Nehru,s Legacy

Nehru’s Legacy--Numerous Issues out of Non-issues and further compounding to Nation’s jeopardy

The euphoria of attaining independence on the 15th August 1947 blurred the ability of many Indians to visualize the large ‘plethora of problems’ that were being bequeathed to them by the so called architect of India’s freedom & democracy- Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru. It is well documented historical fact that the attainment of independence was the fructification of the undaunted efforts made by leaders of all groups/class/creed/caste/community and the masses at large. In this behalf the contribution of ‘Naram Dal’ (Non-violent Movement led by Mahatma Gandhi) was as significant as that of the ‘Garam Dal’ (Direct Action believers led by Subhash Chander Bose) and several others not catagorised as either. It would be a fallacy to draw a clear cut line and place each of the lower rung leaders in one or the other category, because their approach varied from time to time and event to event. However, after the ‘Quit India’ movement in 1942 and the emergence of ‘Azad Hind Fauj’, the colonial rulers had seen the writings on the wall quite clearly and started making visible gestures & postures to finally vacate their unauthorized occupation of the Indian soil enabling attainment of independence. Sensing the air, the prospective leaders of the ‘soil’ started dreaming of occupying the ‘Ruler’s Throne’. It would not be an exaggeration to say that Pt. Nehru had started projecting himself as the PM-in-waiting despite of the fact that Mahatma Gandhi had amply indicated his desire to entrust this onerous responsibility (1st PM of independent India) to Sardar Patel- to whom goes the credit of integrating major part of India by merging 531 erstwhile princely States and thereby reducing the ‘plethora of problems’ for the country. Owing to the threatening postures of Nehru, Mahatma (with strong support of Sardar) finally gave in with a heavy heart and let Nehru fulfill his insatiable ambition of becoming the first Prime Minister of India with the condition that eminent & capable persons (from various other organization) like Dr. Shyama Prashad Mukerjee would also be inducted into the cabinet and that the most sensitive portfolio like Home would be entrusted to Sardar Patel.

Partition: The first and the foremost problem was the acceptance of India’s partition despite Mahatma’s emphatic assertion of ‘Partition over my dead body’. Some sections of the polity believe that the personal ambition of Nehru contributed significantly to this disastrous decision. The post independence history of 60 years would not let anyone believe the pretext that ‘the Partition would eliminate the communal strife’. The facts & figures about the population of each community (Hindus and Muslims) in India and Pakistan establish beyond doubt that the Nehru-Liyaqat Pact- aimed at protecting the minority communities in respective countries- has remained grossly one sided i.e. the Hindu population in Pakistan & Bangladesh has reduced to a couple of Lakhs from 2.40 Crores (at the time of partition) and on the other hand the Muslim population in India has increased to more than 15 Crores from 3 crores (at the time of partition)-more than 5 times as compared to less than 3 times increase in the total population of India. In this context, it needs to be remembered that Dr.Shyama Prashad Mukerjee quit as Minister (for Industries) from the Nehru cabinet on the issue of large scale massacre (accompanied with forced migration) of Hindus in the then East Pakistan. To compound the issue further, Nehru did not pay any heed to very practical & concrete suggestions of Dr.Mukerjee and instead wasted his energy in dubbing the ‘Sincere efforts of RSS/Bhartiya Jan Sangh to strengthen the foundations of Indian Nationalism & National Character’ as communal—a charge emanating more out of jealousy & ‘threat perception to his hegemony’ from the towering personalities of leaders like Dr.Mukerjee and Shri Guruji (M.S.Golwaker).

Kashmir Issue: That partition was a serious blunder proved soon with the Pakistani intrusion into Kashmir with colossal violation of not only the ‘Treaties & Agreements’ but most seriously the ‘Human Rights’. Despite having caught unaware, the Indian Armed Forces countered the attack and prevented total capture of Kashmir valley but one third Kashmir got forcibly occupied by the Pakistanis and later named as ‘Azad Kashmir’. The first seeds of ‘Appeasement Policy’ in independent India were sown by Nehru when he became soft on our legitimate claims over the so called ‘Azad Kashmir’, unauthorizedly occupied by Pakistan. The matter was further compounded by referring this issue to the UN- an act solely attributable to Nehru (through his Radio Speech), much against the advice/wish of the national polity duly & emphatically projected by Sardar Patel. Further complications of this issue occurred due to incorporation of Article 370 in the Indian Constitution, granting special status (purely as a temporary measure) to the State of Jammu & Kashmir. It is a well documented fact that this was done at the personal insistence of Nehru, though Gopalaswamy Aiyyangar and Sardar Patel amongst several others strongly opposed it. The great visionary & real nationalist, Dr.Shyama Prashad Mukerjee not only protested against this ‘disintegrative approach’ but ultimately sacrificed his life (intriguingly arrested on entering J&K and thereafter mysteriously dying in custody) to undo: ‘requirement of entry permit’; ‘institution of PM instead of CM in the State of J&K’; ‘Separate Flag instead of National Flag in the State of J&K’: thereby fulfilling his 3/4th promise to the people of India as expressed in his slogan—‘Ek Desh mein do vidhan (Art.370 and Permit requirement), do Pradhan, do Nishan, Nahin Chalega Nahin Chalega’. Except Art.370 all the rest were fulfilled immediately after his martyrdom. Nehru did not pay any heed to the well founded warning about the questionable national loyalties of Sheikh Mohammed Abdulla which later proved true and Abdulla had to be put behind the bar for anti-nationalism. That Nehru did not let an inquiry to be held in the custodial death of Dr.Mukerjee, was against the norms of justice & fairplay and the reasons for this omission were best known to him only. How big & monstrous was this blunder can be aptly gauged from the current happenings: withdrawal of a legal order alloting a miniscule piece of land, for management by the Amarnath Shrine Board, to facilitate the ‘Yatra’ (by Hindus) in a country inhabited by 82% Hindus where a ‘Huj Terminal’ facility and the ‘Huj House’ stand especially created in the country to facilitate the ‘Huj Yatra’ (by Muslims); open display of anti-national loyalties by the protesters in Srinagar with Pakistani Flag in their hands which has been clearly telecast by the national and the international TV Channels; undertaking of the ‘Muzaferabad march’ by the protesters in Srinagar; massacre of Hindus in Kashmir and creation of a dreadful atmosphere forcing the Kashmiri Pandit to flee and become refugees outside J&K; repeated ‘terrorist strikes’ killing several innocents and the army/police personnel; repeated incursions by Pakistan (though getting humiliated defeats every time) into J&K with the nefarious design of laying unlawful & unfounded claims over Kashmir.

Corruption: Social & Cultural organizations contribute more in building the moral fiber of a society as they act the guides & trend setters of the political parties. RSS is one such organization in our country which has established its credentials as an apolitical body sincerely devoted to the cause of building ‘national character’ and strengthening ‘nationalism’. Unfortunately, Nehru motivated purely on the basis of his personal hatred, started the vilification campaign against RSS and falsely attributed the murder of Mahatma Gandhi to this pious organization (despite strong disagreement of Sardar), and banned it, putting august persons of Shri Guruji’s stature in jail. RSS got more than vindicated when later on the flimsy excuse of ‘not having a written constitution’ was stated by the Nehru Govt. as the reason for their unlawful action against this organisation. The propaganda (branding RSS as communal & anti-national) perpetrated through both the Congress party-mechanism as well as the Govt.-machinery was made mischievously so aggressive that people got wrongly swept by it to the extent of completely clouding the truth and the realty of the ground situation. In the garb of this propaganda, the corruption spreaded in the country a mushroom-like manner, from top to bottom. Nehru shielded the corrupt despite clear-cut indictments by the successive ‘Enquiry Commissions’, thereby totally destroying the moral fiber of the Indian Polity. The ‘license-permit raj’ aggravated the corruption problem to extremely serious proportions reaching its culminations in ‘JMM Bribery case’ and the‘Cash for Votes’-like happenings, incidentally both occurring under the Congress-led regimes.

Unemployment & Poverty: Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of Nation, had through and through propagated the idea of ‘Little Indian Republics’, thereby meaning that the each of the Indian Villages shall be developed in ‘Swadeshi’ manner to turn them into ‘Self-reliant’ entities vis-à-vis the mega models of Westernisation which are antithetical to the Indian traditions & ethos. Dr.Shyama Prashad Mukerjee, as the Industry Minister of the first Indian Cabinet of free India, always insisted on promotion of ‘Cottage & Small’ industries (except for Railways and Fertilisers) to generate maximum employment opportunities and also remain within our financial resources (keeping external debt burden the least), but Nehru had personal fancy for ‘Westernisation’ and the Heavy Industries which proved disastrous for the nation resulting in colossal unemployment and heavy indebtedness. By completely ignoring the sane advice of Dr.Mukerjee and others the problem of unemployment and the connected problem of poverty got compounded seriously.

Lower Priority to Agriculture: At the time of attaining independence, 70% of the population in India depended on Agriculture for their livelihood and further, the country was deficient in food production for meeting the national requirement, forcing dependence on imports. Such a situation called for top priority to Agriculture in our National Plans & Policy. Unfortunately, Nehru getting blindly swayed & enamored by the ‘Western Model’ kept Agriculture at lower ebb and went full throttled after Heavy & Large Industry which ultimately (prior to ‘Green Revolution’) brought the country to the brink of starvation and the total dependence on PL 480-a string-attached food grains-aid programme of USA. It is well known that the policy initiatives bear fruits in due course of time and since the agricultural policies & plans initiated by Nehru were faulty, the country had to ultimately witness farmer’s suicides in large number, which is nothing less than ‘national shame’.

Miscellaneous: The problems like ‘Price Rise’, ‘Inflation’, ‘Internal security’ and ‘External Security’ were significantly seeded during the early post-independence period due to the wrong/faulty policy/planning initiatives. There was no perspective of financial prudence despite consistent rise of inflation, remaining mostly in double digits. There was colossal looseness in exercising control over ‘hoarding & black marketing’ which resulted in terrible and continuous price rise. Policy of ‘appeasement & vote-bank politics’ was followed so blindly & thoughtlessly that instead of putting the minorities in the main national stream it resulted in emergence of terrorism in every nook & corner of the country. The euphoria created by the slogan of ‘Hindi-Chini Bhai-Bhai’ made Nehru completely oblivious to the repeated warnings (which proved prophetic) loudly & clearly aired by Shri Guruji and Dr.Mukerjee against the ill designs of China, resulting in loss of strategic territories much to the detriment of India.

Will there ever be an objective & nationalistic analysis of the entire gamut of issues to let the national polity see the truth and not get carried by the unfounded propaganda.