Remembering Jawaharlal Nehru's political legacy

Chennai: In the heat and dust kicked up by the great Indian demonetisation of two high value rupee currencies from the midnight of November 8, it seems all the more relevant to dwell deep into the continued relevance of the legacy of India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

All the more so since the economic writer and editor T.N. Ninan termed the demonetisation as a 'Socialist Bonanza' considering that till Saturday
Rs 2 lakh crore had reportedly been deposited in all scheduled commercial banks in the country in one of the biggest direct transfers of individuals' cash to the State in one go -This is not merely as a ritualistic remembrance of Nehru on his 127th birth anniversary, which falls on Monday this year, but has been more occasioned by the socio-political and economic realities that the decision to withdraw Rs 500 and  Rs 1, 000 denominations has come to signify for the Indian people.

First and foremost, Nehru's idea of economic planning even before India became politically free, and his adherence to the principles of mixed economy, where the public sector and the private sector have their own roles to play, comes back in an instant flashback as it were when one sees cash being virtually rationed, albeit briefly, today.

The Indian economy soon after Independence was in turmoil and the interim government was faced with tough choices. As the well known political scientist, Michael Brecher, wrote in the late 1950s' in his equally well known work, Nehru- A Political Biography, the Nehru-led government then, "backed by Sardar Patel launched a full-scale attack on the system of price controls over food and other essentials." It took a while - almost a year to stem the tide.

Summarising Nehru's speeches during those days, Brecher says that Nehru was clear, "if a steady increase in production is the basic goal of a higher standard of living for the masses is to be achieved, both public and private capital have important roles to play." There are areas like power, irrigation and transport with long gestation periods and even slower rates of return, only the State could step in to 'fill the vacuum'.

With his early roots in the study of the Natural Sciences, socialism was not a dogmatic creed for Nehru. A society that levelled differences to the maximum extent possible - what John Rawls and Amartya Sen would later say avoiding social choices that makes everyone worse off as being one of the cornerstones of social justice - it also had to allow for democratic decision making. Nehru called it a social order, which allows for every individual's creative development.
Brecher sums up this aspect in his work thus: "Nehru took the lead. On the basic issue he came out clearly for a 'socialist picture of society', though not 'in a dogmatic sense at all. There is plenty of room for private enterprise provided the main aim is kept clear…… Throughout the great debate on economic policy, he was moderate in tone. .. The approach, he told Parliament, would be pragmatic, and India would follow the peaceful, democratic, non-violent way." "Ideologically, the shift was given concrete expression at the Avadi session of the Congress in Chennai in 1955," Brecher points out. In 1958, Nehru was to say, "My idea of socialism is that every individual in the State should have equal opportunity for progress."

Notwithstanding the other failings historians have drawn attention to in the Nehruvian era, there are several other qualities that cumulatively add to Nehru's enduring political legacy. His deep conviction to take all sections of the people with him - symbolising the Congress spirit - though he was deeply disappointed over the riots preceding in the reorganisation of States on linguistic lines in the mid-1950s', or even in the implementation of the Official Language Act for that matter, are but two examples.

While Nehru's most cherished contribution was in his efforts, along with other Congress leaders, to establish a secular state, overcoming a hundred divides from plain sectarianism on the one hand to highly sophisticated 'Sanatanism' as represented by the pro-right sections in the Congress even then, Brecher says equally of great value in an assessment of the political contributions of Nehru in building a modern State was his "humanism, his (spirit of) tolerance and liberalism."

Quoting Nehru's extemporaneous remarks on 'what constitutes a good society and a good life', his political biographer says, "So, while I attach very considerable value to moral and spiritual standards, apart from religion as such, I don't quite know how one maintains them in modern life. It's a problem."

It is that humility in the face of the unknown aspects of the cosmos that gives flesh and blood to the spirit of tolerance, humanism, liberalism and secularism, all in the same breath. Jawaharlal Nehru, as one of the outstanding leaders of modern India, is still cherished for these qualities.