Nehruvian ideals will continue to live on

Political Scientist

Every society is marked by fault-lines. Some leaders excavate and amplify these fault-lines, force society to remember historical wrongs, and disproportionately inflate these wrongs to whip up irrational political passions. A wise leader builds bridges across social divides, and steers society towards a world where people can work together in harmony and civility, and where they can come to terms with uncomfortable historical memories. Karl Marx had told us that history repeats itself first as tragedy and then as farce. To avoid descent into farce, prudent leaders advise people thus: ‘Yes, terrible things happened in the past; they must never happen again’. Learn from history, do not repeat it.

Famously, the leader who showed humanity the route from violence born out of institutionalised racism to peace through reconciliation; who disdained the concept of victor’s justice, and who promised and delivered on inclusive democracy was Nelson Mandela of South Africa. He privileged negotiation over retaliatory and retributive violence, reconciliation over vengeance, and compassion over victor’s justice. He established a model of conflict resolution anchored in worthy principles of political life: compassion, empathy, acceptance, forgiveness and grant of equal rights to all citizens. That was the genius of the man who had struggled against rank discrimination, and who had spent 27 years in prison, most of it in the dreaded Robben Island jail, in Pollsmoor and Victor Verster.

In India, Jawaharlal Nehru, whose death anniversary falls on May 27, became the prime minister of a country that had been torn apart by the violence of the Partition. He saw his beloved India carved into two. But Nehru, like Mandela many decades later, scorned the victor’s justice. He was above revenge. On January 24, 1948, he gave the convocation address at the Aligarh Muslim University. In the middle of a fluid state caused by the Partition, he said, all of us have to be clear about our basic allegiance to certain ideas. Do we believe in a national state, which includes people of all religions and shades of opinion, and is essentially secular as a state, or do we believe in the religious theocratic conception of a state that considers other people as beyond the pale? The idea of a theocratic state was given up some time ago by the world and it has no place in the mind of a modern person. And yet the question has to be put in India, for some of us have tried to jump to a bygone age. Whatever confusion the present may contain, in the future, India will be a land, as in the past, of many faiths equally honoured and respected, within a tolerant, creative nationalism, not a narrow nationalism living in its own shell.

Today an entire industry has been created to vilify Nehru. His detractors need to be reminded that leadership is not about overwhelming personalities, but about the creation of values that inspire culture and society. Nehruvianism shaped the intellectual culture of India in the years that followed independence, in poetry, theatre, literature, and above all, our loved Bombay film industry. Think of the films that were produced in the 1950s and early 1960s. We discover eloquent and lyrical expressions of Nehruvian ideals. Who can forget the memorable poetry of Sahir Ludhianvi in Dhool ka Phool (1959) produced by BR Chopra, who had suffered during the Partition. Directed by Yash Chopra, the film is remembered for the song: ‘Tu Hindu banega na Mussalman banega; Insaan ki aulad hai insaan banega’. The plot of the film is forgettable, but fortunately the music remains with us even if we disremember the film. Humanity is much above narrow religious affiliations, wrote Sahir, echoing Nehru’s dream of a democratic India where no one would be privileged because of his religion, and no one would be discriminated against on the same ground.

Nehru’s progressive vision taught us to work together towards an India for all. And he knew well the power of the cultural domain over popular imagination. In 1952, addressing the First International Film Festival of India, Nehru said: “Film has become a powerful influence on people’s lives… [films] should introduce artistic and aesthetic values in life and encourage the appreciation of beauty in all its aspects. I hope that films which are just sensational or melodramatic… will not be encouraged.” He invited film experts from across the world to come to India and advise the government on cultural policy, instituted the National Film Development Corporation, the Film and Television Institute of India and the National Film Archives. His values inspired among other film-makers KA Abbas, Chetan Anand, the early Dev Anand, Raj Kapoor, Mehboob Khan and the prime critic of the alienation that modernity brings in its wake — Guru Dutt. Above all, it is popularly held that Nehru was Dilip Kumar’s hero.

We should desist from disrespecting Nehru. History is important because it reminds us that absolute power won at the expense of freedom does not endure. Existing Gods are brought down, new ones are brought to power, and fall suddenly from grace. Fortune, wrote 16th-century political theorist Niccolo Machiavelli, is fickle. What will remain is the success of leaders in bridging the vast gulf that divides people from people. That is why Nehru’s ideals live on, again in the words of Sahir in BR Chopra’s Naya Daur (1957): ‘Saathi haath badhana, ek akela thak jayega, mil kar bojh uthana.’