John Mathai, India's Finance Minister between 1949 and 1951 soon discovered Nehru’s “feet of clay” and remarked: “…Under Nehru the Cabinet had never functioned, and all decisions were taken privately by the Prime Minister and the individual Minister concerned. Even when a decision was endorsed in the Cabinet, the Prime Minister went back on it and reversed the decision… The only time when the Indian Cabinet really functioned was … when Sardar Patel was acting as Prime Minister. For the first time the cabinet functioned with joint responsibility; and the acting Prime Minister conducted meetings as the British Prime Minister would have.”
Wrote KM Munshi: “Jawaharlal was a dictator by temperament but had an intellectual aversion to dictators like Hitler and Stalin. He swore by the Constitution but was ever ready to defy or ignore it. Entrenched as he was in unlimited powers, he could never realise the harm that he was doing to the country by twisting the Constitution to his liking.”
Blunder-A.11 :
Nehru: Power Trumps Principles
Despite being already in the powerful position of a PM, Nehru manoeuvred to also become the Congress Party President in 1951, and retained that presidentship till 1954 to ensure a vice-like grip for himself both on the government and the party machinery.
Nehru released his presidency in 1955 to his lackey and a nobody like UN Dhebar, and allowed him to continue in that post right till 1959, after which he again manoeuvred to get his daughter Indira Gandhi elected as the party president in 1959.
Ironically, while he himself simultaneously held the post of the Party President and the PM, he got a similar setup banned at the state level—he got a party resolution passed in 1953 forbidding the state CMs from simultaneously holding a post in the PCC (Pradesh Congress Committee), on the ground that the CMs have too much office work to be able to devote time for the party work (Didn’t a PM have as much work? Height of hypocrisy!). Why? He didn’t want the state CMs to get powerful, and ever challenge him, or his daughter later.
Nehru’s god was power. Principles were fine to enhance one’s image, but if they came in the way of power for himself, and after him, for his dynasty, Nehru unhesitatingly and unscrupulously chose power.
Nehru ranted on secularism and against communalism and casteism, but when it came to selection of candidates for elections, both religion and caste were critical considerations for him, and for the Congress subservient to him. He never attempted to loosen the hold of religion and caste on the electoral process, he rather deftly leveraged it.
He didn’t feel responsible as the first PM of India to nurture a strong opposition so as to strengthen the democratic polity in India. Instead, he tried all he could to starve the opposition of funds and publicity, and to defame and condemn it.
He didn’t try to put in place standard democratic processes to run the government, and to arrive at sound, consensual decisions. Instead, he tried to run roughshod over the cabinet, and freely interfered in other ministries. What mattered to him was dictatorial power for himself.
Rather than building up a competent, strong leadership in the government and the Congress Party, like his mentor Gandhi had done, Nehru side-lined the competent like Ambedkar, Sardar and others, and gave a fillip only to yes-men and sycophants. Why? So that his power remained unchallenged.
Not only that, he gradually sidelined even the future competitors to his daughter Indira through the Kamaraj Plan of 1963, and other means, to ensure continuance of power for his dynasty. If someone should have first exited the government under the 1963 Kamaraj Plan it should have been Nehru himself for his 1962 India-China war debacle (please see Blunders listed earlier), and for his utter failures in all other spheres.
Nehru ranted against capitalists, but if they obliged his party by filling-in its election war-chest for a quid pro quo, Nehru’s “principles” never came in the way.
Socialism was not merely a fad for Nehru. What appealed to Nehru and his dynasty in socialism was its vote-gathering and power-grabbing potential by its appeal to the poor and the powerless. Ranting against the capitalists and the rich, and posing to be with the poor and the deprived in the name of socialism appealed to the masses. That India was practically going to dogs (and the masses remained miserably poor, and were starving) before their very eyes thanks to their socialistic policies didn’t seem to pinch them, for the socialistic nonsense managed to pull them into power elections after elections. What mattered was power, not the poor! Nehru talked of land-reforms, but when his party people informed him it could cost votes, he slowed down the process.
Blunder-A.12 :
Ill-treatment of Tandon & Sanjiva Reddy
The “great democrat” Nehru, who had most undemocratically become the first PM (please see Blunder-6), manoeuvred for a complete domination over the party in 1950, just before Patel’s demise, by having a Congress President of his choice elected.
Nehru unilaterally declared the socialist JB Kriplani as the candidate. Patel gave full support to Purushottam Das Tandon for the presidentship. Nehru, the pseudo-secular, had his objections to the selection of Tandon. The objections didn’t really make sense, like Tandon attending a Refugees’ Conference, and so on. Nehru threatened to resign if Tandon was elected President. Despite the threat, Tandon won with 1306 votes against Kriplani’s 1092. Nehru, the power-hungry person, of course, didn’t resign. On the next day of the election results, when Rajaji came to meet Patel, Patel asked him jocularly: “Have you brought Jawaharlal’s resignation?”
However, soon after Patel’s death Nehru began his manoeuvrings to get Tandon out. Tandon was a highly principled man of very simple living, but high thinking. Not being Nehru’s lackey, Nehru wanted him out. In 1951, Nehru threatened to withdraw from the CWC unless it was reconstituted as per his wishes—an improper demand considering it was the Congress President’s prerogative.
Nehru was apparently copying the illegal act of his mentor Gandhi of the late 1930s when a similar demand on the then Congress President Netaji Subhas was made to nominate members of the CWC as per the wishes of Gandhi, when Gandhi was not even a primary member of the Congress!
Tandon tried to resist Nehru’s moves, but given the immense pressure brought upon him by other quarters at the instance of Nehru, he finally succumbed, and resigned. Nehru promptly took over as the President of the Congress, in addition to being the PM.
Nehru loyalist Sanjiva Reddy became the Congress President after Indira Gandhi, and remained in that post during 1960–63. He later complained that he was treated “as Mrs Gandhi’s chaprasi [peon]”. Nehru sought not only his own dominance, but also his dynasty’s dominance!
Blunder-A.13 :
Anti Armed-Forces
It may sound odd, but Nehru & Co were so obsessed about continuing in power, and so unnecessarily and irrationally concerned of the possibility of the army coup, that they went to insane level of check-mating that possibility—even to the extent of harming the Indian defences, Indian external security, and the morale of the Army.
Rather than recognising the tremendous contribution of the Indian Armed Forces in the First and the Second World War, and giving them pride of place, the political class and the bureaucratic class, through the Ministry of Defence, conspired to downgrade the position of the Military top brass, by instituting various changes in the pecking order, reporting channels, and the constitution of the committees. Changes were done where the bureaucrats began to be ranked higher than the senior military officers.
For example, the post of Commander-in-Chief, the main advisor on military matters, was abolished. That role was given to the President of India—the President became formally the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces! The real motive was to remove the possibility of the Army Commander-in-Chief ever challenging the civilian authority. When you had adopted the complete British political system, bureaucratic system and the army system lock, stock, and barrel, and when there had been no occasion in the pre-independence period either in India or Britain when the Commander-in
-Chief had booted out the civilian authority, why that uncalled for concern?
The place next in stateliness and grandeur to the Viceroy palace was the residence of the British Commander-in-Chief, then called Flagstaff House. That house should have been allocated to Field Marshal KM Cariappa. But, Nehru, leaving his spacious York Road residence, promptly allocated it to himself—such were the Gandhian values of simplicity imbibed by him. Flagstaff House was later renamed as Teen Murti Bhavan.
With respect to the top IAS babus, the three Service Chiefs have been downgraded. They interact with the IAS babu as Defence Secretary who is the interface between the Armed Forces and the Union Cabinet.
Matters related to Defence Production and Defence Purchases also came principally under the bureaucrats in the Defence Ministry (though army men were represented in committees) opening a major avenue for the babus and the politicians to make money.
Worst was keeping the military weak, lest they ever challenge the civilian authority. Military remained grossly under-funded. It continued with the obsolete Second World War equipments, unable to adequately defend the country against Pakistan and China. Nehru assured the military there was no threat from China, so why bother to spend on army. Nehru’s self-deluding, pet theory was: No country would attack India! His was a military strategy founded on wishful thinking. Nehru had no use of wisdom like what Field Marshall Roberts had said: “The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable.”
For a relatively minor operation against the Portuguese in Goa in 1961, “one battalion was short of 400 pair of footwear and went into the battle in PT shoes,’ as narrated by General BM Kaul.
During the Nehruvian times the Defence Ministry had very low importance. Senior ministers shunned it, as it was considered not an important enough portfolio for a senior person!
Such was the Nehruvian hubris that side-lining the military-seniors, even purely military matters tended to be decided by Nehru, Krishna Menon, other politicians, and bureaucrats. For example, the hare-brained “Forward Policy” (please see Blunder-29), which was actually a “bluff” masquerading as a military strategy, that led to the 1962 India-China war, was the brain-child of Nehru
Nehru, and his Defence Minister Krishna Menon ill-treated army top brass. To give one example:
Major-General Thimayya’s daring feat in Kashmir was unforgettable. He took his tanks to a height of about 12000 feet on the snow-capped Zojila Pass—something unique in history, as nobody had taken tanks to such heights and in such hazardous conditions before—and routed the enemy, destroying all their bunkers. Sadly, it was this brave and competent Thimayya who was humiliated by Krishna Menon, when he was Defence Minister in Nehru’s cabinet, forcing Thimayya to resign! Later, after Thimayya withdrew his resignation at the instance of Nehru, even Nehru behaved with him in a way that amounted to his double humiliation!! Shocked by Nehru’s behaviour, President Dr Rajendra Prasad had remonstrated with him for laying down bad precedents.
Nehruvian tradition has been faithfully followed by the Dynasty and even by the Opposition. While the corrupt IAS and IPS babus have gradually cornered fantastic perks and facilities, all kinds of roadblocks were put up by the babus and netas in implementing OROP for the Armed Forces!
Blunder-A.14 :
Opposition to Restoration of Somnath Temple
(On Somnath, please also read in this book ‘Blunder-69: Distortion of History by Nehru’.)
As its name suggests, Junagadh is the place of an old fort. It is a historical place located at the foot of the Girnar hills in Gujarat. The Junagadh State came under the paramountcy of the East India Company in 1818. The last Nawab of Junagadh, Sir Mahabatkhan Rasulkhanji (or Nawab Mahatab Khan III), was a descendant of Sherkhan Babi. He was an eccentric whose chief preoccupation was dogs: he owned hundreds. (Remember Parveen Babi, the actress? She was related to the Babi dynasty.) The area of Junagadh state was about 3,337 square miles. It was to the south-west of Kathiawar. Its neighbours were all Indian States, and to its south and south-west is the Arabian Sea. Junagadh had no geographical contiguity with Pakistan. Its distance by sea, from Port Veraval to Karachi, is about 300 miles. Out of its population of about 6.7 lacs, 82% were Hindu. The people of the state desired merger with India. Yet, its Nawab went ahead, and signed the Instrument of Accession in favour of Pakistan on 15 August 1947. Pakistan had accepted Junagadh’s accession and had also signed the Standstill Agreement with them.
Left to Nehru and his mentor Mountbatten, and their soft-pedalling the whole issue, Junagadh as part of Pakistan would have been the fait accompli. However, thanks to wise Sardar Patel that didn’t happen. (For complete details please read author’s book “Foundations of Misery: The Nehruvian Era 1947–64”, available on Amazon.) Sardar planned and executed the Junagadh operation so well that the Nawab of Junagadh fled to Pakistan on 26 October 1947, the Indian army moved in on 9 November 1947, and Sardar Patel arrived to a grand reception in Junagadh on the Diwali day of 13 November 1947.
At the time, Sardar Patel also visited the Somnath Temple (located in the Junagadh State), then in a dilapidated condition, and pledged to reconstruct and restore it to its original glory. Gandhi, when advised by Patel of the commitment, suggested the funds for restoration must come from the public—Patel accepted the advice.
Upon the death of Sardar Patel, the task was taken forward by the cabinet minister KM Munshi. However, Nehru made no bones about his opposition to the project, and made snide remarks, and negative comments. Nehru told Munshi: “I don’t like your trying to restore Somnath. It is Hindu revivalism.” Cultured and learned Munshi, of course, sent an appropriate and telling reply to Nehru, which included the words: “…It is my faith in the past which has given me the strength to work in the present and to look forward to our future. I cannot value freedom if it deprives us of the Bhagavad Gita or uproots our millions from the faith with which they look upon our temples and thereby destroys the texture of our lives…”
KM Munshi had invited President Dr Rajendra Prasad to attend the inaugural function of the rebuilt Somnath temple in May 1951. Protesting vehemently, Nehru opposed Prasad’s attending the ceremony, and wrote to him: “…I confess that I do not like the idea of your associating yourself with a spectacular opening of the Somnath Temple. This is not merely visiting a temple, which can certainly be done by you or anyone else but rather participating in a significant function which unfortunately has a number of implications…”
Implications? Anything Hindu, and it hurt Nehru’s absurd, defective, and self-serving sense of secularism. Of course, anything Muslim, Buddhist, or Christian never mattered for him in a similar way.
Dr Rajendra Prasad, of course, attended, and replied: “I would do the same thing [attend inauguration] with a mosque or a church if I were invited… Our State is neither religious nor anti-religious.”
Dr Prasad made an excellent speech on the occasion of inauguration, saying among other things, that the physical symbols of our civilisation maybe destroyed, but no arms, army or king could destroy the bond that the people had with their culture and faith. Till that bond remained, the civilisation would survive. He added that it was the creative urge for civilisational renewal, nurtured in the hearts of the people through centuries that had once again led to the praan-pratishta of the Somnath deity. Somnath was the symbol of economic and spiritual prosperity of ancient India, he said. The rebuilding of Somnath will not be complete till India attains the prosperity of the yesteryear…
Such a grand speech! But, at Nehru’s instance, Dr Rajendra Prasad’s speech was blanked out by the official channels.
Incidentally, what did Nehru think he was? He would command what the President should or should not do? What hubris? A far less capable, and a far less qualified person trying to advise the highly qualified, wise and capable Dr Rajendra Prasad o
n his conduct!
It is significant that Nehru raised no such tantrums when it came to subsequent restoration of Sanchi or Sarnath, although the same were done through government funds (while Somnath restoration was through public, and not government, funds). Why? They were Buddhist places! Nehru had problems with only Hindu places!
Blunder-A.15 :
Restricting FoE
Indian constitution took a regrettable turn on 10 May 1951 when Nehru piloted the First Amendment to the Indian Constitution, that became a law after a few weeks, which, among other provisions, restricted freedom of expression (FoE) by amending Article 19(1)(a).
The amendment was perhaps provoked by the Supreme Court judgment of 1950 on the ‘Romesh Thappar vs The State of Madras’ case, through which the ban on Thappar's Marxist journal ‘Crossroads’ was lifted. Through the case, the Supreme Court had effectively recognized unfettered freedom of expression as compliant with our original Constitution, like in the US.
Nehru was not really a liberal in the classical sense, nor was he familiar with the intrinsic Hindu and Indian ethos of freedom of expression. Hinduism allows, and even encourages, people to discover their own truth, rather than being wedded to one unchanging and unchallengeable truth like in the Abrahamic religions. In ancient India everyone was free to worship their own gods or goddesses; write and narrate their own versions of holy epics like the Ramayan and Mahabharat, interpret them the way they wanted; be atheists if they so chose, like the Charvakas; practice abnormal rituals, as long as they didn’t harm others, like the Aghoris, and so on. Stopping the free flow of ideas is against India's innate culture.
Nehru's 97 Major Blunders Page 25