Declaration of internal Emergency, eradicating the basic human rights of the citizens of India, by Indira Gandhi, in 1975, was not an accident, but a logical culmination of anti-democratic activities started by her father, Jawahar Lal Nehru, the first prime minister of India.
Nehru could not find anything wrong with the practice of nepotism in a democratic polity, though he knew it fully well that nepotism annihilates equality before law, the basic democratic norm which guarantees equality, liberty and fraternity. He appointed his dear and near, including Vijayalakshmi Pandit, B K Nehru and more than a dozen Kashmiri Brahmins, in socio-political and administrative positions in free India, ignoring the natural rights of the highly competent persons who rendered valuable services during the freedom struggle. Nehru who has been hailed as the apostle of freedom of expression by his fanfare could not find anything wrong when he issued orders to arrest Majrooh Sultan Puri, the Hindi poet, who criticized the former for his decision to enroll India as the member of the Commonwealth in 1951. Nehru could not find anything wrong in taking administrative decisions violating the rules and regulations, designed to ensure administrative justice to the citizens of a democratic country. Why Nehru was incapable to realize a very simple fact that the implementation of rules and regulations is the basic element that safeguards the democratic rights of the citizens remains as the question unasked by his fanfare.
However, Nehru cultivated an army of sycophants who vied with each other to project him as the “favorite son” and “political heir” of Mahatma Gandhi and the redeemer of democracy. Comparing Sardar Patel and Nehru, Ramachandra Guha wrote: “But he (Patel) had deep emotional bond with Mahatma. Like Patel he (Nehru) generally called Gandhi Bapu or father. But he was in many ways the favorite son (dearer by far than the biological children of Mahatma) and also his chosen political heir.” (India After Gandhi, P. 22)
Guha imagines that the “deep emotional bond” of Patel had been overcome by Nehru, being the “favorite son” and the “chosen political heir” of Mahatma. It is the general norm in every logical discourse that conclusions can be drawn only on the basis of facts. Writings on the historical facts also can never be an exception to this norm. Unfortunately, Guha had drawn the conclusion that Nehru was the favorite son and the chosen political heir of Mahatma without having sufficient materials on record. As a historian, he is expected to draw conclusions based on facts and not on his personal likes and dislikes.
Guha has revealed in his writings that Mahatma and Nehru expressed strong ideological disagreements in 1927 itself. At the end of that disagreement Gandhi opined that “I do not know whether you (Nehru) still believe in unadulterated non-violence” on 4/1/1928 in a letter to Nehru. Nehru in turn replied that he lost faith in the Gandhian ideals. Keeping deep sorrow in mind, Gandhi stated in the reply to Nehru that, “there is no meeting ground between us” on 17/1/1928. If Gandhi could not find a meeting ground between himself and Nehru then, how Nehru can be adjudged as his favorite son and political heir is the question that is being ignored. Gandhi believed in the deep-rooted spiritual principles — truth (Satya) and non-violence (ahimsa) narrated in the Vedic tradition. He firmly believed and propagated that, truth and non-violence are the basic norms which preserve life and universe. He made it clear that, truth and non-violence are the inseparable and identical terms and they cannot be separated at any means. He illustrated many times that, satya and ahimsa are eternal principles which have been originated along with the origin of the of the universe. Gandhi believed in the spiritual dimensions of political activity and taught his disciples that “politics without spirituality is disastrous” because, like every just action, political activity also should be based on truth and nonviolence.
Everyone who tries to understand Gandhi agrees on a point that he was a spiritual leader more than a socio-political leader. Nehru, on the contrary, never believed in spirituality and he paid little attention to the Vedic tradition of India. Gandhi assimilated the spirituality of the Indian Vedic tradition, especially the spiritual principles illustrated by the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, the two great epics which laid the foundation for the practice Indian virtues in the context of human life. As an unconditional devotee of Rama, he believed that, Rama is the incarnation of Dharma, which is nothing but the manifestation of Satya and ahimsa in human context. He envisioned the establishment of ideal democratic polity is possible only in the “Rama Rajya”, a polity ruled by the spiritual dimensions of equality, liberty, and fraternity apart from their socio-legal implications.
Nehru discarded the spiritual dimensions of political activity because he was a self-proclaimed irreligious person who retained no hesitation to practice the religious rituals if, they are beneficial to him. A point to be noted is that Gandhi had not given importance to the practice of religious rituals despite being a deep-rooted religious person.
Nehru, on the contrary, believed in Russian mode of socialism and European concept of secularism. Nehru, being an irreligious Eurocentric person, was unable to admit the role of religion in public as well as private life. Gandhi stood for religious unity because he believed that every religion is equal to the other. No religion is neither superior nor inferior and equal status should be given to all religions. But Nehru told Gandhi that, Hindu-Muslim unity, which was one of the favorite notions of Gandhi, had little meaning in a secular society because, religion becomes irrelevant in an irreligious society. He insisted that man never needs religion to lead a peaceful life in a pluralistic modern society. Naturally, Nehru rejected the very idea of spiritual content in political activity. Then, the question is how Nehru can be termed as a Gandhian as, Gandhi has rightly pointed out that “there is no common ground” between them. Since, Gandhi and Nehru did not agree on the fundamental points of political activity in a democratic polity, then under what logic Nehru can be considered the “political heir” of Gandhi.
Nehru thought that Russian mode of socialism, was the panacea for all the problems related to socio-economic inequalities. Socialism in Russia was implemented after the October Revolution held in 1917. It was a violent blood shed revolution in which the communist party comrades annihilated their designated class enemies and captured power on the presumption of the moral dictum that ‘ends justify means’. The communists believe that violence can bring peace and equality on earth and Nehru shared their belief at least in the case of Russian revolution. Gandhi insisted that ends and means are inseparably related and the purity of ends and means should be kept intact. So, he argued that foul means cannot bring fair ends and he opposed every form of violence at all levels.
Nehru failed miserably to find any fault with the practice of violence and the consequent immorality and crime committed by the party comrades in the October Revolution which was instrumental for the emergence of a new mode of governance in the world. Nehru kept very high opinion about Lenin, the architect of Russian revolution, and he narrated his greatness in a book he wrote on Lenin and USSR after visiting the country on the occasion of the celebration of the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution 2027. Then, under what logic Nehru can be designated as the political heir of Gandhi.
But Gandhi declared it openly that, anything that is being built upon violence would never last long and ultimately such an event would be disastrous to the entire society. Hence, Gandhi could not appreciate the Russian revolution and he deplored the violence lashed on the people of Russia by the communist party under the leadership of Lenin. Gandhi could not make compromise on violent methods to establish an egalitarian society because he firmly believed that violence itself annihilates the very concept of equality. He also believed that adulterated violence is more dangerous than the actual violence because adulterated violence includes hypocrisy apart from violence. Then, the straight question is how can Nehru who openly deviated from the core Gandhian path discarding Satya and Ahimsa be treated as the ‘disciple’ and ‘favorite son’ of Gandhi? His belief in half-baked violence and the hypocrisy he practiced made him acceptable to the so called left socialist group during the period of freedom struggle.
There is nothing common between India-centric Gandhi and Euro-centric Nehru. But his sycophants could find Nehru as the ‘favorite son’ and ‘political heir’ of Mahatma Gandhi. The political heirship had been bestowed upon Nehru by a group of western journalists without having proper evidence. When, where and in what context Gandhi has made this statement that Nehru would be his political heir still remain unknown. Gandhi knew it better that Nehru attained each position in political life not on his merit alone but on the efforts of the push and pull exercised by his father Motilal Nehru, too. Motilal is the only political personality, during the period of freedom movement, who tried hard to establish family fiefdom in political activity. Gandhi, being an uncompromising democrat, never encouraged the family fiefdom in public life because, he knew that, democracy entertains only merit and service as the criterion to occupy positions in public life. How much meritorious service a person has rendered is to be assessed before awarding positions in public life and that has been accepted as the basic norm of democratic polity. The rule of family fiefdom, on the contrary believes that, qualities inherited from the family are superior and that should be treated as the basic qualification to occupy a position in public life. The rule of family fiefdom and the rule of democracy cannot go together.
Motilal Nehru was a shrewd businessman who invested money to get the amount back with maximum profit. He openly said to Gandhi that he spent money for Congress to get his son elected to the position of president of Indian National Congress. In 1927, Motilal pestered Gandhi to get his son appointed as the president of the Indian National Congress as he knew that Gandhi was entrusted to select the president by the working committee. Gandhi refused to oblige to the demand of the father-Nehru to appoint the son-Nehru as the president. However, Gandhi appointed the father Nehru as the president and the father Nehru could hurriedly accommodate his son as the salaried working general secretary of the Indian National Congress. Interestingly, such a position was not incorporated in the rule book of the party. Immediately after getting the position of the so-called working General Secretary son-Nehru was elevated to the position of the president of the party in 1928.
Motilal kept very little respect for Gandhi. In an occasion, he even advised Gandhi to retire from active politics as he thought that Gandhi could no longer carry the country with him because some of his followers deserted Gandhi at that time. As an ambitious family chieftain, he wrote to his son Jawahar, while the son-Nehru was a student at Harrow, that he was ‘the founder of Nehru family’ and he requested his son to build upon the foundation. The son-Nehru, being an obedient son built up the towers of his family on the foundations laid on by his father. The son-Nehru could appoint his daughter as the general secretary of Indian National Congress when he enjoyed the presidentship of the party along with the position of prime minister of India. Later on, she could get appointed as the president of the party subsequently prime minister of India. She did not show any hesitation to declare internal emergency when she sensed the tremors of threat against her position. Following the footsteps of her grandfather she accommodated her younger son, Sanjay Gandhi, as her close confidant in the party during the period of emergency. She ruthlessly suppressed all her political opponents, including Jayaprakash Narain, during the period of Emergency negating the natural right of the citizens to mark their dissents.
Nehru practiced a unique method to eliminate the persons whom he thought as his political opponents from Indian National Congress. He could excommunicate Subhas Chandra Bose, who was more brilliant and better educated than him. He kept complete enmity with Sardar Patel and he has even shown disrespect to the dead body Patel. He was really, afraid of Savarkar, Ambedkar, K M Munshi, Syama prasad Mukherji, Dr John Mathai, Rajagopalachari, etc., and could eliminate all of them from the political space by fair and foul means. Though, he did not like Rajendra Prasad, Patel could get him elected as the President of India. Nehru kept absolute enmity with Rajendra Prasad throughout his tenure as the President. The last in the row was Purushotham Das Tandon who was the elected president of the party. Nehru could not like him because Tandon did not subscribe to the communist ideology shared by Nehru. Nehru could smoke him out by following hypocritic tactics. He held the positions of the party president and parliamentary party leader after the expulsion of Tandon. There is a method in that madness of Nehru in the process of elimination of his political opponents from party and government. Indira followed the footsteps of her father and she adopted even rude methods in tune with changing context to eliminate her enemies and the result was the declaration of Emergency in 1975.
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