Read an article titled “a plural legacy more vital than ever” it makes it clear that Jawaharlal Nehru was seen by Mahatma Gandhi as the man with the ability to scan wider horizons and carry forward his message of unity in diversity. In Gandhiji's mind, Nehru was the quintessential democrat, accommodative of dissent, free from racial prejudices and religious bigotry, and completely committed to secular principles. Besides he was an undisputed man of masses in 1947, therefore a natural choice to be the first PM of India. The misconception propagated by vested interests, that Nehru in his ambition to become PM, divided India, is a grotesque misrepresentation and travesty of fact. No PM after Nehru has enjoyed the international stature and acceptability Nehru did in the 1950s: so it’s just an illusion to think that respect for India in the rest of the world has gone up in the last few years.
Now of course the present leadership is successful in trying to erase all good done earlier and also in erasing its current failures too. Otherwise who remembers that Demonetisation was a blunder, the consequences of which are still plaguing us? Who recalls the spectacle of 450 million people, rendered jobless overnight, walking from big cities to their native hinterlands where only misery awaited them? That migration of March -April 2020, will remain etched in the collective memory of India for generations to come. While it is a fact that some decisions hurt the country so badly and are remembered for long even if they are not discussed in public. One such decision was to scrap the original agreement with France for the purchase of Rafale fighter jets. A new agreement was signed to buy fewer Rafales at three times the originally agreed price. India lost heavily for the sake of benefiting a private party who appeared on the scene with no previous experience.
Ever since the present dispensation came to power we have been witnessing complete vilification, demonetisation, and obfuscation, of many of their adversaries and all the leaders of anti-colonial struggles, particularly Jawaharlal Nehru.
After all, we live in times when Nehru’s contribution to the modern Indian society is often questioned and derided. The removal of Nehru’s name from state-sponsored history textbooks is the culmination of a motivated smear campaign. Nehru is blamed for the partition in their election campaigns, and parliament, evoking cheers from his MPs. This needless desk thumping and slandering of previous governments only strengthens the perception that BJP lives in the past and uses and misuses it to coverup its follies and disastrous decisions like demonetisation and badly implemented GST.
Right-wing influencers and trolls alike present alternative facts and accusations that present, Nehru as a westernised degenerate, who embodied the opposite of what an ideal Indian should be. But this sort of vilification is to be expected from those with majoritarian tendencies. Trying to erase Nehru’s imprint on the country is a tall order because he is part of modern India’s DNA. Throw Nehru out of the equation and you end up undermining India. And the survival of India depends upon the retrieval of the Nehruvian legacy by the people of this country as no political party is committed to retrieving it.
