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

by Madhav Godbole

Nehru wrote: ‘There are many aspects of this communal problem. But perhaps the most important aspect is the psychological one, the prevalence of fear and hatred and passion…

Misuse of textbooks to spread and promote communal hatred was blatant, soon after Partition. In his letter dated 29 September 1951 to Sampurnanand, governor of UP, Nehru had enclosed a cutting from the National Herald which reproduced some sentences found in a Hindi textbook prescribed for VIII standard students. One sentence read: ‘Mere mandir Men Hari Rehta, Tere Masjid Men Shaitan’ (God lives in my temple and Satan lives in your mosque).

Nehru had to write to M.L. Sukhadia, chief minister of Rajasthan, on 14 January 1955 regarding the incidents of conversion of mosques into gurudwaras and temples. Maulana Azad had brought Nehru’s attention to the conversion of the mosques in Alwar and other places.

Asghar Ali Engineer has stated: ‘Nehru also felt that communalism is much more dangerous than an external attack. One could fight with all determination an external attack.’ But the other [communal] attack is vicious, because it gradually creeps into our minds without our understanding its full significance or its full danger.

‘Far from solving the communal problem, the partition had aggravated it as Mahatma Gandhi’s murder evidenced… Several riots took place during the first decade after independence. In 1950, communal riots broke out in West Bengal in Gora Bazar, Dum Dum etc. In these riots thirty-four Muslims and sixteen Hindus were killed and 146 Muslims and 110 Hindus were injured… Throughout the fifties communal violence kept occurring. In 1954, in all fifty-four riots occurred in which thirty-four persons were killed and 512 injured. In 1955, seventy-five riots took place in which twenty-four lives were lost and 457 were injured. In 1956, eighty-two riots were reported in which thirty-five persons were killed and 575 were injured. In 1957, fifty-eight riots were registered and the toll of human life came to fifty-eight with injuries to 316. Thereafter in 1958, forty instances of communal riots came to be reported in which seven human lives were snuffed and 369 got injured. In 1959, in all forty-two cases of communal violence occurred which claimed forty-one human lives with injuries to 1344. In 1960, twenty-six such incidents took place with fourteen human lives lost and 262 injured. This shows that no year was free of communal violence.’ (Engineer 1995; pp.95–6)

Nehru had brought to their notice that ‘the Hindu communal organisations are definitely aggressive and they can play on the religious or other feelings of the majority community. There is also a new motive, which, previous to the partition, was not present. This is the lure of property…

Nehru had earnestly warned people against the mentality of having a competition in evil. ‘You cannot stop evil by evil, for the progeny of evil is evil’, he declared.

Nehru was greatly shaken after the Jabalpur riot in 1962. This led to the formation of the National Integration Council (NIC) comprising leaders of political parties, heads of religious organizations, media representatives, persons with influence in public life and so on.

The year 2013 saw communal rioting incidents jumping by nearly 25 per cent, with Uttar Pradesh, which witnessed major religious clashes in Muzaffarnagar, being the worst affected with 247 incidents compared to 118 in 2012. Data from the Union Home Ministry shows that states such as UP, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Bihar saw a steady rise in communal violence during the rule of UPA II. (IE, 27 April 2014; pp.1–2)

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.

26 March 1958, Nehru had once again invited their attention to the relevant issues. He had poignantly underlined, ‘the real test about a minority community is not how we feel about it, but how they feel… Democracy means rule by majority, but it means something more, that is, full play and opportunity for the minorities… We must always remember that a minority community is a trust for the majority and constant thought should be given to its needs and complaints.’

the arguments against the formation of linguistic provinces: the intolerance which they breed against the minority speaking a different language in the same province, the inter-provincial isolation and antagonism which they bring into existence, the parochial patriotism which they emphasize as against the growth of the nascent national feeling and lastly, the bitterness which is likely to be generated as a result of marking off the boundaries of these provinces between rival claimants

Patel, on the contrary, expressed himself strongly against the linguistic reorganization of states. Speaking at Trivandrum on 14 May 1950, he said, ‘Some people say they want provinces on a linguistic basis like Andhra, Tamil and Kerala. What will be its effect in the north or in the west, nobody cares to consider. We should cease thinking in terms of different states or provinces. Instead we should think that we are Indians and should develop a sense of unity…’

C.D. Deshmukh was in favour of the minority recommendation of K.M. Pannikar that UP be divided. Deshmukh has written: ‘It had no backers, and Govind Ballabh Pant rejected energetically even the relatively minor adjustment of transferring Lalitpur Tahsil, hanging like a thin pendant into Madhya Pradesh, to the latter state; “only over my dead body” he is reported to have said apropos of this.’ (Deshmukh 1974; p.224)

If people go about saying that they will not accept a decision unless it is according to their own views, then that is the negation of democracy… Something of the fierceness of the approach of a bigoted religion comes into consideration of linguistic provinces. Each person thinks that his doxy is orthodoxy.

Nehru was not prepared to thrust his own views on people even at the peak of his power.

Thus the crony capitalism and industrialists influencing the appointment and removal of ministers, as seen later, for example, in the Vajpayee’s NDA (removal of Jagmohan from the Ministry of Telecommunications) and UPA I and II (appointment of Raja as telecommunications minister and the removal of Mani Shankar Iyer and Jaipal Reddy from the Ministry of Petroleum) regimes, was in operation even during the Nehru era!

Every culture and every manifestation of culture should be encouraged. There is no exclusiveness about culture. The more inclusive you are, the more cultured you are. The more barriers you put up, the more uncultured you are… I personally welcome the idea of bilingual or multilingual areas. For my part, I would much rather live and have my children brought up in bilingual or trilingual areas than in a unilingual area… The Bombay Municipal Corporation has schools in fourteen languages, because Bombay is a great city with many language groups… It is the primary responsibility of the majority to satisfy the minority in every matter…

Seervai has rightly stated ‘Preventive detention raises the question of personal liberty in its most acute form.’ (Seervai 1978; p.x)

Preventive Detention Bill introduced by Sardar Patel on 25 February 1950 was one of the memorable events during the Provisional Parliament. The reaction of the members against the Bill was mixed. The Bill was passed the same day with only one amendment proposed by Thakurdas Bhargava. (Kashyap 1995; p.22)

They saw in it an ‘authoritarian tendency’ and denounced it as ‘vicious’, ‘brutal’, ‘a stinking piece of legislation’, and a ‘black Act’. A section of the opposition walked out when the bill was introduced. Opposing the bill, S.P. Mookerjee said that the principle of detention without trial was inconsistent with and repugnant to the principle of democracy.

Nehru also did not make an effort to keep the post of Speaker above party affiliations. Kripalani has underlined that Ananthasayanam Ayyangar was appointed governor of Bihar, after his term of office as Speaker was over. Hukam Singh, his successor, was appointed as governor of Rajasthan after he retired as Speaker. ‘One cannot imagine a Speaker of the House of Commons or of any other democratic assembly accepting the post of a minister [or governor] from the government after he left his office. This simply is not done!’ (Kripalani 2004; pp.856–7)

the constitutional position of a governor was compromised in Nehru’s times. He was looked upon more as a party functionary.

Diverse political parties which ruled at the centre, from time to time, have been responsible for devaluing the position of the governors. The appointment of active functionaries of the BJP, who had to be put to pasture, as governors by the NDA government in July 2014, has not helped in correcting the position. It was as if the minimum age for appointment as governor was eighty years!

Nani Palkhivala, eminent Supreme Court advocate, has written: By the plain device of repromulgating ordinances again and again, they are kept indefinitely alive, while the assembly and prorogation of the legislature are merely interludes in the ordinance raj. As D.C. Wadhwa has pointed out in his book (Repromulgation of Ordinances: A Fraud on the Constitution of India, 1983), in Bihar state alone 256 ordinances were kept alive for periods ranging from one to fourteen years. (Palkhivala 1984; p.xv)

February 1958: I wonder if you know how an agitation is spreading in Madras against the North on the plea that the North dominates over the South and does not look after its interests. Indeed there is a party there which actually claims for separation from India. All this is rather mad. But then we have plenty of mad people in India. Rajaji also appears to have lost his head completely. He is carrying on an aggressive agitation against Hindi and in favour of English… Rajaji actually wants a whole part of the Constitution dealing with languages to be deleted and further wants English to be declared the official language of India… Rajaji has gone so far as even to hint support of the move for separating Madras state from India if his proposals are not wholly accepted. (JNMF 2010; p.346)

Speaking in the Lok Sabha on 24 April 1963 Nehru had said: ‘Our progress should be in the direction of developing Hindi, not only as a regional language, but as a link language and maintaining English to serve that purpose so that there may be no gap.’ (GOI 1964; p.67)

This Parliament—not this building, but this concept of democracy, of Parliament as the supreme instrument of the will of the people—so long as it endures, there is the living monument to Jawaharlal Nehru. So rich are his contributions in enriching the life and heritage of India. BARRISTER NATH PAI

S.C. Kashyap has in his article, ‘The Father of Parliamentary Democracy in India’ quoted what Nehru had said in Lok Sabha on 28 March 1957: We chose this system of parliamentary democracy deliberately. We chose it not only because to some extent, we had always thought on those lines previously, but because we thought it was in keeping with our own traditions, not the old traditions and new surroundings… The system of parliamentary democracy embodies principles of change and continuity.

There were some party members who disobeyed the party whip with the prior approval of the party. Purushottam Das Tandon was, for example, allowed to disobey the whip in 1950 on the Language Amendment Bill.

To some extent we have shaped that history, to some extent we have ourselves been shaped by those events…

13 May 1952 was the first day of the First Lok Sabha. The total life of the first Lok Sabha was four years ten months and twenty-two days. The duration of the sessions of the first Lok Sabha was 876 days. Of these 667 (76.14 per cent) were the number of working days. And the duration of the sittings was 3,783 hours.

The first Lok Sabha devoted 48.8 per cent of its time for legislative business, followed by the budget (General) 18.5 per cent, the budget (railways) 14.6, Questions 14.6, Motions 7.1, Resolutions 6.3 and other business 4.2 per cent.

The occupational background of the members of the first Lok Sabha was striking in that 22.5 per cent were agriculturists, 35.6 per cent were lawyers, 12 per cent were traders and industrialists, 10.9 per cent were journalists and writers, and 9.9 per cent were teachers and educationists, among others. As for the educational background of the members, graduates were 37.1 percent, followed by under-matriculates 23.2 per cent, matriculates/higher secondary or intermediate 18.4 per cent, post-graduates (including technical qualifications) 17.8 per cent, and doctorates or other higher academic qualifications just 3.5 per cent.

The working of Parliament earned unanimous acclaim from experienced Indian and foreign observers who watched it function. The Manchester Guardian wrote on 5 June 1954: ‘Parliamentary institutions have not had a good time in Asia… All that is happening in Asia throws a spotlight in Delhi as one institution of the kind which is working in an exemplary way…Pericles said Athens was the school of Hellas. Mr. Nehru without boasting may say that Delhi is the school of Asia.’

John Strachey, wrote in 1959: ‘Indian democracy with real contested elections, a genuinely exercised universal franchise, competing political parties and a remarkably high degree of liberty of opinion, association, etc., is a marvellous, if precarious achievement for an underdeveloped country.’

The work done by the second Lok Sabha was enormous both in terms of quantity and quality. As many as 325 government bills were passed. Seventy Private Members’ Bills were discussed, even though only two of them could be passed. For the first time in the history of Parliament, there was a joint sitting of both the Houses to resolve the deadlock on the Dowry Prohibition Bill.

Western scholars like Palmer and Tinker had paid rich tributes to parliamentary democracy in India and remarked: The operation of parliamentary democracy in India would be difficult under the best of circumstances, it is further jeopardized by the lack of a substantial democratic tradition in India. Other factors complicating the successful functioning of parliamentary government in India are fissiparous tendencies of many kinds, caste and class and regional, linguistic and religious divisions, and widespread illiteracy and poverty which effectively remove the great majority of people of India from positive participation in political life, at least on the national plane…but it would be quite unwise to conclude that parliamentary government in India cannot possibly operate because of these handicaps. As a matter of fact, it is operating now and seems to be operating with growing effectiveness, in spite of a multitude of problems and obstacles. (Kashyap 1995; p.263)

Nehru summed up his feelings as under: Democracy…is the hallmark of India at present. But, democracy does not consist of 210 million people voting. Democracy, ultimately, is a way of life, a way of reacting to circumstances, a way of thinking and a way of putting up with things we dislike even…

for the third time in the history of independent India that elections for the State Assemblies and Parliament were held together. Polling was held for only ten days

Precedent for conducting elections over a shorter period of time. Saves time, money and state resources.

As regards previous occupation, it was seen that lawyers, after having formed the largest group in the first and the second Lok Sabha, were pushed to the second position in the third Lok Sabha, first position having been taken by the agriculturists.

It is shocking to see the deterioration in the working of Parliament in the recent past. The overall productivity of the fifteenth Lok Sabha was just 61 per cent. From 1952 to 1967, each of the three Lok Sabhas sat for an average of 600 days and more than 3,700 hours. In comparison, the fifteenth Lok Sabha—from 2009 till 2013—met for 357 days and 1,338 hours.

Nehru was always respectful to the Speaker. Nehru had said in the provisional Parliament on 8 March 1948: Specially on behalf of the Government, may I say that we would like the distinguished occupant of this Chair now and always to guard the freedom and liberties of the House from every possible danger, even from the danger of executive intrusion. There is always that danger even from a national government that it may choose to ride roughshod over others; that there is always a danger from a majority that it may choose to ride roughshod over the opinions of a minority, and it is there that the Speaker comes in to protect each single Member… (Kashyap 1986; pp.159–60)

The practice of giving other constitutional position to Speaker, such as governor or minister, started during Nehru’s time was carried forward by subsequent Congress governments by making at least three Speakers (Dhillon, Balram Jakhar and Shivraj Patil) central ministers.

Nehru was deeply shocked with the no-confidence motion. Two days after, Nehru enforced the Kamaraj Plan and carried out a major reorganization in the Congress Party by accepting resignations of six cabinet ministers and six chief ministers with a view to entrust party work to them.

Nehru firmly and categorically declared in the Lok Sabha that in India ‘civil authority is, and must, remain supreme.’

Nehru’s contention that communalism was a middle-class phenomenon and so long as politics was dominated by middle-class elements, it would not be possible to do away with communalism. The Indian experience is quite the contrary.

Subhash C. Kashyap has stated in utter disgust: …it is a cruel joke to talk of secularism where the administration of places of worship can be entrusted to government officers, where under a 1925 Sikh Gurudwara Act, state government spends lakhs of rupees for conducting elections to the Shiromani Gurudwara Prabhandak Committee and this Committee controls the huge gurudwara funds and runs the Akali politics, where no government has courage to enforce the laws in regard to misuse of religion during elections, where parties with communal denominations not only exist but participate in elections … (Kashyap 1993; p.23)

Asghar Ali Engineer has rightly stated: Nehru was somewhat soft towards Muslim communalism, not because he approved of minority communalism. He was unsparing to both minority and majority communalism. He was somewhat soft towards the Muslims as they were backward and more disadvantaged and also because he wanted to allay their fears so that they could be reassured and retained in the Indian Union. (Engineer in Dikshit 1989; p.219) It is difficult to accept the logic of Nehru in the matter. The majority community too had large proportion of people who were disadvantaged, poor and deprived. Nehru’s differential and favourable treatment of Muslims created suspicion about the very concept of secularism and this has persisted to this day.

In reply to a question whether the Nehruvian model of secularism has failed, Engineer has been cautious: Secularism may have come under serious strain…but it has not failed.’ (Dikshit 1989; pp.220–1)