Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru :- The Man Who Made A Tryst With Destiny.
India got its independence from the British rule in 1947. As we already discussed the turbulent state of affairs of India just after its independence in Story of Unification of India Blog, basically the British Empire was about to leave India and needed a proper governing body of India to which it can transfer all its powers.
The whole of India of that time saw how Indian National Congress were in absolute rhythm with the pulse beats of the nation, when its leaders like Sardar Patel, VP Menon, Jawaharlal Nehru and others convinced almost all the divided princely states to join the Union. On the other end, the Drafting Committee chaired by Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar was writing the Constitution of India. It seemed like all the energies of Mother India was once again assembling to rise up to its feet, this time ready to sit back only to her very throne of past glory and supremacy.
How and Why was Jawaharlal Nehru be Made the first Prime Minister of free India?
As India’s freedom struggle was approaching its culmination, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi made his intentions clear that Indian National Congress (INC) should be dissolved. He felt the objective of the INC was to liberate India from British rule; once that goal was accomplished, the organization had no existential purpose. Gandhi proposed that all leaders who desired public service via electoral politics should form their own political party and contest elections. This actually would have been democracy in the real sense.
It is interesting to consider the possible outcomes of such an idea.
Perhaps Nehru would have been rejected by the people, which probably would have been the end of his political journey of the dynasty. Perhaps Sardar Patel would have been India’s first Prime Minister. Perhaps a newer relatively unknown face would have emerged as the nation’s leader following a fractured mandate.
However, Nehru and others within the party understood that the INC had brand recognition such that they could ride the wave of goodwill earned by the party during the freedom struggle. Challengers could be implicitly or explicitly branded as a traitor for challenging the founding fathers of free India. Hence, Gandhi’s advice was conveniently ignored and the INC prevailed.
However, Gandhi’s advice was assiduously followed in another matter. In 1946, an internal election was held to decide the President for the INC would eventually become the first Prime Minister of independent India. Among the candidates were Jawaharlal Nehru, Acharya Kripalani, and Sardar Patel.
The INC working committee and the various state committees had to send in nominations for their preferred candidates. From the very beginning, Gandhi openly favoured Nehru. Gandhi had explained his rationale behind backing Nehru ‘Jawaharlal cannot be replaced today whilst the charge is being taken from the British. He, a Harrow boy, a Cambridge graduate, and a barrister, is wanted to carry on the negotiations with the Englishmen.‘
Gandhi also felt that Nehru was better known abroad and could help India play a role in international affairs. Even Maulana Azad endorsed Nehru three days before the last date of nomination.
The results showed that the members of INC had a drastically different opinion. Sardar Patel who was known to be a great executive, organizer, and leader, won 12 out of 15 state committees, the other state committees abstained from the process. Nehru did not receive any nominations. This was a unanimous choice for Patel while Nehru was resounding rejected. Sardar Patel was on his way to becoming India’s first Prime Minister.
When Gandhi conveyed the results to Nehru, instead of humbly accepting the popular mandate, Nehru’s reaction was that of total silence. Gandhi realized that while that Patel would agree to work as Nehru’s deputy, the reverse would most certainly not happen. Thus Gandhi intervened and asked Patel to withdraw his nomination.
Gandhi unwittingly introduced the anti-democratic culture of the ‘party high commands’ overruling state units for inter-party matters. In deference to Gandhi, Kripalani nominated Nehru and withdrew from the contest. Patel who regarded Gandhi as his mentor then willingly stepped aside in favour of Nehru. Such a supreme sacrifice is unthinkable in contemporary times.
Why Sardar Patel stepped back humbly?
There were two major reasons why Patel accepted Gandhi’s request. Firstly, unlike Nehru, he never had coveted positions or posts, for him satisfaction was solely derived in his service to the nation. Secondly, Patel also knew that Nehru was not one to take rejection well. He had an inkling that Nehru would probably reject playing deputy to Patel and in fact become a fierce opponent of Patel and an impediment as he governed the nation.
He knew Nehru had his myriad supporters who would also join his faction of opposing Patel. Patel understood that this division between him and Nehru would further divide a nation that was already plagued with various problems and was about to undergo an almost cataclysmic partition.
Again, such a selfless sacrifice is unimaginable. But as we all know very well, none other than him can make such an oblation, the very Iron Man of India himself - who had put his all life and blood to unite India as a one nation. How could he then turn down his own idea of unity and akhandata by breaking away with Nehru, the one who was not in a condition to understand and accept.
Nehru was hence ‘elected’ unopposed and his path was cleared as India first Prime Minister. Maulana Azad later changed his opinion about his previous endorsement of Nehru “It was a mistake on my part that I did not support Sardar Patel. We differed on many issues but I am convinced that if he had succeeded me as Congress President he would have seen that the Cabinet Mission Plan was successfully implemented. He would have never committed the mistake of Jawaharlal which gave Mr. Jinnah an opportunity of sabotaging the Plan. I can never forgive myself when I think that if I had not committed these mistakes, perhaps the history of the last ten years would have been different.”
C. Rajagopalachari, who wrote in Bhawan’s Journal in 1972, “Undoubtedly it would have been better if Nehru had been asked to be the Foreign Minister and Patel made the Prime Minister. I too fell into the error of believing that Jawaharlal was the more enlightened person of the two. A myth had grown about Patel that he would be harsh towards Muslims. This was a wrong notion but it was the prevailing prejudice.”
Nehru remained India’s prime minister and continued to be prime minister till his last breath. Hence it is a common belief of many that it is sad, unfortunate, and scandalous that the very first election that would decide the leader of free India was manipulated. It wasn’t only the election but the future of India that was rigged.
Anyways, we can't change what was already written. But still, in this blog, we must also explore how far Nehru took India in his Prime Ministerial tenure of 16 years.
The first Prime Minister of India, to the Indian Constituent Assembly in the Parliament House, on the eve of India's Independence, towards midnight on 14 August 1947, delievered the famous speech "A tryst with Destiny". As a matter of fact, it is considered to be one of the greatest speeches of 20th century.
Tryst means an appointed meeting, an agreement. The speech basically spoke on the aspects that transcended Indian history.
"Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance...
...The ambition of the greatest man of our generation has been to wipe every tear from every eye. That may be beyond us, but so long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over. And so we have to labour and to work, and work hard, to give reality to our dreams. Those dreams are for India, but they are also for the world."
And truly, every sentence of this speech is worth giving goosebumps.
Nehru's Tenure as Prime Minister.
Before looking into the list of achievements and failures of the Nehru government, let us first understand what sort of political ideology he followed and believed in.
Nehru was basically a socialist, means he believed in serving the society. Unlike a capitalist who believes in a competitive market, the core values of a socialist are social justice, social interest and public welfare. It is not that a socialist is good and a capitalist bad or converse, but that the central focus is its particular direction.
Due to slight differences in fundamental beliefs, there are certain political ideologies. For example a communist believes in reward as per needs of citizen but a socialist believes in rewards as per hard work of citizens. Obviously, there are many internal variations of each idea and none is concretely defined.
So as I said, there are many types of Socialism too.
One of such is Revolutionary Socialism. It means that social revolution is necessary in order to bring about structural changes to society. More specifically, it is the view that revolution is a necessary precondition for a transition from capitalism to socialism.
Coming back to our topic, Nehru is often classified by experts as a Fabian Socialist.
This type of socialism was extolled by a British organization in the late 1900s. It advocated a gradual change to socialism through laws, elections, and other peaceful means.
The Fabians constructed a model of socialism which they claimed could be achieved through a programme of nationalisation and delivery of welfare services directed by national government, with some tasks delegated to local municipalities elected by the people, but with effective control in the hands of those who knew best, the professional classes.
Hence, Nehru believed that even a common man can be a part of the entrepreneurial class. Unlike revolutionary socialism, he did not take down all the private companies and capitalist market. He supported a mixed economy model. Therefore, he let the private companies remain, but imposed regulations on it, so that monopolies aren't formed and inequality doesn't sprout.
Additionally, he also formed government companies. He started State Companies called PSUs (Public Sector Units). We've already talked about PSUs in V Krishnamurthy - The Father of Indian PSUs.
Large Public Sector Units like ONGC (Oil and Natural Gas Company), Hindustan Antibiotics, BHEL (Bharat Electronics Limited)etc were started by him.
Apart from this, huge dams and irrigation projects, scientific research institutes such as ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization) and DRDO (Defense Research And Development Organization), democratic institutes like NSSO (National Sample Survey Office), CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General), cultural institutions such as Film and Television Institute and educational institutes such as IITs, IIMs and AIIMs were all established by Pt. Nehru under the control of government.
We should also note that Nehru was a secular humanist.
How does Nehru defend his idea of secularism? If India's parliamentary democracy were to be guided by secular thought – as opposed to communal proclivities – what would be that one factor that would bind the nation's diverse communities together?
Nehru answered the question while inaugurating the Bhakra dam on the Sutlej in in October 1963:
"This dam has been built with the unrelenting toil of man for the benefit of mankind and therefore is worthy of worship. May you call it a Temple or a Gurdwara or a Mosque, it inspires our admiration and reverence.”
Hence, Nehru called welfare institutions as "Temples of Modern India".
Nehru's Foreign Policy
India had just gained independence when it suddenly found itself between two pressing world powers –the Soviet Union and the United States. With a Cold War brewing between the two power blocs, Nehru adopted a strategy to not align the country with either in a bid to maintain an independent foreign policy.
After becoming the second non-communist country to recognise China in 1949 and the latter's occupation of Tibet in 1950 – in which India's complicity is questioned – India signed the five principles of peaceful co-existence, known as the Panchsheel Pact, with China. However, in October 1962, China's People's Liberation Army invaded India in Ladakh, and across the McMahon Line in the then North-East Frontier Agency.
The strongest critiques of Nehru's foreign policy and the present-day crisis at the borders with China.
Nehru is also often blamed for taking the Kashmir matter to the United Nations, after Pakistan invaded Kashmir, which had acceded to India.
Hence, here I rest my case for today's blog, trying to sketch the ideas around the man who made a tryst with destiny.
Thanks,
Daksh Parekh.
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