Nehru’s Philosophy of Literature
Dr. S. M. TEWARI
Professor of Philosophy,
Much has been written, and more will be
written, indeed much more can be written on Nehru who was a multi-splendoured personality: a man of many moods and memories,
controversies and contradictions, contrasts and even contrary qualities. He has
been deservedly depicted and dealt with as a freedom-fighter, political leader,
politician, statesman, democrat, angry aristocrat, writer, thinker,
philosopher, artist in public life, revolutionary, liberator of humanity, king
with the common touch, historian, maker of history, nation-builder, architect
of modern India, man of peace, originator of the Non-Aligned Movement,
enunciator of the Panch-sila or the Five Principles
of Political Conduct, sceptic, socialist, secularist,
humanist, nationalist, internationalist, etc.
But as far as I know, no one, if at all any,
has systematically attempted to analyse and examine
Nehru’s philosophy of literature, in the true and technical sense of the term.
It is, therefore, in the fitness of things that I should do on Nehru’s
Philosophy of Literature.
There is a close kinship, an intimate
relationship between literature and philosophy, language and meaning, vakya and artha.
Literature without philosophy is meaningless; philosophy without literature
is feelingless. It is not for nothing that
Shakespeare writes in Hamlet: “Words without thoughts never to heaven go.”
Literature is nearest to its divine origin, when it administers the comforts
and breathes the thoughts of philosophy.
Philosophy is the study of man in relation to
his wordless experience, his quest of truth and conquest of falsehood. Literature
too is the study of man in relation to his artistic expression, his inspired
language, his immortality of speech. Thus conceived philosophy is very near and
dear to literature which is life come to utterance. Philosophy is the highest
experience of which literature is the finest expression.
When individual–out of his joy and sorrow, hope and despair, cheer and tear –attempts to create various forms of literature, he will have to face philosophical problems of wisdom and folly, beauty and ugliness, love and hate, life and death. The study of philosophy is of immense importance in the solution of these perennial problems. I, therefore, cannot help saying that philosophy and literature are closely connected with and mutually helpful to–each other.
What is philosophy of literature? Without
knowing what philosophy of literature is, we can neither understand nor
appreciate Nehru’s philosophy of literature. Hence the first question arises:
What is philosophy of literature? First question must come first.
Philosophy of literature is the latest branch
of literature. It is being studied, especially in American universities, in the
department of philosophy and those of literature.
To my mind, philosophy or literature is an
analysis and interpretation of literature from deeper and higher, reflective
and comprehensive point of view. It is literature come to an understanding of
itself. If philosophy of literature is to become creative, it must render
itself as rich and varied as life itself is.
Nehru has not only created literature but
also philosophized it. As a result, he has developed his
own philosophy of literature, Nehru’s philosophy of
literature is a conceptual analysis of literature. It is his reflective
explanation of literary concepts. Concept of literature, like life itself, is a
slow growth. When concept is subtle, growth is slow.
As a man: If we want to know Nehru’s philosophy of literature, we must also
understand him as a man. The kind of literature that a man chooses to create
depends upon the kind of man that he is. As the man, so would be his philosophy
of literature. As a matter of fact, the man, his thought and its expression go
together.
Let us, then, find out what kind of a man
Nehru was. As a man Nehru combined a fine sensibility of mind, a rare delicacy
of feeling with large, generous impulses. To the weak and frustrated, his
heart went out in profound sympathy. Dr. Radhakrishnan,
who was Nehru’s great contemporary, says: “As a man, Nehru is sensitive, gentle
and kind.” Nehru was a vibrant personality, a great character, beautiful,
sorrowful, generous and free. All this clearly shows that he was a man of many
moods, delicate feelings, intense emotions and sublime
sentiments. Nehru was human, much too human; and he always preferred to be
human. To be human is to be trusting, to be kind, to be co-operative, to be sympathetic and responsive.
Nehru was a creative writer and not a
Professor of Literature in a college, institute or university. This is exactly
why he did not write any book on “Principles of Literary Criticism” in order to
propound his “philosophy of literature.” We have come to know Nehru’s views on
literature through his seminal and celebrated works - Glimpses of World History (1934), An Autobiography (1936), The Discovery of India (1946),
Last Will and Testament (1954), A Bunch of Old Letters (1958), Occasional
Speeches and Writings (1954-64), etc. In and through them he has not
only discovered old facts of life buried under the debris of the past but also
recreated new thoughts to act in the living present. A litterateur is a recreator of the future and not a repeator
of the past like a parrot.
No estimate of Nehru’s philosophy of
literature will be complete without an assessment of him as a litterateur.
Literature is reflection on life and its problems through effulgent words. And
a philosopher of literature is one who has deeply pondered over the meaning of
existence and expressed it exquisitely. In this sense, Nehru is a philosopher
of literature, as well as a litterateur.
Many Indians have won
unstinted praise at the hands of western litterateurs for their conspicuous
ability to speak and write the Queen’s English. Jawaharlal is one more of that
select, band who mastered a foreign language and made
their inmost thoughts known to the world in a manner worthy of the great ones
of English literature.
Nehru’s letters from a father to his
daughter, which were
originally addressed by him from prison to his dear daughter Indira and enlarged later into his Glimpses of World
History meant’ for all children, appeals also to adults in equal degree. In
a letter to the author on the publication of its first edition in English,
Roger Baldwin says: “A very magnificent affair from the point of view of book
production and an equally magnificent affair from the point of view of
scholarly research and arresting presentation.”
Equal concern with the individual and the
world, and the power of fusing the personal with the universal are evident also
in Jawaharlal’s last great book, The Discovery of
It is, however, Jawaharlal’s An
Autobiography, which is his magnum opus, that marks Nehru’s highest
achievement in the world of letters. At once lyrical and epic, it displays his
manifold qualities as man and writer who is an artist of words. The story of
his own life is fused in the story of the nation and its struggle for freedom
and fraternity. The poignancy of the birth pangs of a nation is matched by the
poignancy of personal sorrow that broods over the pages. This is why Aldous Huxley, while commenting on Nehru’s An
Autobiography, wrote: “For those who would understand contemporary India,
it is an indispensable book.” Nehru’s An Autobiography is the biography
of modern India and Indians about whom he wrote in his Last Will and
Testament: “If any people choose to think of me, then I should like them to
say: This was the man who with all his mind and, heart, loved India and the
Indian people. And they, in turn, were indulgent to him and gave him of their
love most abundantly
and extravagantly.”
All this vivid delineation, as depicted and
described in his piece of work is Nehru the man! How noble in reason; how
infinite in faculty; in form and moving; how expressive and admirable is he as
a litterateur! How profound and prophetic is “Nehru’s philosophy of
literature!”
After a concise but critical, short but
systematic analysis and examination of Nehru’s “Philosophy of Literature,” I
feel convinced that he was neither a mere philosopher nor a sheer litterateur
but somehow a queer combination of the two. Nehru was, indeed, a philosopher of
literature which is criticism of life aesthetic.
Life, especially life of feeling, is the centre round which all literary activities revolve. It is
the conviction and conclusion of Nehru that literature becomes effective only
when it reflects the hard facts of life and living. When literature deviates
from depicting life realities, it ceases to be effective and. becomes
defective. Literature is not ficticious but fanciful.
It is not make-believe but real expression of life’s duals and dualities in and
through ornamental language, inspired words, images, imageries, similes,
metaphors, myths, symbols, poems, parables and paradoxes.
Nehru’s philosophy of literature is
essentially realistic without ceasing to be idealistic. It is a creative fusion
of truth and beauty, real and ideal. His conception of literature is democratic
rather than aristocratic. It aims at mass-appeal and not class consciousness.
Like Gandhi, Nehru wanted art and literature that could speak to the millions.
The beauty, sweetness and sublimity of “Nehru’s
philosophy of literature” is that he does not recognize a barrier between
thought and expression. For him, to think is to feel and to feel is to act in
words or deeds. With the philosopher of literature, as conceived by Nehru,
experience and expression go very well together.
The quality of a litterateur is ultimately
the quality of the man. Nehru was a fine fusion of a man, woman and child. He
had intellectual understanding of a man, emotional sensibility of a woman and
perpetual wonder of a child. As a result Nehru’s literature did not degenerate
into a “ballad of bloodless categories” but has become fused with feeling and
welded with willing, which is a preface and prelude to action.
Nehru was an integrated thinker and his
“philosophy of literature” is an integration of cognition, affection and
conation: a creative synthesis of thinking, feeling and willing.
Now Nehru is in eternal sleep that knows no
waking. But India of his dreams is wide-awake. To the people of India and the
world, we “have promises to keep and miles to go” before we sleep. This is how
Robert Frost did poetize and Nehru attempted to actualize it. Dream and deed,
poetry and politics complement each other. With this end in view, Nehru’s
unfinished task is being carried forward without any haste and without any rest
by his friends and followers. As a consecrated consequence, the nation is well
on the way to establish itself as a progressive leader, of the Non-Aligned
Movement (NAM) holding aloft the banner of sky kissing ideals for the
realization of which Nehru thought profoundly, felt intensely, wrote
extensively, worked ceaselessly, lived in earnestness and died in harness.
Nehru’s literary achievements are of the kind
that do not vanish on the wings of time. He has built for himself an imperishabe monument of literature, and his name will be
remembered for ever as an immortal litterateur whose “philosophy of literature”
is a model and despair to all literary writers of our times.