WHILE it is understandable that left liberals will bemoan the attempted dismantling of the Nehruvian legacy by the Modi government, I wish to distinguish my complaint from theirs since it comes from a different direction. I see the actions of this government as eroding the stability of the Indian constitutional order that has been so labouriously and carefully built over the last 65 years. I see it as directionless and led by people with small visions and smaller understandings of the requirements of a modern state. I see it as setting into motion a process that may, in the near future, be uncontrollable and that would, if continued, threaten the very stability that we take so much for granted. I see it as being driven by an ideology that excludes a large section of citizens from legitimate public life, an exclusion that has no place in a modern democratic state.

One has only to look across the border at one’s near neighbours to see the effect of such small-mindedness on the instability of their own states. Even lowly Maldives has been unable to escape the affliction. This small-mindedness and ideological fanaticism is my concern for it is resulting in a gradual dismantling of the gains of 65 years. What appears to be taking place is the undermining of state institutions, political conventions, principles of co-living on which a consensus had emerged – intellectual autonomy, media freedoms, civil society liberties and, in general, the critical cultures on which a democracy depends. This is a dismantling of what one could loosely call the Nehruvian legacy.

 

By calling it the Nehruvian legacy I do not want to suggest that Nehru alone bequeathed the architecture and conventions of the modern Indian state to us. There were many contributors to producing the capabilities of the Indian state such as Naidu, Ambedkar, Mahalanobis, Bhabha, Sarabhai, Radhakrishnan, Patel, Kothari, Krishna Iyer, to name a few from a long list of men and women who finessed this architecture and gave it elements that have produced the stability that we enjoy today, a stability that allows us the leisure of criticism. I also do not want to give the impression that I see no deficits or lapses or failures or transgressions in the working of this state. I, in fact, see many shortfalls, even deliberate violations by the state of the terms of the social contract, but in focusing on these lapses I do not want to lose sight of the big picture because, I believe, we are at a juncture where we face basic erosions of the fundamentals of our constitutional order.

By referring to this order as the ‘Nehruvian legacy’, I am merely using the term here as a metaphor for a modern post-colonial state in the global South that appears to be successfully making the transition to a stable constitutional order. It is time, therefore, to look at this big picture and move away from Nehru the man and his historical personality and focus on the metaphor of the Nehruvian legacy.

Let me in this brief essay focus on six aspects of this legacy, each of which is central to the sustainability of a modern post-colonial state. Although I discuss them very briefly, these sketches are to be seen merely as the opening of an analytical window. Let me begin with the most tangible: the importance of rules and conventions for any democracy.

 

In the period of Nehru’s prime-ministership this small but important issue was frequently foregrounded. The importance of rule observance for regulating a polity, and of regarding ‘rules as trumps’ for disciplining the pursuit of personal interest, was a value that was considered important, if not fundamental. For example, in 1948, R.K. Shammukhan Chetty, India’s finance minister, was accused of removing names from a list of companies who were to be investigated for tax evasion by the income tax authorities. This action became known and was reported in the press. The issue was discussed twice in cabinet and even though only a year had passed since India’s independence, and the finance minister was engaged in the important task of attempting to stabilize the economy by piloting two important bills, the nationalization of the Reserve Bank of India and the Banking Bill, Nehru accepted Chetty’s resignation.

This is what he wrote on the issue in his fortnightly letters to chief ministers:

‘Before you get this letter you will have learnt of the resignation of our Finance Minister Shri Shanmukhan Chetty and our acceptance of it. I made it clear that there is no question of our doubting the bona fides of Shri Shanmukhan Chetty. Nevertheless, some things were done which can only be described as a grave error of judgment. In such matters, we have felt that we must have the highest standards of public conduct and so I have agreed with deep regret to accept his resignation. I trust that this occurrence will help both our provincial ministries and the general public realizing that in public affairs only the highest standards must be maintained and even bona fide errors cannot be tolerated’ (16 August 1948).

There were many instances where actions were taken on such impropriety, such as what came to be known as the Mundhra scandal, when he accepted the resignation of the esteemed Finance Minister, T.T. Krishnamachari. These actions of Nehru were to establish the public code of maintaining the ‘highest standards’ in public life. Contrast that with the ‘tough-it-out-attitude’ of the Modi regime where the normative indiscretions of Sushma Swaraj and Vasundhara Raje in the Lalit Modi case, and the Vyapam scandal in MP and the Munde rule violations in Maharashtra, and many others are presented as just the processes of competitive politics where we must defend one’s own at any cost. For the Modi government, the Laxman rekha of the highest standards of public conduct has not been and will never be crossed if the controversy concerns the BJP. The new code for public conduct is clear – ‘party interest will trump national interest.’ If this becomes the new normal, as it is likely to, a major shift in the public ethics of the state has taken place. We are now on a slippery slope.

 

Let me move to the second element that is important for the stability of a plural constitutional state: assuaging the anxieties of the minorities. Nehru, in his letter of 16 January 1956 to chief ministers, writes about the responsibility that the majority community has towards the minority. ‘Minorities may be, and sometimes have been, troublesome and have made exaggerated claims. In a democracy however, it is the will of the majority that ultimately prevails. The responsibility therefore rests on the majority not only to do justice to the minority but, what is more important, to win over the goodwill and confidence of the minority group, whether it is linguistic, religious or other.’

 

The majority must act like an indulgent parent. Because Nehru knew his history, and was aware of the sources of civil strife, he argued for winning over, through gestures and generosity, the goodwill and confidence of an insecure minority. This is not appeasement. Although he recognized that minorities can be ‘troublesome’ and make ‘exaggerated claims’, he was willing to be accommodative of their perceptions for the sole purpose of building an inclusive society. He understood that to move forward it was necessary to be both firm and yet flexible with them, as the Nehruvian state was on the unresolved issue of the Uniform Civil Code.

Arguably, the reverses faced by the state after Shah Bano, have gradually been overcome by the process of ‘juridification’ that has taken place as a result of judgments of many High Courts where Muslim women, who have been divorced under MWPRDA 1986, today receive more benefits than they would have under section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code. Nehru favoured a strategy of winning over the minority to build a plural nation. The Modi government follows a strategy of browbeating the minority, a colonial strategy of show-them-their-place to build a majoritarian nation.

The third element in the Nehruvian legacy was a politics of bipartisanship on matters of national importance. This was most evident in the composition of his first cabinet where he included members from opposition parties in it, such as Ambedkar and even the Hindu Mahasabha leader, S.P. Mukherjee. Even though there was intense party competition between them, both within and outside Parliament, Nehru showed the importance of a policy of bipartisanship on important matters of state. In contrast, all major appointments of the Modi government have been determined by loyalty and proximity to the Sangh Parivar and hence, important portfolios in government and heads of key institutions have been given to individuals known for their loyalty to the PM or to the ideology of cultural nationalism.

 

As a result we have lost the ability to be self-reliant in our thinking, and developed imitative minds on important policy matters. We have become just poor clones of Wall Street thinking at best, or deficit scholars of Parivar indoctrination at worst. No Joseph Stiglitz will emerge here, only a Alan Greenspan. The policy of partisanship deliberatively followed by the Modi government would never open up, even for a fleeting moment, the possibility of a liberal S.P. Mukherjee heading an important institution of government. Bipartisanship is good for competitive politics; partisanship takes us onto the authoritarian highway.

I could continue my reading of Nehru’s actions in terms of the legacy and its implications for a post-colonial democratic state by interpreting his concern with institutional issues, such as judicial pendency, when he commented: ‘The figures I have seen of arrears of work in some High Courts are appalling’, or his worry about the consequences of large projects such as the displacement caused by big dams when he observed that the ‘removal of large number of people from sites and their rehabilitation… which… would not be the case of small schemes’, or his striving to give his people dignity when he advocated brooms with handles since brooms without such handles were ‘out of date …inefficient and psychologically all wrong? Bending down in this way is physically more tiring and, I suppose, encourages a certain subservience in mind.’ These reveal his vision for a future India.

 

Let me, instead, go to the fourth element I want to flag: his attitude to civil society. Nehru was confident of the steps he was taking to build a new India and saw in this exercise the need for partners with ideas, both individuals and organizations. He invited scholars such as Paul Appleby, William Douglas, Albert Mayer and a host of others to give him ideas on policies to meet India’s needs. He invited scientists such as J.B.S. Haldane and Homi Bhabha and economists such as P.C. Mahalanobis to be part of this building exercise. R. Sudarshan in The Hindu of 12 November 2014 details this well:

‘Nehru took a personal interest in many of the innovative projects and ideas of consultants brought to India by the Ford Foundation. Wolf Ladejinsky impressed upon Nehru the urgency of land reforms to arrest the growing numbers of landless labourers. Land to the tiller became his rallying call. But it fell on the deaf ears of the Congress party’s leadership in many states which remained imbued with the "old zamindari mentality", as Nehru called it. Unlike the land reforms programme, which failed, there were other foreign-inspired ideas which had more successful outcomes.

‘Nehru encouraged the Ford Foundation to support the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) established in 1956 to provide independent policy advice to both government and the private sector. P.S. Lokanathan, its first director, left a legacy of professional integrity that has endured to this day. On the advice of Pupul Jayakar, Nehru invited Charles and Ray Eames to visit India. The 1958 Eames Report was warmly received by Nehru. It led to the establishment of the National Institute of Design (NID), which is a tribute to the genius of Indian design and what the Eameses called "vernacular expressions of design" (they wrote paens of praise for the lota) and "everyday solutions to unspectacular problems".’

 

Today, in contrast, a less confident India (ignore the bravado) has charged the Ford Foundation with violation of FCRA rules, although it has been functioning with the same understanding as it was when it was set up. Other NGOs are now being bullied by a government using provisions of the FCRA. The Modi government seems determined to shrink the space and diminish the role of civil society organizations because of the secular public space they occupy. Hindutva organizations are being given a free reign and so the impartiality of the law is being severely compromised. A partisan state is very much in evidence.

The most tragic case is that of Greenpeace India which, because it pleaded the cause of Adivasis and their rights to the land and mineral resources under the land, has now to face a financial crises since it is unable to receive funds from the parent organization abroad. These are but a few instances of how the Modi government has turned hostile to ideas critical of it, and has chosen to use the power of the state to diminish the space for civil society. This hostility, I suppose, comes from a regressive mentality that is neither capable of meeting foreign ideas with forward looking native responses such as has happened in Japan, nor confident in its ability to absorb and vernacularize them. Nehru had such confidence as we can see in his attitude to science and technology.

 

The fifth element in the legacy that I wish to place on the discussion table is: the development of a scientific temper in India. The symbolism of his first decision on becoming prime minister must not be lost; his acceptance of the presidentship of the Indian Science Congress. Nehru set the tradition of the PM giving the inaugural address at its annual meeting to send the message to the nation of his belief that investment in science and technology would take us out of our poverty and superstition. The enlightenment promise of science was a promise Nehru accepted and this was the basis for his establishing BARC, TIFR, the Indian Institute of Science, IITs and the CSIR labs to develop national self-reliance in science and technology. He campaigned against superstition and belief systems that for him had no role in a world of science, a good illustration of which can be seen in his attitude to astrology.

In a letter to Ram Swarup Sharma, the Director of the Indian Institute of Astronomical and Sanskrit Research, New Delhi, dated 16 July 1959, Nehru wrote: ‘Dear Shri Sharma. Thank you for your letter of the 13th July which has reached me. You have referred in this letter to my lack of belief in Astrology. This is largely true. But every kind of real scientific research should be welcomed, provided it is conducted on scientific lines. My own impression is that our forefathers in India made very considerable progress in astronomical calculations. While I welcome the effort you are making to have a scientific inquiry in these matters, I do not think it will be at all suitable for this book to be dedicated to me. I am sure you will appreciate my point of view. …Yours sincerely, Jawaharlal Nehru.’

Sharma was researching Sanskrit texts to see how far astrology in ancient India could be separated from astronomy. Nehru’s letter has four lessons for the discussion on astrology and scientific temper. The first is his lack of belief in the claims of astrology to predict the future. That is why he did not wish the book to be dedicated to him. To be honoured in a book on astrology went against his scientific temper. The second is the distinction he made between astronomy and astrology in ancient India and his appreciation of the ancient advances of astronomy. The third is his welcoming the use of the method of scientific testing. Such a method is valid for all domains of knowledge.

In spite of his disbelief in astrology, he was open to the idea that its claims should be tested by the scientific method. A science must be made up of testable propositions. A science has researcher independent protocols for validating its truth claims. Would different astrologers agree in their reading of a single horoscope? The fourth is his taking, as prime minister, a public position against astrology in spite of the public’s deep belief in it. He risked a loss of political capital but still in his role as the first educator to the nation he felt compelled to promote a scientific temper.

 

This commitment to scientific temper has considerably waned in the Modi regime as a new cultural chauvinism makes claims about the capability of the ancients (plastic surgery, nuclear technology, and genetics), and of the master science of astrology. The current Union cabinet minister of human resource development reportedly (never denied) spent four hours with an astrologer some time back. Rationalists have been murdered and their assailants still not arrested. The ideology of cultural nationalism has replaced the scientific temper, allowing god-men to acquire authority over the public discourse. And the Modi government encourages it.

 

The sixth element, and perhaps the most important is: the fear of communalism. It is Nehru’s thoughts on the threat of communalism that constitute the source of the current regime’s concerted attempt to air brush him from our national discourse. For Modi to claim credit for the Mangalyaan mission to Mars and fail to acknowledge Nehru, who set up ISRO, is an indicator of the deep subconscious hostility to Nehru that is bred by years of RSS training. Nehru’s opposition to the RSS, and what it represents, can be seen in the many letters he wrote to the chief ministers.

On 5 January 1948 he wrote about communalism. ‘Muslim communalism in India is too weak to now raise its head though undoubtedly there are elements of mischief still present in India. Within India the communalism we have to deal with today is essentially Hindu and Sikh communalism… The RSS has played an important part in recent developments and evidence has been collected to implicate it in certain very horrible happenings…’. (5 January 1948, para 8) We must not forget that these ‘horrible happenings’ were taking place in the backdrop of the human tragedy of the Partition, when the concern of the new government was to assuage the feelings of the displaced and to rehabilitate them while consolidating the nation.

Soon after his warning of ‘horrible happenings’, almost as a prophecy, Gandhi was assassinated because they (the RSS) were not kept in check. The ‘shock and unutterable pain’ of what happened drove him to take ‘swift action’ (5 February 1948, p. 56). Nehru saw the RSS in a certain light. It was dangerous because it was ‘essentially a secret organization with a public façade, having no rules of membership, no registers, no accounts, although large sums are collected. They do not believe in peaceful methods or in satyagraha. What they say in public is entirely opposed to what they do in private’ (6 December 1948, para 35). In its ideology he saw parallels with similar organizations in Europe.

 

He wrote: ‘It is clear that this type of intense communalism cannot be allowed to poison our national life, and we have to take strong steps against it. No government can be absolutely uncompromising where its own citizens are concerned. It tries, or should try, to win over as many people to its own side. Nevertheless it is always a dangerous thing to compromise with something that is definitely evil. The RSS movement is directly aimed at everything that nationalist India has stood for, and in the name of advocating Indian culture, it has developed a mentality of the narrowest and most unscrupulous kind. Its methods are secret. It must, therefore, be clearly understood that our government cannot compromise on this vital issue’ (23 December 1948, para 17).

We see in this statement a resoluteness about not doing business with the RSS because it represented, for him, the opposite of everything he stood for. Its cultural nationalism was suspect. Its narrow mentality was damaging. But the characterization of it as ‘evil’ is perhaps the most significant. The word appears again (thrice) in his letters written within a few weeks of each other. Was it a rhetorical flourish on his part or did Nehru, not usually given to linguistic excess, choose his words carefully? Was the word intended to convey his political and moral understanding of the organization? These are questions that face us today.

I have briefly expounded on six elements of the Nehruvian legacy. The tone and tenor of my text may be misread as a hagiographic account of our first prime minister. This is not the intent. As I said the beginning, my intention is to deconstruct the legacy and by identifying six elements from the scores on offer, I hope to both initiate a debate on each element, and its value for a post-colonial democratic state, and also alert us to the big picture that confronts us today as that legacy gets undermined. What sort of state are we becoming? My account could be of a Nehru or a Nasser or an Attaturk or a Nkrumah. Each was hoping to build a post-colonial state that would withstand the centrifugal pressures of a plural society and do so while setting in place strong foundations of a common political community based on universal citizenship. The six elements are part of that foundation.

 

In many parts of the world this project of a secular democratic plural egalitarian state is under threat from communal politics and neo-liberal economics. My essay, to some, would read as a dated treatise on a historical personality that does not refer to seminal texts of continental scholarship on power and their critiques of the enlightenment promise. These are important texts. Do they speak to the big picture of a post-colonial reality, especially one where layered transformations are taking place, that is struggling to establish a fair and just society? Should one neglect the evidence in India of stories of women being killed by villagers because they were suspected of being witches? The Nehruvian legacy seems best suited to deal with such antinomies. It has considerable scope for reform. All we need are more Nehruvians.