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Nehru broods over Indira’s brood

All of your brood must be gathering this morning at my Samadhi.

Nehru broods over Indira’s brood

Illustration: Sandeep Joshi



Harish Khare

My dear Indu,

All of your brood must be gathering this morning at my Samadhi. 

This ritual never tickled my vanity. I do not know why you ever went along with the idea of having this Samadhi at Shantivan. It was one thing for us -Sardar, Maulana and me — to want to have a Samadhi for the Mahatma. But none of us deserved to be in the vicinity of the great man. Such mausoleums are eyesores in democracies. And, now look where we have all ended up! 

We are stuck with this “dynasty” rigmarole. You started this business of promoting Sanjay. I wish you were stronger than that to rely on that boy. Pardon me for saying so — he was a bit of a hoodlum. Like a doting mother, you indulged him; your duty as the leader of the nation was to cut him off from the Indian National Congress. 

Then, after he foolishly killed himself, you became, once again, weak and allowed your sycophants to bring in that goodish boy, Rajiv, into this demanding party of selfish men.

And then, poor Sonia was trapped in this disagreeable business. And now, your grandson. 

And, what is this utter nonsense I hear about Priyanka? I find it rather repulsive when family retainers suggest that they see a resemblance between you and your granddaughter — and, that, resemblance is all the qualification that is needed to lead a grand old party like the Indian National Congress. 

I must say I find it rather tiring the way they keep invoking my name, as if “Jawaharlal Nehru” is some kind of a tabeez, sanctified by some maulvi, to be flashed out at every illness in the household. I would like to think that my lifelong endeavour was much more than a magician’s legerdemain deployed to trick people into accepting and voting for the INC. 

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Now you asked me what advice can be given to the Congressmen who are demoralised after the recent assembly election results. 

I am amused that every over-clever commentator and his second cousin have once again foolishly written the Congress obituary. This is what happens when leadership is judged, evaluated, accepted or rejected on the basis of an electoral victory or defeat. In a democracy, people change their mind from time to time; they are bound to revise their preference about who they want to follow and heed. If a set of rulers does not perform, does not behave, the citizens will transfer their affection and allegiance to another set of leaders. A democracy is neither an unmovable feudal arrangement nor a permanent authoritarian imposition. Leaders must be shown the door, from time to time. 

These commentators do not know the Congress is an idea that cannot be killed — though I must say your grandson is doing his damn best to reduce it to a non-entity. 

However, what I do want to know is this: has your grandson sat down with his advisers to understand why the Congress was voted out of office in the 2014 elections? How was this disagreeable bunch of odious people prancing around India Gate allowed to worm its way into the Indians' hearts?

They are all children of Hindu Mahasabhaites, those unenlightened, misguided souls who thought that by killing Gandhi they could take the Mahatma out of the Indian political consciousness. They remain unreformed, unreformable communalists to the core. The Sardar would have known how to deal with them. Subas would have cooked their goose very thoroughly. Yet, these shoddy practitioners of old-fashioned Hindu-Muslim animosities were allowed to overwhelm the Indians' collective sanity.

Still, what is to be done? This grandson of yours cannot make up his mind whether he wants the job or not. I wish somebody would drive into this blockhead that he is not doing the Congress any favour. Leadership is not a private affair. I am appalled when the Congressmen say that on this or that matter “the family will decide.” The Congress is not a family property; if the family wants to retain its leadership, then it will have to earn it. 

India has changed. And we — you and I — should be proud to have initiated the process of change, of transforming India from a feudal society and primitive economy into a modern, vibrant, demanding corner of earth. I am not sure I would have been deemed to have all the answers to all of India’s modern problems. I do not know about you, but I certainly would have been mocked out of those vulgar evening television shows where loudmouth anchors outshout their own guests. If this is how Indians get to think of our collective affairs, then they fully deserve every one of these demagogic ringmasters. 

This boy’s problem has remained the same, as it was 12 years ago. He has not defined himself as anything other than being your grandson. He has weakened the Congress brand, if you will excuse my use of this disagreeable modern word. I know this branding business means hoodwinking people, constantly making the consumer feel that by purchasing a particular brand, he/she is buying a superior lifestyle. There is something less than honest with this selling-of-brands business. Clever advertising people can be hired — and, are being hired — to invent clever slogans. I think they call it jumlas. That is the new, changed India for you. 

That may well be. But let us keep it simple. Leadership has always been and will always be a moral project. People will follow, or at least would like to feel they are following, someone because they have been given reason to believe that this or that putative leader can be trusted to pursue honestly the public good. And a leader has to give the citizens a reason to respect him — by his behaviour, by his words and actions — for what he stands for, or against.

A leader needs to induce confidence that he has, what Edmund Burke once called, “enlightened conscience”, that he would work for all Indians and that he would be a steady, trustworthy, and skilled helmsman who could navigate the troubled future that lay ahead for India.

I had repeatedly and tirelessly made the point that the Indian National Congress is a vital instrument for the preservation of Indian unity and integrity. This belief — this creed, if you will — is the foundation on which the revival work must be premised.

And let me make it clear: it is not the “Nehru-Gandhi family” formula that will work. It has to be a Gandhi-Nehru-Patel-Azad-Bose show — uncompromisingly nationalistic, unapologetically secular, unequivocally egalitarian in ideas and policies; and, unfailingly modest and humble in demeanour. 

Dear Indu, I do not know if your grandson can live up to this tall order, but, even at the risk of hurting your feelings, I must say this: there are no dynastic entitlements in a democracy.

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