‘THE HUMAN NEHRU’ ¹

(A Review)

By BURRA V. SUBRAHMANYAM

Sometime ago the Allahabad Law Journal Company published an enchanting book, &titled “The Human Nehru”. The author, Shri Tandon, is a well known journalist of Uttar Pradesh. It is an illustrated book, with many intimate and revealing pictures of our Prime Minister, Shri Jawaharlal Nehru. It contains several unfamiliar photographs of Shri Nehru which give point and meaning to some of the less known incidents in Shri Nehru’s life. The bulk of the incidents relate only to Shri Nehru’s personal life, and bring into prominence fine facets of his graceful character in a manner to make any Indian rejoice that the destinies of his nation are linked with one so clean and so simple, so generous and so straightforward; so full of the wisdom and the goodness of life.

One emerges from a reading of this book with a feeling that one has not seen enough of Shri Nehru or read enough about him. That is a compliment which one unconsciously pays not only to the subject but also to the author of the book.

The author does appear to have had fairly intimate contact with Shri Nehru The intimacy seems to have been of a kind that leads to a close observance of the significant traits of conduct and habits of thought of his subject. The greater part of the narration is gathered from other sources. That is as it should be. Even so, it seems to me, not all the best available sources were touched or thought of. Perhaps I am wrong, but the book gives the impression that the author was content with a few sources near at hand. Lots of important people in India, and unimportant too, with a sense of the piquant and the beautiful, must have many distinctly interesting memories of Shri Nehru stored in their minds and in their hearts; flashes of varying incident; thought and feeling, which throw the eager and colourful personality of Shri Nehru into vivid relief. A reader of this book should be pardoned if he wished that all such people and all such memories had been sought and used to compile a more carefully chosen, even if not a more complete, book of vignettes of Shri Nehru’s life. But this, in a reader, is, perhaps, being greedy.

Even the arrangement or the sequence of the episodes in the book looks a little haphazard. It bears no evidence of a scheme in the author’s mind to present the incidents in any artistic or logical order. The episodes are jumbled up not only in the matter of chronology, but in the matter of the moods and the sentiments evoked. This is understandable in the author because the author, in his preface, “ventures to think” that “the merit of the book” is that it can be taken up by the reader and perused with pleasure at any page.”

I should not, however, be understood, even for a moment, to be saying that the anecdotes, so beautifully described by Shri Tandon, are not interesting. They are indeed most interesting and most illuminating.

Each reader, impelled by his or her peculiar taste and temperament, is bound especially to like some of the anecdotes in this book in preference to the other anecdotes in it. I have my own preferences. I am coming to one of them which held me bound. It is an incident narrated in this book without the aid of photographs to illustrate it. But the text itself conjures up a pictorial news-reel of every movement of Shri Nehru in the incident. It was 1942. Another of our leaders in the Independence struggle, Rajaji, had his acute differences with the Congress Working Committee. He was at the moment rather unpopular. Rajaji was always of a kind to rouse popular emotion by his own seeming lack of it. There was resentment, specially among a large section of the Hindus, that Rajaji, not less than Jinnah, was just then trying to sell the idea of Pakistan all across the Asian continent. Rajaji was also not willing to bless the rebellion that was taking shape for August, 1942. And he was coming to Allahabad to attend a meeting of the Congress Working Committee. Followers of the Hindu Maha Sabha, to whom Shri Nehru was a revered friend outside their politics, were gathering at the Allahabad railway station, with black flags, ready for Rajaji. Rajaji was to be the guest of Allahabad, the guest of Shri Nehru and of all his fellow-citizens. Shri Nehru heard of the demonstrators waiting in large numbers on the railway platform. He had other important work to do, but he did not care. He grew wild with anger that any one in Allahabad should dare to offend the guest, Rajaji. He himself did not agree with Rajaji’s views about the partition of India. Nevertheless, Rajaji was Allahabad’s guest, and Rajaji had a right to hold his own views! There should be no demonstration against Rajaji in Shri Nehru’s home-town! Shri Nehru jumped into the car, and rushed up to the leader of the demonstration against Rajaji, and shouted, “You dare insult my guest in Allahabad. I will have nothing to do with you in future. You shut up.” There was a lashing of sticks and fists. There were hot words, and then hot blows. And Shri Nehru had his share of the blows. But a crowd that loved him gathered round him, and the demonstrators fled, and Rajaji arrived by the next train, and there were no black flags and no slogans of abuse to greet him!

It ought to be a matter for profound satisfaction, all the world over, that India’s young democracy is led by, one so fair-minded and so free from fear as Shri Nehru. For Indian democracy is, and should be, as brave and understanding, as real and genuine, as its leader, Shri Nehru. If it were not, the world faces its final doom in this Asian half of the globe.

The photographs in the book call for special mention. As camera technique they may not reach up to a great deal, but, as living records of moments that cannot be called back, they are superb. There is a picture of Shri Nehru talking to a group of worried pensioners. Shri Nehru’s look in it ought to have killed the petty-minded officer who was troubling the pensioners. There is another picture of Shri Nehru with a poor lady visitor who came to him for a recommendation. The look of trust on that lady’s face is a compliment to any leader of men.

I could go on multiplying my themes of delight in the book, but I must stop with just one other picture. It shows Shri Nehru in the saddest of moods. There are tears in his eyes, but he is trying to withhold them: in vain. It was perhaps the day his mother died. Or, his father, the great Motilal. Or, was it Gandhiji? There is a haunting loveliness about that picture. There must have been moments in the country’s history when Shri Nehru felt no less sad, thinking of the sorrows of his people–and of all mankind.

Having talked of that sad picture, I cannot leave this book on that sad note, without quoting a whole hilarious paragraph from it. Here it goes, in the author’s own fine narrative style:

“Age has not made Pandit Nehru a cynic. His child-like habits and youthful exuberance remain. He loves to roam in the realm of thought, but he is capable of enjoying fun and frivolity also. In 1940, when the inmates of Anand Bhavan played holi with great gusto, Nehru vigorously participated in the frolic…..There was a lot of fun that day. When a photograph was being taken on the occasion, Nehru climbed on to Acharya J. B. Kripalani’s shoulders, and sat there, adjusting himself with the help of others. Acharya Kripalani kept on laughing, saying: ‘Jawahar, you are not a light little child. For goodness’ sake, get down.’ Nehru insisted on being photographed like that.”

It is a funny little story from the book. But we, the readers, accuse the author, and ask: “Where is that photograph of Pandit Nehru perched on Acharya Kripalani’s back? And why couldn’t you get it into this book?”

This book on Shri Nehru ought to be bought and read not only by us in India, but by all lovers of democracy everywhere in the world. It is a book well worth the purchase, because the many less known pictures of Shri Nehru which the book gives are sufficient compensation for its modest price. The many tail-pieces and end papers are superb. They are typically representative of Indian art traditions, and are aesthetically satisfying.

“It is, indeed, a book to treasure. But, because of its pictures of Shri Nehru, and its delightful anecdotes about him, you can be sure your neighbour will not let you keep it–unless you are very, very careful!

¹ By Courtesy of All India Radio

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