Engaging insights into Nehru, the "political" man
Parshotam Mehra

Nehru: A Political Life
by Judith M Brown. Oxford University Press, New Delhi. Pages: xvi+407. Rs 695.

OVER a major part of the 20th century and especially since 1947, no mention of modern India is complete without bringing in two names, Gandhi and Nehru. The Mahatma as the Father of the Nation was a colossus among men and his stature and relevance never diminishes. Nor does Nehru lag far behind. Inspired by Gandhi's creed of non-violence, he was a towering leader of the national movement. After Independence he led the country as its Prime Minister for nearly two decades. In more ways than one, he laid the foundations of modern India as we know it. Judith Brown's impressive tome seeks to offer, as the dust jacket claims, an "insightful" analysis of his political life.

Beginning with an apprenticeship under Gandhi when the Mahatma was experimenting with radical non-violent modes of mass opposition to the Raj, Nehru graduated to playing a pivotal role in the events leading to the British withdrawal, and the tragic Partition that followed it. Despite the catastrophic beginnings of the new India that he inherited, he fought bravely and with single-minded dedication to lay the foundations of a strong state by providing it with a republican Constitution, redirecting its economy and attempting to set the norms of a new secular and democratic polity. For almost a decade, Nehru went from strength to strength but by the late 1950s, things began to go awry. And by the time of the Chinese onslaught in 1962, his vision of a world order resting on the principles non-alignment and peaceful coexistence had begun to blur. At home, his hold on the government and polity weakened as a result of the Chinese invasion.

Brown delineates the different approaches which Gandhi and Nehru adopted to transform India's society, economy and polity. The Mahatma drew on Indian traditions, while Nehru’s vision was of a India born of and marked by western ways of thinking. And yet despite their deep and often painful disagreements, the younger Nehru was essentially the Mahatma's political prot`E9g`E9 and bound to him by deep emotional ties.

The 1930s mark what the book calls a "difficult" phase in Nehru's life, years of political isolation and frustration. There was considerable infighting within the Congress over acceptance of offices in British Indian provinces where the party had won in the 1936-7 elections. And the eagerness with which the party embraced political opportunities that came its way was revealing. Two things, however, kept Nehru busy. One, a lot of foreign travel, to Burma, Malaya, Singapore and Ceylon apart from Europe and England apart from a brief visit to Chiang's KMT China. Two, his chairmanship of the Nmional Planning Committee, which gave him an insight into the problems of rural and urban India.

The experience of independence was not happy for two good reasons: one, the Kashmir problem and two, the Mahatma assassination. Brown concedes that "in the light of subsequent events", Mountbatten's strong advice to Nehru to involve the UN was "questionable". It internationalised the problem, involved Kashmir in a cold war and provided a platform where both India and Pakistan could voice their views. This hardened their respective stands and created an atmosphere where discreet diplomacy could not work. Although for different reasons, the Kashmir issue came to be critical for the identity of the two states.

Gandhi's loss was even more tragic. His important and stabilising presence and role as a mediator among key members of the government was pivotal to the emergence of a stable government. While they had disagreed over a whole range of issues, some of them profound, Nehru had remained loyal to Gandhi believing that he was essential to the unity of the national movement and its appeal beyond the educated and the urban. Gandhi, for his part, nurtured Nehru as his successor, convinced of his integrity and commitment to the country.

By the end of 1956, Nehru had emerged as a towering statesman on the international stage while India became a major player among the nonaligned nations. Among others, Churchill paid him a handsome tribute insisting he might be able to do "what no other human being could" in giving India the lead at least "in the realm of thought throughout Asia with the freedom and the dignity of the individual rather than the Communist Party drill book." Sadly, the last decade of Nehru's life was marked by deep frustration. At the personal level, there was the ouster of his all-powerful secretary on charges of corruption and the near-disintegration of his daughter's marriage. On the national plane, there was the "more prosaic" aspect of working the democratic political system: he had to deal with the problems of Kerala, the linguistic states, Goa, and a burgeoning population which seemed to swallow up all the gains of development. What some regard as Nehru’s biggest failure was the least the large-scale Chinese incursion across the border. Even as the country's defence crumbled before the Chinese onslaught, Nehru’s own authority and prestige suffered no small a setback.

As a person Nehru had, by middle life, evolved into someone who was complex and often at odds with himself as well as with those around him. Meticulous about his appearance and physical well-being, he was cultivated, well read and "sometimes" excellent company. He was able to engage in a deep and meaningful dialogue about tradition and modernity and western and eastern value systems. He struggled with the task of engineering social and economic reconstruction in a society marked by poverty and illiteracy. He took the route of state-sponsored change. He may have failed at what he intended to do but the fact that he recognised some of the major issues facing the country and was determined to grapple with them was no less important.

Judith Brown, Beit Professor of Commonwealth History at Oxford, has among other sources drawn heavily on Nehru's personal papers for the purpose of writing the book and makes a singular contribution to a deeper understanding of Nehru, the "political" man. Along with a much thinner but equally perceptive study by Shashi Tharoor (Nehru: The Invention of lndia) and S. Gopal's biography, it restores to Nehru his well-deserved place as the builder of modern India.

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