THE GENIUS OF NEHRU

DR S. BHASKARAN

As per the Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary the word “genius” means–extraordinary intellectual power manifested in creative activity or a person endowed with a very high intelligence quotient. It is such geniuses who become creative minority in Arnold Toynbee’s conceptualisation, and become creators of civilisation and pioneers of perfection. They are the heroes of history in Carlyle’s interpretation and according to him the history of nations is a cumulative record of the biographies of such great men.

It is in this series of geniuses and great men like Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Alexander, Archimedes, Cicero, Julius Caesar, Ashoka, Martin Luther, John Locke, Leonardo da Vinci, Napoleon, Spencer, Hegel, Marx, Marconi, Newton, Edison, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Lenin, Kamal Pasha that we include Nehru. He was a rare combination of a thinker, analyst and activist. He was at the same time a writer, a democrat, a Prime Minister, leader of the Third World, pacifist, statesman, and humanist. His prison writings, speeches inside and outside the parliament reflect the type of genius that he was.

Nehru started his career as a student of science and later qualified himself for law. Even as a student he was keenly observing the independence movement in its formative period, and came under the influence of Mahatma Gandhi. Thereafter, he shut his eyes to all kinds of lucrative careers and set his eyes on the independence movement and joined it on a full-time basis. Soon he became the spokesman of the Indian National Congress and when India became independent, the Prime Ministership fell on his shoulders. As Prime Minister he gave directions to the country for the next 17 years, and simultaneously playing a pivotal role in wor1d affairs.

His writings reveal that he was a profound thinker and prolific writer. He wrote most of his masterpieces while in prison where he had no access to library and related facilities. Nevertheless, he wrote them with such a precision and comprehension that one is aghast at his photographic memory and sense of history. They are among the 100 best books of the world in terms of language and thought. His speeches are full of lofty ideas and ideals.

When India became independent, the task of healing the wounds of partition, resettling the repatriates, framing the Constitution, administering the country–all fell on his shoulders. He undertook this foremost task of building the nation with verve and vivacity and with discipline and devotion. The task of building a nation in a country which is described as an ethnological museum is not that easy. There had never been a time in the long and chequered history of India when she remained politically united, but for short intervals. The deep differences of opinion between the Hindus and Muslims, the attitude of the Britishers, the inevitable partition and its aftermath have compounded and complicated the already murkier political climate. At this critical moment in the history of the nation, Nehru struck on the idea of secularism. Even a cursory reading of the Constituent Assembly debates will reveal the richness of his thought in all aspects of life such as social, political and economical. It was with great decency and dexterity that he piloted his ideas and incorporated them in the Constitution, once more giving evidence to the type of genius that he was.

As the first Prime Minister of modern India, he wanted to lay the foundation in a solid and substantial manner. He wanted to set up a socialist pattern of society on democratic lines. He thought that the only key to the solution to end poverty, the vast unemployment, the degradation and subjection of the Indian people was socialism. To him, socialism was more than an economic doctrine, it was a philosophy of life. He thought that the State should play a vital role in the life of the people. It is to be noted that he wanted to do this in a democratic way. To him, democracy meant something more than a certain form of government and a body of egalitarian laws it is essentially a scheme of values and moral standards of life. In his scheme of things, democracy meant discipline, tolerance and mutual regard.

Planned Development

Nehru was the chief originator of the great experiment–an experiment in planned development under State ownership and control, but without the sacrifice of either freedom or democracy, an experiment wholly new and unique in the economic history of the world. It was to inspire individual initiative, prevent wasteful channelisation of resources and create conditions for economic development through individual and co-operative effort, and also through the agency of the State with its emphasis on collective endeavour. When the spirit of planning was marred in the process of translating them into action, the planners and administrators blamed democracy for the shortcomings and imperfections and even suggested tighter authoritarian controls. Nehru never succumbed to such temptations as democracy had such a hold on him. If we today have come a long way in industrialising our country, our scientists are there all over the world including the space, we can galvanise nuclear energy for constructive purposes–all the credit should go to this Hercules of a man. And he accomplished all this without sacrificing individual freedoms.

Nehru’s genius also revealed itself through his activities as a pacifist and peace-maker. He found that a large section of humanity all over the world, especially in the Third World countries, have become victims of oppressive social, political and economic forces. He also found the world torn between the two super powers. Being a far-sighted man he could see how the world had come to such a pause as to choose between peaceful co-existence, and total non-existence. He thought that the only alternative was to remain non-aligned and work towards peaceful co-existence He developed the idea of non-alignment and peaceful co-existence based on the richest traditions of Indian ethos. The philosophy of non-alignment was his brain child, and, he was the chief architect of the non-aligned movement. He propagated and popularised his ideas of non-alignment and peaceful co-existence among the comity of nations, especially in the Third World. He, along with Nasser and Tito, made a clarion call to the newly independent nations of the world to join the non-aligned movement in order to save the succeeding generations from the scourge of war and to build the defences of peace in the minds of men. Soon Nehru became the chief spokesman of the non-aligned movement, leader of the Third World, and hailed as the light of Asia.

It is only now that even the nations that considered non-alignment as false and fallacious, immoral and suicidal, started beginning to realise the falsity and fallibility of their notions, and watch with keen interest the steps of the non-aligned movement. World statesmen have now begun to understand better the geometry of the international system and the dynamics of international politics, and look upon non-alignment as a viable alternative to nuclear holocaust and total destruction. It is in this context that one should look at the perspicacity of Pandit Nehru and appreciate his vision of non-alignment.

The next and the most important question is, will Nehru be remembered as a great statesman? One must be thankful when a noble soul takes on itself the burden of political leadership, for politics are always in need of redeeming. They are a backward field of human activity in which our average standard of behaviour is decidedly lower than it is in family life or in our professional vocations. A noble soul goes into politics at its peril, for politics are as difficult to redeem as they are in need of redemption. Politics are intractable. They cannot be redeemed in one short lifetime even by one of those rare spirits that combine high idealism with practical genius. The noblest minded statesman cannot altogether escape becoming a bondsman of his imperious circumstances. To be caught on the sorrowful wheel is part of the personal price that the statesman-idealist has to pay. It is more blessed to be imprisoned for the sake of one’s ideals, than to imprison other people, incongruously, in the name of the same ideals. Nehru lived to have both experiences.

For Nehru himself, his political career, eminent though it was, was not the most important thing in his life, because for him it was not an end in itself. For him, it was a means of serving his fellow human beings, his Indian fellow countrymen in the first place, but not them alone, for his feeling for his fellows embraced the whole of mankind. Nehru has virtually said as much in more than one of his public utterances. He did care intensely for mankind’s welfare and destiny, and his vision of this will be remembered by posterity, if the verdict of history faithfully reflects the fundamental truth about this humanist.

Swami Vivekananda once said, “They alone live who live for others, the rest are more dead than alive.” Nehru will live forever, because he lived for others. In his death anniversary we should rededicate ourselves, rise up to his expectations and help realise the ideas of this genius par excellence.

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