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Volume II of Gopal's biography of Nehru is mostly about Nehru's foreign policy, with a little bit of contesting elections and dealing with linguistic chauvinism thrown in. Which is a good thing for it was in foreign affairs that Nehru can be projected as a winner and a great man by an adoring biographer. Kashmir and Hyderabad, Panchsheel, Korea, Tibet, Suez and Hungary: Each get a chapter each.
On balance, the one thing towards which Indians had extra-strong commitment was the “Idea of India”. Thanks to the over a century-long struggle against the British, protecting Mother India evoked an almost visceral feeling. Nehru used that feeling of love and affection to the country to good effect for pushing much modernisation down the throat of unsuspecting Indians. Later, they would criticise and condemn him while revelling in the benefits of Nehruvian modernisation. There is little of that in this volume,though. Gopal's own preference towards foreign policy ensures that the history of independent India begins for him with the tribal attack on Kashmir rather than with the millions being killed in the Partition riots and the rehabilitation of the refugees. The issue of rehabilitation is ignored entirely. Gopal takes pains to show Nehru as the tortured genius, wishing to chart a fresh path for the world. That is somewhat funny. For, had Gopal examined Nehru, in-charge of foreign affairs of the Interim Government (1946-47), he would have noticed the great satisfaction with which the coeval British commented upon Nehru continuing with liberal British policies rather than pursue anything radically different. That too entirely voluntarily, without any prompts from the British!! Whether it be supporting the cause of freedom for colonised countries, suppressing, militarily, the tribes in the North-Western Frontier and Afghanistan, Nehru was little different from the opinions already extant among the British in India. It was a measure of the adulation that Nehru evoked among Indians that few in India could notice the almost copy-paste job that characterised the so-called principles of Panchsheel. On Kashmir, Nehru promised a Plebiscite that is still stuck in the national throat. “Nehru's spirit of accommodation” is how Gopal judges it. In internal affairs, the adjustment between Nehru and Patel had begun to wear thin by 1950. “Extreme irritation on trivial matters of administration,” notes Gopal about the relationship between the two stalwarts. He refuses to give us the details of the differences between them but tells us that Nehru kept on winning because the public seemed to prefer him over Patel. Fleshing out the details here would have helped make a better assessment of Nehru's early years as the Prime Minister. Would this book be a fruitful read for those curious today? It is difficult to say. Note: Volume III will be reviewed next week
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Getting China a permanent membership of the UN Security Council, critiquing the new kind of imperialism, pushing for NAM, is called by Gopal, “zenith of world influence”. There is little here that gives new insight either into the man or into the dilemmas that he faced while dealing with the complexities of governance. About the history of India for that period — biography being a history of the times looked through the eyes of the subject under study — there is little for anyone to know here for, little is given. Or was it that there was little for Nehru to do in India besides pontification while his main interest was abroad, in the realm of foreign policy? One thing that Gopal does bring out is the love that people of India had for both, Nehru and the country. Nehru fulfilled India's need for a glamorous hero who was much appreciated by White people. Difficulties faced by Nehru's administration are dealt with very sympathetically, even though Gopal notices the antinomies involved in it. It was one thing criticising the British for being colonial, oppressive and much more. It was an entirely another thing to actually run a country the size of Europe where ideas of liberty, equality and fraternity were yet to take root with little popular commitment to the newly framed Constitution of India. 