The God Who Failed: An Assessment of Jawaharlal Nehru's Leadership

by Madhav Godbole

Nehru’s views on Muslims projected in the article in the New York Times Magazine on 19 July 1942 are striking and quite different from the way he spoke after he became the prime minister. Nehru had observed: So far as minorities are concerned, it is accepted and common ground that they should be given fullest constitutional protection, religious, cultural, linguistic and in every other way. Backward minorities or classes should in addition be given special educational and other privileges to bring them rapidly to the general level. The real problem so often referred to is that of the Muslims. They are hardly a minority, as they number about 90,000,000, and it is difficult to see how even a majority can oppress them… It must be remembered that the problem of Indian minorities is entirely different from nationalities with entirely different racial, cultural and linguistic backgrounds. This is not so in India where, except for a small handful of persons, there is no difference between Hindu and Muslim in race, culture and language. The vast majority of Muslims belong to the same stock as the Hindus and were converted to Islam.