125th Birthday of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.

[Brahmanyan]

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Today 14th November is the 125th Birth anniversary of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. On this memorable day let me salute this great patriot who sphere headed the freedom movement with other great leaders of his time. He was a patriot to the core, between 1921 to 1945 he was sentenced to jail nine times. During this time Jails were his second home and he spent more than nine years during the best years of freedom struggle.

Jawaharlal Nehru was a voracious reader. His jail terms helped him in his extensive study of Philosophy, History, Economics, Science and literature which went a long way in shaping his thinking. He was impressed by the "Upanishads" and "Gita". He read with interest the works of various philosophers both east and west. "Nehru's passionate concern for humanism and aesthetic and pragmatic approach to life and work was intensified by this reading" says one biographer. He has written many books and I world consider his books "Discovery of India", "Glimpses of World History", his "Autobiography" are a must for our home collections.

Nehru believed in "mixed economy", wherein the Government controlled Public Sector Undertakings to co-exist with Private Sector industries. His Government initiated massive Agricultural reforms. During his time the Country saw many Dams and river valley projects come into existence. Jawaharlal Nehru was a known advocate of modern education to improve scientific temper in the minds of younger generation. During his period of rule many institutions of higher learning were established, which include National Physical Laboratory, National Chemical Laboratory, National Institutes of Technologies, IITs, IIMs, AIIMS. Similarly many defense training establishments were commissioned during his time. Nehru envisioned the importance of Nuclear energy and established Atomic Energy Commission of India.

Pandit Nehru was one of the founder members of Non-aligned Movement. During his time India enjoyed respect among the Nations in the world. He belonged to my generation and the people gave unstinting love and affection to this great man for his sincerity and sacrifice.
ray2:
Brahmanyan,
Bangalore.

 

[krish44]

we all became folowers of nehru brand of socialism . we liked his model of mixed economy. we got educated in IITs he set up and served in public sectors enterprises he

was instrumental in setting up . we got the benefitsof subsidised housing due to his socialist planning . we also stayed in govt houses/flats paying a pittance as rent .

we owe our good lives to him.we have been cast in a particular mould of simple living shunning luxuries . we have a had a peaceful life because of political stability

he gave india for 15 years. we will remember him for a whole lot of good things which happened to us.

 

[prasad1]

In the present day India, praising Nehru would be treason. I applaud this thread , Brahmanyanji and Krishji for giving Nehru credits.

The new government arrived with a grand new plan for India's past. Nehru and his accomplishments has to be cut down, so Modi can stand tall.

The government is involved in a calculated rebalancing of the relevance of the nation's founding fathers: the mid-20th-century quartet of Mahatma Gandhi, B.R. Ambedkar, Vallabhbhai Patel and Jawaharlal Nehru, who laid down the lines of modern Indian democracy, as Washington, Franklin, Hamilton, Jefferson and Madison did in 18th-century America. (The other part involves establishing a consensus that Hinduism is the real motor of Indian history, that modern India -- despite its religious diversity -- is "culturally Hindu" at root. One scholar has explained this tautly as "Indianizing" Indian history.)

Since the arrival of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government in May, one might discern a clear, new direction for both the political establishment and the intellectual class that supports it. The most interesting strand in this new scheme, though, is its view of Nehru, India's first and to date longest-serving prime minister, whose 125th birthday falls on Friday. In this new view, Nehru emerges as a kind of haughty, godless aristocrat, never without a rose in his buttonhole and a bee in his bonnet, whose emphasis on socialism in economic policy, secularism in politics and nonalignment in foreign policy took India on a series of disastrous cul de sacs from which it took decades to emerge. If that wasn't enough, Nehru also stands on trial retroactively for spawning the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty.

Sharp new views of Nehru’s failures continue to appear and have been in circulation since the time of his pomp (some of the best can be found in the work of Frank Moraes, in his biography of Nehru and his portrait of the 1940s and '50s, "Witness to an Era"). But it’s easy enough to identify the newest, most patronizing critics of Nehru, because almost to a man (or woman) these souls are also ardent advocates of the charms of Prime Minister Modi. They already think of Modi as nothing less than “the anti-Nehru,” a real son of the soil -- apparently, also a real secularist -- freshly, if belatedly, arrived on the chariot of history to flush out every last vestige of Nehruvian India.
Partly, it’s current political rivalry projected into the past. Of all the founding fathers, Nehru’s career was most closely linked with the Indian National Congress, the party toppled by Modi’s Bharitiya Janata Party in the most recent elections. Partly it’s the desire, natural to all new regimes, of the BJP's ideological sympathizers to paint an election, in the grandest possible terms, as a verdict on history, and to claim the largest scalp possible: in this case, Nehru's.

It's also a kind of disguised envy. As someone who, for all his faults, led the party that set the engine of Indian democracy in motion and was the architect of a modern nation-state in which citizenship was firmly decoupled from religious affiliation, Nehru set a high benchmark for personal integrity, political vision and (this is a quality Modi shares with him) administrative energy. But his rationalist temper and syncretic, even romantic, view of Indian history were anachronistic in India even then. (The Australian diplomat Walter Crocker, a contemporary of Nehru, perceptively forecast that “Nehru’s rule will leave some mark on India, but not as much as is expected.”) Today it is especially provoking to an emerging, and sometimes rabid, neo-Hindu consensus that seeks control of the political center.
At India’s independence in 1947, Nehru and his political associates brought into being a new political order that was secular and socialist (in ways that would soon pose new problems). It was also, in establishing universal adult suffrage for a largely illiterate population, unpredecentedly egalitarian.

Although the upper-class, English-speaking elite to which Nehru belonged continued to hold power in India for a short time, the logic of the new Indian constitution brought about a progressive diversification of political power never before seen in Indian history.
In India, a Plot Against a Prime Minister - Bloomberg View

 

[prasad1]

Nehru held the ship of state firm over rough waters of Partition
The memory of great men often fades with times: The Gandhi generation has gone and the Nehru generation is passing rapidly. It is, therefore, important to preserve the legacy of these remarkable leaders so that future generations remain aware of their contribution to achieving and consolidating our dearly won freedom.

We now take our Independence for granted, but it is often forgotten that at least a million people were brutally murdered in the process and as many as ten million uprooted from their homes on both sides in what was probably the largest mass migration in human history. To stabilise and consolidate the situation after Independence required statesmanship of a high order, and the Cabinet, led by Jawaharlal Nehru and including stalwarts like Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel as deputy prime minister and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, was able to do this. The first great achievement of Nehru after Independence, therefore, was to hold the ship of state firm amid the turbulent waters of the Partition process, despite predictions of the prophets of doom, including Winston Churchill, who said that after the British left India would Balkanise and break up into a dozen units.

The second great task was, after centuries of foreign rule, for India to get itself a new Constitution. Himself an impeccable parliamentarian, Nehru not only took a keen interest in the framing of the Constitution but also attended Parliament for long hours, answered questions and in particular spoke on foreign relations, a portfolio he had kept with himself.

After Partition, India was a patchwork quilt consisting of what used to be called ‘British India’ and hundreds of princely states ranging from large ones like Jammu and Kashmir, Hyderabad, Mysore, Baroda and Gwalior to tiny principalities. Knitting these separate units into a single State was a massive task, the main credit for which goes to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. The non-violent integration of so many feudal states into a democracy was surely unprecedented in world history. Although Nehru left this area mainly to Patel, he closely monitored the whole process and, despite his strong anti-feudal feelings, he realised the importance of seeking the cooperation of the ruling princes.

Nehru was deeply committed to the development of science and what he called the scientific temper, an attitude devoid of superstition and blind faith. For this purpose he had the foresight to set up the Indian Institutes of Technology in major cities around the country. The underpinning of the whole saga of independent India has been an unwavering commitment to democracy. Nehru, steeped in the liberal democratic traditions of Britain, the republican ideals of the French Revolution and the socialist vision of the Russian Revolution, was a firm votary of democracy.

Nehru was a bitter opponent of religious fundamentalism, whether Muslim or Hindu. There is a view that Nehru’s attitude towards religion tended to be dismissive, and that despite all that he has written in the Discovery of India, he was never at ease with organised religion. This was largely true, though in his writings he did pay rich homage to the Upanishads and Shankaracharya, and he was particularly impressed by the Buddha and his teachings.


The people of India held Nehru in special affection which is reflected in his last will and testament, where he says: “If any people choose to think of me, then I should like them to say this was a man who, with all his mind and heart, loved India and the Indian people. And they, in turn, were indulgent to him and gave him of their love most abundantly and extravagantly.”

Nehru held the ship of state firm over rough waters of Partition - Hindustan Times

 

[Jaykay767]

Nerhu was the biggest disaster that could have happened to the country.

1. Destroyed the entire agrarian economy by abolishing the zamindari system instead of reforming it . 100s of millions of farmers lost jobs & ended up in penury & debt.
2. Destroyed the entire private sector by going for the communist large govt model of PSUs etc..
3. Destroyed the entire education sector by not focusing on primary education but setup some IITs most of whom went abroad.
4. Destroyed private enterprise completely with the mess of license Raj,
5. Created a huge machinery of corruption by the same license raj, excise, customs, income tax…
6. Every Govt agency exists to harass the innocent citizens for whom they are supposed to work for – lol !!
7. 100s of millions came, suffered & went during his time… while that silly Raj Kapoor sang some sad songs..
8. 250 Mil people in penury has blown into a gigantic 800 M in penury. I mean who knows how many people are really there… ??
9. People read how much forex was there on the newspaper & went to bed hungry, died of poverty, lack of healthcare…

Yes, lets please celebrate his vision, mission – while we are at this, why not build a temple../

LOL !!

 

[Jaykay767]

No to mention, he is the root cause for the :

1. huge mess with muslims by warring with Jinnah coz he wanted to be the PM.
2. fight between all the states, so that our people can all be fighting with each other
3. fight between Tamils & Srilanka by playing one against the other
4. fight between India & Pakistan by deliberately provoking others to oppose on the issue of Kashmir


of course, he was romancing someone’s wife & showing off to the whole world while his own wife was alive when all this mess was playing out. In today’s world, anyone with such adulterous behavior would be condemned & consigned to the dustbin but....

 

[indianassault]

its ice to read someone so grateful to Nehru mama, but the current generation of folks would attibute it to Shri PV Narasimha Rao and MMS.
While socialism is conceptually good, you need capital for the broader masses to benefit from that blend.
If not for the liberalisation of 92, I also would have been one among the countless unmarried youths.
It wouldnt have taken 50 years to rebuidl the country , if we had a visionary stronger than Nehru . Hitler built the economy and most advanced weapons within a span of 15 years. And it needed the whole world to stop his onslaught.

 

[prasad1]

This week, India will celebrate the 125th birth anniversary of Jawaharlal Nehru. I must confess that I hate anniversaries when they turn out to be rote affairs, when memory, which hurts like frostbite, is presented painlessly. I hate this era that measures Nehru with calipers and titrates his foreign policy. It is a dull world today when memory turns inane and history seems empty. Life must indeed be meaningless when almost two decades of the Nehru era produce less meaning than five months of a Modi regime. When memories fade, icons die, and when an icon dies, something dies in all of us.


Nehru cannot be seen merely as an object of history, a fragment of policy. He was a dream, a hope, a claim to innocence, an aesthetic which gave to modernity a touch of elegance. I think that is why Gandhi opted for him. The practical Gandhi realised that one needed the impractical Nehru to survive the first decade of Independence. It is only the impractical who survive, who understand desire, hope and dream. Words like development and planning are dull words borrowed from a dismal social science. Nehru gave them a touch of poetry and it is only the poetics of the first decade that allowed us to retain hope and dream differently.
Imagine a country which suffers two genocides, the Bengal Famine and Partition. Imagine a nation littered with refugees and the bittersweet memories of displacement. Such a nation could have turned melancholic, bitter, even tyrannical. Yet with all the violence, India of the Nehruvian years had a touch of innocence. Indians felt they had done the impossible (win freedom) and now wanted to repeat it. It was Nehru who gave India that lightness of being, that childlike innocence and yet that sophistication that came with a civilisational confidence.


Nehru inspired a generation to hope and believe. In fact, it was the first decades of Independence that could be called the Indian century because Nehru made India feel that Indians were special.


We used science as an enzyme of hope, an elixir of development. Where else could a nation talk of the future as belonging to science or those who make friends with science? The concentration camps were still a stark fact and the atomic bomb had been tested over Japan.


No other nation saw science as a dream. The Russians and the West saw it as a tool of economic development. Nehru insisted science was culture, a form of playfulness, providing a sense of discovery and excitement. This was a man who felt that science would prolong his discovery of India and even the world. For Nehru, science was not about productivity. It was a way of looking at the world. In fact, if one looks at Nehruvian scientists one senses that same elegance about science, whether it was P.C. Mahalanobis, Homi J. Bhabha, K.S. Krishnan, Vikram Sarabhai or Satish Dhawan. For all of them, science was not just knowledge. It was an aesthetic for approaching the world, an insight we have lost in this dismal age of the information revolution.

I admit it had a touch of innocence. In fact, it was re-echoed in Hindi cinema by Raj Kapoor, who, like Nehru, was an incurable romantic, who saw in being Indian and nationality, a dream of a different being. When Kapoor sang “Mera¯ ju¯ta¯ hai Ja¯pani¯, ye patlu¯n Inglista¯ni¯, Sar pe la¯l topi¯ Ru¯si¯, phir bhi¯ dil hai Hindusta¯ni¯,” he was reciting one of the new anthems of the Nation, a country, a generation which believed it had a tryst with destiny.
Poetics of a nation: remembering Nehru - The Hindu

 

[sarang]

Slogan from confused Desi's and videsis:
If one praises Nehru, he is secular. He who criticizes Nehru is a sanghi.

 

[sarang]

It seems Sonia Gandhi holds the rights for the book, 'discovery of India' by Nehru. Earlier it was held by a trust set up to publish Nehru's works.

 

[prasad1]

I believe Nehru’s legacy can be objectively discussed. True he had his faults. But nobody can deny that he laid the ideological foundations of our young Republic in its formative years through his passionate commitment to democracy, secularism, socialism, non-alignment and promotion of a scientific temper of mind.
Many of these achievements are scoffed at today. Democracy is taken for granted, without most people understanding that it required unwavering faith in its relevance by our first prime minister to ensure its survival. In a society where hierarchy had almost religious sanction for millennia, the fact that we are proud today to be the world’s largest democracy is, undoubtedly, a tribute to Panditji.

As a professed agnostic, Nehru was not a great believer in religions. He wrongfully associated all religions, and in particular Hinduism, with prejudice, superstition and mechanical ritual. This approach was at variance with Mahatma Gandhi who, even as a practicing Hindu, was devoutly pious to all religions.
But whatever the differences in their personal attitudes, both Gandhiji and Nehru considered it an article of faith that all religions in India should be respected and the state should be above religious bias. Nehru understood, as the country’s first top executive, the pragmatic rationale for this. In 1948, in one of his first letters to chief ministers, he wrote: “We have a Muslim minority who are so large in numbers that they cannot, even if they want to, go anywhere else. They have got to live in India. This is the basic fact about which there can be no argument.” The plurality and unity of India, about which well-informed Cassandras had genuine doubts in 1947, has a direct co-relation to this clear mindedness.

Socialism is now considered, like secularism, almost a dirty word. But leaders have to be judged by the circumstances of their time, not subsequent distortions. The relevance of socialism essentially meant a belief that the State must intervene to ensure that the fruits of economic development reach the poor and marginalised.
Few can doubt that such an approach was relevant for a country like India where economic inequality was pervasive and fighting poverty and hunger was the first priority of the government. The fact that subsequently State intervention led more to the infamous ‘inspector raj’ and less to alleviation of poverty should not lead us to doubt Nehru’s intentions. Leaders can be wrong; they cannot be clairvoyant.

Nehru’s obsession with modernity, including cultivation of a ‘scientific temper of mind’, can be faulted for being too influenced by western categories. This led him to dismiss large chunks of our history as ‘deadwood of the past’. He carried the so-called notion of westernised modernity to unacceptable levels of impatience with our own cultural idioms, leading to mimicry and hypocrisy.

But we can take our pick on what is worse: insensitivity to our past in the pursuit of a western influenced modernity or an over-glorification of our past based on blind faith. Modi’s recent comment on plastic surgery and Ganesh, Kunti and genetic science are examples of the latter. Non-alignment is again seen today as a laughable notion, and perhaps it is. Of course, Nehru must take the blame for the fiasco of the 1962 war with China, but non-alignment was, i believe, the first and last original foreign policy idea independent India has had. For a newly independent impoverished country, with neither economic nor military might, non-alignment gave India a voice in the world in conformity with its civilisational dignity and future potential.It allowed us to punch far above our diplomatic weight, preventing us from becoming a subordinate accessory of either of the two superpowers. The benefits of ‘accessory’ status were neither assured nor verifiable; but the permanent scar this would leave on our self-esteem was.

Future generations have the freedom to freely assess the worth of their national icons. But this must be an informed
debate, not petty politics. Even if BJP’s intent is motivated and selective, Congress should show greater generosity in sharing (and acknowledging) Sardar Patel; and BJP does not have to be small-minded in duly recognising Nehru’s legacy.
Times Of India | Blogs

 

[Jaykay767]

Had Nehru followed communism, we would have had an excellent primary education, primary healthcare for all & a steady population. Had he followed capitalism, we would have had 70% to 80% middleclass / rich society, & we could have easily done a social security program to cover the bottom 20%.

Population would not have exploded like this into countless Billion with more than 800 mil under poverty…

Neither he followed communism fully nor capitalism fully, this is what happens when incompetent people are elected to power. By foisting himself, & his kids into power, decades were lost till Narasimha Rao, came & rescued us from this mess by massive liberalization !!

Biggest tragedy for this county is not that poor vote for the wrong people, but educated people who think reservation category, uneducated people, and unqualified people can bring transformation to such a complex country as ours… even after a great scholar, administrator, and statesman genius like Narasimha Roa showed what competent leaders can do…

 

[indianassault]

I believe Nehru’s legacy can be objectively discussed. True he had his faults. But nobody can deny that he laid the ideological foundations of our young Republic in its formative years through his passionate commitment to democracy, secularism, socialism, non-alignment and promotion of a scientific temper of mind.
Many of these achievements are scoffed at today. Democracy is taken for granted, without most people understanding that it required unwavering faith in its relevance by our first prime minister to ensure its survival. In a society where hierarchy had almost religious sanction for millennia, the fact that we are proud today to be the world’s largest democracy is, undoubtedly, a tribute to Panditji.

As a professed agnostic, Nehru was not a great believer in religions. He wrongfully associated all religions, and in particular Hinduism, with prejudice, superstition and mechanical ritual. This approach was at variance with Mahatma Gandhi who, even as a practicing Hindu, was devoutly pious to all religions.
But whatever the differences in their personal attitudes, both Gandhiji and Nehru considered it an article of faith that all religions in India should be respected and the state should be above religious bias. Nehru understood, as the country’s first top executive, the pragmatic rationale for this. In 1948, in one of his first letters to chief ministers, he wrote: “We have a Muslim minority who are so large in numbers that they cannot, even if they want to, go anywhere else. They have got to live in India. This is the basic fact about which there can be no argument.” The plurality and unity of India, about which well-informed Cassandras had genuine doubts in 1947, has a direct co-relation to this clear mindedness.

Socialism is now considered, like secularism, almost a dirty word. But leaders have to be judged by the circumstances of their time, not subsequent distortions. The relevance of socialism essentially meant a belief that the State must intervene to ensure that the fruits of economic development reach the poor and marginalised.
Few can doubt that such an approach was relevant for a country like India where economic inequality was pervasive and fighting poverty and hunger was the first priority of the government. The fact that subsequently State intervention led more to the infamous ‘inspector raj’ and less to alleviation of poverty should not lead us to doubt Nehru’s intentions. Leaders can be wrong; they cannot be clairvoyant.

Nehru’s obsession with modernity, including cultivation of a ‘scientific temper of mind’, can be faulted for being too influenced by western categories. This led him to dismiss large chunks of our history as ‘deadwood of the past’. He carried the so-called notion of westernised modernity to unacceptable levels of impatience with our own cultural idioms, leading to mimicry and hypocrisy.

But we can take our pick on what is worse: insensitivity to our past in the pursuit of a western influenced modernity or an over-glorification of our past based on blind faith. Modi’s recent comment on plastic surgery and Ganesh, Kunti and genetic science are examples of the latter. Non-alignment is again seen today as a laughable notion, and perhaps it is. Of course, Nehru must take the blame for the fiasco of the 1962 war with China, but non-alignment was, i believe, the first and last original foreign policy idea independent India has had. For a newly independent impoverished country, with neither economic nor military might,Times Of India | Blogs

Non Alignment - India was and is always aligned to USSR/Russia. They have helped us and our society was based on their principles. While its a blessing in disguise, since the Indians were battered and became less competitive, I am not sure we could have directly emerged as a Capitalistic society.

Modis comments are not by blind faith . If he says we can marry multiple times or marry a child, then it is. Hinduism is Science.