A Lonely Missionary

India’s first prime minister seems quite irrelevant today in the larger scheme of things, especially in the wake of the 1990s. So why the newfound interest in him?—in 2003 at least three biographies hit the market. In ’91, Rajiv Gandhi’s death seemed to signal the decline of the political influence of the Nehru dynasty. The Narasimha Rao regime initiated reforms that sought to turn Nehruvian socialism on its head. And by the late ’90s "an overtly Hindu form of Indian nationalism", as opposed to the Nehruvian secular one, had spread its influence across the country.

But for his recent biographers, he’s still the man responsible for the making of modern India and, according to one, he even invented the new, post-Independence India. Oxford historian Judith Brown, who wrote the most recent tome, Nehru: A Political Life, agrees wholeheartedly.

Brown feels that despite the failures, Nehru managed to establish a "rhetoric for change and for an open, democratic society". The establishment of such a rhetoric was extremely important and one needs to just look at India’s neighbours to judge what might have happened if he had not gone ahead with his policies. In the end, Nehruvian India became "a working experiment" and many global leaders, especially from other newborn nations, looked to it to succeed.

Unfortunately, it didn’t. And, ironically, Nehru must be blamed for it. Although Brown thinks "he was a visionary, a dreamer of dreams, a man who looked at the big picture", she admits "he had some real limitations". For instance, at one time he was the country’s PM, foreign minister and the Congress party president. "There was so much wrapped in one man" that he found it difficult to deal with these responsibilities. In addition, he didn’t have the ability to manage or delegate. Or create a nationalistic Nehruvian army that could aggressively pursue his policies.

The fact is Nehru didn’t—and possibly couldn’t—trust either senior Congress leaders or younger ones. Throughout his political career, he openly fought with the likes of Sardar Patel who was steering the right-wing lobby within the Congress, and, even Mahatma Gandhi, who, however, still backed Nehru and anointed him his political heir. Post-1947, the younger crop of socialists and communists didn’t like his seemingly contradictory socialist policies. "This was a new generation coming to power, one which began to think in a new light. Their voices were separate from those of Nehru’s," says Brown.

Given these internal and external tussles, as one of his biographers reveals, Nehru had to unwillingly follow the Gandhian way of cooperation rather than coercion. In that sense, he was the first ‘consensus’ PM. But what made things worse was that he was not comfortable with this aspect of politics. "The mechanics of democracy outside the realm of Parliament and elections appalled him. He hated party negotiations and factionalism, an integral part of the internal life of any political party," says Brown. Finally, he got caught up in a policy whirlpool where either his own policies had to be diluted or nothing much got done.

A prime example of this was in the economic arena. The PM’s concept of a planned economy meant little or no room for the private sector. However, when the Industrial Development & Regulation Act (IDRA) came up in 1951, it mentioned that while crucial sectors would be reserved for public sector enterprises, Indian businessmen would have a larger role to play in other areas. In the name of a mixed economy, what the country got was a confused one. Today, Nehru’s pillars of modern India—the public sector—lie in ruins, thanks largely to his daughter, Indira Gandhi, who institutionalised inefficiency and corruption in state-owned firms.

Ironically, the licence raj unleashed by the idra also ensured the growth of select capitalists and produced the so-called "modern kings of industry" (like the Birlas, Dalmias and the Tatas), a situation that revulsed Nehru. Way back in 1929, he had remarked that "I am a socialist and a republican and am not a believer in kings and princes, or in the order which produces the modern kings of industry, who have greater power over the lives and fortunes of men than even the kings of old, and whose methods are as predatory as those of the old feudal aristocracy".

By the late 1950s, Nehru had become a frustrated, tired and embittered man. He regularly complained about the "lack of high morals and the divisions within his own party". He would fondly remember the pre-Independence days when, despite the differences among Congress leaders, the binding factor was a unifying nationalistic fervour to throw out the Britishers. And almost everyone would forget their myopic goals when Gandhi gave a call.

Four decades after his death, Nehruvian ideals have been deleted from most memory banks. But biographers like Brown still want to give Nehru his due: "One has to view him as a man in his time and context." When India gained her independence, the first PM had to grapple with an inheritance that included the impact of World War II, the bloodied turbulence of Partition and the remains of an imperial state. Moreover, that generation had to transform itself from being "opponents of an imperial regime to legitimate practitioners of government". Adds Brown, "Nehru did what was best after taking advice from several sources and borrowing from various models. But he couldn’t jump from the 1940s to the late 20th century."

Following Gandhian ideals, he wanted to stop at nothing less than a social re-engineering that would remove caste, religious barriers. His experiments with panchayati raj and his secularist ideas were steps in this direction. In the realm of foreign policy, he wanted India to have an independent identity and to pursue a policy of non-alignment even while forging links with different countries. (In the process, he became a jetsetting leader who criss-crossed the globe.) Finally, he hoped the Indian economy could shrug off its imperial burden to improve the lives of the millions of its poor. Which is why he opted for the socialist model, where most industries would be under state control.

The dreams have died, the hopes dashed, the vision sullied. However, Brown thinks that Nehruvian principles are still relevant for India. "His core values like greater equality among regions, castes, genders are still valid. What the country needs is people who can make them work." Which in a way means one should go back to Nehru for the vision, and not for strategies to implement them. The same logic would apply to his thoughts about secularism.

In a way, Nehru’s motto was to "privatise religion" and "keep politics away from religious structures". He was aware that religious identification wasn’t important, that religion was simply part of a personal spirituality. No one can deny the justification of this. Similarly, his wish that economic policies should result in growing wealth for everyone across the socio-economic spectrum and not for a select few is a worthy one. "For, is one happy with a vast proletariat heap?" questions Brown. But then can a nation also be satisfied with just idealistic baggage?