Exploring the spirit of India in the company of Jawaharlal Nehru’s ghost: Part 1

Manash Firaq Bhattacharya brings for contemporary readers a compelling portrait of Nehru which bypasses a hagiographical presentation while standing strongly in defence of his vision of India.

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The forces of Hindutva have always tried to hunt down Jawaharlal Nehru's legacy. He represents the undoing of all that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh–Bharatiya Janata Party (RSS–BJP) stand for, i.e., modernism, secularism and an inclusive form of nationalism. 

Nehru represents Indian anti-colonial nationalism, which ousted the British from India. A life that is a saga of devotion and dedication to the nationalist cause that neither was and nor could be emulated by the ideological bearers of Hindutva.

Historically speaking, what makes the RSS–BJP even more uncomfortable vis-à-vis Nehru is the fact that Nehru's modernism, founded upon atheism and the scientific temper, posed a significant impediment to the medieval obscurantism bandied by Hindutva, whose fruition we are witnessing today.

One of the baffling questions of modern Indian history is— how Nehru, an atheist-modernist, came to be loved so much by a profoundly religious populace, and that too in times of immense communal tension and inter-religious strife. 

Nehru also succeeded in winning the trust of a man whose conservative yet grand experiment in politics often led to frustration among most of his contemporaries— Gandhi. The latter also anointed Nehru as his sole and most worthy successor.  

At the same time, the most radical progressive trend of the Indian National Movement saw Nehru favourably. Bhagat Singh, in his comparative essay New Leaders and their Different Ideas, written in July 1928 and published in the left-wing magazine Kirti, endorsed Nehru's rationalism vis-à-vis Subhas Chandra Bose's emotionalism.

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Bhagat Singh saw a revolutionary in Nehru, while Bose fitted the bill of a 'rebel.' He wrote: ''Subhas Babu has sympathy for the workers and wishes to improve their condition. 

"Panditji wants to bring about a revolution and change the entire system. Subhas is sensitive. He is giving a lot to the youth, but only for the heart. The other is a revolutionary, who is giving plenty for the head along with the heart.'' 

Bhagat Singh concluded his essay by saying, ''At this point in time, Punjab is in dire need of mental stimulus, and this is available only with Pandit Jawaharlal. This does not mean that we should follow him blindly. 

"But as far as ideas are concerned, at this time, the Punjabi youths should follow him so that they can learn the true meaning of revolution, the need for a revolution in Hindustan, the place of revolution in the world.'' 

In short, the enigmatic Nehru charmed and magnetised all his contemporaries. 

Bhattacharya begins his probing with the question of modernity. He argues that Nehru's optimism for a modern future of India sprang from his innate conviction about "Indian culture's adaptive and open mind". However, this was not to be. 

Thanks to the overdosage of past history, more than required romanticisation coupled with an unreformed society, Indian post-colonial modernity came to be a mongrel. Things have become nastier over the past three decades with the rise of the 'great Indian middle class'. 

The new middle class is economically prosperous yet harbours a deeply chauvinist and casteist disposition. It is educated yet unsophisticated, aspirational yet backward. Religion has transmogrified into both latent and overt communalism. 

Anti-colonial nationalist struggle, the Indian (pre-neoliberal) middle class's last truly progressive act, has now been superseded by conspicuous consumption, lavish marriages and a near frantic chase of charlatan gurus. Nehru could not foresee all this because he underestimated Indian social problems such as caste. 

Bhattacharjee argues that colonialism midwifed Indian modernity, which led to social and cultural values coming into confrontation with colonialism. Yet the confrontation did not cause a permanent rupture. Indian post-colonial modernity became, to borrow from Talal Asad, "a new historical condition where tradition was no longer unmodern (p. 53)".  

Nehru was a passive victim of colonial modernity, splitting him into two. He wrote, ''India was in my blood and there was much in her that instinctively thrilled me. And yet I approached her almost as an alien critic, full of dislike for the present as well as for many of the relics of the past that I saw. 

"To some extent, I came to her via the West and looked at her as a friendly westerner might have done. I was eager and anxious to change her outlook and appearance and give her the garb of modernity (p. 57).''

Also read: What a genuine leftist response to the Hindutva challenge should look like

The split in Nehru was progressive as he opposed imitative modernity and desired an indigenous version of modernity. However, this was not to be. Today, the split is regressive. We are engaged in modernity while keeping our regressive cultural selves intact. 

The most modern means of communication are being put to use for the spread of the vilest propaganda. Mass religiosity, instead of retreating, has paved the way for communalism. Even Nehru's own family members have taken to temple hopping, calling themselves Shiv Bhakts and, worst of all, 'janeudhaari Hindus' (Janeu is a sacred thread worn by 'twice-born' Hindu males.)

The negation of Nehru could not have been bigger. A small anecdote is pertinent here. When Nehru returned from abroad, he fervently refused to go through the prayaschit (atonement) ceremony, considered to be obligatory for Hindu Brahmins crossing the seas. He stuck to his position even though his father, Motilal Nehru, had himself gone through it. 

We must recall what Nehru wrote of religion in his Glimpses of World History, ''I am afraid the next world does not interest me … religion, as every schoolgirl knows, has led to conflict and bitter struggles … even in recent times, we have had innumerable instances of imperialism advancing under the cloak of religion. It is not surprising that Karl Marx wrote: 'Religion is the opium of masses', pp. 44–98)."

Nehru, citizenship and the minority question

Through the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019, the National Register of Citizens and the National Population Register, the BJP tried to stir up the question that was first settled through the Nehru–Liaquat Pact. A concerted attempt has been made to transform India into an ethnic-nationalist democracy. Nehru, Bhattacharya shows, was totally against this idea.

In the context of the refugee crisis, Nehru, in response to Algu Rai Shastri's question, "Who is a citizen of India and who is not?" said, "As far as refugees are concerned … we accept as citizens as anybody who calls himself a citizen of India" (p. 71). In saying so, he "offered the right to citizenship to the people first, and not the State." Nehru was not alone in this. 

The left-wing Congressman from Bihar, Brajeshwar Prasad, who had moved that the first sentence of the Preamble should begin as "We the people of India, having resolved to constitute India into a secular cooperative commonwealth to establish a socialist order," went a step ahead of Nehru and declared "I stand for common citizenship of all the peoples of Asia, and as a preliminary step, I want that the establishment of a common citizenship between India and Pakistan is of vital importance for peace and progress of Asia as a whole (p. 72)". 

One must remember that Nehru took his position(s) in the backdrop of partition and the communal frenzy that accompanied it. His ideas had readymade opponents. In November 1947, Vallabhbhai Patel said, "Muslims should search their conscience … and ascertain if they are really loyal to this country. If they are not, let them go to the country of their allegiance." 

During the Constituent Assembly debates, Nehru was hemmed from all sides by communalists within and outside Congress. He was hauled over the coals for being a Muslim appeaser. 

To this, Nehru responded: ''Do the honourable members who talk of appeasement think that some kind of rule should be applied when dealing with these people (the refugees) which has nothing to do with justice or equity..? If so, I would only plead for appeasement. 

"This government will not go by a hair's breadth to the right or to the left from what they consider to be the right way of dealing, with the situation (refugee crisis), justice to the individual or the group (p. 68).''

What made the position of Muslims precarious was the lingering communalism in India, of which Nehru himself was a victim. As Sardar Patel became the home minister, he appointed the Punjab RSS chief Dewan Badri Das as the province's acting governor, giving the sangh the entire work of organising incoming refugees from Pakistan.

Throughout this period of unrest, Nehru referred to members of RSS (and Akali Dal) as "fascists", "terrorists", and "no different than Jinnah's thugs" (Nisid Hajari, Midnight Furies: The Deadly Legacy of India's Partition, 2015, p. 193).

An exciting anecdote deserves recalling. One night Badruddin Faiz Tyabji, Nehru's close friend, showed up at his place to alert him about the safety of Muslim refugees crossing the Minto Bridge. Bands of Hindu and Sikh marauders lurked to pounce upon defenceless Muslims as they trudged past. 

On hearing about the threat, Nehru dashed upstairs and returned with an old, dusty revolver that belonged to his father. He had planned ''that they would don soiled and torn kurtas and drive up to the Minto Bridge themselves that night. Disguised as refugees, they would cross the bridge, and when the thugs tried to waylay them, Nehru told Tyabji, 'we would shoot them down!'" (Midnight Furies, p. 182). 

The stunned Tyabji was able to persuade the leader of the world's second-biggest nation "only with great difficulty" that "some less hazardous and more effective method for putting an end to this kind of crime should not be too difficult to devise''.     

Nehru-baiters should remember that the Pakistani Constituent Assembly amended the Citizenship Act of 1951, automatically granting citizenship to all who came to Pakistan before January 1952. A 'cut-off date' for an imagined paradise for Muslims of British India was deeply ironical.

Also read: Modi government's projection of Nehru as a 'failed administrator' is as far from historical reality as possible  Modi government's projection of Nehru as a 'failed administrator' is as far from historical reality as possible 

Hard material realities, such as that of resource crunch, it seems, was the natural first blow to the whimsical two-nation theory. Legislatively, this meant that those Muslims who had migrated to Pakistan after January 1952 were rendered Stateless. This act was second only to the tragedy of partition in minoritisation of Muslims.  

An elite bias could also be discerned from the amendments made by the Pakistani government. Vazira Fazila Yacoobali Zamindar, in her book The Long Partition and the Making of Modern South Asia, has shown that the first amendment to the Citizenship Act was to remove the domicile requirements for government servants posted abroad. 

Seemingly innocuous, this was done because the nationality of the Pakistani high commissioner in India, Mohammad Ismail, had come into question. He was a north Indian Muslim who had not physically migrated. Ironically, a controversy arose when he was quoted in a newspaper as saying he considered himself an Indian! This amendment was only meant to encompass the nationality of all government servants. 

For the common Muslims, the Pakistani government unilaterally instituted the passport system, much to the displeasure of Nehru. The passport system aimed to limit the entry of 'Indian citizens,' a euphemism for migrating Muslims. Zamindar writes, "By declaring Muslims of India to be 'foreigners' in Pakistan, the passport regulations came to be a final failure of duty."

The leader of the left-wing Azad Pakistan Party, Mian Muhammad Iftikharuddin, best summed up the situation. He said, "The land and the facilities available in Pakistan are not sufficient to justify the coming of every Muslim, and there are over 30 million Muslims even today in Bharat… Pakistan had failed to protect our Hindus on this side and had failed in protecting the Muslims on that side."

Read Part 2 here.