Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru: His Other Side

Nehru and History

Regardless of his educational background in natural sciences and law, Nehru came to history as a proxy teacher to his daughter Indira when she was in school at Mussoorie in 1928. The volume, Letters from a Father to His Daughter (hereafter Letters) (1993[1929]) contains a series of 20 brief despatches which he wrote out of pleasure and sent to his daughter to tell her about the story of the earth, origin of life and the development of human society. As Indira Gandhi later confessed, her father’s letters brought to her ‘a fresh outlook and aroused a feeling of concern for the people and interest in the world around’ (Gandhi 1993). Nehru pursued this interest further in later years and in the ‘peace and quiet of the prison cell’ wrote another series of letters to Indira called Glimpses of World History, between 1931 and 1933 (hereafter Glimpses) (1947) and then the text of Discovery. True to the academic bent of his mind, Nehru used his prison terms for extensive reading. ¹

In Discovery and Glimpses there is the double purpose of (a) enlightening oneself about the world construed as ‘a family of nations’ and its story as the ‘onward march of humanity, of the human spirit’ and (b) assessing and auditing the benefits and burdens of the past in relation to the present and future. While Gandhi saw in history stages of man’s ascent from the animal level to a divine stage, ² Nehru was happy to endorse Enlightenment’s conception of the story as successive stages of foraging, farming and civilisation. He saw history as the interplay of continuity and change. ³ It is true that during his prolonged stay of seven years in England as a student he was smitten by Marxist thought, particularly the centrality of economic factors in bringing about societal change. But from the 1930s subtle changes began to creep into his mind and a vague idealistic trend approaching the Vedantic thought stream set in where human societies are viewed as something much more than groups of individuals procuring and consuming materials. In Discovery, for example, he found Marxism to be ‘too narrow a creed and whatever its virtue as an economic approach, it failed to resolve our basic doubts. Life is something more than economic growth…’. ⁴ His mind now shifts to an ethical approach geared to solving fundamental problems of human existence. He admits the presence of a spiritual element in every movement of thought which affected millions of people and he even attributed the success of revolutions in the USA, France, Russia or China to the presence of this spiritual element. ⁵

Reserving further comments on the changes in Nehru’s conceptions of the role of non-material forces to a later stage, let us briefly consider his views about the very purpose of history. The best guide for us in this regard is the first chapter of Discovery. This twenty-four-page piece is a beautiful exposition of his philosophy of the past. Nehru makes it clear that he was not interested in history as ‘learning a mass of facts and dates and drawing conclusions and inferences from them’. The temporary denial of participation in direct action (people’s struggle against foreign rule) and the prison-life imposed on him, led him to a different kind of action calling for recollection in the mind of the country’s past, for he viewed history as a living process in which the past, the present and the future are ‘inextricably intertwined and interrelated’. He clarifies the nature of his interest in history in a memorable passage:

Some mixture of thought and emotion and urges, of which I was only dimly conscious, led me to action; and action, in turn, sent me back to thought and a desire to understand the present. The roots of that present lay in the past and so I made voyages of discovery into the past, ever seeking a clue in it, if any such existed, to the understanding of the present…. ⁶

He says further that it was this urge of ‘discovering the past in its relation to the present’ which motivated him to write the second of series of letters (also from prison-cells) to Indira now in high school in Switzerland which make up Glimpses. Nehru reasserts this relationship when he says: ‘The past oppresses or fills me sometimes with its warmth when it touches on the present, and becomes as it were an aspect of that living present. If it does not do so, then it is cold, barren, lifeless and uninteresting’. ⁷

Nehru’s quarter-century-long tours across the Indian countryside, commencing with his visits to the oppressed villages of Oudh in 1920, brought out the anthropologist in him. He did not merely empathise with the woes and worries inflicted on the peasants by the colonial administration, moneylenders and landlords, but also recognised the deep sense of the past embedded in their minds. He called this his true discovery. At more than one place in his writings, more particularly in Discovery, while he recognised that the village folk tend to be lazy, superstitious and narrow-minded and that neglect of true historical sense ‘produced a vagueness of outlook, wooliness of mind where fact was concerned’, Nehru paid a glowing tribute to the presence among them of the old Indian tradition. Elaborating upon its contents, he writes:

… Everywhere I found a cultural background which had exercised a powerful influence on their lives. This background was a mixture of popular philosophy, tradition, history, myth, legend and it was not possible to draw a line between any of these. Even the entirely uneducated and illiterate shared this background. The old epics of India, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata and other books, in popular translations and paraphrases, were widely known among the masses and every incident and story and moral in them was engraved on the popular mind and gave a richness and content to it…. ⁸

At another place, while commenting on the positive influence of this cultural tradition on people’s minds, Nehru states:

…So, whether fact or fiction, it became a living element in their lives, ever pulling them up from the drudgery and ugliness of their everyday existence to higher realms, pointing towards the path of endeavour and right living, even though the ideal might be far off and difficult to reach. ⁹

He admits that it is this old Indian tradition, with Dharma as its central concept, which imparted stability and potential strength to Indian society across ages. ¹⁰ These various observations reveal Nehru’s readiness to enter into the minds of others for gaining insights about their feelings and views. These also tell us about his own innate humanistic bent of mind and the importance which he attached to people’s sensibilities and cultural perceptions. Here we are immediately reminded of R.G. Collingwood’s conception of the goal of history as nothing but re-enactments in the historian’s mind of past human experience. ¹¹

Finally, we must note that there is also a true academic or epistemological dimension to Nehru’s views about history. While addressing members of Indian Historical Records Commission in 1948, he said that the conception of history as the record of a large number of kings and emperors was long passé. Amazingly enough, he drew attention to the need for investigations into the sociological and functional aspects of past ages. To put the matter in his own words:

The other aspect of history which has come much more to the forefront—the social aspect of history, the development of the social organism… And I suppose the only way really to record, write or understand history is to evoke in the mind a picture of the living society functioning, thinking and having all the virtues and failings which the human being has possessed… (Gopal and Iyengar 2003a: 106).

Readers will recall that it is precisely these socio-economic goals which motivated Lucien Febvre and Marc Bloch to found the French Annales school of history in the early decades of the last century.

Un-Indian? Un-Hindu?

These are two missiles that are being hurled at Nehru which need reconsideration. He was born in a traditional Kashmiri Brahmin family but, his father’s mind was tuned to a Western way of life. In the early years of his life Nehru was brought up by two English governesses and even developed some admiration for the English people. Although his interest in religion as such was anything but serious, he intently listened to stories from Hindu mythology and the epics, narrated by the elderly women of the family, just as he was captivated by the stories from Arabian Nights. Nehru was exposed too to various pujas and ceremonies performed at home by women as well as Holi, Diwali, Janmashtami, Ramlila, Moharram and other festivals. His knowledge of Sanskrit never picked up despite his being put under a pandit’s tutelage. A resident tutor of Irish–French origin named Ferdinand Brooks took charge of Nehru when he was eleven and initiated him into reading English books of various kinds. Thanks to this tutor, Nehru also developed an interest in science as well as theosophy.

Nehru’s initiation into a Western mode of thinking picked up in intensity during his stay in England from 1905 to 1912, first at Harrow, then at Cambridge and finally in London. This was a period of ‘widening of the intellectual horizon’. At Cambridge natural sciences were his chosen branch of study, but he also developed a general interest in literature, history, politics and economics. While adopting a Cyrenaicist way of life he also began to take interest in the ongoing political struggles back home. He even fancied being a participant in it at some time in future, and developed some interest in books dealing with political relations between Europe and Asia. He developed a liking for Tilak’s extremist views and also started attending the meetings of local Indians held to consider the changing political situation in India. During his law studies in London he was exposed to socialist ideas and took interest in contemporary political movements like the one in Ireland.

From these observations about Nehru’s boyhood and higher education one is perhaps justified in raising some doubts about his Indian and Hindu credentials. But these doubts disappear once we broaden our perspective to cover the experiences and happenings of the later (larger) part of his career spanning nearly four decades. First, let us examine what he understands by India. For him, ‘it is a myth and an idea, a dream and a vision, and yet very real and present and pervasive’. ¹² Far from treating it as an anthropomorphic entity, Nehru visualises India in terms of its teeming millions. Responding to the chant of Bharat Mata ki Jai with which he was welcomed in a Jat village in northern India, he volunteered to elaborate on their conception of Bharat Mata and told them that India meant not merely the lands they cultivate and the rivers and forests but, more importantly, people themselves representing ‘diversities and divisions of life, of classes, castes, religions, races, different degrees of cultural development’. ¹³ In a similar vein, while attending a Diwali dinner meeting hosted by the Indian community in London in 1938, he remarked that Bharat Mata ‘is not the aristocratic and opulent India of the wealthy class, but the India of the villages, the peasant and his struggling family. That is the real India…’ (Gopal and Iyengar 2003a: 670).

This people-centred perception of India by Nehru finds expression at numerous other places in his writings and speeches. In one of his speeches in the Lok Sabha in 1950 he gently reminded its members and the people in general of the lack of a social outlook and of the need for developing a community-oriented spirit among people as an important element of political–economic transformation. We may also recall the feelings of horror aroused in him by the living conditions prevailing in the hovels of Kanpur. ¹⁴

Nehru’s fascination for tribal lifeways and his concern for the welfare of tribal people is well known. He emphasised, on more than one occasion, the need to recognise the identities of tribal lifestyles––socially, economically and psychologically. He went one step further and said that in some ways these folks are superior to so-called civilised groups. He also warned against haste in making them a part of the so-called development. Rather he put forward a set of five principles for developing tribal areas. ¹⁵ He had the highest respect for women of the country and said that ‘it is their unobtrusive work in the household, in the village or in the larger community that has moulded the nation’ (Gopal and Iyengar 2003a: 737). Then his concern for workers even at the lowest level, as reflected for example in the letter he sent to chief ministers asking them to ensure that sweepers are provided with brooms or brushes with a long handle such that they do not need to bend while engaged in sweeping streets and other public spaces (Gopal and Iyengar 2003a: 739).

Nehru had boundless affection for children whom he treated as the nation’s treasure. He readily won their admiration and adoration and his birthday is celebrated as Children’s Day. In his famous message to Children’s Issue of Shankar’s Weekly in 1950 he virtually became one with them and gave several grandfatherly bits of advice towards character building (Gopal and Iyengar 2003b: 581–82). We may also remind ourselves that as the Prime Minister he kept up his promise of gifting an Indian elephant to the children of Japan.

The above instances are just a small sample of a whole series of situations to illustrate that for Nehru India meant first and foremost its inhabitants of all grades and hues, of all languages and faiths, of all levels of living. It is the promotion of their wellbeing, which was the object of all his governmental measures. This conception of India is a reminder to all of us now who tend to equate India and patriotism with mere singing of the national anthem or saluting the national flag on ceremonial occasions.

It is true that in the Lahore-session of the Congress in 1929 which he presided over Nehru said: ‘I was born a Hindu, but I do not know how far I am justified in calling myself one or in speaking on behalf of the Hindus’ (Gopal and Iyengar 1983a: 226). These and such other statements of his on different occasions have been (and are being) used to deny any Hinduness in him. The crucial issue here concerns the very definition of Hinduness. If it is taken to mean mechanical practices like daily worship of images of one or several deities at home or in temple for hours together by way of chanting Mantras or offering milk, ghee and sweetmeats, Nehru surely fails the test. On the other hand, if one frees oneself from these fetishistic traditions and gains access to the inner currents of Hindu religious thought, one is bound to be struck by its spiritual resonance and various ethical ideals and values embedded in it. Nehru’s avowedly scientific bent of mind did not prevent him from reaching and appreciating this inner core. While deprecating superstitious practices, he did concede that religions ‘did supply (answers to) some deeply felt inner need of human nature’. Instances are many where as Prime Minister he willingly participated in the rituals associated with laying foundations of major public projects. Both before and after Independence he did visit temples and other places of worship. Writing in a letter to Indira in 1936 about his visit to the Meenakshi temple in Madurai, he says that, despite being accused of being irreligious, he was there treated as a devout follower and further refers to ‘the great psychological influences’ and ‘numbing effect’ of such religious edifices. ¹⁶

In Discovery there are clear passages that explicate Nehru’s views about religion and science. ¹⁷ He accepts the fact that religious feelings emerge in man as a response to some inner urges and that ‘the vast majority of people all over the world could not do without some form of religious belief’. It gave a set of values constituting the very foundation of morality and ethics. He categorically states that there is an invisible world beyond ‘what we see, hear and feel’, which science cannot explain. And it is here the role of intuition commences. Nehru goes further and says that science, ‘with all its achievements, hardly tells us anything about the purpose of life, and it is here philosophy and metaphysical speculations come into the picture’. He goes further and says, ‘…for the many it (philosophy) was a much simpler affair, which gave them some sense of purpose, of cause and effect, and endowed them with courage to face trial and misfortune and not lose gaiety and composure’. ¹⁸

Nehru disbelieved in the revealed nature of ancient scriptures (Vedas, Upanishads, Bhagavad-Gita, etc.) but he did consider them as sources of virtue and vital energy, exercising powerful influences on the Indian people. While the metaphysics in them did not interest him, he readily admits that in them ‘a phrase or sentence would suddenly leap up and electrify me and make me feel the presence of the really great’. He saw in the scriptures ‘the growth of the mind and spirit of man’. Likewise, he pointed out that the mythological stories, once one disregarded their factual content, ‘appeared in a new light, a new beauty, a wonderful flowering of a richly endowed imagination, full of human lessons’.

Again, while admitting that his knowledge of Sanskrit was negligible, Nehru recognised that it is a language ‘amazingly rich, efflorescent, full of luxuriant growth of all kinds’. He goes on to say that Sanskrit ‘is full of words which have not only poetic beauty but a deep significance, a host of associated ideas which cannot be translated into a language foreign in spirit and outlook’. He only lamented the lack of truthful translations of the classics in Sanskrit.

From what has been stated above it seems clear that Nehru, while he expressed strong reservations about blind beliefs and extravaganza associated with the worship of gods and goddesses as well as about the factual content of tradition, mythological stories and scriptural revelations, readily granted the positive influences exercised by these on the everyday life of people. What is more important, he traced these influences back to the various ethical and spiritual values and ideals lying deeply embedded in ancient Indian cultural tradition. While undertaking this empathy-guided inferential investigation into the old Indian tradition prevalent among the masses, he himself became its votary, albeit one of its original conceptual version.

How come this U turn-like change in Nehru’s mindset who in the Lahore session of the Congress had expressed self-doubts about his Hindu identity? Discovery offers enough clues. His two-decade-long tours across the length and breadth of the country brought him face to face with the reality of everyday life of the common people and their old culture-derived sensibilities and perceptions. It is these countrywide experiences which he ruminated over for two years and a half in the ‘quiet and peace’ of his prison cell in Ahmednagar fort and honestly put down in writing the changed views he now held about his Hindu and Indian affiliations.

Promotion of Scientific Temper

We are living in times of post-truth, and derision is bound to descend upon the very mention of scientific temper of mind. But one aspect of Nehru’s legacy which even his staunchest critics must concede, concerns his vision of the role of science and technology in modern India’s development. Nehru credits his boyhood initiation into the mysteries of science to his home tutor, Ferdinand Brooks. They fabricated in Ananda Bhavan a make-shift laboratory where a series of simple experiments used to be carried out in physics and chemistry. His choice of Tripos in natural sciences (geology, chemistry and botany) for his degree course in Cambridge University further deepened his interest in sciences and strengthened his belief in the societal benefits arising from their applications. His subsequent readings of the writings of Bertrand Russell, Bernal, Haldane and others further convinced him of the role of science and technology in bringing about socio-economic changes. It was this background knowledge which led Nehru, as the first Prime Minister, to provide a big niche for science and technology in both industrial and agricultural sectors. No lees important, he was responsible for the establishment of various science laboratories and for setting up the Institutes of Technology at several places in the country. He also religiously attended and addressed the annual sessions of the Indian Science Congress. What is interesting is the fact that Nehru made use of the extended meanings of the concepts of rationality and objectivity to develop the new concept of scientific temper which he visualised as another Mantra for the development of Indian society.

Nehru invoked this new concept for freeing the ordinary Indian mind from the mazeways of age-old blind beliefs and dogmas. He saw in it a means for enabling the people to understand the raison d’etre of linguistic, cultural, religious and ethnic diversity in the country. ¹⁹ A scientific temper of mind, which still reminds us of the great Mauryan emperor Aśoka’s Dhamma policy, was often the topic of Nehru’s letters to the chief ministers, public speeches and addresses at the annual sessions of the Indian Science Congress. For example, in the Lucknow session of the Indian Science Congress (1953), he reprimanded those scientists who as individuals, still accept or reject things without critical examination. He cajoled them to promote among people:

a critical faculty in considering problems, that evenness of temper, that objective way of thinking which if enough of us cultivated would undoubtedly help tremendously in lessening tensions, national and international, and in going some way towards the solution of these problems. ²⁰

This is again the theme of his addresses at the Calcutta (1957), Madras (1958) and Delhi (1959) sessions of the Science Congress.

But we must warn ourselves that Nehru’s emphasis on science and scientific temper should not be mistaken as arguments for mechanistic application of science and use of cold reasoning in human affairs. On the contrary, he emphasised that these should go hand in hand with the spiritual approach characteristic of the Indian mind and various values associated with it. In the Madras and Calcutta sessions of Indian Science Congress Nehru underscored the compatibility of scientific and spiritual approaches. In a speech in Punjab University in 1959 he flatly refuted the notion of a rift between natural sciences and human sciences, a theme developed at length much later by C.P. Snow in his famous Rede Lecture titled ‘The Two Cultures: A Second Look’ (Snow 1969).

During the tenure of Indira Gandhi as the Prime Minister, the promotion of scientific temper was added to the Directive Principles of State Policy as part of the 42nd amendment to the Constitution. Thus Article 51A (H) enjoins upon every citizen of India ‘to develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform’. Considering the resurgence in recent years of identity clashes associated with a high degree of militancy in political, social, religious and ethnic domains, it is impossible to overemphasise the relevance of the Nehruvian concept.

As a Writer

Nehru’s status as a writer in the English language can be gauged from the fact that his writings have been chosen as an exclusive subject for analysis by two eminent professors of English literature. These are Jawaharlal Nehru as a Man of Letters (1990) by Chaman Nahal and Jawaharlal Nehru: The Statesman as a Writer (2001) by C. D. Narasimhaiah. Lamenting the lack of interest in or indifference to Nehru’s writings among his colleagues in English literature, Narasimhaiah writes: ‘…I am embarrassed that, as highly educated Indians and especially as men of literature, they haven’t cared during all these years to read with attention anyone of Nehru’s half-a-dozen distinguished works…’. ²¹ This is equally true of specialists in historical sciences. However, considering that Discovery, Autobiography and Glimpses have undergone several popular editions and are freely available in book stores, it is clear that these are on the general reading list of many hundreds of educated citizens. This is an encouraging situation and must mean that much merit exists in these writings.

Nehru’s writings display not merely his felicity in handling the English language but are also known for lucidity and transparency of his intentions. These also reflect poetic and aesthetic dimensions of his mind, persuasive and educative tones of his statements and arguments, readiness to admit his own shortcomings and to accept the strength of arguments from the other side, his inner desire to see people around in happy living conditions, and reverential attitude towards Nature. Well-known too are his dramatic use of words and phrases appropriate to the occasion and employment of metaphors taken from everyday life to drive home the importance of an event or situation. Let us consider a small sample of these literary flourishes.

Discovery has several of these gems. As noted earlier, Nehru viewed history as a living process in which the past, the present and the future are inextricably linked. Look at the strings of simple and yet evocative words which he employs for conveying this idea:

The roots of the present lay in the past and so I made voyages of discovery into the past, ever seeking a clue in it to the understanding of the present… The past oppresses or fills me sometimes with its warmth when it touches on the present, and becomes as it were an aspect of that living present. If it does not do so, then it is cold, barren, lifeless and uninteresting. ²²

Nehru’s recognition of the presence of old Indian tradition and ‘imagined history’ among the ordinary people is again matched by the simple and yet highly resonant words he chooses for recording it. He writes:

…Everywhere I found a cultural background which had exercised a powerful influence on their lives. This background was a mixture of popular philosophy, tradition, history, myth and legend. Even the entirely uneducated and illiterate shared this background… So, whether fact or fiction, it became a living element in their lives, ever pulling them up from the drudgery and ugliness of their everyday existence to higher realms, pointing towards the path of endeavour and right living, even though the ideal might be far off and difficult to reach. ²³

Considering the use of metaphors and similes, one is immediately reminded of Tagore’s famous description of the Taj Mahal as ‘a tear drop on the cheek of time’. Nehru used every occasion to emphasise the composite and pluralistic character of Indian society and culture. He puts this wise thought in a figurative language and states that Indian culture:

was like some ancient palimpsest on which layer upon layer of thought and reverie had been inscribed, and yet no succeeding layer had completely hidden or erased what had been written previously. All of these existed…to build up the complex and mysterious personality of India…. ²⁴

One may add to this palimpsest metaphor his description of Khadi (hand-woven cloth) as the ‘livery of freedom’, matching Gandhi’s own characterisation of the Indian cow as ‘a sermon on pity’.

Worth citing too are two or three other instances of Nehru’s wonderful use of language for capturing the mood and spirit of the occasion. Discovery devotes two pages and a half to describing the derelict condition which the country, in body and in mind, found itself in before Gandhi took charge of the freedom struggle. Nehru captures the electrifying effect of Gandhi’s appearance on the scene in these words:

And then Gandhi came. He was like a powerful current of fresh air that made us stretch ourselves and take deep breath; like a beam of light that pierced the darkness and removed the scales from our eyes; like a whirlwind that upset many things, but most of all the working of people’s minds…. ²⁵

Moving too is Nehru’s mid-night ‘Tryst with Destiny’ speech of August 1947 heralding independence. His choice of words not only captures the solemnity of the occasion marking the opening of a new era in the country’s history but also gives a gentle call for the total’ dedication of legislators to the service of the people.

‘The Light has gone Out’ speech he made shortly after Gandhi’s assassination again contains a remarkable string of phrases and sentences expressing human emotions of an intense nature. After expressing his feelings of sorrow, desolation and forlornness, he recovers his composure and pleads with people that ‘we must root out this poison … not madly or badly but rather in the way that our beloved teacher taught us to face them’. He concludes by giving his own estimate of the place of Gandhi in history and emphasising the need to follow his path:

In ages to come, centuries and may be millennia after us, people will think of this generation when man of God trod on earth and will think of us who, however small, could also follow his path and tread the holy ground where his feet had been. Let us be worthy of him. ²⁶

Lover of Literature, Culture and Fine Arts

A. N. Whitehead once wrote, ‘A merely well-informed man is the most useless bore on God’s earth’. He wanted people laying claim to importance to couple their expert knowledge with culture which will ‘lead them as deep as philosophy and as high as art’. ²⁷ Nehru passes this test easily; he was a lover of languages and their literary output, culture and fine arts. He desired Hindi to be a common language of India but he opposed its forced acceptance, for it will make Hindi ‘not a living, growing and vital language, but rather a stilted and artificial one’. Equally, he opposed the use of Devanagari script for Urdu because, as he felt, ‘Each script and each language has a genius of its own’. Nehru was a staunch protagonist of cultural and linguistic diversity and quotes Milton to say that a language mirrors culture of its speakers. In a letter sent to the speaker Mavlankar in 1950, he decries the imposition of Hindi and is sad that:

in such a vital question as language we should forget all artistry and beauty and become the slaves of some demagogues and grammarians who have no conception of art or beauty or the music of words. Each word is a thing of power with a history behind it, calling up images in mind…. ²⁸

In keeping with this line of thought, in Discovery Nehru pays a handsome tribute to the richness of Sanskrit. He writes:

Sanskrit is a language amazingly rich, efflorescent, full of luxuriant growth of all kinds, and yet precise and strictly keeping within the framework of grammar which Panini laid down two thousand six hundred years ago. It spread out, added to its richness, became fuller and more ornate, but always stuck to its original roots. ²⁹

Foretelling what Sheldon Pollock said much later elaborately in his book Language of Gods in the World of Men (2018), Nehru states that in the second millennium Sanskrit literature suffered decline and the language itself lost ‘some of its power and simplicity of style’. Once again voicing the notion that language reflects ‘the poetic genius of a race and its culture’, he emphasise that:

Sanskrit, like other classical languages, is full of words which have not only poetic beauty but a deep significance, a host of associated ideas, which cannot be translated into a foreign language in spirit and outlook. Even its grammar, its philosophy, have a strong content. ³⁰

He further believes that comparative philology, although it has progressed quite far, is ‘sterile from the point of view of a poetic and romantic approach’.

Nehru was equally moved by the literary and imaginative content of the various Indian myths and legends. He often ‘wondered what manner of men and women they were who gave shape to these bright dreams and lovely fancies, and out of what gold mine of thought and imagination they dug them’. ³¹

He respected too the literary and social dimensions of Hindu religious texts. While disregarding their ‘totalitarian claims’ and ‘outward evidence of the practice of religion’, he gently reminds us to

remember the age in which it (scripture) was written, the environment and mental climate in which it grew, the vast distance in time and thought and experience that separates it from us. We have to forget the trappings of ritual and religious usage in which it is wrapped up and remember the social background in which it expanded. Many of the problems of human life have permanence and a touch of eternity about them, and hence the abiding interest in these ancient books…. ³²

Nehru’s literary bent of mind also finds expression in his attitude towards cultural heritage, in which he saw ancient peoples and their lifeways and values. In Discovery he states that his visits to ancient sites and monuments enabled him to form a mental picture of India as

the land of my forefathers peopled with living beings, who laughed and wept, loved and suffered and among them there were men who seemed to know life and understand it, and out of their wisdom they had built a structure which gave India a cultural stability which lasted for thousands of years. Hundreds of vivid pictures of this past filled my mind and they would stand out as soon as I visited a particular place associated with them. ³³

Truly, in the Aśokan pillar at Allahabad he heard the sagely voice of an emperor who ruled more than 2000 years ago. At Sarnath he ‘would almost see the Buddha preaching his first sermon’ and at Fatehpur-Sikri he would encounter Akbar…forgetful of his empire, seated, holding converse and debate with the learned of all faiths, curious to learn something new and seeking an answer to the eternal problem of man’. In the Ajanta paintings he saw ‘a distant dream-like and yet very real world…women in plenty, beautiful women, princesses, singers, dancers, seated and standing, beautifying themselves or in procession…’. ³⁴

Nehru employs the same spirited words of appreciation about and total entanglement and identification with the past while giving his impressions about the famous Buddhist temples in Sri Lanka and Hindu monuments in Southeast Asia. He was struck as much by the magnificence of the rock-cut temple at Ellora and ‘the beauty and serenity of the statue of Buddha in meditation from Anuradhapura’ as by the Sanskrit inscriptions and panels depicting epic stories in the ancient temples from Cambodia and Indonesia. About the Nataraja figure, Nehru happily endorses E. B. Havell’s opinion that it is ‘a majestic conception and an embodiment of titanic power’. He loved ancient Indian music too and noted how it had influenced the music of many countries to the west of the Indian subcontinent.

Nehru’s insistence on the role of science and technology in the nation’s development and his emphasis on the scientific temper of mind did not come in his way of seeking pleasure in simple graces of life or appreciating the artistic and aesthetic aspects of life. He sought an appointment with Bernard Shaw for just treasuring a memory. And he had all the self-confidence to meet and exchange ideas with scientists and philosophers of the stature of Bertrand Russell, Einstein and John Dewey. Presiding over a music concert of M. S. Subbulakshmi, he readily admitted that he was a ‘mere Prime Minister,’ and had the grace to call her ‘queen of music’. In one of his letters to Indira he writes about the aesthetics of tea drinking. He recommends to her that if she went to Japan she should drink tea in the Japanese way, that is, suffusing it with dew collected from the lotus pond before sunrise.

Nehru was also a true lover of nature, be it the onset of monsoon or the beauty of mountains, rivers and forests, or the wonders of wildlife. Describing the first rains lashing Bombay, he says: ‘…they came with pomp and circumstance and overwhelmed the city with their lavish gift…. The dry land was lashed by the pouring torrents and converted into a sea…’. ³⁵ About his holidaying at Kali in the idyllic setting of the Himalayas in 1938, he gives a poetic expression to his feelings of joy and enjoyment:

Day succeeded day and I drank deep of the mountain air and took my fill of the sights of the snows and valleys. How beautiful and full of peace they were…. In the early morning I lay bare-bodied in the open and the gentle-eyed sun of the mountains took me into his warm embrace. I would lie under the pine trees and listen to the voice of the wandering wind, whispering many strange things into my ears and lulling my senses, and cooling the fever in my brain…cunningly pointing out the folly of men’s ways in the world below, their unceasing strife, their passions and hatred, their bigotry in the name of religion, the corruption of their politics, the degradation of their ideals…. ³⁶

No less captivating is his fond description of the Ganga river in his ‘Will and Testament’. He writes:

…She has been a symbol of India’s age-long culture and civilization, ever-changing, ever-flowing and yet ever the same Ganga. She reminds me of the snow-covered peaks and the deep valleys of the Himalayas which I have loved so much, and of the rich and vast plains below, where my life and work have been cast. Smiling and dancing in the morning sunlight, and dark and gloomy and full of mystery as the evening shadows fall, …the Ganga has been to me a symbol and a memory of the past of India, running into the present and flowing on to the great ocean of the future… . ³⁷

Nehru equally admired and respected wild life, and also recognised a fundamental difference between the attitudes of wild beasts and man towards nature. In nature the strong ones kill the weaker ones for immediate food purposes but not storage, whereas man tends to hoard and wages wars leading to mass killings and even rooting out spirit. ³⁸

World Citizen and Statesman

As was the case during the long decades of the freedom struggle, we are again in times when nationalism and patriotism have become a kind of war-cries. Books with eye brow-raising titles such as Nation First, ³⁹ A New Idea of India, ⁴⁰ and Battle of Belonging ⁴¹ have flooded the market. We may briefly consider where Nehru stands in this new situation of views and counterviews. Both before and after Independence Nehru was mentally torn between nationalism and internationalism and their relative importance in the modern world. This mental strife finds expression at several places in his writings. No matter the long panorama of India’s history, with all its greatness and stability, he viewed India in its present pitiable condition as ‘a slave country, an appendage to Britain’. ⁴² Obviously these feelings of emotional sympathy took the form of nationalism.

At the same time he issues a note of caution. Drawing upon the influences of liberal and socialist thought he had experienced during his student days in England and in subsequent years, he says that certain other ideals too have arisen in world affairs, namely, the international ideal and the proletarian ideal. He is aware too of the forces of aggressiveness, intolerance and violence unleashed by nationalism in the western world. He is therefore led to believe that,

there must be some kind of fusion between these ideals (national and international) if we are to have world equilibrium and a lessening of conflict. The abiding appeal of nationalism to the spirit of man has to be recognized and provided for, but its sway limited to a narrower sphere. ⁴³

Nehru’s understanding of the entire story of man inevitably led him to the notion of unity of mankind. Discovery has a moving statement about common inheritance of man. He writes:

What is my inheritance? To what am I a heir? To all that humanity has achieved during tens of thousands of years, to all that it has thought and felt and suffered and taken pleasure in, to its cries of triumph and its bitter agony of defeat, to that astonishing adventure of man which began so long ago and yet continues and beckons to us. To all this and more, in common with all men… (1960: 22–23). ⁴⁴

It is this broad outlook which is reflected in Nehru’s speech delivered at the plenary session of the Asian Relations Conference held in Delhi some months before India’s independence. It fully reflects his inimitable way of fusing the past, present and future. Addressing the delegates from Asian countries, with some of these also newly freed from colonial rule, he reminds them of the rich past of Asia and how it was the cradle of civilisation. Turning to the present, he deplores how this continent became the play-field for rival colonial powers of Europe. Changing the mood to the optimistic, he is happy to see that Asia is emerging from ages-long stagnation and oppression and is now ‘at the end of an era and on the threshold of a new era… taking her rightful place with other countries’. But Nehru was far from being an Asia fanatic. He concludes his speech by clarifying that narrow nationalism deserves no place in world affairs and that ‘Asia stretches her hand out in friendship to Europe and America as well as to suffering brethren in Africa’. Expressing his world outlook in other words, he says that ‘We have arrived at a stage in human affairs when the ideal of “one world” and some kind of a world federation seem to be essential…’ (Gopal and Iyengar 2003b: 231–32).

Needless to say, it is this dual principle of faith in India’s spirit and keenness to protect the nation’s interests and improve the wellbeing of people but in the broader context of the welfare of humanity which governed his entire tenure as the Prime Minister covering a more than a decade and half. He was indeed a citizen of the world and won fame as an outstanding statesman of the twentieth century. His name even reached down to the bottom sections of the society across the world. Writing about his visit to a remote fishing village on the Dutch coast shortly after Gandhi’s assassination, Professor Narashimhaiah (2001: 105) tells us how a simple woman selling curios spontaneously mouthed the words ‘Gandhi! Gandhi!’ after seeing him and briefly closed her eyes in silence, and then with sparkling eyes beamed ‘Nehru, Gandhi boy!’ Indian newspapers also reported many years ago how the police manning a busy Moscow street condoned a traffic-rule violation by a visiting Indian tourist because he was from Nehru’s India!