Nehru's 97 Major Blunders

  As per ‘India from Curzon to Nehru & After’ by Durga Das, when Dr Rajendra Prasad was ill and it was suspected that he might not survive, Nehru was reported to have deputed Lal Bahadur Shastri, his trusted lieutenant, to search a place of funeral as far away as possible from that of Gandhi! Nehru didn’t want Dr Rajendra Prasad to get any prominence. However, Rajendra Prasad survived.

  When Dr Rajendra Prasad died in Bihar, and his funeral was held in Patna, Nehru did not attend, saying that he was busy with election campaign fund collection in Gujarat! That time Nehru had advised Dr Radhakrishnan, then President, “I do not see any reason for you to go.” Dr Radhakrishnan had replied: “No, I think I must go and attend the funeral. That respect is due to him and must be paid. I think you should give up your tour and come with me.” But, Nehru stuck to his programme.

  Nehru was so conceited he wouldn’t allow President Dr Rajendra Prasad to visit foreign nations on the plea that he didn’t project a secular enough image abroad! In his first term, the President only visited Nepal. It was only in the second term that he visited some other Asian nations including Japan, and made an excellent impression on host nations. The US President Eisenhower invited him to the US, but Nehru scuttled the proposal.

  Blunder–82:

  Ill-Treatment of Dr Ambedkar

  Like for Dr Rajendra Prasad, Nehru did not attend Dr BR Ambedkar's funeral either.

  In all relevant fields, Ambedkar was far more competent and knowledgeable than Nehru. He was also much wiser, and experienced, having handled important portfolios before independence.

  Compared to lower second division graduation of Nehru, Ambedkar's qualifications were BA (Economics & Political Science, Bombay University), MA (Economics, Politics, etc., Columbia University, USA), MSc (Economics & Finance, London School of Economics), PhD (Finance, Columbia University), DSc (Doctor of Science, Economics, London School of Economics), and Barrister-at-Law (Gray’s Inn, London).

  India would have immensely benefited if either Sardar Patel or Ambedkar had become India’s first PM. But, did Nehru try to make use of Ambedkar’s immense talents? No. Nehru wanted only chamchas and hangers-on. Here is an extract from the resignation letter of Dr Ambedkar from the Nehru’s cabinet dated 27 September 1951:

  “As a result of my being a Member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council, I knew the Law Ministry to be administratively of no importance. It gave no opportunity for shaping the policy of the Government of India. We used to call it an empty soap box only good for old lawyers to play with. When the Prime Minister [not voluntarily, but at the instance of Gandhi] made me the offer [Law Minister], I told him that besides being a lawyer by my education and experience, I was competent to run any administrative Department and that in the old Viceroy’s Executive Council, I held two administrative portfolios, that of Labour and C.P.W.D., where a great deal of planning projects were dealt with by me and would like to have some administrative portfolio.

  “The Prime Minister agreed and said he would give me in addition to Law the Planning Department which, he said, was intending to create. Unfortunately the Planning Department came very late in the day and when it did come, I was left out. During my time, there have been many transfers of portfolios from one Minister to another. I thought I might be considered for any one of them. But I have always been left out of consideration. Many Ministers have been given two or three portfolios so that they have been overburdened. Others like me have been wanting more work.

  “I have not even been considered for holding a portfolio temporarily when a Minister in charge has gone abroad for a few days. It is difficult to understand what is the principle underlying the distribution of Government work among Ministers which the Prime Minister follows. Is it capacity? Is it trust? Is it friendship? Is it pliability? I was not even appointed to be a member of main Committees of the Cabinet such as Foreign Affairs Committee, or the Defence Committee. When the Economics Affairs Committee was formed, I expected, in view of the fact that I was primarily a student of Economics and Finance, to be appointed to this Committee. But I was left out…”

  In an article ‘A Case For Bhim Rajya’ in the Outlook magazine of 20 August 2012 the author S Anand describes a shocking incident:

  “Let us begin at the end, with one of the worst humiliations in Ambedkar’s life, less than three months before his death. On September 14, 1956, exactly a month before he embraced Buddhism with half-a-million followers in Nagpur, he wrote a heart-breaking letter to prime minister Nehru from his 26, Alipore Road residence in Delhi. Enclosing two copies of the comprehensive Table of Contents of his mnemonic opus, The Buddha and His Dhamma, Ambedkar suppressed pride and sought Nehru’s help in the publication of a book he had worked on for five years: ‘The cost of printing is very heavy and will come to about Rs 20,000. This is beyond my capacity, and I am, therefore, canvassing help from all quarters. I wonder if the Government of India could purchase 500 copies for distribution among the various libraries and among the many scholars whom it is inviting during the course of this year for the celebration of Buddha’s 2,500 years’ anniversary.’

  “Ambedkar had perhaps gotten used to exclusion by then. The greatest exponent of Buddhism after Asoka had ruthlessly been kept out of this Buddha Jayanti committee presided over by S. Radhakrishnan, then vice president... Worse, when Nehru replied to Ambedkar the next day, he said that the sum set aside for publications related to Buddha Jayanti had been exhausted, and that he should approach Radhakrishnan, chairman of the commemorative committee. Nehru also offered some business advice, gratuitously: ‘I might suggest that your books might be on sale in Delhi and elsewhere at the time of Buddha Jayanti celebrations when many people may come from abroad. It might find a good sale then.’ Radhakrishnan is said to have informed Ambedkar on phone about his inability to help him.

  “This is the vinaya that the prime minister and vice-president of the day extended to the former law minister and chairperson of the drafting committee of the Constitution. It was suggested with impertinence that Ambedkar could set up a stall, hawk copies and recover costs...”

  It is a shocking lack of grace and courtesy. Couldn’t they have spared a few thousand for Ambedkar’s great works—when the Government could spend lacs on all kind of sundry and selected and collected works of Nehru and Gandhi. The Nehru Government had also refused to publish the collected or selected works of two other great leaders: Sardar Patel and Netaji.

  Blunder–83 :

  Ill-Treatment of Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee

  Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee (1901–1953) was the son of Sir Ashutosh Mukherjee (1864–1924), renowned as ‘Banglar Bagh’ or the ‘Tiger of Bengal’.

  Ashutosh Mukherjee was a great educationist who had helped found many educational institutions like the Bengal Technical Institute, College of Science, University College of Law, and the Calcutta Mathematical Society, and served as the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Calcutta during 1906–1914.

  Thanks to his educational excellence, Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee became the youngest Vice-Chancellor of the University of Calcutta at the age of 33 in 1934, and remained in that post till 1938. He was an eloquent speaker.

  He joined the Hindu Mahasabha in 1939. He was the Minister for Industry and Supply in Nehru's cabinet after independence, and joined the Congress. He had supported the partition of Bengal, and ensured that the whole of it did not go to Pakistan.

  He opposed the Nehru-Liaquat Pact of 1950 (please see details under ‘Nehru-Liaquat Pact’ above), and in protest resigned from the cabinet, and left the Congress. He co-founded the Bhartiya Jan Sangh on 21 October 1951, and became its first President.

  He opposed Article 370 related to J&K (Dr Ambedkar, Sardar Patel and others too had expressed their disapproval of it), and opposed the decision to grant Kashmir a special status with its own flag and Prime Minister, and according to which, no one, including the President of India, could enter into Kashmir without the permission of Kashmir's Prime Minister!

 
; He coined a slogan: “Ek desh mein do Vidhan, do Pradhan aur do Nishan nahi challenge” (A single country can't have two constitutions, two prime ministers, and two national emblems).

  In protest, he tried to enter Kashmir on 11 May 1953, but was arrested at the border, and was lodged in a run-down, dilapidated structure by the then PM(!!) of J&K Sheikh Abdullah! Reportedly, all this was in the knowledge of Nehru, and was done with his concurrence.

  Even the British had not treated the Congress freedom fighters, especially the Gandhian leadership, in such an abject manner. Nehru wrote books sitting in British jails, and he had himself written in his autobiography that his treatment in the British jails was very good, and full of respect.

  Dr Mukherjee was already not in good health, and such deliberately inhuman treatment exacerbated his dry pleurisy and coronary (heart) troubles. So callous and cruel was the attitude of the J&K government and Sheikh Abdullah (and Nehru must have been fully aware of the goings on) that Dr Mukherjee was taken to a hospital full month and a half after his arrest!

  And, so careless and incompetent was the treatment that he was administered penicillin, even though he had informed the doctor-in-charge of his allergy to penicillin.

  Couldn’t Nehru have flown-in heart-specialists, or shifted him to New Delhi! Poor Dr Mukherjee, he succumbed to the ill-treatment on 23 June 1953.

  Such a major death, and that too in government custody, and yet no Enquiry Commission was set up, despite demands. Dr Mukherjee’s mother (his wife had expired long ago) wrote to Nehru asking for a proper, independent enquiry, but “democratic” Nehru turned down, or turned a deaf ear to all such requests. Nehru stated dismissively that he had made enquiries, and was satisfied there was no wrong-doing. Was he a detective? Such an immature comment from a PM! And, if there was no wrong-doing, he could have let an Enquiry Commission establish it.

  It was not democracy, it was an autocracy under Nehru. There have been numerous major instances during the Nehruvian era where cases that could adversely affect Nehru’s image or that of his government were either not taken cognizance of, or not booked, or enquiries were not conducted. And, if so done under public pressure, the same were subsequently scuttled. And, where they could not be scuttled, their reports were suppressed, or kept classified, like the Henderson-Brooks/Bhagat Report on the 1962 India-China War debacle. Such things are impossible in the current media age. Had even 5% of the current media existed then, Nehru would have stood exposed much earlier in his term.

  Atal Behari Vajpayee, ex-PM, had accompanied (as a journalist) Dr Mukherjee up to the point he was arrested. He alleged in 2004: “When Mookerjee decided to violate the permit rule by entering J&K without a permit, we thought the Punjab government would arrest him and prevent him from proceeding further. However, that did not happen… Later, we came to know that the J&K government and Nehru government had entered into a conspiracy, as per which it was decided that Mookerjee would be allowed to enter J&K but not be allowed to leave…”

  Vajpayee alleged the then Nehru government feared that if Mookerjee was not allowed to enter J&K, questions would be raised on integration of the state with the country, which had several drawbacks, and therefore “the J&K government was told that he should not be allowed to come back”.

  Blunder–84 :

  Ill-Treatment of Bordoloi

  That great man from Assam, Gopinath Bordoloi, despite his achievements—far more than most of the Indian leaders, with the added uniqueness that like Sardar Patel, who was instrumental in expanding the Indian territory by about 40% by accession of the Indian Princely States, Bordoloi helped expand India’s geographical boundary to Assam and the Northeast—was not awarded Bharat Ratna by the successive Congress Governments starting from Nehru, while many, not as deserving, got that award.

  He had opposed Nehru before independence, and for good reason—to include Assam in India—and that was the reason Nehru and his dynasty deprived him of well-deserved Bharat Ratna.

  It was only when a non-Congress (Vajpayee) government came to power that Bordoloi, a veteran Congressman, was awarded the Bharat Ratna posthumously in 1999.

  Blunder–85 :

  Ill-Treatment of Bhagat Singh & Azad

  Despite popular requests to make sparing the life of Shahid Bhagat Singh and others a condition in the on-going negotiations between Gandhi and the Viceroy Irwin, the Gandhi–Irwin Pact signed on 5 March 1931 remained silent on the matter, and Gandhi and the Congress did effectively precious little to save the braves.

  There were no demonstrations, no hartals, no satyagraha and no fasts organised by the Congress Party or Gandhi; nor did Gandhi include the matter of commutation of sentences of Bhagat Singh and others while negotiating release of the Congress prisoners of the Salt Satyagraha and related matters with Viceroy Irwin for the Gandhi-Irwin Pact.

  Gandhi used to report back each day’s discussions and agreements with Irwin to the CWC members in the evening; and all agreements were with their concurrence. If Gandhi and CWC had so desired they could have refused to further proceed with the talks with the Viceroy if he was not agreeable to deal with Shahid Bhagat Singh and colleagues differently.

  Nehru was the Congress president then, serving his second consecutive term. As Nehru was young then and used to pose as a firebrand leftist-socialist freedom fighter, people had tremendous hope from him that he would leave no stone unturned to save Shahid Bhagat Singh, Raj Guru and Sukh Dev. But, Nehru did NOTHING.

  Chandrashekhar Azad had personally met Nehru in Allahabad to persuade him to use his good offices as the president of the Congress to have the sentences on Shahid Bhagat Singh, Raj Guru and Sukh Dev commuted.

  Rather than doing what Nehru should have, given the way he used to project himself as a young uncompromising freedom fighter, what Nehru wrote about his meeting with Chandrashekhar Azad in his autobiography is not just disappointing, it is disturbing. The casual, disrespectful way he wrote about Chandrashekhar Azad is shocking. Here are some extracts: “I remember a curious incident about that time, which gave me an insight into the mind of the terrorist group [How he calls them. Not freedom fighters, but terrorists!] in India… A stranger came to see me at our house, and I was told that he was Chandrasekhar Azad [even though Azad was famous by then, and there is no way Nehru wouldn’t have known]… He had been induced to visit me because of the general expectation (owing to our release) that some negotiations between the Government and the Congress were likely. He wanted to know, if, in case of a settlement, his group of people would have any peace. Would they still be considered and treated as outlaws; hunted from one place to place, with a price on their heads, and the prospect of the gallows ever before them? [Would people like Azad plead like this?]…”

  Going by what Saswati Sarkar, Shanmukh and Dikgaj write in their article “Did Nehru betray Chandrasekhar Azad to the British?” dated 26 February 2016 in www.dailyo.in which reproduces and dissects what Nehru has himself written in his autobiography about his meeting with Azad, Nehru appears to have been highly economical with truth.

  Blunder–86:

  Ill-Treatment of Veer Savarkar

  Savarkar’s case is unique, shocking, and painful for all patriots, and well-meaning people. He suffered the most and brutally in the British jails (Kaalapani). As if that was not enough, independent India under Nehru again threw him into jail by framing a false case, and defamed him!

  What did Savarkar get for all his sacrifices? Humiliation! It was doubly humiliating because the humiliation was inflicted not by the British, but by Independent India—that too by framing false charges against him. What could be worse? Top Gandhian leaders who suffered the least in the British jails (details further down) leveraged all their “sacrifices” to grab power and pelf post-independence, but people like Savarkar who gave their all (and who were far more erudite, wise and capable than most top Gandhians) were humiliated, defamed, ignored and forgotten.

  Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883–1966), aka Swatantryaveer Savark
ar, was a freedom fighter, poet, writer, playwright, forceful orator, rationalist, atheist, and reformer, who vigorously advocated end of Hindu caste-system, and strongly disapproved of orthodox Hindu beliefs and practices. He built the Patit Pavan Mandir in Ratnagiri, open to the all, including Dalits. A section of orthodox Brahmins of Maharashtra opposed his reform; but he earned praise and respect from Dr BR Ambedkar.

  Savarkar became a revolutionary while a student in India and England. In London, he was associated with the ‘India House’ set up by the revolutionary Shyamji Krishna Varma. He founded ‘Abhinav Bharat Society’ and the ‘Free India Society’. He also brought out publications espousing the cause of complete independence of India by revolutionary means. His famous book ‘1857—First War of Independence’ had so much rattled the British that they had put a ban on it, confiscating all its copies within six months of its release.

  Arrested in 1910 for his revolutionary activities, he made a daring attempt to escape while being transported from Marseilles, France. With constable waiting outside, Savarakar entered the toilet, broke the window, wriggled out somehow, and jumped into the ocean from a sailing ship to swim his way to Marseilles port. His friends (including Madam Bhikaiji Cama) were supposed to pick him up there, but they were late by a few minutes, and the French Police caught him and returned him to the British cops—chained and under stricter watch.

  He was sentenced to two life terms of imprisonment totalling fifty years! He was imprisoned in the Cellular Jail in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (Kaalapani), and treated cruelly and inhumanly. He must have been the first poet in the world to have been deprived of pen and paper in a jail. He improvised and used thorns and nails to compose his writings on prison walls.