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Nehru: The Statesman and the Secular politics

By Humra Quraishi. Dated: 11/16/2017 12:00:53 AM

As I sit filing this column on November 14 - the 128th birth anniversary of Jawaharlal Nehru - so I have got to dwell on the bygones. As I close my eyes and let nostalgia tighten its grip on me, there's one particular image of my childhood which holds out in that ongoing way - we were in our ancestral town, Shahjahanpur, and as we'd sat huddled with the rest of the clan in the living room, my grandmother, Amna Rahman, had switched on the radio. As soon as the news of the passing away of Jawaharlal Nehru came through, she'd cried out and had then sat sobbing, 'Panditji gone! What will happen to us! Who'll be there for us …who'll protect us! Tabahi for us …doom for the Musalmans of Hindustan!'
I was a young girl and couldn't really understand the connect between Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru's death and her cries. After all, she was living in one of those nondescript townships of Uttar Pradesh ; far away from New Delhi and also far away from the world of politics and politicians.
But as years rolled by, I could more than sense the wisdom of her words, of her sentiments … the agony she was trying to relay. For her, like many of her generation, 'Panditji' - as Jawaharlal Nehru as was popularly called - stood for secular values, for the rights and dignity of the minorities of this land, for the togetherness of the masses. He was looked upon as a saviour of the under -privileged and under- represented.
Needless to elaborate that after his death the basic fabric got punctured; slowly and steadily. The Muslims of the country started getting side lined if not blatantly bypassed and dumped into varying slots, in the backdrop of an ongoing poisonous propaganda against them. Today as I nostalgically recall those carefree childhood days there seemed little danger of being labelled 'the other' … Muslims of this land lived on par with those from the majority community and one couldn't have ever visualized that there'd come a day when Muslims would be reduced to a second or third class positioning, or get killed out there in the open under any given alibi; beef being the latest alibi to kill the Musalmans of this country.
Yes, rioting did take place even during Nehru's prime -ministership but one was confident that justice would prevail; not like today when even with a cracker burst a bunch of hapless Muslims are thrown into prison hellholes with those horrifying terror tags pinned on them … If there is a crime committed the first to be rounded up are Muslims ; more so now as new ploys in the form and shape of the ISIS are being used by a biased machinery.
When I'm asked - what's the difference between a poor Muslim and poor Hindu? - my spontaneous response is, 'Both are hapless and disadvantaged, hungry and jobless; the only difference is that the very feeling of security is missing in today's Muslims. ' Needless to add that with RSS - BJP ruling at the Centre and in the various States this feeling of insecurity amongst the Indian Muslims is going up. What, with the blatant killings and demarcations and injustices on the rise.
I've always argued that in a democracy it doesn't matter if you have a Hindu or Muslim or Sikh or Christian as head of the government. All that matters is a non - communal attitude of the governmental machinery, so that justice together with transparency prevails. During Nehru's prime ministership that basic feeling of security was high because he was himself secular. If Nehru was around it would have been impossible for the Babri Masjid to have got demolished, or for the Gujarat pogrom to have taken place, or for the RSS pracharaks and mahapracharaks to be ruling this land, or for any of lynchings and communal killings taking place.
NEHRU, THE STATESMAN …
Nehru was a statesman in the truest sense. Several years back, when Iraq was Iraq and not ruined by America's ruthlessness, whilst I was interviewing the then Iraqi envoy to India, I was told that in the 1950s Nehru had gifted one of the bungalows on New Delhi's Prithvi Raj Road to the first Iraqi envoy to India. To this day that bungalow stands out, though, of course, Iraq stands reduced to ruins, intruded into and wrecked by the American forces.
Nehru"s vision and policies vis -a vis West Asia made the entire Arab world tilt towards India and this could be termed a diplomatic feat. He seemed clear about his anti - Israel views and stood in support of the rights of the displaced Palestinians, and with that he made the Arabs and West Asians strong allies of India. Alas! Today there's no Nehru and there's little trace of the erstwhile Middle East or the so called Arab world ;wrecked it lies by the Western policies and American bombardments and intrusions.
And with today's political rulers of India joining hands with Israeli - American fascist powers, who talks of the plight of the Palestinians!
WHAT KHUSHWANT SINGH HAD TO SAY ABOUT NEHRU
I am quoting Khushwant Singh from the book Absolute Khushwant
( Penguin ) -
"Nehru answered Allama Iqbal's requirements of a Meer-e - Kaarvaan - leader of the caravan :nigah buland, sukhan dilnawaz, jaan par soz/Yahi hain rakht -e -safar Meer-e- Kaarvaan ke liye. ( lofty vision, winning speech and a warm personality /This is all the baggage the leader of the caravan needs on his journey )…
He should have been the role model for all the prime ministers of India. He was above prejudices of any kind : racial, religious or of caste. He was an agnostic and firmly believed that religion played a very negative role in Indian society. What I admired most about him was his secularism. He was a visionary and an exemplary leader; the father of Indian constitutional democracy, of universal adult franchise, the five - year plans, giving equal rights to women, among other things. He was better educated than any of his successors, with the exception of Manmohan Singh, and spent nine long years in jail reading, writing and thinking about the country's future …But being human, Nehru had his human failings. He was not above political chicanery. Having accepted the Cabinet Mission plan to hand over power to a united India, he reneged on his undertaking when he realized Jinnah might end up becoming prime minister…He had blind spots too. He refused to believe that India's exploding population needed to be contained. He refused to see the gathering strength of Muslim separatism which led to the formation of Pakistan. He failed to come to terms with Pakistan and was chiefly responsible for the mess we made in Jammu and Kashmir …He was also given to nepotism and favouritism. I first met Nehru in London, when I was a Press Officer at the Indian Embassy, and my first impression of him was that he was short tempered. He could also be ill - mannered …"
*(Humra Quraishi is a freelance columnist based in Delhi and is currently a visiting Professor in the Academy of Third World Studies in Jamia Milia University).