Makers of Modern India

by Ramachandra Guha

  Aside from these letters, I have also drawn upon Nehru’s speeches, which were more carefully structured and perhaps less evocative. But these too dealt with matters of fundamental importance to the nation that, under Nehru’s direction, was being made.

  Jawaharlal Nehru died in New Delhi on 27 May 1964.

  The Treatment of Minorities

  In the aftermath of Partition, Nehru was deeply concerned with the state and place of Muslims in independent India. The creation of Pakistan as a homeland for Muslims, and the subsequent flight of Hindus and Sikhs from that country, had led to a rise of intolerance among certain sections of the Hindus. Nehru, however, insisted that Muslims be treated as equal citizens in a secular state and that they be made to feel safe and secure by the administration of the provinces they lived in. The excerpts on this subject that follow are all from the prime minister’s fortnightly letters to chief ministers.

  From a letter dated 15 October 1947.1

  I know there is a certain amount of feeling in the country … that the Central Government has somehow or other been weak and following a policy of appeasement towards Muslims. This, of course, is complete nonsense. There is no question of weakness or appeasement. 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. That is a basic fact about which there can be no argument. Whatever the provocation from Pakistan and whatever the indignities and horrors inflicted on non-Muslims there, we have got to deal with this minority in a civilized manner. We must give them security and the rights of citizens in a democratic State. If we fail to do so, we shall have a festering sore which will eventually poison the whole body politic and probably destroy it. Moreover, we are now on a severe trial in the international forum. I have it on the authority of our delegates to the U[nited] N[ations] O[rganization] that the friendliness towards India which existed before the recent tragedy [i.e., Partition] has changed and we are looked upon with distrust and almost with a certain degree of contempt. We cannot afford to ignore this feeling. We are dependent for many things on international goodwill—increasingly so since partition. And pure self-interest, apart from moral considerations, demands that world opinion should be on our side in this matter of treatment of minorities.

  I would ask you, therefore, as a matter of great importance, to take steps to put across to the public the true basis of our policy. How exactly you should do so is a matter which I must leave to your judgment; it must depend on local factors.

  The other important question to which I would draw your attention is the paramount importance of preserving the public services from the virus of communal politics. There is a great deal of evidence that the services in Pakistan have got out of hand and are not amenable to the control of their government. You will have noticed that Mr. Jinnah2 himself referred, in a recent address in Karachi, to the indiscipline that has set in in the services. This is already a serious headache for Pakistan, and will probably be more serious in future. Fortunately for us, taking an overall picture … we have been able, generally speaking, to preserve the integrity of the services against the communal virus. But there have been lapses in East Punjab specially in the police; and unless we are vigilant the disease may spread. We would then be faced with a situation of the utmost gravity, viz., of having a government in office which could not get its decrees executed by its own servants; the sort of thing that is happening so frequently in the South American Republics. I would ask you, therefore, to allow no laxity in the loyal execution of government’s policy by its servants, particularly in the matter of just and fair treatment to minorities. If we condone lapses in this respect, we shall be storing up serious trouble for the country in the future.

  From a letter dated 7 December 1947.3

  Reports have reached me of big demonstrations organized by the R[ashtriya S[wayamsevak] S[angh] in some provinces. Often these demonstrations have been held in spite of prohibitory orders … Some provincial authorities have taken no action in this matter and apparently accepted this defiance of orders. I do not wish to interfere with your discretion in this matter. But I would like to draw your attention to the fact that this acquiescence in defiance is likely to have grave consequences.

  We have a great deal of evidence to show that the R.S.S. is an organization which is in the nature of a private army and which is definitely proceeding on the strictest Nazi lines, even following the technique of organization. It is not our desire to interfere with civil liberties. But training in arms of large numbers of persons with the obvious intention of using them is not something that can be encouraged. The fact that the R.S.S. is definitely and deliberately against the present central and provincial governments need not be considered enough for any action to be taken against them and any legitimate propaganda might certainly be allowed. But their activity more and more goes beyond these limits and it is desirable for provincial governments to keep a watchful eye and to take such action as they may deem necessary …

  I have some knowledge of the way the Nazi movement developed in Germany. It attracted by its superficial trappings and strict discipline considerable numbers of lower middle class young men and women who are normally not too intelligent and for whom life appeared to offer little to attract them. And so they drifted towards the Nazi party because its policy and programme, such as they were, were simple, negative and did not require an active effort of the mind. The Nazi party brought Germany to ruin and I have little doubt that if these tendencies are allowed to spread and increase in India, they would do enormous injury to India. No doubt India would survive. But she would be grievously wounded and would take a long time to recover.

  From a letter dated 17 January 1948.4

  Since I last wrote to you, everything that has happened has been completely overshadowed by Gandhiji’s fast.5 … The last prolonged fast which Gandhiji undertook was in 1943 when he was a prisoner. That fast was for a purpose which the man in the street understood and wholly sympathised with. His recent fast in Calcutta was also for an easily understood purpose which had the support of the overwhelming bulk of the people. The fast which he has now undertaken is less easy for the general public to understand; and in fact there are sections of them, more particularly among the refugees, who do not sympathise with it and are in a sense antagonistic to it. Therein lies its significance and supreme courage.

  We are faced, particularly in East Punjab and Delhi, with the psychological problem created by the events of the last few months. These have created in the minds of people, not merely among the refugees but also among others, a bitterness, a sense of desperation and a desire for retaliation—in short, a serious spiritual malaise. This is wholly understandable but nonetheless extremely dangerous. We have all of us done our best to cure it but have not succeeded except only to a limited extent. The difficulties have been partly due to our inability effectively to tackle the problem of rehabilitation [of refugees] and partly to the continuing evidence of hostility and barbaric conduct towards the minorities in Pakistan. The result has been that sections of the Hindu community are not in tune with and do not understand Gandhiji’s approach to the Muslim problem in India. They resent his approach and think that it is somehow or other inimical to their own interests. And yet any person with vision can see that Gandhiji’s approach is not only morally correct, but is also essentially practical. Indeed it is the only possible approach if we think in terms of the nation’s good, both from the short and long distance points of view. Any other approach means perpetuating conflict and postponing all notions of national consolidation and progress.

  This is not the occasion to analyse—no one can analyse them—the complex of urges which must have driven Gandhiji to take this supreme step but quite clearly its main purpose is to make the majority community in India search its heart and purge itself of hatred and the desire to retaliate. In the atmosphere in which it has been undertaken, it displays a degree of heroism of which only Gandhiji is capable. The o
rdeal has been made worse for him by the tragic events that have occurred in Pakistan in the last few days—the murder and wholesale looting in Karachi and the revolting attack on a non-Muslim refugee train in Gujrat in West Punjab. But these incidents, in Gandhiji’s conception, are not merely wholly irrelevant but only increase the urgency of the step that he has taken.

  I am sure you will mobilize all your resources to emphasise to the people of your province, by every possible means, the meaning and purpose of the fast and thus help to create a situation in which Gandhiji may break it. I regard the emergency created by the fast as at least as grave as the disease that has given rise to it; and if we do not go all out to meet it, history will not forgive us.

  From a letter dated 20 September 1953.6

  I want to share with you a certain apprehension that is growing within me. I feel that in many ways the position relating to minority groups in India is deteriorating. Our Constitution is good and we do not make any distinction in our rules and regulations or laws. But, in effect, changes creep in because of administrative practices or officers. Often these changes are not deliberate, sometimes they are so.

  In the Services, generally speaking, the representation of the minority communities is lessening. In some cases, it is very poor indeed. It is true that some of the highest offices in the land are occupied by members of these minority communities. They occupy high places also in our foreign missions. But in looking through Central Government figures, as well as some others, I am distressed to find that the position is very disadvantageous to them, chiefly to the Muslims and sometimes others also.

  In our Defence Services, there are hardly any Muslims left. In the vast Central Secretariat of Delhi, there are very few Muslims. Probably the position is somewhat better in the provinces, but not much more so. What concerns me most is that there is no effort being made to improve this situation, which is likely to grow worse unless checked.

  It is all very well for us to say that we shall not pay any attention to communal and like considerations in appointments. I am no lover of communalism and its works. Indeed, I think it is the most dangerous tendency in India and has to be combated on all fronts. But, at the same time, we have to realize that in a vast and mixed country like India we must produce a sense of balance and of assurance of a square deal and future prospects in all parts of the country and in all communities of India. If the tendency is to upset any balance or to emphasize one aspect at the cost of another, the result is a lack of equilibrium and dissatisfaction and frustration among large groups …

  I have referred to Muslims above, but this applies to Christians and others also. Unfortunately there is a feeling of apprehension among a large number of our Christian countrymen and countrywomen, and many of them feel uncertain of their place in India in the future. We have always to remember India as a composite country, composite in many ways, in religion, in customs, in languages, in ways of life, etc. An attempt by the majority group to impose itself on others can only lead to inner conflicts, which are as bad as outer conflicts. The basic problem for us today in India is to build up a united India in the real and inner sense of the word, that is, a psychological integration of our people …

  The feeling of nationalism is an enlarging and widening experience for the individual or the nation. More especially, when a country is under foreign domination, nationalism is a strengthening and unifying force. But, a stage arrives when it might well have a narrowing influence. Sometimes, as in Europe, it becomes aggressive and chauvinistic and wants to impose itself on other countries and other people. Every people suffer from the strange delusion that they are the elect and better than all others. When they become strong and powerful, they try to impose themselves and their ways on others. In their attempt to do so, sometime or other, they overreach themselves, stumble and fall. That has been the fate of the intense nationalism of Germany and Japan.

  But a more insidious form of nationalism is the narrowness of mind that it develops within a country, when a majority thinks itself as the entire nation and in its attempt to absorb the minority actually separates them even more. We, in India, have to be particularly careful of this because of our tradition of caste and separatism. We have a tendency to fall into separate groups and to forget the larger unity.

  Communal organizations are the clearest examples of extreme narrowness of outlook, strutting about in the guise of nationalism. In the name of unity, they separate and destroy. In social terms they represent reaction of the worst type. We may condemn these communal organizations, but there are many others who are not free from this narrow influence. Oddly enough, the very largeness of India, which is a world in itself, tends to make the people living in it complacent, rather ignorant of the rest of the world, and narrow-minded. We have to contend against these forces …

  On Planning and Economic Policy

  In recent years, Jawaharlal Nehru has come under attack for promoting the belief that the state should occupy the ‘commanding heights’ of the economy. These policies are said to have stifled private enterprise. It is true that Nehru had an aesthetic aversion to big business, and perhaps too rosy a picture of the alleged successes of centralized planning in the socialist countries. That said, the criticisms are somewhat anachronistic. At the time of Independence, even the private sector in India had called for massive state investment in the economy. In any case, Nehru’s economic philosophy was more complex than is sometimes supposed—for instance, he saw planning as necessary not merely to augment productivity, but also to overcome the sectarian affiliations of caste, language and religion. The two excerpts on this subject that follow are from his letters to chief ministers.

  From a letter dated 22 December 1952: 7

  … This relatively short session of Parliament did substantial work and many important problems were discussed. The most important discussion was that on the Five Year Plan. By approving of it in Parliament, we have given the final seal to this Plan and now the time comes to implement it. It is true that implementation has been going on all the time and nearly two years out of the five are over. Nevertheless, we have to make a new approach now, a more positive, concentrated and integrated one. More particularly, we have to rely on public co-operation.

  On the State Governments lies a special responsibility in this respect and we have no interval to rest before we start on the next stage of the journey. There is no resting place for any of us who are in positions of responsibility, for the world and India move on and if we delay, we are likely to be left behind. The first thing to be done is to give the widest publicity to this Plan or to its essential features and its basic outlook. There is material enough in the printed summary that they [the Planning Commission] have produced and we must remember that the best approach still in India is the personal one, through public meeting or group discussion. Now that Parliament and most of our State Assemblies are not in session, members should go to their constituencies and make an intensive drive on the subject of the Five Year Plan. Unfortunately and rather unreasonably, most of the Opposition groups have criticized or even condemned the Plan. They have often done so for entirely contradictory reasons, the same person criticizing it for not going far enough and for going too far, having regard to our resources. The responsibility of those who believe in the Plan is thus all the greater.

  People in the States and in districts will naturally be interested chiefly in their own part of this Plan and what they can do. This part should be explained, but the approach should always be an all-India approach and an attempt should be made to explain this great conception of planning for the whole country. Behind the Plan lies the conception of India’s unity and of a mighty co-operative effort of all the people of India. That should always be stressed and the interrelation of one part of India with another pointed out. If we adopt this approach, we shall be dealing with the major disease or weakness of India, i.e., the fissiparous tendencies and parochial outlook that often confront us in this country. The more we think of this b
alanced picture of the whole of India and of its many-sided activities, which are so interrelated with one another, the less we are likely to go astray in the crooked paths of provincialism, communalism, casteism and all other disruptive and disintegrating tendencies. That is a hard task, for it means changing the mentality of large numbers of people. It is a task which will not be completed within these three remaining years of the Plan, but will have to be continued till we root out and put an end to these tendencies …

  The Plan is comprehensive and there lies a tremendous deal of thought and discussion behind it. It is, on the whole, a cautious Plan, even a moderate one, and yet it is far-reaching and, if we so will it, we can take it as far as we like. It is a challenge to all of us and in the measure that we meet that challenge, we build the new India and justify our work. We have, therefore, to take this up in all earnestness and try to infuse in our work something of the spirit of a missionary for a cause. We have to remember always that it is not merely the governmental machinery that counts in this, but even more so the enthusiasm and co-operation of the people. Our people must have the sensation of partnership in a mighty enterprise, of being fellow-travellers towards the next goal that they and we have set before us. The Plan may be, and has to be, based on the calculations of economists, statisticians and the like, but figures and statistics, very important as they are, do not give life to the scheme. That breath of life comes in other ways, and it is for us now to make this Plan, which is enshrined in cold print, something living, vital and dynamic, which captures the imagination of our people.

  From a letter dated 3 March 1953.8

  … More and more it is being realized in other parts of the world that we in India are engaged in a mighty adventure. To build up this country and to solve the problems of poverty and unemployment in a democratic way on this scale is something that has not been done anywhere. The magnitude of the task and the difficulties we have to overcome may sometimes oppress us, but, at the same time, they should fill us with the enthusiasm that great undertakings bring with them. Probably the next five to ten years are the critical years for us. If we carry on during this period as a stable, progressive country, making good and advancing, then we have succeeded and we have little to fear in the future. Even if the pace is not quite so fast as we would like it to be, the mere fact of continuous progress on a stable basis would be a triumph for large-scale democratic working. There is danger in our becoming static and slow-moving; there is equally danger in trying to go faster than circumstances or our resources permit us to do. The middle course, the golden mean is always difficult.