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Journalism of Courage
What is India? An “imagined community” a la Benedict Anderson, a “civilisational” state, a Hindutva nation, a constitutional republic? It is perhaps all of these, or none and the battles to define it continue to take place at the ballot box, in Parliament, on the street and in the hallowed halls of academic institutions around the world.
In the first decade-and-a-half after Independence, though, that question demanded less esoteric answers. Few believed that democracy based on universal franchise was a viable option for a poor, largely illiterate population. The questions of which of the two economic models India would follow, which Cold War camp it might join, what the nature of federalism would be and what would secularism be in practice had no certain answers. But, with the far from 20/20 hindsight of political history, Jawaharlal Nehru was seen as the moving force — for good and ill — behind how a young country would find itself.
In “demystifying” the myths around Nehru, historian Taylor C Sherman brings out the complexity of the time he governed in. But perhaps more important than its value as a historical record, Nehru’s India: A History in Seven Myths allows readers to see a collective father figure — or a “founding father”, if you will — as human, uncertain and charting his way as a leader in a system and context that had no precedent.
“It was a time of experimentation,” says Sherman, over tea at the outdoor canteen at Teen Murti Bhavan, “The 1950s and ’60s were a different time. Today, the idea of voters being ‘experimented’ on may well come across as disturbing. During Nehru’s tenure as PM, though, it carried a sense of the scientific. There were pilot projects, experiments with the kind of welfare state India should be, redistributive policies like land reforms.” With time, though, that idea was lost, and Nehru began to be presented, both by his admirers and detractors, as someone whose ideas were perfectly formed. “But Nehru wasn’t the ‘architect of modern India’, more an educator and patron,” according to Sherman. In fact, he had political opposition both within and outside the Congress as well as disagreements with the judiciary.
All young nations do, of course, need figures to deify. In India’s case, the paradigm of the prime minister is Nehru — the idea of the statesman, educator, diplomat par excellence can be seen (even if in parody) at play today. The manner in which A History in Seven Myths deals with “the myth of Nehru as the architect of India” establishes the way the book progresses. In most cases, dismantling the myths around “great men” reveals a petty figure, driven by power or personal demons. With Nehru, Sherman ends up revealing a person who is more exceptional than the myths that kept him shrouded.
Take the “myth” of India’s non-aligned foreign policy. It was not, Sherman says, the woolly-headed idealism it is presented as today but rather, a way for a new, poor country to punch above its weight in global affairs. There was also the justified fear of foregoing agency in the international arena so soon after decolonisation. But, perhaps, most importantly, Sherman puts paid to the idea that India was particularly close to the Soviet Union during Nehru’s time. The “myth of non-alignment hides the creativity and the ambition of India’s foreign policy in the 1950s and 60s,” she says. It is fascinating, for example, that India throughout those two decades had far closer ties, academic and institutional with the United States than the Soviet Union.
Then there are the ideas of Nehru’s India as “socialist” and of him being the proponent of a “strong state”. “There’s an Oxford Union-style debating trick that equates all socialism with Soviet communism. But there are many socialisms… in fact, in the parlance of Nehru’s time as now, Indians defined their socialism for themselves,” Sherman says. What becomes clear from the book is that Indian socialism was as much about making nation-building and development — a collective project, more “social”, if anything. Of course, that aim was hardly ever reached.
A “strong state” also depends on how you look at it. “It is often viewed in terms of executive power, which Nehru certainly wielded,” according to Sherman. But rather than use it for building a cult of personality “he was all about building institutions — the Lok Sabha, administrative reform and so on. He did not view the colonial state as ‘strong’ either. He wanted to adjust the administration in order to make it democratic and responsive to the will of the people.”
A History in Seven Myths begins with a recap of a documentary released by the Films Division of India in 1984, titled Nehru. In it, one of the main sources of the seven myths is revealed. Nehru’s successors — genetic and political — read back into him their own politics. Even today, his detractors try to paint a picture of India’s first prime minister based on those cliches, now distorted often by outright lies.
Teen Murti Bhavan, where Sherman has worked often, till recently housed the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library. That space is now meant for all the prime ministers of India. But in one sense, none of those who have succeeded him has matched up.
What becomes clear from Sherman’s de-mythification — of Nehru as the architect of India, non-alignment, “hegemonic” secularism, socialism, the strong state, democracy, and modernism — is that he was exceptionally democratic. Few leaders with his popularity, charisma and almost complete lack of opposition have not given in to the temptations of authoritarianism. And today, more than ever, it is strange to imagine a leader who thinks of institutions as more important than his own cult of personality.
As it turns out, more often than not, the truth of Nehru is even more impressive than the myths that surrounded him. And the India he presided over was poorer in most ways, but more laden with hope and meaning than it is perhaps today.
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