Some anti-theistic rants by Jawaharlal Nehru from his seminal book The Discovery of India - “The spectacle of what is called religion, or at any rate organised religion, in India and elsewhere, has filled me with horror and I have frequently condemned it and wished to make a clean sweep of it. Almost always it seemed to stand for blind belief and reaction, dogma and bigotry, superstition, exploitation and the preservation of vested interests. It is science alone that can solve the problems of hunger and poverty, of insanitation and illiteracy, of superstition and deadening custom and tradition, of vast resources running to waste, or a rich country inhabited by starving people... Who indeed could afford to ignore science today? At every turn we have to seek its aid... The future belongs to science and those who make friends with science. We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open. What the mysterious is I do not know. I do not call it God because God has come to mean much that I do not believe in. I find myself incapable of thinking of a deity or of any unknown supreme power in anthropomorphic terms, and the fact that many people think so is continually a source of surprise to me. Any idea of a personal God seems very odd to me.” Respect (y) (y) Now before some ideological zealot attacks me, let me make it clear - Nehru was no saint. Many of Nehrus decisions were counter-productive. * He focused too much on Higher Education (IITs, IIMs & AIIMS) while neglecting Primary Education. * Yes he messed up badly during the China war. Yes he kept a vicious & vile VK Krishna Menon as his right-hand man who majorly screwed up his foreign policy decisions. * Yes, he also persecuted the Communists and his old ally Sheikh Abdullah of Kashmir. * Yes he sanctimoniously preached peace & pacifism to the international community but sent his army to invade the Portuguese colony of Goa in 1961. * And his biggest crime was not delivering the plebiscite that he promised the people of J & K. But then we must also not forget that he was among the very few leaders of his time (we know Patel was more Center-Right and a conservative Hindu & Rajgopalachari was a Capitalist) who believed in a pluralistic, secular & inclusive society and also gave Socialism to India when it needed it the most. Unlike Gandhi, he was pro-science & industrialization and always believed in fostering a scientific temperament among the citizens. And he himself was an open rationalist. And one of the founding figures of the anti-imperialist NAM movement and one of the first statesmen to recognize Palestine and offer refuge to the Tibetan government. Also someone who never sold out to the Americans (Eisenhower & even Kennedy hated him), something which every Indian PM since his grandson Rajiv Gandhi has been doing. Nehru was a terribly flawed man (but then, who isnt?) and may not have been as good as Lal Bahadur Shastri, but old Chacha was nevertheless a visionary and perhaps one of the very few great statesmen this country has ever produced. Lets not demean him just because he came from an affluent Upper-Caste family. Instead, lets remember him for his secular & progressive vision. [And anyone who feels that Im praising him just because we share the same ethnicity - GET A LIFE]
Posted on: Fri, 14 Nov 2014 17:32:36 +0000
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