People deem Nehru an adversary to India, who consciously facilitated the denigrating intentions of various opportunistic elements, working against the country. And deem Rahul Gandhi as an inexorable ludicrous entity who has somehow consumed the better of Congress! But are Jawahar Lal Nehru and Rahul Gandhi really that? Is Nehru in the class of a ‘reprobate guile’ and Rahul Gandhi in the grade of a ‘political imbecile’? Don’t dig into the depths of history or unknown events to validate this understanding but try to diagnose how two men born in a clan, at two different times, have an analogous science of the mind.
Jawahar Lal Nehru was born to Moti Lal Nehru, an acclaimed lawyer, who came from a family of stalwarts, serving the East India Company under various positions in Law and order. Moti Lal Nehru’s grandfather was the first lawyer of the East India Company at the Mughal Imperial court of Delhi in 1812. Raised by his lawyer brother, Moti Lal Nehru belonged to the first-generation Hindus, who received a western style college education. Definitely a triumph for an oppressed Indian race; but why is it necessary to delve into Moti Lal Nehru’s history?
To draw parallels to the privilege, guidance and opulence which both Nehru and Rahul Gandhi thrived in. All these nouns attested to the founders/makers of India have moulded their psyche and their perspective about Indians. Rahul, like Nehru was home schooled by the best of private tutors in a protected and controlled environment, until they both left India for education abroad.
Here, the sphere was different for both Rahul and Nehru.
Nehru went in a time when India was under British Rule, whereas Rahul was already known to have belonged to an elite lineage of Makers of India.
Nehru, however sought his father’s permission to take a transfer from Cambridge to Oxford because there were too many Indians studying with him, who were aided by the British Raj to seek education and secure key positions in their administration back home.
What does this say about him? A boy who lived in the lap of British Luxury, pitied the less fortunate and sighed over his advantage over others, suddenly finds himself sharing a bench and language with peers of equal status!
In one of his letters to his father, he mentions, “I have become a queer mixture of the East and the West … Out of place everywhere, at home nowhere. Perhaps my thoughts and approach to life are more akin to what is called Western than Eastern, but India clings to me, as she does to all her children, in innumerable ways … I am a stranger and alien in the West. I cannot be of it. But in my own country also, sometimes I have an exile’s feeling.”
Many attribute this as his pro-British psyche and many as a folly of his college days; but let’s attest this to his ‘identity impasse’. While Nehru assumed his ancestry had revised his pedigree; Rahul thinks, he is of a much refined and superhuman lineage. Nehru might have struggled with fitting in with both Indians and British, but Rahul doesn’t think he needs to, with Indians.
Let’s now talk about the key positions held by both the great grandfather and his current descendant.
Indians have notoriously acknowledged the details of how M K Gandhi persuaded Sardar Patel to withdraw his nomination to let Nehru step up as the first Prime Minister of India. Step up? From what? Second position? Third? When 12 out of 15 Pradesh Congress Committee nominated Sardar Patel and 3 abstained from voting; which position did Nehru secure in the voting process? It looked like a grumpy kid with a scowl on his face, who refused to talk to anyone until he was given the ball and first chance to kick, without defence. Now, how different has been the Congress Presidentship for today-Gandhis? Doesn’t a boy feel entitled to have a similar conformity like his predecessors?
Dr. Rajendra Prasad had expressed his reservations when Nehru was coronated, he lamented that Gandhiji had once again sacrificed his trusted lieutenant for the sake of the “glamourous Nehru” and feared that he would follow the British ways… Which he did. That glamour continues to find its strand in the genetic build even today; we see many gushing over the looks, biceps, six-packs, white shirt, tapasvi look, the side stare, the dilapidated college history and a lavish vanity bus.
There is a gracious belief that both MK Gandhi and Jawahar Lal Nehru had a common chord of interest; both aspired to be internationalists.
During the period from 1940 to 1946, the world had witnessed many wars and mutinies. With World War II coming to an end, India was hopeful to have its freedom soon enough. This was a perfect time to grab your position on the plinth of World leaders. MK Gandhi had already made his name through his moral gems – Ahimsa and simple living; and he wanted a fancy, well-read and glamorous man to take a place next to him on that plinth; which could take India to the path of complete liberation.
Nehru did not fail India; but it is believed that he allowed everything. Did he walk around with his sly boots and conspired against India? Absolutely not! But wasn’t he too overwhelmed with gratitude and snobbery, which clouded his judgement when he allowed the appointment of certain ministers in his cabinet? Especially when he had witnessed the peak of radicalism and intolerance against Hindus. Allowing Education ministers with a rigid school of thought and lineage; didn’t come off as a concern to him. Why?
The partition was painful, many Muslims did not, would not and could not leave India. Just so that those few left in India, do not feel resentment from others, he allowed a botched history of India to be preached to the rest of us. How we wish there was a term set to allow this kind of moth-eaten history; but no, that was not meant to be.
Such miscalculations highlight the intellectual shortcomings of both Nehru and his current descendants. Rahul Gandhi’s blatant disregard for experience and real talent in his party or expecting a prostration from his party members is not clandestine.
Doesn’t Nehru enjoy too much credit? Was he seriously that bright to have understood the intricacies of a diverse country? He was happy to have parties with British, flaunt his borrowed lifestyle, sign papers and cut ribbons along the way. Exactly what his descendant wants… his regular holiday trips, demanding a 5-star hotel stay for constituency visits. As Ghulam Nabi Azad in an interview said – One has to at least work 20 mins in a day, which he doesn’t. Doesn’t that strike a commonality in both Nehru and Rahul Gandhi?
We don’t need to pull down the entire history of failures and blunders Rahul Gandhi has made in past years.
If we go back a few years, we can see him making indubitable efforts to learn the art of politics, he wanted to change the way Indian politics worked but in the Ted talks way. One could sense that he had seen countless YouTube videos of influential speakers and borrowed ideas from them; he genuinely wanted to come out as a new Yuva face of Indian politics and his lineage. But his inaccessibility to Indian politicians was as good as his unattainable understanding of grassroot Indians. They chewed and spat out an image which unfortunately will be attested to him forever, “Pappu”.
Now, at 52, he is not a docile privileged boy who is struggling to make his mark; he is an angry, privileged man who aggressively believes in his entitlement. He knows he can’t convince anyone; he can’t do anything which he already could’ve not done when they were in power. And when he can’t convince anyone, he will confuse them. His prostrating followers have to follow and advance the chaos he can throw on the gullible public. Be it CAA-NRC, AgniPath scheme, Farmer Bills or Adani group…
Late Atal Bihari Vajpayee was right when he said, “Congress out of power is more dangerous than Congress in power.”
Nehru worked and was gifted a coronation, Indira proved herself and got the coronation, for Rajiv the coronation trickled down, Sonia arrayed the coronation and Rahul begs for coronation.
So, as I was saying, Nehru isn’t in the class of a ‘reprobate guile’ neither is Rahul Gandhi in the grade of a ‘political imbecile’.
They both are on the same platform of Lackadaisical entitlement.
