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

by Madhav Godbole

Nehru was particularly keen that there should be fullest public participation and discussion in the preparation of five year plans, including in the village panchayats and schools. Nehru wrote to chief ministers in his fortnightly letter on 10 September 1952: The vast majority of our population know little about this [First] plan. It seems to me essential that the common people should have some knowledge of it, some understanding of its significance, some appreciation of how it affects them. I think that some very simple pamphlets in Hindi and provincial languages should be prepared and sent to all our village bodies and gram panchayats and the like, for them to read and discuss it… There may be three such pamphlets-one dealing with the five year plan as a whole, the second with the community development projects, and the third with river valley schemes. There is another approach which is even more important, that is through our schools. These simple pamphlets should be sent to every school and the teachers ought to be asked to read them to their classes, to explain them and even to encourage a discussion on them. (Parthasarathi 1987; p.105)