It's the 127th birth anniversary of India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. A day that was marked with celebrations all over the country with children dressed up like the former premier with that trademark red rose, on the second button hole of the sherwani! He's also the architect of modern India and was a true patriot. His published works, especially the 'Discovery of India' echoes his sentiments and love for his country and I can never forget his heartfelt tribute to the River Ganga in the pages of that highly readable book. He has to be credited with the nurturing of very fine institutions, that have withstood the test of time, with respect to quality and continue to be of world class even to this day.
Nehru's legacy - a very personal opinion.
Was he a good prime minister? Of course he was, because he was a democrat at heart, willingly accepting criticism against his government's decisions and strongly believed in the sanctity of the Parliament. TT Krishnamachari, his finance minister and VK Krishna Menon, his defence minister were ousted from the cabinet when the then opposition called for their scalps when they failed the country - the former in a corruption case and the latter, post Sino-Indian debacle of '62. TTK, on being re-elected into parliament in '64, was once again inducted into Lal Bahadur Shastri's cabinet as the finance minister and remained so till '66 (Incidentally, the point about the LIC investing about Rs.1.64 crores in Haridas Mundhra's sinking companies, without consulting the Parliament Investment Committee, was raised by Feroz Gandhi, the firebrand MP and the PM's son-in-law, which led to TTK's removal during his first tenure!)
It's also well documented that his Home Minister, Sardar Vallabhai Patel's, decisive actions had seen to it that the entire lot of small princely states were annexed into the Indian Union. But where historians of the future - according to my thinking - will blame Nehru will be for two main things viz.:-
(a) The Kashmir Issue.
His statesmanlike approach and the thinking that the then leaders of Pakistan would be as
magnanimous as him made India take up the Kashmir issue to the UN with the rider that the
Kashmiris would be able to choose between India and Pakistan over a referendum after the
the Pakistanis retracted from the PoK, which the wily Pakis never did!
The PoK continues to languish under the Pakistani military and when that country still insists
on the referendum, one can only laugh because conditions have changed irreparably and do
not satisfy the original requirement!
Perhaps, PM Nehru should have asserted the fact that the then king of Jammu and Kashmir,
Hari Singh, had willingly ceded his country to be with India. After the initial announcement
of the Article 370 of our Constitution giving special status for that state to amalgamate with
India, it should have been withdrawn and the normal law that exists in the other states of the
Indian Union should have been enforced, during his life time! This is my personal belief and
he could have pulled it off by the sheer wait of his personality and charisma!! And the problem
would have ceased to exist.
(b) Reservation for the minorities and the down trodden.
It should have been enforced for a short period of about 10 to 20 yrs when the government
should have focused on the uplift of the group, sincerely and with a messianic streak. Sadly,
it was not to be, because wily politicians saw it as a convenient method to play vote bank
politics! The rest is history. Had he taken a firm and timely decision, we wouldn't have had the ignominy of witnessing every community asking for reservations these days which is the
ultimate fallout!
Tailpiece.
And why didn't we emphasise on being proud to be Indians, be Indian and buy Indian? Since independence, during the initial decades, we blindly followed anything that was British. We, still, have a few who speak in 'Oxbridge' accent and scorn anyone that speaks English with the native twang showing a deficiency in self esteem!
To me, this was the greatest error of our post independent leadership - PM Nehru included - for not making their countrymen, proud of their background and rich heritage....to be proud of being an Indian!!
PS.
I must confess of being saddened by a lot of stories about Prime Minister Nehru's background, on the social media, where some have even gone to the extent of saying that he's not the actual son of Motilal Nehru. Be that as it may and the doubts notwithstanding, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had charisma, was the tallest of all leaders of his time and strode the world like a colossus. His currency, "The people simply loved him", was the most enduring of 'em all!
Nehru's legacy - a very personal opinion.
Was he a good prime minister? Of course he was, because he was a democrat at heart, willingly accepting criticism against his government's decisions and strongly believed in the sanctity of the Parliament. TT Krishnamachari, his finance minister and VK Krishna Menon, his defence minister were ousted from the cabinet when the then opposition called for their scalps when they failed the country - the former in a corruption case and the latter, post Sino-Indian debacle of '62. TTK, on being re-elected into parliament in '64, was once again inducted into Lal Bahadur Shastri's cabinet as the finance minister and remained so till '66 (Incidentally, the point about the LIC investing about Rs.1.64 crores in Haridas Mundhra's sinking companies, without consulting the Parliament Investment Committee, was raised by Feroz Gandhi, the firebrand MP and the PM's son-in-law, which led to TTK's removal during his first tenure!)
It's also well documented that his Home Minister, Sardar Vallabhai Patel's, decisive actions had seen to it that the entire lot of small princely states were annexed into the Indian Union. But where historians of the future - according to my thinking - will blame Nehru will be for two main things viz.:-
(a) The Kashmir Issue.
His statesmanlike approach and the thinking that the then leaders of Pakistan would be as
magnanimous as him made India take up the Kashmir issue to the UN with the rider that the
Kashmiris would be able to choose between India and Pakistan over a referendum after the
the Pakistanis retracted from the PoK, which the wily Pakis never did!
The PoK continues to languish under the Pakistani military and when that country still insists
on the referendum, one can only laugh because conditions have changed irreparably and do
not satisfy the original requirement!
Perhaps, PM Nehru should have asserted the fact that the then king of Jammu and Kashmir,
Hari Singh, had willingly ceded his country to be with India. After the initial announcement
of the Article 370 of our Constitution giving special status for that state to amalgamate with
India, it should have been withdrawn and the normal law that exists in the other states of the
Indian Union should have been enforced, during his life time! This is my personal belief and
he could have pulled it off by the sheer wait of his personality and charisma!! And the problem
would have ceased to exist.
(b) Reservation for the minorities and the down trodden.
It should have been enforced for a short period of about 10 to 20 yrs when the government
should have focused on the uplift of the group, sincerely and with a messianic streak. Sadly,
it was not to be, because wily politicians saw it as a convenient method to play vote bank
politics! The rest is history. Had he taken a firm and timely decision, we wouldn't have had the ignominy of witnessing every community asking for reservations these days which is the
ultimate fallout!
Tailpiece.
And why didn't we emphasise on being proud to be Indians, be Indian and buy Indian? Since independence, during the initial decades, we blindly followed anything that was British. We, still, have a few who speak in 'Oxbridge' accent and scorn anyone that speaks English with the native twang showing a deficiency in self esteem!
To me, this was the greatest error of our post independent leadership - PM Nehru included - for not making their countrymen, proud of their background and rich heritage....to be proud of being an Indian!!
PS.
I must confess of being saddened by a lot of stories about Prime Minister Nehru's background, on the social media, where some have even gone to the extent of saying that he's not the actual son of Motilal Nehru. Be that as it may and the doubts notwithstanding, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had charisma, was the tallest of all leaders of his time and strode the world like a colossus. His currency, "The people simply loved him", was the most enduring of 'em all!
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