Most of us make the mistake of evaluating Nehru in today's context. Which is grossly fallacious. If we want to do justice to our evaluation it should be done considering prevailing situations 74 years back and the corresponding limitations. What he has done, possibly no PM other than Vajpayee would have been able to do. That's also an assumption since Vajpayee was not in action then. But I assume so because Vajpayee never being very critical of Nehru. Opening up an IIT, IIM, and AIIMS seventy years ago needs vision. Nehru’s biggest contribution is the creation of the democratic foundation. If we look around we would find many nations during that period had fallen in the grip of dictatorship, martial rule, or landed in civil war. Nehru has steered the nation through the rubble. Yes, the speed was slow, but there was no road, Nehru had to create the road and move. The nation steadily moved forward.
The fact that Indian democracy has survived — credit goes to him. He has his share of mistakes, but he started everything fresh with very limited resources and a hell lot of bottlenecks and constraints. So there's always room for mistakes. Plus post-WWII, geopolitics went through a delicate balancing act. He had to be extremely cautious. Today when we look back we find a base for comparison to decide right or wrong. But he didn't have that advantage. He was sold out for building a strong vibrant democracy. India was the hope for people worldwide to dream of democracy, particularly for third-world countries, where people were living under tyranny and oppression. Nations were afraid of hostile action from the superpowers. India just came out of colonial rule, it couldn't again have opted for partnering with the US who then (even now) was the biggest imperialistic force intimidating every nation. India had to choose a middle path and avoid being bulldozed.
He built up the foundation of a strong democratic nation, a nation that will not be subservient to any superpower. He had a vision for a developed nation a modern India - he focused on every direction. He understood that to be a developed nation India has to focus on industrialisation. Nehru called for the building of the New Temples of a resurgent India, including huge dams for irrigation and hydel power, large thermal and hydro-based power stations, steel plants, aluminum plants, copper and zinc plants, transportation systems, reinvigorated agriculture, and educational institutions like the Indian Institutes of Technology, Indian Institutes of Management, the Indian School of Mines, Agriculture Universities, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences and the public sector which galvanized and synergized the economy.
The private sector was not organized enough to take the burden of rapid industrialization. Also, it did not have a scale large enough to accommodate the large developmental project. We had only a handful few private sector entities. As such Nehru had to take the route of driving growth through public sector units. Across the world, major projects of national importance were undertaken by the government directly. The private sector enterprises didn’t have adequate resources to take up heavy industrial projects. Also to remove regional imbalance in growth and to foster balanced growth it was decided to keep critical sectors under government control. India just came out of British rule, it couldn’t have allowed American companies to take over control of our resource base.
With a weak domestic private sector, India couldn’t have gone for total capitalism without opening the market to foreign players ( what we nowadays call FDI) Today capitalism means either selling off profit-making public sector enterprises to crony industrialists or selling it to foreign players in the name of FDI. Whereas the economy will gain only when the domestic private sector entities create or establish new industrial units, not just buy off the PSUs. PSUs are already there, the performance of the Pvt sector should be measured on the basis of the creation of new industries.
When Nehru took over only about 5000 of our towns and villages were electrified, we had virtually no capital goods industry and we were just a poor and primitive country. The challenge in front of Nehru was a huge one, But he took up the challenge and he delivered it through his all-around performance.
After the nuclear attack on Japan, Nehru understood that India’s sovereignty would always be under threat unless it developed nuclear capability. So immediately after independence, he called Dr. Homi Bhava to start up the atomic mission. The Indian Atomic Energy Commission was first set up in August 1948 in the Department of Scientific Research, which was created a few months earlier in June 1948. The Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) was set up on August 3, 1954, under the direct charge of the Prime Minister through a Presidential Order. Subsequently, in accordance with a Government Resolution dated March 1, 1958, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was established in the Department of Atomic Energy. Nehru’s vision was to make India a strong nuclear power.
We blame Nehru for the inefficiency of the public sector, but we forget that Nehru died in 1964, at which time the public sector was still efficient. He chose his people carefully, including S.N. Mehta to build Bhilai, Harvey Slocum to build Bhakra-Nangal, and P.N. Thapar and P.L. Verma to build Chandigarh. N. Dandekar created the Shipping Corporation of India and JRD Tata was persuaded to continue to head Air India even after it had been nationalized. Chandigarh was a new city constructed on the orders of Nehru. India's First Planned City. Chandigarh is one of the most thoroughly planned cities in the world.
After the partition of India in 1947, the former British province of Punjab was divided into two provinces, East Punjab in India (mostly Sikhs and Hindus) and West Punjab in Pakistan. The Indian Punjab required a new capital because the former capital, Lahore, had become part of Pakistan after the partition, In 1949 the American planner and architect Albert Mayer was commissioned to design a new city to be called "Chandigarh". Pandit Nehru had a vision of a smart city (planned city) more than 70 years back and he successfully executed it, no excuse was given.
Nehru was against the polarisation of the world during the Cold War. He wanted to create an alternate platform for the nations that would maintain distance from the US & USSR. It was Nehru who took an active interest and played a pivotal role in the creation Non-Aligned Movement was established in 1961. He was no dummy, no onlookers. He played an active role in world politics
Nehru also focused on building up all-around defense capability - army, navy, and air force. However the drubbing at the hand of China in 1962 badly exposed our defense preparedness. However, the correctives were taken quickly. And the fact that India countered Pakistan effectively in 1965 proves that the Indian army was a resurgent force even though the Pak army and air force were equipped with advanced tanks, artillery, and fighter jets. However, defeat at the hands of China took a heavy toll on Nehru’s health. He was badly devastated and couldn’t pull it long, Nehru died on 27th May 1964. Nehru had his share of mistakes as well- Kashmir policy and appeasement policy. I wouldn’t bring his personal life here, because it didn’t have any forbearing in the service of the nation. I feel it would be wrong to highlight only his failure in isolation with disregard to his huge contribution to nation-building.
A lot of people hold Nehru responsible for the Kashmir debacle. However, possibly many people do not know that Nehru showed extraordinary courage and guts in the Annexation of Junagadh. Junagadh was a princely state of the British Raj, located in what is now Gujarat.The Nawab of Junagadh, Muhammad Mahabat Khanji III. The Nawab acceded to the Dominion of Pakistan on 15 August 1947. Muhammad Ali Jinnah waited for a month to accept the Instrument of Accession, to see if Nehru would make the argument that a Hindu majority under a Muslim ruler, then he would respond with Kashmir's case being the same. When Pakistan accepted the Nawab's Instrument of Accession on 16 September, the Government of India was outraged, how could Pakistan accept the accession of a Hindu majority princely state
Cutting a long story short Nehru went for a plebiscite in Junagadh without waiting for UN & Pakistan representation. Though earlier Nehru was in favour of a plebiscite under the UN and now said that it was unnecessary for a plebiscite to be held under the UN though it could send one or two observers if it wished to do so. However, Nehru made it clear that India wouldn’t delay in holding the referendum. A plebiscite was held on 20 February 1948, in which all but 91 out of 190,870 who voted (from an electorate of 201,457) voted to join India, i.e. 99.95% of the population voted to join India.
But this is where the Kashmir problem started. Kashmir was just the opposite where the ruler was Hindu of a Muslim majority princely state. Kashmir kind Hari Singh wanted to remain independent and made the matter complex for India. Nehru couldn’t have taken accession forcefully, since there was nothing in India’s favor - neither Kashmir a Hindu majority state nor the ruler was interested in signing an accession treaty with India. And thirdly it is a border state, where the logic of Hyderabad was not applicable.
Rather Sardar Patel didn’t have much interest in getting Kashmir into India. In fact, being a Muslim-majority state he was quite ok with letting Kashmir accede to Pakistan like he was OK for allowing Assam to accede to East Pakistan when the baskets were formed. He was more interested in getting instead Junagadh and Hyderabad into the Indian dominion. It was Nehru and Gandhi who had a special interest in Kashmir. Nehru with his roots in the Kashmiri Pandit community didn’t want to let J&K go. It was only when Jinnah started supporting Hyderabad and Junagadh in their claims of independence or accession to Pakistan, Sardar Patel’s interest in Kashmir took a serious turn.
It was Raja Hari Singh, who was responsible for the mess today we are having. Hari Singh continued to have this dream to remain independent and enjoy the pleasures of his palace, till the invading tribes from Pakistan’s North and North West landed within a few miles of Srinagar. He then hurriedly signed the instrument of accession to India; following which the Indian Army was flown to Srinagar. Indian Army could push back the raiders till the time Pakistan Army regularly reinforced their retreat lines with more firepower.
If we consider and compare the Junagadh case, India should have allowed Pakistan to annex Kashmir. Nehru couldn’t have sent the Indian army to Srinagar without Hari Singh signing the treaty of accession. That would have been considered an act of aggression by a newly independent nation and there could have been external repercussions. See Pakistan also didn’t send its army to take control of Junagarh even though it had an accession treaty signed by the Nawab. And initially, Pakistan didn't send its army. It involved its army when the Indian army took position.
We also shouldn’t forget that top generals on both sides were British officers, some of whom sided with India and some with Pakistan but none of them could take up arms against the other. But good thing is that Nehru didn’t give up. His going to the UN could be debatable. However, we need to see the whole episode in its totality. Possibly Nehru wanted to avoid a full-scale clash, neither Gandhi would have allowed him. Further Nehru was not a hard-core aggressive leader like his daughter. Possibly it was only Indira who could have stolen a victory from a stalemate situation. But Nehru was not Indira. Possibly that was one of his weaknesses.
Image source - Google.
No comments:
Post a Comment