The last decade of Nehru’s life
Reviewed by M Rajivlochan

Jawaharlal Nehru: A biography. Vol three. 1956-1964
by Sarvepalli Gopal. Oxford University Press, New Delhi.
Pages 336. Rs 2,250 for all 3 volumes

The third and final volume of Gopal’s grand biography of Nehru deals with the last decade of his life. By this time the euphoria of Independence had begun to wear off. The economic spurt, a consequence of being rid of the British yoke, had started levelling off. Indians had begun to get a feel of what it means to be on their own without being subdued by a garrison state. The results did not seem pleasing, especially since the State in India now came to be hijacked by local interest groups that showed none of the altruistic traits that had marked the freedom struggle generation. Nehru, Gopal says, was warned of this kind of hijacking by his son-in-law, Feroze Gandhi. The Prime Minister preferred to protect the wrong-doers. When Feroze blew up the financial scandals in Parliament and forced the Finance Minister to resign Nehru did not know how to react. He persisted in protecting those on whom he had reposed his faith. One such was Partap Singh Kairon, the Chief Minister of Punjab. Nehru defended Kairon against the baseless charges made by biased critics like Bhim Sen Sachar. Gopal, though, ceases to be a neutral biographer at this point. He takes sides with Sachar. Even while a hostile inquiry subsequently exonerated Kairon entirely, Gopal persists in vilifying the Chief Minister of Punjab. Gopal divides his study into nine operational chapters. These chapters deal with the diverse themes that caught Nehru’s fancy as he grew older. Kerala, Tibet-China-Pakistan, Cooperative farming, Congo, Nationalism, Goa and the War with China, each theme gets a chapter.

Kerala, as many readers would recall, had the twin distinction of having the first elected communist government in the world and of having that government dismissed undemocratically by Nehru’s liberal democratic government. Gopal explains that away as Nehru’s effort to bring to heel the communists.

The chapters on the complex relations with India’s neighbours are some of the most informative in this volume. Gopal’s location in the Ministry of External Affairs might have helped provide him with additional insights such as are not always available to a historian. Nehru’s efforts at building himself up as an international statesman made him push India into a proactive role in world politics. If Indians form one of the largest groups manning the UN, it is thanks to Nehru and his faith in that world body. Gopal highlights Nehru’s unblemished financial probity. At the introduction of the wealth tax in 1957, when the Allahabad Municipality heavily under- assessed Anand Bhawan, Nehru got it increased by 500 per cent. That was the reason why Nehru liked Kairon so much. He won the hearts of the people and was also able to remove employees for indulging in corruption. There was the issue of ensuring a consistent growth for the economy.

It was during these years that India got stuck with the Hindu rate of growth. Nehru simply could not find a way of that quagmire. Built upon a large volume of Nehru’s letters to the Chief Ministers and his numerous public speeches, this perhaps is the most readable of the three volumes that Gopal writes on Nehru.

If India was lucky to have Nehru’s leadership, Nehru too has been lucky to have a biographer such as Gopal immortalise his story for the future.

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