedom fighters, to pin unequivocal faith on universal adult franchise even before India attained independence. He emphatically stated in his monumental book, “Discovery of India,” published in 1946, even before the Constituent Assembly was constituted on December 9 of that year. In that book he wrote, “I am a convinced believer in adult franchise, for men and women, and, though I realise the difficulties in the way, I am sure that the objections raised to its adoption in India have no great force and are based on the fears of privileged classes and interests.”
Six years before that, in 1940, in a foreword to the publication “Constituent Assembly” by Jai Gopal Narang, Nehru wrote, “I am led to the conclusion that the way of the constituent assembly is the only way. But let it be remembered that this way is not the way of advancing step by step to the haven of Dominion Status. It means the creation of a new state; it means the walking out and away from the economic foundations and structure of imperialism. This cannot be done by the wisest of lawyers sitting together in conclave; it cannot be done by small committees trying to balance interests and calling that constitution-making; it can never be done under the shadow of an external authority. It can only be done effectively when the political and psychological conditions are present, and the urge and the sanctions come from the masses. Hence the vital importance of adult suffrage.”
Thirteen years later on April 18, 1953 while addressing a meeting of Development Commissioners on the theme "Building New India” (https://nehruarchive.in/documents/building-new-india-18-april-1953-2zzwk ) he reflected on the paramount importance of universal adult franchise and said, “Democracy itself, the type of democracy we are dealing with is a very novel thing in the world, you must remember. It is by adult suffrage, which is a new thing in the world; adult suffrage in a country like ours of over 360 million people. You cannot neglect the masses.”
A New Tryst With Destiny
Nehru’s utterances that rulers have the bounden responsibilities to take care of the masses because they are sources of power and authority flowing from the right to vote guaranteed to them under adult suffrage are deeply relevant in the context of Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls leading to mass-scale disenfranchisement of voters. Why should the rulers take care of the masses when they are deafeningly silent on the issue of crores of people getting removed from the electoral roll on account of the malfunctioning of the Election Commission under the leadership of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar who, as per the Indian Express expose of September 23 violated rules and the Constitution while implementing SIR.
Reclamation of universal adult suffrage is essential to recapture the vision of Nehru articulated by him in 1908 when he rejected the idea of a chosen race while studying at Cambridge as a nineteen year old student. It is also essential to underline his worldview expressed in 1940 and rooted in universal adult franchise in 1940 to get the sanctions from the masses.
Nehru on his birth anniversary in 2026 is of enormous importance for the children and Gen Z to refashion the tryst with destiny so that his vision is realised in practice, in his own words, “not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially”