Nehru: A forgotten icon

HISTORIAN'S pen and surgeon's knife are a lot similar, for both know no emotions.

Elders rightly lament that history had been unkind to Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru. But an argumentative and cynical India finds no hero in Nehru now. And he makes for no political capital either. Nehru's statesmanship and his fashion style may appeal those in power, but the mass has moved away from him. This blogger seeks to put Nehru in today's perspective.   

WHILE travelling in a car to a political rally, Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru's eyes caught a wall poster claiming a Congress candidate for the Kerala Assembly elections having committed financial irregularity. He was headed for a rally to boost chances of that candidate only. On stage with the candidate in question in tow, Nehru told his audience, that he would no more be the Congress candidate and asked people to choose a better alternative. 

The crowd was in disbelief, but that was the character of Nehru, who sought spotless characters of people in politics. Nehru would have been a misfit in today's politics. The current practice of "ends justify all" was alien to his brand of politics, as "means" was much more important to him. 

Those who were young in Nehru's time and now pushed by age to that painful reflective phase of their lives recall India's first Prime Minister as a true democrat. Surely, he earned rare contradictions in his political life when he dismissed the Left led Karala government and later put Sheikh Abdullah in jail. 

Yet, he was not only tolerant but even receptive to the Opposition voices. That he encouraged leaders of his time to express their opinion freely is well known and fill pages of the golden history of Modern India. His praise and appreciation for the then young Atal Bihari Vajpayee is now legendary and his prophecy of his becoming Prime Minister one day came true three decades after his death.

But history has not been kind to Nehru. His contribution in building Modern India is no less than that of Mahatma Gandhi in winning freedom for the country. On closer examination, it may emerge that history is less kind to those who wield power. And Gandhi was the supreme leader of India till his death, but never occupied a seat of power. In contrast, Nehru led the provisional government even before Independence and made many enemies. 

True to the characters of youth, Nehru did differ from the painfully slow method of Gandhi to win freedom for the country. That he subordinated his angst to the ideals of Gandhi is well documented. He, arguably, did not believe in the Gandhian method to polarize Muslims for the cause of Khalifa, that to the understanding of this blogger sowed the seeds of Muslims as a separate nation. Rest is history, as Muhammed Ali Jinna ran his knife on the body-soul of this nation.  

WHILE India insulated Gandhi from critical review by elevating him to the Father of the Nation, Nehru became the fall guy for the gloom of the 1970s. That his internationalism cost the nation dearly in relations with China and earlier in Kashmir bear high in the minds of the people. 

Ironically, while Nehru did not come off in flying colours in the political domain, the nation undoubtedly should be grateful to him for his economic vision. He tied up with Germany to set up IIT-Madras and Rourkela steel factory and replicated this model with the erstwhile Soviet Russia, etc. India's economic resilience owes its strength to Nehru's vision.  

Most importantly, Nehru with the help of able and astute Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel shaped and fortified India. Together, they proved many doubting Thomeses wrong, who in those days dreamt balkanisation of the country (Lord Mountbatten was one of them). And the most important contribution of Nehru was making the people of the country believe, that India can stand on its feet firmly and with pride. 

While millions of people are apparently enamoured to hear long and extempore speeches of Narendra Modi, people in villages in the 90s still recall travelling several kilometers to hear the oratory of Nehru. They still believe that none spoke like Nehru and after hearing him out they sensed confidence in them. 

That Nehruvian era is gone and gone forever. And it was none else, but her daughter late Indira Gandhi, who made sure that people forget Nehru so soon. Her systematic destruction of the Congress and constituting a political dynasty were all un-Nehruvian works. And, she was surely not a worthy political heir to Nehru.

Now that Rahul Gandhi seeks to Nehru legacy to revive his gloom-stricken Congress, Nehru has zoomed out of the box. But he again is misguided, for Nehru no more makes for any political capital for any to invest in. He is history and has played his innings. 

Foolishness has no ends and many fools hope for historical icons to revive their political career. History enlightens and offer clues to issues of present and future. And one clue that history offers to Rahul Gandhi is to embark on a path to rid the Congress off the sycophants.

Five percent politician

NOT many months ago, a chief minister snubbed his senior ministerial colleague in a Cabinet meeting in such a manner that tears rolled out in torrents from the swollen eyes of the poor soul. In politics, tables turn often, and, fortune too.

The tearful man, that day, is now chief minister of Bihar -- Jitan Ram Manjhi -- and his tormentor then was an aspiring Prime Minister, until May this year -- Nitish Kumar. And after the turning of the wheel, Manjhi is paying back in kind for what all he got for over a decade from his political master.

Just another day, Nitish Kumar showed up in New Delhi in the august company of Shivpal Singh Yadav, who has many identities besides that of a brother of Mulayam Singh Yadav and senior minister in Akhilesh Yadav Cabinet, but his fame is for his being a popular political "goonda" of Uttar Pradesh. Also giving him the company was Prem Chand Gupta, the man-friday of Lalu Prasad and not known for great virtues. 

A few weeks back Nitish Kumar showed up at a rally of Jat leader Ajit Singh in western UP for political unity of parties smashed by the Narendra Modi wave. That commitment for political unity lasted only a few days, as Mulayam Singh Yadav found no space at his home for the Jat leader. That should sufficiently speak of the political convictions of Nitish Kumar and his restlessness to leapfrog to the national limelight again.

A month after the May verdict on Lok Sabha elections, a mentor and man instrumental in propping up Nitish Kumar as CM of Bihar had this to say: "It was his personal ambition that Nitish helped Narendra Modi's cause in becoming BJP's PM candidate. If we -- JD (U) -- had not snapped ties with the BJP, Modi may not have bulldozed through his party to become the PM candidate. We were a bone stuck in BJP's throat and snapping ties with the party we ourselves helped Modi. It was not ideology but a personal decision to break away from the BJP."

DID Nitish Kumar really believe he could have been a PM candidate? The media is conditioned to patterns, and most believed people can not give majority to a party at the Centre, that too to the BJP. And they drummed up the Nitish Kumar card since 2012 as the acceptable face for the PM post. "Yes, he not only believed, but had started living the dream. And a number of BJP leaders had helped him believe this dream," the mentor-turned-senior leader of the JD (U) told this blogger.  

Nitish Kumar not only lived the dream, but turned destructive to nurse his personal enmity with Narendra Modi. And, he continues to find ways and means to gather the strength to challenge his political turned personal enemy -- Narendra Modi.

"Nitish Kumar never forgives any and can wait for years to take revenge," Sabir Ali, once a close confidante of Nitish Kumar and former Rajya Sabha MP said when asked to spell out five negative features of former Bihar chief minister. His personal ego overwhelms other issues and carries arrogance in party and administrative works, said Ali, while listing the negatives.

On the positive, of course, Ali credits Nitish Kumar to be a pleasant person for whom smile comes naturally. "He told me once that even if a CIA agent spends whole day with him, he would fail to take out any secret," Ali quoted Nitish Kumar having told him about his art of keeping secrets. 

And for that matter, Lalu Prasad never tired of saying for over a decade that "while all have teeth in their mouths, Nitish Kumar had them in his stomach". Lalu Prasad's description was not for Nitish Kumar's art of keeping secrets, but for his guile. But enemy of an enemy is a friend in politics, and both are now family. That bonding obviously has happened after politics took a turn hostile to their brand of politics.

THOSE who have seen Nitish Kumar from close quarters also state that he is a man of few friends. And that cripples his worldview. For that matter, his eyes and ears were two persons for at least a year running into the May Lok Sabha elections -- Pawan Kumar Verma, an unlikely person from the background of Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) and a prominent journalist, who wears and smokes socialism to an extent that the changing wind easily gives him a slip. 

These two made Nitish Kumar believe that the Narendra Modi wave was all about the one pumped through a "blower". And people heard him his denial of changing winds in politics. He had been blinded by the blindness of his two friends. Such blindness is attitudinal for which, sadly, there is hardly any cure.  

Whenever a political biography of Nitish Kumar is written, an apt title for it could be "A political gambler". His belief in politics of arithmetic is religious. And he believed that the combo of Backward-Dalit-Muslims is too tall a wall for any to climb. That Modi not only climbed but smashed it has been spoken and commented enough for any repetition. Religious belief lasts long and still beholds Nitish Kumar.

                                                                                                                                                            

And, hence, he propped Jitan Ram Manjhi, a Mahadalit, to win back the community, which to his shock, had deserted for the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections. But the gamble seems to be going haywire. Manjhi soon realized that he had had enough of his master and began shrugging off his shadow. That Bihar is hostage in recent times of drama enacted each day by Manjhi is part of the larger political design. The gap between the pawn (Manjhi) and his master had been so wide in recent days that Sharad Yadav had to dash recently to Patna to build bridges. 

Nitish Kumar is restless to carve out a role for himself in national politics. So, he was in the company of Mulayam Yadav, Lalu Prasad, H D Deve Gowda, Dushyant Choutala and others. 

Chirag Paswan, son of Ram Vilas Paswan and Lok Sabha MP, would largely be considered a political novice. But his take on Nitish Kumar's efforts to reunite the old Janta Dal to counter Narendra Modi is worth taking note of. "All of them have been tigers of their respective territories. If they all come in one cage, the fate of the cage could well be imagined," junior Paswan told this blogger.   

For the moment, tigers invite only skepticism, because two plus two is not necessarily four in politics and that too in India.