Nehru and National Philosophy of India

Nehru and the National Philosophy of IndiaAuthor(s): Bhikhu ParekhSource: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 26, No. 1/2 (Jan. 5-12, 1991), pp. 35-39+41-43+45-48Published by: Economic and Political WeeklyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4397189 .Accessed: 01/11/2014 06:35

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SPECIAL ARTICLES

Nehru and the National Philosophy of India Bhikhu Parekh

Consistent with his belief that every state needed a 'national philosophy' to sustain it, give it coherence and to direct it, Nehru devoted attention to the elaboration of a unifying national philosophy. For him 'modernisation' was India's national philosophy and involved seven national goals-national unity, parliamentary democracy, industrialisation, socialism, scientific temper, secularism and non-alignment. This paper comments on this philosophy and examines how he sought to obtain its public acceptance.

FOR Jawaharlal Nehru every state needed a 'national philosophy' or 'national ideology' to hold it together and give it coherence and a sense of direction and purpose. In his view the need for such a philosophy was particularly great in a new country like India whose people were divided on religious, ethnic, linguistic and other grounds, economically undeveloped, socially static and politically inexperienced. As such they desperately needed a shared public philosophy to unite them and provide them with a set of clearly defined 'goals' or 'objectives'. As India's first prime minister he thought it one of his most important tasks to develop such a national philosophy. In this paper I propose to outline and briefly comment on it, and to examine the ways in which he sought to persuade his countrymen to accept it.

Like most nationalist leaders Nehru was convinced that India had become deeply degenerate and required radical restructur- ing. Its regeneration consisted in modernis- ing itself among the lines of modern European societies, which too had for centuries remained degenerate and turned the corner in the nineteenth century by com- prehensively reorganising themselves along the lines required by the modern industrial civilisation. For Nehru 'modernisation' was India's national philosophy and invovled seven 'national goals' namely, national unity, parliamentary democracy, industrialisation, socialism, development of the scientific temper, secularism and nonalignment. We shall take each in turn.

National Unity

For Nehru national unity or what he sometimes called national integration was the sine qua non of national independence. 'We must give the topmost priority to the development of a sense of unity in India because these are critical days' Over the centuries India had fallen prey to foreign rule because of such factors as the lack of a strong central government underpinned by a nationwide structure of authority, narrow regional loyalties, divisions among its people sometimes so deep that they did not mind inviting outside help to settle old scores, and the absence of public spirit and patriotism.

Unless India put these right, it was doom- ed. Nehru thought that the Constitution of India had taken care of some of them and for the first time in its history given it a strong state, reconciling the regional aspirations for autonomy with the need for a central government strong enough to hold them all together and protect them against external threats.

In Nehru's view India had never before enjoyed a centralised state and it was deeply suspicious of one. The modern state could not therefore strike roots and become accepted as a legitimate and indispensable part of society unless it enjoyed undivided loyalty and unrivalled domination. The local and regional units based on primordial and natural loyalties had kept India divided for centuries and been the source of its fragmen- tation and political ruin. For years Nehru was therefore deeply hostile to the demand for its linguistic reorganisation. The state was a rational and secular institution based on a shared perception of common interests. As such it should only be divided- on the rationally demonstrated criteria of ad- ministrative convenience. To divide it on linguistic, ethnic and other grounds was to plant a non-rational, emotional and alien principle at its heart, to confuse its identity, and to pave the way for its eventual disintegration.' Even when he reluctantly conceded linguistic reorganisation, he con-' tinued to resist it elsewhere, especially in the old Bombay state. It took him some time to appreciate that the linguistic states and the cultural flowering of regional identities deepened rather than undermine the Indian unity. Even then he refused to accept the formation of states on ethnic grounds as in the case of the Nagas and the Sikhs.

As for the other causes of Indian disunity that he had skilfully analysed in the Discovery of India and some of which were mentioned earlier, Nehru had little to say. He thought that industrialisation would bind the country together in a network of economic interdependence, and that planning would ensure that no region felt exclud- ed from the fruits of economic growth. He thought too that increasing popularisation of his 'national philosophy' would forge common political and intellectual bonds. He hoped that increased travel, improved means of communication and elite circulation in

universities, national academies, public enterprises and central and state govern- ments would generate shared perceptions of interests. He seems to have believed that like Gandhi, he was himself a sym-bol of national unity and could transmute his countrymen's great love and affection for him into loyalty to India. Though Nehru had considerable success in uniting the country, he continued to feel that the process of national integration remained slow, patchy and superficial. Industrialisation took decades to produce results and both united and divided the country. The national philosophy took time to gain acceptance and was too rationalistic to touch 'deep nerves'. And loyalty to him was necessarily fragile and not easy to in- stitutionalise. Increasingly worried by regional conflicts and 'narrow-mindedness he began to plead for the 'emotional integration' of India, but neither gave it a concrete meaning nor traced its causes.

Surprising as it may seem in someone with an acute sense of history and a deep ap- preciation of the need to activate 'historical memories' and the 'sub-conscious mind', Nehru took little interest in culture as one of the bases of national unity.2 He well knew that though Hindu India had lacked such unifying agencies as the state, the church and a single sacred text, its far flung parts were for centuries united by a shared culture, which was no doubt vague and differently interpreted in different parts of the country but nevertheless possessed enough elements in common to provide a common framework of thought and life Over the centuries that culture had been periodically reinterpreted and revised in the light of new needs and problems and used to unite India's diverse and fluctuating communities. During Nehru's lifetime Gandhi had revived and reinterpreted traditional memories, images and symbols, and helped create a common culture - capable of underpinning the nationalist movement, a task for which Nehru warmly complimented him.

Nehru's reasons for ignoring culture seem to be varied. Though familiar' with the classical Indian culture, he lacked Gandhi's familiarity with and high regard for the folk culture. He also seems to have accepted the orientalist view that the traditional culture was ill-suited to modern India and best left alone to die an inevitable historical death.

Economic and Political Weekly January 5-12, 1991 35


is the goal achieved if we fear parties like MIMjust one Muslim MP in the past with complete majority

use for Nehru and federalism

discuss telangana issue increasing local aspirationsfirst state to protest for linguistic reorganisation

India only civilisation to have roots in ancient (basham)sudden break with past was difficult

Indeed he thought that apart from a couple of brief periods in ancient India, the rest of its history was a story of degeneration and decline. Whatever his reasons, Nehru's India was unable to integrate its past and present, with the result that it lacked cultural and historical depth. It was intensely obsessed with the future and remained deeply nervous and ambivalent in its attitude to the past.

Since Nehru ignored the need to give the new state cultural and historical roots, he failed to appreciate the importance of education as one of the major tools of national integration. Unlike Europe which heavily relied on education to integrate its citizens into the state and to develop a shared civic culture, Nehru largely viewed it as a means of producing 'trained manpover' rather than a cultural and nation-building activity. He concentrated on higher education and ignored primary education. He devoted vast resources to universities, Indian Institutes of Technology, national science laboratories and research institutes, but starved primary and secondary schools. None of his ministers of education was a man of im- agination and drive. During the colonial period, India had developed such a wide assortment of schools as private, public, convent-run as well as secular, vernacular as well as English medium, gurukuls and madaresas. After independence their number and variety increased and parents sent their children to whatever type of school caught their fancy. There was little co- ordination between them, and no over- arching framevork of objectives to give them coherence. In many cases the curriculum had only a limited relevance to Indian conditions and made little attempt to ground pupils in Indian history and culture. The text-books varied greatly and were often suffused with religious, ethnic, gexist, linguistic and other prejudices. Thanks to all this, the future citizens of India grew up with little in common and sometimes sharing only the barest minimum of memories and values in common with their parents. Many of them, especially the products of certain types of English-medium schools, greiw up neither Indian nor western, culturally confused and lacking a coherent system of values. Nehru's own two grandsons were products of such a system.3

II Parliamentary Democracy

Parliamentary democracy was the second 'national goal' for Nehru. He was convinced that India needed a democratic form of government not only because the latter respected the individual and was inherently desirable, but also because a diverse, vast and divided country could not be held together and governed in any other way. He also thought that it, especially the national and state elections, had the great advantage of drawing the masses into the conduct of public affairs and giving them a stake in the new polity. As he put it:4

I inay say that it is a most satisfying and encouraging experience to see such an enormous electorate of more than 200 million people going through this primary responsibility of parliamentary democracy with such smooth efficiency. Ours is not only the biggest democracy in the world, but among the electorate almost every civilisation from tribal culture and the stone-age to the modern nuclear era is represented. This makes the achievement of such a big job well done, barring a few exceptions here and there, something to be proud of. For me this business of electioneering is a most exciting experience in mass democratic education. We get an opportunity of explaining our ideals and objectives to the people; and the people in their own way educate us to appreciate their wants and complaints. All of us are richer by the experience...

This fact speaks well for the future of parliamentary democracy in our country. One gets the feel, and truly, of a whole people waking from the sleep of centuries, standing up and marching forward to a better and fuller life. It is this aspect of a whole nation in movement that I welcome above all things. Until the few years before his death,

Nehru did not think much of the currently canvassed alternatives to parliamentary democracy especially the ideas of 'com- munitarian' and 'organic' democracy advocated by such diverse thinkers as Vivekananda, Aurobindo and M N Roy, and opted for the liberal democracy of the indi- vidualist variety. He was convinced that that was the only way the Indian mind could be freed of the traditional constraints of castes, villages and other narrow units, and the Indian society energised. Of the various forms of liberal democracy he favoured the Westminster parliamentary model, largely because it was already familiar to India and guaranteed stability.

Parliamentary democracy involved such conventional institutions as universal adult suffrage, free and fair elections, the separa- tion of powers, an independent judiciary, free prcss, civil liberties and constitutionally guaranteed basic rights. Nehru was un- sympathetic to the Gandhian idea of a loose- ly structured polity on the grounds that it fragmented the country, hindered national unity, and exposed India to the dangers that had rendered it vulnerable to foreign in- vasions in the past. He preferred a federal polity with a strong centre and administra- tively autonomous states. Parliament was to be the central arena of political life providing an over-arching link between different linguistic and religious, racial, ethnic and other groups. Within each state the legis- lative assembly was to play a similar unifying role. Nehru was so concerned 'not to take any step that might lead towards loosening the fabric of India' that he got reversed the original plan to elect governors and had them appointed and dismissed by the president.

N tnru knew that parliamentary democracy depended for its success on a

strong and united opposition, and that India not only had none but was unlikely to have one for some time. Since he was convinced that it was the only appropriate form of government for India, he explored ways of compensating for the absence of opposition. He regularly consulted and briefed opposition leaders, and unsuccessfully tried to involve them in supervising the work of government departments. He urged his party to think of itself in national terms, encouraged vigorous internal debates and even welcomed dissent. On many occasions he internalised the opposition and himself acted as the leader of opposition, publicly criticis- ing his colleagues and even himself and acknowledging his mistakes.5 He also encouraged the press to play the oppositional role and chided chief ministers who tried to penalise over-critical journalists. None of these came anywhere near filling the role of a strong opposition party, but they did humanise the exercise of power and introduce a moderate degree of check on its abuse.

III Industrialisation

Industrialisation was the third component of the national ideology. Though Nehru was persuaded that India needed to encourage cottage and small-scale industries to ease the problems of poverty and unemployment, he saw them as a temporary expedient only necessary until the country became fuly industrialised. Unlike Gandhi he was convinced that India could not permanently eliminate poverty and satisfy the legitimate aspirations of its people without large-scale industrialisation. More importantly the modern world was industrialised, and a country that failed to keep pace with it remained weak and vulnerable to foreign domination. As he put it:6

It can hardly be challenged that, in the context of the modern world no country can be politically and economically independent, even within the framework of international interdependence, unless it is highly industrialised and has developed its power resources to the utmost. Nor can it achieve or maintain high standards of living and liquidate poverty without the aid of modern technology in almost every sphere of life. An industrially backward country will continual- ly upset the world's equilibrium and encourage the aggressive tendencies of more developed countries. For centuries India had remained scien-

tifically and technologically primitive and carried on with its centuries old mode of production. That was why it fell an easy prey to industrialised Britain. Now that it had learned the 'painful lessons' of history, it must speedily 'catch up' with the advanced western nations.7

We are trying to catch up in India with the changes that came in the world hundred or hundred and fifty years ago. That is, the industrial revolution... And what does it

36 Economic and Political Weekly January 5-12, 1991


rteprimary educationpre primary ignoredskill building lost out

mean? ... It means exploiting the mighty forces that lie hidden in nature.. . As a result of that western nations became powerful, became rich, and the gap between them and the non-- industrialised nations became a tremendous, ever-growing gap... Now... another mighty revolution is constantly coming over the world and setting the stage for additional changes all the time... So we have to go through not only one revolution but two. We have to cover the track of the 19th century and having reached the middle of the 20th, we have to function in this jet age, atomic energy age and the like. Industrialisation had its inexorable

momentum. A country . could not in- dustrialise itself in parts or in degrees or up to a point as Gandhi had proposed. And even if it could, the fact that other countries did not do so left it no alternative but to go all the way. Industrialisation was not just a means of solving the problems of poverty and unemployment as Gandhi and others had thought, but necessary in order to keep pace with the rest of the world in a globally interdependent economy. Its logic was inherently comparative and beyond the control of individual countries. As Nehru put it:8

If technology demands the big machine, as it does today in a large measure, then the big machine with all its implications and consequences must be accepted... the latest technique has to be followed and to adhere to outworn and out-of-date methods of production, except as a temporary and stop-gap measure, is to arrest growth and development. For Nehru industry not agriculture was

the lever of economic development. That was the economic orthodoxy of the time based on a misreading of the European experience, and he and his colleagues more or less uncritically accepted it. He was also in a hurry, and thought that industry-led growth transformed the economy far more quickly and effectively than agriculture-led growth. Nehru was also guided by deeper cultural considerations. The degenerate, static and tradition-bound Indian society desperately needed to be energised and radically overhauled, and its people made to think in a scientific, rational and secular manner. Economic development was necessary not just to eliminate poverty and raise the standard of living but to regenerate the Indian society and people, and hence its pattern, pace and direction were to be determined by the wider cultural indeed ontolo- gical aspirations.

For Nehru agriculture was a primitive and culturally inferior activity. It was tied to land, parasitic upon the forces of nature, made man a plaything of nature and encouraged 'fatalisti' and 'obscurantist' ways of thought. It also fragmented the country, confined man's vision to the narrow limits of his village, and was a breeding ground of ignorance, traditionalism, pas- sivity, narrow-mindedness and superstition. As such it lacked the power and energy to

haul the country out of its 'traditional grooves' and 'propel' it along the path of modern ways of life and thought. As Nehru repeatedly argued, villages had been respon- sible for IndiAs degeneration and changing their 'antiquated' ideas and habits was the 'very basic problem' of independent India. He did not therefore think much of agriculture as an activity and of the -peasantry as a social class. His vieWs were widely shared by the westernised professional elite and the urban classes, and shaped their choice of the path of economic development. Since Gandhi had brought the peasantry into public life and regarded it as the social bearer of his vision of India, those critical of that vision had an additional reason to marginalise the peasantry.

IV Socialism

For Nehru socialism was both a 'scientific' method of social analysis and a normative doctrine describing a 'desirable' society. Like Marx, by whom he was once deeply in- fluenced, he found it difficult to integrate the two and ran into all kinds of difficulties.

As a method of analysis socialism was based on a belief in the primacy of the economic factor. The belief was not a mere conjecture or a. hypothesis, but a 'fact of history' as Marx had 'proved' with a wealth of historical detail.9 Nehru observed: ?

If there is one thing that history shows, it is this: that economic interests shape the political views of groups and classes. Neither reason nor moral considerations override those interests. For Nehru the 'socialist method' explained

phenomena no other method could. The British had colonised India not in a fit of absent-mindedness, nor lo 'civilise' its people, but to procure cheap raw material and a captive market for their goods. The recurrent religious conflicts in India too had an economic origin and content, and were in fact economic conflicts played out on the religious terrain."

It is nevertheless extraordinary how the bourgeois classes, both among the Hindus and the Muslims, succeeded, in the sacred name of religion, in getting a measure of mass sympathy and support for programmes and demands which had absolutely nothing to do with the masses, or even the lower middle class. Every one of the communal demands put forward by any communal group is, in the final analysis, a demand for jobs, and these jobs could only go to a handful of the unper middle class. Nehru was convinced that once indepen-

dent India tackled the economic roots of religious conflicts, the latter would more or less disappear. 'Class conflicts there might well be, but not religious conflicts, except insofar as religion itself represented some vested interest.'

Increasingly Nehru began to doubt the validity of the 'socialist method' of analysis.

As one would expect in the Indian context, it was its failure to explain religion that worried him most. He had argued that. almost all Muslim religious demands boiled down to demands for jobs. The jobs, however, only benefited, 'a handful of the' upper middle class and yet the demands were vigorously supported by the Muslim masses who had nothing to gain and their lives to lose in the likely riots. They might be victims of false consciousness or pro- paganda, but that was too condescending a view of them and could not in any case provide the whole explanation. More importantly Nehru found it difficult to explain why economic demands were articulated in a religious rather than any other language. Either this was just an accident, in which case he was offering no explanation at all, or the religious emotion was independent and powerful, in which case the belief in the primacy of the economic factor needed to be revised.

Gandhi puzzled him even more Here was a man who preached austerity and 'reac- tionary' and 'confused' ideas and made no or only limited appeal to economic interests. Yet he 'spellbound' and 'magnetised' the masses and inspired them to most 'heroic' sacrifices.'2 By contrast the Indian com- rnunists, who concentrated on their economic interests and promised them nothing less than total control over society's resources, made only a limited impact. Nehru thought that Gandhi's success was owed to the fact that unlike the communists, he activated and mobilised their 'sub- conscious' historical memories, skilfully employed evocative images and symbols, and appealed to their religious sentiments. Gan- dhi also had a tremendous 'force of per- sonality' and was able to charge them with his immense energy. This meant that men were moved by a host of factors and that the economic factors were neither the only ones nor the most important. Increasingly Nehru began to grope for a more satisfactory form of explanation, but never managed to develop one. His analysis of social phenomena throughout the years of his premiership remained eclectic and confused.

Socialism as a normative doctrine fared better. Nehru remained a socialist all his adult life and entertained the same broad view of it. For him socialism was not just an economic doctrine, nor just a form of social organisation, but a 'new civilisation' based on a radically transformed 'humanity' It was classless, democratic, provided the material and moral conditions necessary for the fullest development of the human potential, and encouraged co-operative and non- acquisitive impulses. Production was planned, organised on co-operative.lines, and directed towards the satisfaction of human needs rather than accumulation of profit, and the basic freedoms and rights of citizens were fully guaranteed. It was striking that unlike Marx and other socialists, Nehru did not define man as a producing being, or



does not sound like a labour intensive approachcapitalist idea

place muchemphasis on popular participa- tion, egalitarianism, gradual withering away of the state class struggle and new forms of communal living. His socialism was basically aesthetic and liberal, concentrating on the individual rather than the community and stressing self-expression, individuality, social justice and human creativity.

Though Nehru's vision of the ideal socialist society and his moral and emotional attachment to it remained constant, his view of what was practical and his political will to fight for it varied greatly. From about the mid-1920s until mid-1930s he openly called himself a socialist along the lines mentioned earlier. His views were well-expressed in his long presidential address at the 1936 Con- gress session in Lucknow. He was a socialist 'not in a vague humanitarian way but in the scientific economic sense' and wanted to build a new social order on co-operative, classless and democratic times. Socialism was not just his personal greference but an 'objective necessity' built into the historical process. Even at this stage, however, he was worried about two things. 'One is how to apply this approach to India. The other is how to speak of socialism in the language of India... Merely to use words and phrases, which have meaning for us but which are not current coin among the masses of India, is often wasted effort."3

Nehru's uncompromising statement of his socialist aspirations at the Lucknow Con- gress frightened many of his colleagues and the Indian capitalists. It led to several resignations from the Congress working committee and threatened to isolate him. Though the crisis was eventually resolved, he learned important political and ideological lessons. He realised that he risked being condemned to political impotence without the support of the Congress, and that he could not carry it with him beyond a certain point. More importantly he realised that since he was committed to democracy and rejected both the dictatorship of the pro- letariat and the use of violence to overthrow capitalism, his socialism was subject to and needed to'be reconciled with the inescapable constraints of democracy. His countrywide campaign during the 1937 elections further reinforced the point.

He now started not only to play down his socialism but also to tone down its content. He argued that the Indian middle classes were 'too strong' and entrenched to be easily subdued, and that there was 'a tremqndous lack of human material in any other class to take its place effectively or to run a planned society'. 14 Attempts to achieve socialism were bound to provoke strong resistance, and a 'premature conflict on class lines' would not only lead to bloodshed but also break up the country. Instead of talking about ending capitalism as he had hitherto done, he now talked of ending poverty and unemployment, improving the standard of living of the mases, and increasing national wealth. lie even thought that since most Indians including the capitalists had come

round to accepting the idea of planning, it was better to introduce socialism through it rather than stress it explicitly. It would seem that he had at last found a way of talking about socialism in the 'language of India'. As he wrote to K T Shah, secretary of the National Planning Committee, in 1939:'5

If we start with the dictum that only under socialism there can be planning we frighten people and irritate the ignorant. If, on the other hand, we think in terms of planning apart from socialism and thus inevitably arrive at some form of socialism, that is a logical process which will convert many who are weary of words and slogans.

After 1947 Nehru was in power and did not have to be so cautious. In the AICC resolution of November that year and especially in the report of its Economic Pro- gramme Committee chaired by him, he laid down a fairly detailed socialist programme. Banking and insurance were to be nationalised. Defence, key and public utility industries were to be confined to the public sector. All industries having to do with food, clothing and other consumer goods were to be reserved for the cottage or small-scale sector and managed on a co-operative basis, thereby further reducing the scope for private sector. The state was to control investment, income and dividends in the private sector, fix land ceilings, and organise the surplus land in village co-operatives. It was to set up. a Planning Commission to work out an overall economic strategy and to discourage 'creation of private mono- polies and the concentration of wealth.

The cumulative impact of the fears aroused by the two documents, the earlier 'soak the rich' budget and the economic havoc caused by the partition, led to an economic crisis and the strike of capital. The Industrial Policy Resolution of 1948 represented a climb-down by the government. Though it talked about 'justice and equality of opportunity... to all the people', it insisted that the 'emphasis should be on the expansion of production' A 'mere distribution of existing wealth' would 'merely mean the distribution of poverty' The government was to eschew nationalisation and extension of its range of industrial activities. As Nehru put it, he was determined 'not to. injure the existing structure too much. K T Shah, his economic advisor for many years, called the resolution an 'utter disappointment'. D R Gadgil observed a year later that the 'old socialistic programme has... receded more and more into the background'. '

The First Five-Year Plan foliowed the 1948 Resolution and did not register an advance towards socialism. It underplayed the importance of equitable distribution on the ground that it 'might only end up dislocating production and even jeopardising the prospects of an ordered growth' The 'bulk of the industry' was left to the private sector, only a small percentage of the available resources was provided for the public sector, and the latter continued to be seen as a way of sup-

plementing and facilitating the private sector.

Around 1955 Nehru's thought underwent an important change. He was increasingly dissatisfied with the rate of economic growth and deeply worried about unemployment and the scale of poverty. He was also feel- ing politically more confident, and impres- sed with what he had seen in China in October 1954. He now began to stress socialism once again. He first talked about it at a meeting of the National Development Council in November that year. The Lok Sabha passed a resolution a month later stating that the government aimed at a 'socialistic pattern of society' A month later the Avadi Congress reiterated the commit- ment and declared that a welfare state and a socialistic economy were to be the national goals. The Imperial Bank of India was nationalised four months later, followed shortly by the nationalisation of life insurance companies.7 Around that time the National Development Council approved the critically important 'plan-frame'-for the Second Five-Year Plan developed by Mahala- nobis. Its declared goal was to create a 'socialist society' It assigned an increasingly dominant role to the public sector, and stressed the need both to exercise 'considerable vigilance' against the growth of industrial houses and to broad-base industrial ownership by assisting small businesses. It laid down the overall strategy for the rest of the Nehru period.

From 1954 until his death in 1964, socialism to Nehru largely meant a planned mixed economy dominated by the public sector. He stressed planning not-so much on the socialist grounds of equitable redistribu- tion or even the provision of the basic needs of the people, as because it ensured national autonomy, represented a 'scientific' and 'efficient' way of utilising the limited available resources, and guaranteed overall state control of the economy."8 He welcomed the private sector because it introduced a healthy dose of competition and; prevented the public sector from becoming, 'slow' and sluggish, released entrepreneurial! energy, mobilised private wealth, and also because an attempt to abolish it was 'bound' to lead to a class-war and a 'prolonged inability to build anything' The dominant role of the public sector was justified on both political and economic grounds. Only the state had the ability to generate the vast resources needed to set up huge industries in 'strategic areas' The public sector guaraniteed the state a powerful economic presence necessary to avoid it being control- led, manipulated or blackmailed by the private sector. It provided a 'counteracting power' to the capitalists and constituted a vital safeguard against their adding political power to their considerable economic power and threatening democracy. It also ensured that production was guided by social need rather than the profits of a few. The public sector was to-be built up by the entrepreneurial activities of the state rather than

38 Economic and Political Weekly January 5-12,41991


by nationalisation because the space for -industrial expansion was vast, the country's resources were limited, and it was better for the state to start new industries than to nationalise obsolescent ones in the private sector.

Nehru's socialism was inspired as much by economic as by political considerations. For him it offered the best means of secur- ing economic growth, rapid industrialisation, national self-sufficiency and an equitable distribution. It also ensured that the state remained autonomous and powerful, retained overall control over the economy, kept capitalism within bounds, and prevented it from forging unacceptable links with its foreign counterparts. For Nehru only socialism could- guarantee national independence, an autonomous state and democracy.

It was striking that the economic objectives of socialism did not give high priority to equitable distribution or even to the provision of the basic needs of the masses. No doubt Nehru constantly talked about these, but largely as distant goals rather than urgent objectives, and they did not form the operative principles of the three five-year plans. He was more concerned to lay the foundations of a future socialist society and in the meantime to increase production than to eliminate poverty and provide a national miniimum to all Indians. The five-year plans gave low priority to public action aimed at eliminating endemic undernourishment, banishing illiteracy, providing basic medical facilities, and ensuring clear drinking water and cheap food, Nehru did not appreciate that extensive public investment in such areas as education, health, housing and goods distribution was not merely a matter of justice but also a vital social and economic investment capable of yielding high long- term dividends."9 In that sense his conception of socialism was structurally flawed, both morally and in its economic strategy.

V Scientific Temper

The fifth national goal consisted in the cultivation of the 'scientific temper' 'culture or 'approach to life'. By this Nehru meant not so much the development of science and technology, which was but a part and product of it, as fostering rational and empirical ways of thought and life For nearly a millen- nium India had remained in 'deep slumber' and come to grief because it had become dogmatic, mystical, speculative, uncritical, inward-looking and addicted to undisciplin- ed fantasy. If it was to turn the corner and become a strong and vibrant society like Europe, it had to learn to think and behave scientifically. Nehru's view of scientific thinking was fairly conventional. It involved checking and relying on facts alone, taking nothing on 'blind trust' or faith, changing beliefs in the light of new evidence, being precise and exact, relying on the method of trial and error, ceaselessly searching for

truth, keeping an open mind, and in general developing the 'hard discipline of the mind' characteristic of the 'modern age'. Such an approach applied to beliefs as much as to social practices. As we saw Nehru advocatecL economic planning on the ground that it was the only scientific way of running the economy.

Though Nehru emphasised the importance of the scientific temper, he was acutely aware of the limits of science, and anxious to avoid the positivist mistake of regarding it as the only valid form of knowledge. That was why he talked of the scientific 'temper', implying that it was to be an important but only one of the several organising principles of life. He drew up quite a catalogue of areas where science was either inapplicable or inadequate.20 It was incapable of answering questions about the meaning, purpose and significance of life. It did not extend to 'much that is vital in life', such as the human emotions of love and beauty and the literary and moral experience. Human beings needed faith in some ideal, 'some distant objective', some vision of a never fully realisable state of perfection, 'or else we have no anchorage', and such ideals were incapable of scientific proof or demonstration. Science gave no guidance on how to use its results, and needed to be 'tempered by spirituality' which alone gave us 'the right measure, the right perspective and the right directioW. Excessive preoccupation with 'hard' facts had blinded the modern man to the 'inner spiritual life' and coarsened his moral sensibility. The scientific and technological developments had created a highly 'mechanical civilisation', and ran the risk of producing a 'mechanised mind... thinking in grooves of thought' and drying up 'creative geniusO2` Scientists were postulating hypothetical entities they had never encountered and never will, thereby radically revising the traditional ideas of fact and truth. It was also widely recognised that the knower necessarily mediated the process of knowledge and that the scientific knowledge could never be wholly objective.

It would seem that in exposing the limits of science, Nehru was characteristically taking away with one hand what he had given with the other. But that would be unfair. 'Realising these limitations of reason and scientific method, we have still to hold on to thepn with all our strength, for without that firm basis and background we can have no grip on any kind of truth or.reality. - Nehru was keen to insist that science should remain supreme in those areas such as the natural sciences with which it was ideally equipped to deal. It should be given full weight in those areas such as the study of society where it constituted an important element in the overall process of knowledge. So far as such areas as the belief in the. existence of god, the soul or thle other world were concerned, science at least exercised a negative check and helped decide what beliefs one may not hold. Furthermore Nehru was concerned with science not so

much as a body of knowledge or even a method of inquiry as a manner of reaching decisions in matters relating to belief and behaviour. And here he largely equated it with rationality in the weak sense of not going beyond what was warranted by the available evidence. This, of course, raises a host of diffcult philosophical questions with which he was deal.

VI Secularism

Since the early years of the twentieth century especially the agitation surrounding the partition of Bengal, the relation between the state and religion had become an impor: tant political issue. The resolution of this difficult question was complicated by several factors that were almost unique to India. India has several religions with very different history and background. Islam had ruled large parts of the country for many centuries. And though it had become indigenised, unlike Christiaaity it never wholly lost its quasi-alien character at least in the. eyes of the Hindus. Hinduism had a vague and diffused identity, consisted of countless schools and sects sharing little in common, and was unable to speak with one voice let alone form the basis of the state. Unlike Islam it prided itself on its pluralism, tolerance and respect for all religions, and that rendered the idea of the Hindu state even more problematic.

The answers to the question of the relation between the state and religion in independent India covered a very wide spec- trum, ranging from the incoherent notion of 'Hindu raj' to the impractical idea of suppressing religion altogether.23 Most, however, fell under one of three categories. First, for some India should become a Hindu state, not in a religious but cultural or civilisational sense. Over several millennia India had developed a common civilisation, that is, a shared body of values, attitudes, ways of looking at the world and forms of social relationship. Though the civilisation had benefited from the contributions of Muslims, Parsis, Christians and others, it was basically a creation of the Hindus. Hinduism or Hindu religion was unique to the Hindus and distinguished them from the other Indian communities, but the Hindu or rather Indian civilisation or Hindutva was common to thetn all. Over the centuries the Indian civilisation had moulded and provided a common underlying bond between the different Hindu sects and schools. It had also shaped and indigenised such alien religions as Islam and Christianity. Despite their different origins, belief systems, and social structures, all Indian con. munities thus shared a common 'ethos' or 'spirit' and were bound together by deep civilisational bonds. A common civilisational basis was thus not only available in India but formed the ineliminable substance of its collective life. However secular the Indian stateGmight oretend to be, it could never transcend and

oomic and PRltical Weekly January 5-12, 1991 39


avoid being structured by the 'spiritual' ethos of the civilisation in which it was deeply embedded. Both intellectual honesty and prudence required that it should explicitly recognise this central fact and constitute itself accordingly. The advocates of this view

gued that such a civilisationally but not religiously Hindu state tolerated and even welcomed religious diversity as the necessary expression of its inner nature, and granted the minorities full legal and cultural protection.

Second, some Indian leaders argued that India had no alternative but to become a multi-religious state, that is, a state that did not just respect religious diversity but embodied it in its very structure. Such major Indian religions as Hinduism, Islam and Sikhism were ethnic religions, religions inte- grally connected with specific communities and intensely self-conscious of their unique history, customs, legal systems and ways of thought of life They desiredand demanded to preserve their communal identity. The Indian state should therefore be so constituted that it left them alone to be governed by their own legal systems, and granted them proportional representation in the institutions of government. Such a state was obviously neither secular nor merely 'tolerant' of all religions. They were woven into its very structure and ran it together in a spirit of partnership. The fact that the colonial rulers had instituted separate elec- torates for some of the religious minorities and communalised the state lent plausibility to this idea.

Third, most Indian leaders pleaded for a secular state but disagreed on its meaning. For some it meant sarvadharmasamabhava or equal respect for all regions. The state was not to be tied to a particular religion and was to patronise them all equally. They dif- fered from the advocates of the previously discussed multi-religious state in insisting that religious plurality was not to be built into the structure of the state. The state, resting on liberal individualistic foundations, was to keep religion at a respectable institutional distance. For some othe, secularism meant dharmanirapeksha or indifference to religion. Religion had nothing to do with the state and was to be confined to the private realm. They never, however, defined the nature .and boundary of the private realm and tended to equate the state with the nebulously defined public realm. For yet others secularism meant not just indifference but hostility to religion. Though the state was not to suppress religion, it was to do all in its power to undermine its continuing hold over the Indian mind by educational and other means.

Nehru vigorously pleaded for a secular state, but his view of secularism was com- plex and vague. He distinguished between the spiritual and ideological-cum-institutional dimensions of religion. He was intensely hostile to the latter but deeply sympathetic to the former, especially during the pre-independence days and the last years of

his premiership. Though he frequently talked about spirituality, he never clearly defined the term. Sometimes he equated it with morality. On other occasions he used it to refer to concern with the nature and destiny of man and the meaning and purpose of life; to be spiritual was to be sensitive to these important and 'irrepressible' questions. On yet other occasions Nehru gave the term substantive content and took it to mean a broadly advaita metaphysic; spirituality consisted in recognising the presence of a creative force or vital energy at work in all living beings and appreciating the unity of life.

Despite this ambiguity Nehru was convinced that although spirituality was the inspiring principle of religion, it was not confined to the latter and formed part of every thinking man's consciousness. No human being could avoid asking questions about the meaning of his actions, his relation to the non-human world and the point and purpose of his life. Spirituality thus dealt with issues falling outside the jurisdiction of science and complemented and gave it philosophical depth. Religion sought to deal with these issues and was close to spirituality. However, religious answers were not the only ones possible. Indeed they introduced an untenable theological baggage and wholly distorted the originial questions. For these and other reasons Nehru sometimes sharply separated spirituality, a delicate sen- sitivity to the deeper and perplexing dimension of life, from religion, a dogmatic body of assertions claiming to offer definitive answers to questions that did not permit conclusive resolution.

Nehru had no sympathy whatever for the ideological and institutional aspect of religion.24 By the former he meant theological dogmas including the belief in the existence of god and the after-life, and by the latter organised church, religious organisations and religiously prescribed rules and practices. For him this aspect of religion had been a source of unmitigated harm. It had encouraged ignorance and superstition, 'shackled' the human spirit, discouraged science and rationality, and rendered the human mind 'vague and soft and flabby' It had also hindered economic and social progress, sanctioned oppressive and exploitative systems, perpetuated grave injustice and led to most brutal wars. It had also bred profound selfishness and encouraged an 'asocial quest for god' In these and other ways it impoverished man and contained a deep anti-humanist thrust.

Like Gokhale and Gandhi, Nehru thought that spirituality had an important role to play in political life. Unlike them, however, he assigned it a limited, diffused and largely psychological role. The awareness of the spiritual dimension of life ensured that politics did not confine itself to the pursuit of material well-being, and remained mind- ful of the larger questions about the meaning and significance of life. It also ensured

that politics did not become all-encompas- sing and totalitarian, and remained deeply aware of the fact that it has little to say about the large and profound questions lying outside its jurisdiction. Nehru also thought that something like advaita, which stressed the unity of man and epistemological and moral pluralism, provided the philosophical basis of and encouraged the spirit of inter- nationalism, religious tolerance, and moral and intellectual humility.25

While welcoming spirituality in politics, Nehru saw no political role at all for religion, that is, for its ideological and institutional apparatus. Apart from its generally dele- terious consequences, religion created additional problems in political life. It introduced absolute moral principles inconsistent with the pragmatic and consensual nature of politics. Besides religion had always been a deeply divisive force in all societies, having led to bloody civil wars in Europe and to the partition of the country in India. 'How long that will take I cannot say, but religion in India will kill that country and its peoples if it is not subdued'. The state could not be run without an agreed body of values. And since religious morality varied, the state had no choice but to bpllow its own autonomous and secular morality based on a shared conception of material interests. For these and other reasons religion had to be scrupulously kept out of political life. The state should neither patronise nor associate itself with any of them.

For Nehru then the state had to be secular in the sense of transcending and being indifferent to religion. The state was a 'public' institution, religion an entirely 'private matter. Secularism in this sense informed his policies and attitudes. He condemned religious political parties and, although he did not ban them, he refused to have any dealings with them. He did not officially associate himself with religious leaders and religious functions. He strongly but unsuccessfully objected to Rajendra Prasad in- augurating the rejuvenated Somanath temple. He objected to Bande Mataram- on the grounds that, among other things, it had a religious provenance and connotation. He did not allow religious symbols and images to be associated with official functions, and insisted on debating such religious or religiously mediated issues as the Hind[u personal law and ban on cow-slaughter in secular terms.

Since no state could be wholly secular in Nehru's se4se especially in such a religiously embedded culture as the Indian, his secularism remained limited in its scope and depth. In spite of his desire to change parts of it, he dared not touch either the Muslim personal law or the Hindu, Muslim, Chris- tian and other denominational schools. The state continued to observe public holidays on major religious occasions. The Benares Hindu UJniversity and the Aligarh Muslim University, the only two universities to be



associated with specific religious communities, were accorded the privileged status of central universities. Chief ministers in various states continued to attend religious, mainly Hindu functions. And constructions of several government buildings and dams were preceded by religious ceremonies.

Though religion had no place in political life, Nehru knew that the state could not remain indifferent to it. It was concerned with such vital tasks as preservation of the country's integrity, tts economic and social development, and protection of the constitu- tional rights of all its citizens. If some religious beliefs and practices frustrated the realisation of these goals, it had both a right and a duty to interfere with them. The fact that they were religiously enjoined did not put them outside the reach of the law. That was why he thought that the Constitution was right to declare untouchability a cognisable offence. That was also why his government did not hesitate to pass the Hindu Code Bill and regulate the management of some Hindu temples. When it came to the Muslim personal law, Nehru refrained from 'interfering'. He found some of its practices unacceptable, and even when he did not mind them, he was anxious that all Indians should be subject to a uniform civil code. However he concluded that any 'interference' with the Muslim personal law so soon after the partition was likely to arouse deep fears and provoke strong resistance, and that he ought to wait until the Muslim opinion was ready.

While he was right to do so, he exposed himself to a legitimate criticism. Many a Hindu including the president of India were opposed to some of the provisions of the Hindu Code Bill.26 Yet Nehru insisted on their enactment and threw all his prestige and authority behind them. They were also uneasy with the government interference in the management of temples, yet he refused to give in. He and the overwhelming majority of his cabinet and parliamentary colleagues were Hindus, and thought that they were not and could not be seen to be 'interfering' with Hindu practices. Besides, as Hindus they knew what was in the best interests of their religion and were entitled to press ahead. In other words Nehru's state acted as, and claimed all the rights of a Hindu state in its relation to the Hindus. It was because he and his colleagues were and thought of themselves as Hindus that they both dared take liberties with the Hindus and dared not take them with respect to the Muslims and even the Sikhs. This created a problem. In claiming the rights of a Hindu state, Nehru's government encouraged the Hindu expectation that it will also accept the obligations of such a state including defend and promote their religion and collective interests. It rightly refused to do so, thereby incurring the charges of inconsistency and disingenuity, of behaving in its relations to the Hindus as both a Hindu and a secular state as suited its interests.

VI Non-Alignment

International affairs were Nehru's favourite area of interest. During the independence struggle he constantly drew his countrymen's attention to their vital importance, and was the principal architect of many an important Congress, resolution on international subjects. During his'period of office as prime minister he mmained his own foreign minister.

Since India was a new state without a tradition of foreign policy except that developed by the colonial government to serve its geopolitical interests, Nehru had to fashion it almost single-handed. And since it also lacked a coherent and collectively shared conception of its vital interests and place in the world, he had to articulate one himself. His conduct of foreign affairs was initially guided by little more than vague principles and aspirations. It took him some years to develop what could be called a foreign 'policy', that is, a reasonably long- term, coherent and well thought out view of the content and ways of promoting India's vital interests. In some areas such as India's relations to the scattered mass of overseas Indians and the countries of their settlement, Nehru never managed to develop a clear policy.

For Nehru India had several advantage denied to most other states. Though it was a new state, it was an old civilisation, in fact the oldest living civilisation in the world. As such it had a 'certain measure of wisdom and maturity' that came with age and experience. It also had a distinct outlook on the world derived from its philosophical heritage, especially the advaita. Gandhi had enriched that heritage and developed an un- iquely Indian way of resolving conflicts with considerable relevance tt the violence-weary world. India, further, had been exposed to the west for nearly two hundred years and had learned much from it. It therefore represented an unique synthesis of the east and the west and was ideally placed to mediate between the west and the rest of the world. The fact that it was outside the main arena of international conflicts meant that it was able to bring to them a certain degree of detachment and impartiality. For these and other reasons Nehru thought that In- dia had a creative role to play in the world. He thus did not just have a foreign policy but also a distinct view Qf the world and a strong desire to influence the prevailing ways of thinking about and conducting international affairs. His view of the world was grounded in and shaped by India's historical experiences and represented a distinctively Indian perspective on world affairs.

Nehru was deeply concerned about the increasing polarisation of the world into two rigid power blocks. Capitalism and co- munism were both 'outdated' ideologies, a legacy of the nineteenth century. Capitalism would not sulrvive without extensive state

intervention into the economy and accom- modating the increasing demands for equality and justice. Communism could not last long unless it safistifed the 'irrepressible' human desire for freedom and individuality. Each therefore had to change and in fact was changing, and the two systems were increasingly cobverging towards a shared body of ideals. Nehru was convinced that 'enlighten- ed capitalism can co-exist with liberalised communism' and that the two systems, beiRg somewhat different ways of realising common ideals, could compete in a spirit of friendly rivalry.27 Each had much to learn from and benefited from close contacts with the other. Peaceful co-existence was thus the only rational way of organising interr1ational relations.

Nehru thought that India had a considerable historical experience in this area and might offer one possible model. Dif- ferent religious, ethnic, racial and other groups had for centuries co-existed within its boundary in a spirit of harmony, and learned to negotiate their relations without an overreaching state determining and im- posing the terms of their engagement. India's example showed that it was possible to create order without a state, and that world peace did not require a world state but only a willingness to work together within a framework of insgitutions and over time building up a consciousness of common interests and habits of co-operation. Nehru also thought that India could make a genuine contribution towards developing a philosophy of and creating the.condjtions of peaceful co-existence. Indian civilisation was based on the deeply held belief that different men and societies perceived reality differently, that truth was not a monopoly of any of them, and that a dialogue between them was both possible and necessary. While acknowledging their differences it knew that they shared many things in common to which their heightened sense of difference temporarily blinded them. Over the centuries and especially under Gandhi's leadership, India had accquired special skills in uncover- ing the common ground and opening up a dialogue between apparently opposite points of view. Nehru thought that a political philosophy based on such a metaphysic was the indispensable basis of world peace.

Nehru insisted that the major powers had not fully grasped the importance of nationalism. Since the west had paid a heavy price for it during the second world war, it regarded nationalism as a dangerous and reac- tionary phenomenon, ignoring the creative role it had played in its history. The Soviet Union had arrived at a similar conclusion by a different route. For Nehru the new states emerging from centuries of alien rule were passionately concerned to assert their identity, pursue their vital interests, unite their divided people, and piece together their rup- tured past. Nationalism was both an expression and a means of promoting their aspirations. The west needed to realise that not communism but nationalism was the most

42 Economic and Potitical Weekly January 5-12, 1991


powerful force in the world, that it could not for long continue with its colonial and neo- colonial policies, and that it stood a far greater chance of retaining the friendship of the new states and arresting the spread of communism by aligning itself with their nationalist aspirations. For its part the Soviet Union had to realise that it could not for long suppress the deepest aspirations of its nationalities and client states, and that communism had no chance of success in the new states unless it indigenised itself and spoke in the language of their characteristic idioms and images. Nehru was convinced that once that legitimate aspirations of the new countries were respected and allowed to run their course, their nationalism would lose its narrowness and become more open and relaxed.

Nehru thought that as the first country to be free from colonial rule, India's experiences and insights had particular relevance for others in a similar position. He supported their struggles for independence, spoke for them in international forums, emphasised their common intersts, and explored ways of bringing them together. In many ways he created the third world and gave it a distinct identity and role. For him it was a world of new and proud states, sharing in common their experiences of oppression and struggle, and striving, each in its own way, to attain the four crucial goals of national integration, economic development, self-determination and freedom from external interference. The third world included not only European ex-colonies Out also countries like Yugoslavia which sought liberation from the Soviet oppression, and those like China that never were colonies. For Nehru it was not so much an economic category which it has since become, but a political and cultural category, not a negative and residual entity consisting of states that fell outside the ambit of the two superpowers but a positive and self-defining entity, not a passive imitator of either of the two dominant political systems and a meek recipient of their aid but an active explorer of a new way of life, not a descriptive but prescrip- tive category signifying a genuine desire and determination to be independent and self-determining.

That was why Nehru felt that a new state that aligned itself to a power bloc and mort- gaged its economic and political independence betrayed both itself and the other new states. It negated its struggle for independence, wasted the sacrifices made by the countless men and women in the name of freedom, and lacked self-respect and pride. It also broke ranks with the other third world states, weakened their international solidarity, encouraged manipulation and intervention by major powers, and made it extremely difficult both for itself and them to fight for their rights in world forums. Nehru's conception of the third world was an international extension of his socialism. The third world represented the exploited and oppressed states of the world, whose

strength lay in organisation and unity. In taking this view he linked up their concerns with those of the oppressed classes in the west, and involved western socialists in their struggle.

Given Nehru's view of the world and India's place in it, he insisted that it should remain outside the two power blocs and follow an independent foreign policy. He justified this on three grounds. First, it was a necessary expression and an indispensable means of preserving Indian independence. Second, it was the only common ground on which Indians of different ideological per- suasions could be united. Third, India could not mediate between the superpowers, mobilise world opinion on important issues, j !tain a fresh and pragmatic perspective on world affairs, open up and reconstitute the rigid international system on a broader basis, and speak for the third world if it aligned itself to one of the power blocs.

In much of the literature on the subject Nehru's foreign policy is misleadingly described as nonaligned, neutraLor independent. Nonalignment was just one aspect of and did not exhaust his foreign policy. Besides, it was largely a precondition of the latter and not its goal. Again, it was important not in itself but as a means of serving India's vital interests, including the kind of mediator's role Nehru had in mind. It was thus not a political principle but a policy required by the contingent international context and to be changed with changes in the latter. Nehru's foreign policy could not be adequately described as neutral either. India neither remained nor wished to remain neutral on any of the major issues. It freely expressed even pressed its views, took sides, and found itself allied to different groups on different occasions. Eve'n the term 'independent' does not quite capture the central features of India's foreign policy. Under Nehru India did not merely pursue its interests as it thought proper; it intervened in international affairs, mobilised world opinion in support of its views, actively led the third world, and sought to restructure the established pattern of international relations. The term independence only highlights the fact that its foreign policy was formulated without external interference and the institutional constraints of membership of a political group or military bloc, and ignores its interventionist thrust and wider global objectives. Insofar as Nehru was primarily concerned to reconstitute the world political order, his foreign policy could be better described as constructivist.

In his view of the world Nehru saw India as an Asian country and assigned Asia an important international role.28 For him, Asia was a home of many ancient civilisations, the cradle of all great religions including Christianity, and the largest conti- nent in terms of area and population. As such it had a right and a duty to speak up on world issues. It was unlikely to be effective unless it spoke with one voice, peacefully resolved its inherited territorial and other

disputes, and recaptured its cultural unity. Nehru's view was a source of both the strengths and weaknesses of his foreign policy, particularly with respect to India's neighbours.

Like the orient, Asia was a European in- vention and had only a limited basis in history. Unlike European countries, the Asians were not involved in constant inter- action and had neither a common religion nor a shared cultural source. No doubt, the Hindu and Buddhist ideas had travelled to different parts of Asia, but their spread and impact were limited. Not surprisingly Tagore was received in Japan with a mixture of in- comprehension and ridicule when he talked about Asian civilisation and Asian role in the world. India had never seen itself as an Asian country and its contacts with its neighbours were limited in nature. This was also true of China. It had enjoyed only in- termittent contacts with India and nursed painful historical memories. It had long resented India's rejection of Buddhism. Under British leadership Indian soldiers had fought the Chinese and engaged in theft and pillage during the Boxer Rebellion. The Chinese held India in low esteem because of its inability to organise its public life and preserve its national integrity, one of the important tests by which they have traditionally judged a country. Though Nehru's celebra- tion of the Buddha's two thousand and five hundredth anniversary made some impact on some south-east Asian countries, it had none on China. Indeed China thought that Nehru was being inauthentic in celebrating a figure whose followers had been persecuted and hounded for daring to revolt against its dominant religion. Nehru thought of India and China as old friends who had sadly lost contact. For China they were relative strangers burdened with pockets of unhap- py memories.

To be sure Nehru's invocation of the Asian identity did have some advantages. It revived several ancient memories and breathed life into the small and long-neglected seeds from which a common civilisational tree could grow. It highlighted the inescapable compulsions of shared geography, and the need to forge direct bonds between countries hitherto related by European mediations. It also however, had its disadvantages. Other Asian countries resented India's claim to speak in their name in international forums. Since the Asian identity as Nehru defined it had a cultural and religious core and made India its historical source, it was seen as a vehicle of hegemonic ambitions. It also lul- led Nehru and his countrymen into thinking that their neighbours would settle their territorial and other disputes with them as 'fellow-Asians'. The painful realisation that the Asians were in that regard no better than the Europeans almost killed him.

Thanks to Nehru's foreign policy, India acquired high political visibility and played a creative international role. It mediated and contributed towards a better understanding between the two superpowers and between



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the metropolitan countries and their ex- colonies. It brought the countries of the third world together, helped forge common bonds between them, and made them a moderate- ly effective world force. India also linked up with the progressive elements in the west and helped create a powerful world opinion in favour of peaceful co-existence and the economic development and territorial integrity of the new nations.

So far as India itself was concerned, Nehru's international role had mixed consequences. It broadened and deepened its political consciousness and gave its nationalism an international orientation. It strengthened India's self-confidence and self- esteem, and gave it easy access to an influential constituency in the west and a positive image abroad. It brought India into various international commissions and organisations, offered it valuable insights into the workings of the international system, and enabled it to build up useful contacts. India's international prominence also had its disadvantages. It developed an exaggerated sense of its importance and mistook visibility for power. It euphoriantly saw itself as a political darling of the world and remained blind to the way the cynical world used it and dropped it the moment it stopped serving a useful role. It made Indian self-esteem heavily dependent on international good opinion, and both perpetuated its sense of inferiority and rendered it vulnerable to international manipulation.29 The relative ease with which India secured international recognition inflated its national ego, encouraged political jactation, and rendered it insouciant to the need to build up its inner strength and vitality.

Convinced that the world was behind it and that it was therefore more or less in- vulnerable, India tended to take a somewhat patronising attitude towards its neighbours. This is not at all to deny that Nehru genuine- ly desired good relations with them and sometimes went out of his way to placate them. In spite of strong internal opposition, he readily recognised the Chinese suzerainty over Tibet. He refused to interfere in the internal affairs of Nepal even when he was invited to do so. He not only accepted the legitimacy of Pakistan whose creation he had passionately opposed for years, but even offered to unite the two countries in a con- federation. He helped China play a crucial role at Bandung, and showed great generosi- ty in dealing with the problem of Indians in Sri Lanka. While all this was most com- mendable, the fact remained that his policy towards India's neighbours lacked consisten- cy and coherence. It was a strange mixture of accommodation and intransigence, equality and condescension, goodwill and uncompromising pursuit of narrowly defined national interests. Thanks to his concern to play a leading role on the world stage, an aspiration which China never shared, Nehru saw India's neighbours in a global rather than regional context and did not give them the degree of attention and priority they

deserved. Since he was convinced of his good intentions towards them, he was inadequate- ly sensitive to their suspicions and fears of him. Predictably he made the double mistake of neither coming to an understanding with them nor guarding against their aggressive designs.

VIII Justification of National

Philosophy We outlined and analysed above Nehru's

'national philosophy' for India. We shall now briefly examine the way in which. he sought to persuade his countrymen that it was the only adequate basis on which to con- struct the new polity. He needed to show that it was not a matter of his personal preference, not an ideological 'fad', and deserved their support and sacrifices. The need to do so was particularly great because Gandhi, a far more influential figure than him, had canvassed a very different vision of India involving either altogether different goals or a radically different interpretation of those the two shared in common. Nehru's legitimisation of the national philosophy was somewhat muddled and articulated in three different idioms.

First, he argued that it was grounded in Indian civilisation, and an 'integral part of our history and culture'3"' He went on, 'Our philosophy and ideology are not some private fads or creations of mine. They belong to the ethos of our nation and people! And again, 'our ideology springs from the very sources of our history and civilisation'. Apart from vague references to the 'central lessons' of Indian history and the character of the Indian people and civilisation, Nehru gave no evidence to support his view and it is doubtful that he could have.

For Nehru secularism meant exclusion of religion from political life. Such a not-ion is alien to Hinduism. For the Hindus, religion is a total way of life regulating not just the personal but also political life. In a traditional Hindu kingdom, the polity and the social order were inseparable and the king's rajdharma consisted in, among other things, preserving and enforcing the caste-based social structure. Furthermore unlike almost all semitic religions, most Hindus conceive god in intra-cosmic and immanentist terms. Since he 'pervades' and 'infuses' the universe and since everything in it is divine, the con- cept of secularism, at least in Nehru's sense, does not fit in with the Hindu Welianschauung. Like secularism such other national goals as parliamentary demorcracy, socialism, industrialisation and non-alignment too had no or only a limited bhsis in Indian civilisation. Neither the modern con- cept of democracy nor its representative and individualistically structured parliamentary articulation-has a parallel in Indian thought and practice. The Hindu society never set much store by equality and,

although it valued justice, it derined it in non-egalitarian terms. Indeed since the individual's birth and natural endowments were believed to be determined by his karma in the previous life and thus fully deserved, the modern notion of justice has no analogue in much of Hindu thought. In the Hindu theory of purusharthas the acquisition of artha was hedged in by a number of constraints and could not form the basis of the modern industrial society as Bankim Chatterjee had skilfully shown in his Samya. As Kautilya insisted in his Arthashastra, foreign policy was entirely a matter of ex- pediency, and involved both alignment and nonalignment as the circumstances required.

Second, Nehru argued that the national ideology had been 'agreed' by the Indian people and was based on their 'willing con- sent'. It represented their free and uncoerc- ed choice and enjoyed popular 'legitimacy' and 'support'. Nehru's claim was only par- tially valid. Some of the national goals were embodied in the Constitution of India passed by the elected representatives of the people. The others had formed part of the Congress programme endorsed by the electorate at successive elections fought under Nehru's leadership. However the constituent assembly was elected on a very limited fran- chise, barely a third of the adults enjoying the right to vote. More than half the electorate never voted for Congress in any of the three elections during Nehru's premiership. The elections were fought on a number of issues, the national ideology being only one of them. Even the Congress itself was deeply divided, and a sizeable section of it did not subscribe either to some of Nehru's goals or to his interpretation of them.

Nehru's third argument, upon which he mainly relied, was articulated in a historicist language and appealed to the vital interests and deepest fears of his countrymen. The national ideology, he argued, was 'vital to India's survival', 'imperative to our existence and progress', in 'our national interest' and grounded in the 'logic of history'.3 India needed to modernise itself because that was the only way it would be able to solve its economic, political and other problems and regenerate its intellectual and moral life. Second, modernisation had a comparative logic. India could not remain a viable polity unless it kept pace with the advanced western states. The painful lessons of its history were clear. It had a constant tendency to become complacent, inward-looking and static, and to fail to keep pace with the rest of the world. That was why it had attracted and fallen prey to foreign invaders. It could not afford to make that mistake again, especially now when the technological advances had brought the world so close. If it did not become a 'contemporary' of the rest of the world in its ways of thought and life, it would remain a source of constant tempta- tion to stronger nations. In Nehru's view modern western civilisation was 'superior' not only to one that existed in India but also

Economic and Political Weekly January 5-12, 1991


invoking Hindu mythology to appease and prove Hindu superiority

would the idea now exhibit in terms of inequality of religion

to all others available to it, and India should adopt it. We shall presently see why Nehru took this view. He was thus convinced that India had 'only' two alternatives. It must either 'progress, that is, 'catch up' and 'keep pace' with the advanced western nations, or become their 'plaything' and eventually face extinction. For Nehru the choice was obvious and inexorable

Establishing the superiority of modern civilisation was not an easy area of inquiry and caused Nehru considerable difficulty. Though he was much confused, he seems to have held this view on two grounds both derived from an uncritically accepted liberal philosophical anthropology. First, man was the highest being on earth, the fullest realisation of his potential was the highest ideal, and morality consisted in serving one's fellow men and helping them develop their distinctively human capacities. Modern civilisation was based on that ideal. It was true that capitalism rested on the opposite principles of selfishness, greed and exploita- tion. However, it was a corruption of the 'true spirit' of modernity and rightly rejected by the 'better type of the modern mind'. If modern civilisation had thrown up capitalism, it had also thrown up an answer to it in the form of a body of ideals with which to embarrass it and groups ready to die for them. Nehru observed:32

The modern mind, that is to say the better type of the modern mind, is practical and pragmatic, ethical and social, altruistic and humanitarian. It is governed by a practical idealism for social betterment. The ideals which move it represent the spirit of the age, the Zeitgeist, the Yugadharma. It has dis- carded to a large extent the philosophic approach of the ancients, their search for ultimate reality, as well as the devotionalism and mysticism of the mediaeval period. Humanity is its god and social service its religion.

We have therefore to function in line with the highest ideals of the age we live in, though we may add to them or seek to mould them in accordance with our national genius. Those ideals may be classed under two heads: humanism and the scientific spirit. Between these two there has been an apparent conflict, but the great upheaval of thought today, with its questioning of all values, is remov- ing the old boundaries between these two approaches, as well as between the external world of science and the internal world of introspection. There is a growing synthesis between humanism and the scientific spirit, resulting in a kind of scientific humanism. The second reason why modern civilisa-

tion was superior had to do with the fact that it was in harmony with some of the deepest impulses of human nature. As 'history' amply showed, man was a progressive being with an 'irrepressible? desire for freedom. He chafed against natural and social restraints, asked to see their point, and imagined and sought to realise alternative possibilities. During his long historical journey he had fought against ignorance, superstition, star- vation, material scarcity, slavery, serfdom,

economic and social injustices, political oppression and tyrannical customs, and created a freer and fairer world in each successive epoch. Obviously the progress was not linear, continuous and uniform, and often marked by setbacks. However Nehru found it striking that the setbacks were never permanent. 'History, as a famous writer has described it, is a record of the martyrdom of man. Perhaps so. It is also a record of repeated resurrections after every crucifixion'.33 Modern civilisation was a product of man's search for freedom and satisfied it to a greater degree than all others. It had con- quered large parts of nature, removed natural and social obstacles standing in the way of the unity of man, overcome material scarcity, and developed new ways of protec- ting and nurturing freedom and individuality. Industrialisation was not merely a technological but a moral phenomenon representing a vital step in man's 'long march' towards freedom. Modern civilisation did have its limitations, some profound. However on balance it was superior to all available alternatives, and capable of recognising and correcting its faults.

For Nehru then India both must and should modernise itself: 'must' because this was a historical necessity and the indispensable condition of its survival and economic development: 'should' because modernity represented a higher civilisation. Within his historicist world view, necessity and desirability, history and ethics, tended to coincide. Modernisation involved not just industrialisation but also a secular, rationalist, humanist and scientific world view and all that it entailed. To accept it was to accept all the seven 'national goals' discussed earlier, Nehru argued.

Nehru had to reassure his countrymen that modernisation did not amount either to 'copying the west' or to 'rejecting their past', the two sore points for most of them. Like the other nationalist leaders he invoked the overworked ideas of yugadharma and samanvaya. Indians had always recognised that the wheel of kala was relentless, the times changed, one yuga yielded place another, each yuga had its own unique problems and needs, and that a wise society discovered and followed the dharma of the yuga in which it lived. Modernisation was the 'supreme dharma' of the modern yuga. Furthermore the Indians had always known that truth was not the monopoly of any society or civilisation and that each must be prepared to learn from the rest. In moder- nising themselves Indians were not 'blindly' copying the west but only appropriating whatever was valuable. They had their own 'great past' and their own distinctive 'national genius' and there was no reason why they should not be able to integrate the two. Indeed, such a 'spirit of samanvaya' was one of their great national characteri- stics envied by foreigners and evident in their relations with all the earlier civilisations that had settled in their midst.34 While saying

this, Nehru also inconsistently kept talking about the 'inexorable logic' of modernisation and the need for radical changes in all areas of personal and social life, Judging by his practice Samanvaya remained merely a soothing rhetoric intended to soften his message.

Though Nehru's historicist justification of his national ideology was widely popular and captured the dominant mood of the time, it was open to several objections. He was wrong to argue that modern civilisations was morally superior. Civilisation are self- contained wholes and not amenable to comparative or transcendental evaluation. The two standards that he used to establish its superiority, namely rationalist humanism and human search for freedom were both derived from modern civilisation, and thus rendered his argument circular. Furthermore though Nehru was right to insist on the need for modernisation, he was wrong to take an essentialist and totalist view of it and to ascribe to it an inexorable logic. Modernisa- tion was not an undifferentiated package which had to be either accepted or rejected in toto. Its constituent elements such as rationalism, individualism, liberal democracy, the state, technology, scientific world- view, utilitarianism and economism were not all logically related. They had come together in Europe as a result of contingent historical factors, and could be combined differently in different societies and some of them could even be dropped. It was therefore open to India to develop its own distinct model of modernisation. The alternatives of catching up with the west or going under were unduly restrictive, and foreclosed a number of options.

Even if one accept

Nehru and National Philosophy of India

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