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Nehrand the Nehruvian Republic
The Nehruvian Republic emerged spontaneously from the bedrock of its constitution, the Government of India Act, 1919 and 1935 and the subsequent evolution of Indian polity through the Indian Independence Act, 1947, the Constituent Assembly deliberations and the Interim Government Act, 1946 and finally the Constitution of India, 1950. Modelled mainly on the British Parliamentary system,it borrowed bits and pieces from other western systems. It therefore lacked the intrinsic local perspective it ought to have had.
Nehru had an overwhelming presence in the field of governance and administration, and was the unquestioned leader of the English speaking Indians. He was greatly influenced by liberal western thought and the social democratic movement in Europe since the Industrial Revolution. Anything indigenous or other than these ideas was considered inferior and inadequate.
India had the Mahatma but not the statesman she so badly needed to achieve the ideals of freedom and development with dignity. The one person who could play that role was fighting heroic battles outside India and his whereabouts, as the war came to an end, were shrouded in a cloud of mystery. Nehru, basking as Mahatma’s chosen political inheritor and trying to lead India the way he thought Mahatma Gandhi would have liked him to, began to create a modern democratic State.
Nehru travelled the world as a global citizen in search of an ideal with an open mind to take any good thing happening anywhere. Yet his first love was India, the land of his birth, and like a true patriot he made great sacrifices as a freedom fighter but could not get quite rooted because he ignored the ethos of the land though he, as a true democrat, was all for the dignity of the individual.
Inder Malhotra, one of India’s greatest political commentators and a great admirer of Nehru, reminded us about the conversation Andre Malraux, French Culture Minister, had with Nehru. He asked Nehru what his great difficulty since independence was. Nehru replied, “Creating a just state by just means.”
After a brief pause, he added, “Perhaps, too, creating a secular state in a religious country.Especially, when its religion is not founded on an inspired book.” The first part of the reply bears Mahatma Gandhi’s strong influence on Nehru. The second part of the reply clearly indicates that Nehru was quite incensed by a dark period of India’s political past dominated by failed asceticism and slavery. An avid reader, Nehru was not unacquainted with the ideas and philosophy of Dayanand Saraswati, Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo, Rabindrananth Tagore and other stalwarts. But he missed the message which constituted the very basis of Indian Nationalism and the movement for freedom because of his purely intellectual approach.
He misjudged India’s strength as its weakness and saw a problem in India’s dharma not being rooted in one book.
Nehru’s greatest contribution to India was that he laid the solid foundation for a democracy by building its institutions and nurturing them by his own ethically correct conduct as Prime Minister. The respect for the Office of the President, the Presiding Officers of the Houses, the Judiciary, the Opposition and the Constitutional bodies was evident by his own exemplary conduct of parliamentary ethics.
Nehru insisted on holding elections to the Parliament and Legislative Assemblies as soon as the Constitution came into effect. Under his leadership, India became the first country in the world to grant universal adult franchise; it was also the first country to grant the right to franchise for women without any rider.
It was a Herculean task to prepare for the election of the world’s largest democracy with a large chunk of the voters being illiterate, superstitious or both. What is even more significant is the fact that this newly born nation had a very painful birth as independence came with partition in which millions of people were killed, maimed and uprooted from their homes and hearths. It required indomitable courage and confidence for a leader to go to polls on the heels of a carnage of such magnitude. This is a testimony to Nehru’s commitment to democracy and his great faith in people’s instinctive wisdom. Elections were held in early 1952 simultaneously for Parliament and Legislative Assemblies peacefully and people reciprocated their trust and faith in Nehru’s leadership by giving a clear verdict. The world watched with awe and wonder the marvelous feat as Nehru’s India achieved a major milestone in the march of Democracy on planet Earth.
Prof.B.B.Dutta
(Professor B.B.Dutta is the former member of Rajya Sabha)
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