I’ve had Ramachandra Guha’s India After Gandhi on my shelf for a couple of months, waiting to be seriously cracked. 
Why not read it together? It’s not a book club that I’m suggesting, or at least, not exactly — since anyone who proposed an 850 page historical tome as a book club selection would have to be out of his mind.
What I propose is this: we’ll look at a chapter or so a week, and go in sequence. In each case, I’ll try and present some of the main ideas in each chapter in a blog post, so readers can participate in the discussion even if they haven’t read that chapter of the book. The idea is to do a survey of post-independence Indian history with emphasis on the conflicts that have occurred in various states. Guha tends to be much more pro-Nehru than is fashionable these days (since liberalization, many people blame Nehru for keeping India behind; I think this is mistaken). He is also scrupulous in looking at “marginal” communities such as the tribals, who are often left out of major histories. From the chapters I’ve read, Guha seems to be quite fair in his approach, and his style of writing is accessible without being ‘dumbed down’ in the least.
If all goes well, and there’s interest in this approach, next week’s topic will be chapter 3, “Apples in the Basket,” where Guha looks at how the Princely States were incorporated into the union — sort of a neglected topic. For now, however, I wanted to look at a controversy that has come up around one of the earlier chapters (Chapter 2), where Guha talks about the events leading up to Partition.Reihan Salam has given his opinion, on the “Partition” chapters, and on the book as a whole, which he disliked. The following is from a blog post Salam did at the blog The American Scene shortly after Tyler Cowen announced he would be discussing the book at his own blog:
Because I hold Tyler Cowen in the highest esteem, so much so that I will buy almost anything he recommends, I purchased Ramachandra Guha’s India After Gandhi.
And it’s bad. Really, really bad.
Basically, this is a work of hagiography (of Nehru, specifically, who deserves better by dint of having been an actual human being, and a quite shrewd one at that) that reflects an intensely partisan outlook: Guha is a partisan of the India’s bien-pensant upper-middle left. You’d be far better served by reading anything by Ayesha Jalal or the Marxist intellectual Aijaz Ahmad. Amazingly, given that Guha is a serious scholar and (supposed) left intellectual who has considerable spent time outside India, he offers a Attenborough-esque portrait of a dastardly Jinnah and he demonizes Pakistan. (link)
I couldn’t disagree with Reihan more. First of all, I’m not sure how Ramachandra Guha is “intensely partisan,” and I’m not sure exactly what is mean by “India’s bien-pensant upper-middle left.” If he is referring to Indian leftists who come from privileged backgrounds, I think all leftists who are academics would probably be described that way, including, without question, Aijaz Ahmad. Having been a reader of Ram Guha’s essays in magazines like Outlook for the past few years, I’m not even really sure it’s accurate to say that Guha is a “leftist” at all — if anything, his recent opinions have seemed to me to be more centrist than anything else. (We could discuss this.)
I also think Salam is wrong on substance. I don’t think Guha demonizes Jinnah or Pakistan, certainly not in the early chapters. In chapter 2, Guha allocates blame for the disaster of the Partition three ways: 1) the Congress Party, especially Nehru, who early on disregarded the demands of Jinnah and the Muslim League, 2) Jinnah and the Muslim League, and 3) the British, who to some extent fanned the flames of communal hatred to protect their own interests.
Here are two paragraphs where Guha gives a brief account of the political break-down between Congress and the Muslim League that led the Muslim League to seek Partition:
It is true that Nehru and Gandhi made major errors of judgment in their dealings with the Muslim League. In the 1920s, Gandhi ignored Jinnah and tried to make common cause with the mullahs. In the 1930s, Nehru arrogantly and, as it turned out, falsely, claimed the Muslim masses would rather follow his socialist credo than a party based on faith. Meanwhile, the Muslims steadily moved over from teh Congress to the League. In the 1930s, when Jinnah was willing to make a deal, he was ignored; in the 1940s, with the Muslims solidly behind him, he had no reason to make a deal at all.
It is also true that some of Jinnah’s political turns defy any explanation other than personal ambition. He was once known as an ‘ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity’ and a practitioner of constitutional politics. Even as he remade himself as a defender of Islam and Muslims, in his personal life he ignored the claims of faith. . . . However, from the late 1930s on he began to stoke religious passions. The process was to culminate in his calling for Direct Action Day, the day that set off the bloody violence and counter-violence that finally made partition inevitable. (41-42)
Jinnah is certainly being criticized here for stoking the fires of communalism to his own advantage. But I think Guha is being fair when he refers to Nehru as “arrogant” earlier on in the process.
Guha argues that partition was inevitable by 1946, and nearly inevitable as early as the 1940s. The Muslim League, which in 1927 was quite small, had expanded rapidly in the 1930s, running largely on a platform of “Muslim Unity,” and by 1940 started calling for a separate state. The communal platform worked: Guha points out that by 1944 the party had 500,000 members in Bengal and 200,000 members in Punjab. It was not just Jinnah’s ambition — the Muslim League was a genuine mass-movement.
Guha also looks at the Provincial Assembly elections of 1946, which pretty much sealed the deal for Partition. Again, the Muslim League ran on a Muslim Unity/Pakistan platform, and was highly successful. Of the 492 “reserved” seats for Muslims in 1946, the League won 429 seats. The Congress still had an overall majority (927 seats), but the anti-Pakistan Muslim representatives were effectively swept out of power, leaving the Congress with no negotiating power whatsoever.
As for whether Jinnah was right or wrong, it’s now hardly worth arguing over. All but the most extreme religious partisans now accept the division of India as a fact, not likely to ever be reversed.
However, it is interesting to compare Jinnah’s account of why he desired Partition with that of a pro-Congress Muslim intellectual, Maulana Azad. Both of these quotes are epigraphs to Guha’s Chapter 2, and I find them quite telling:
M.A. Jinnah: the problem in India is not of an intercommunal but manifestly of an international character, and must be treated as such. . . . It is a dream that Hindus and Muslims can evolve a common nationality, and this misconception of one Indian nation has gone far beyond the limits, and is the cause of most of our troubles, and will lead India to destruction, if we fail to revise our actions in time. The Hindus and Muslims belong to two different religious philosophies, social customs, and literature. They neither intermarry, nor interdine together, and indeed they belong to two different civilizations which are based mainly on conflicting ideas and conceptions. Their aspects on and of life are different. (from Jinnah’s Presidential Address, 1940)
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad: It was India’s historic destiny that many human races and cultures should flow to her, finding a home in her hospitable soil, and that many a caravan should find rest here. . . . Eleven hundred years of common history [of Islam and Hinduism] have enriched India with our common achievements. Our languages, our poetry, our literature, our culture, our art, our dress, our manners and customs, the innumerable happenings of our daily life, everything bears the stamp of our joint endeavour. . . . These thousand years of our joint life [have] moulded us into a common nationality. . . .Whether we like it or not, we have now become an Indian nation, united and indivisible. No fantasy or artificial scheming to separate and divide can break this unity. (from Azad’s Congress Presidential Address, 1940)
Again, it probably isn’t fair to ask Jinnah to play by today’s standards, but I find myself much more in agreement with Maulana Azad’s view of history and of the shared, hybrid Indian culture he espouses.
Thanks, Amardeep. I’ll pick up teh book and try and join the discussion.
I just read the link too–and, yes–what you said, Ponniyin! (with perhaps even a more “he had some misapprehensions about how to make India great, though fair enough the task at the time was huge indeed”).
This point 50 cent raised,
hits the nail on the head. Islam (and to some extent each of the 3 abrahamic religions) promotes an allegiance to a central holy land rather than regional gods or customs. That’s why you will find muslims named Mohammed/Ahmed/Salim everywhere from Saudi Arabia through Pakistan through Indonesia. This, along with a strong emphasis on learning Arabic to read the Koran, tends to isolate Muslims from their local communities and they naturally tend to form an island of their own wihtin their home countries.
Whether Jinnah’s actions were good or bad for the future of India, his insight into the muslim mind and consequently his ability to command a following are unquestionable.
Guha and those who agree with him that Nehru was good for India are as delusional and out of touch with reality as Nehru himself was. Nehru needs to be judged by his record not his rhetoric. And anyone who thinks that his record was anything other than disastrous is nuts. Here’s Guha’s defense of Nehru from that link:
Firstly, last time I checked the untouchable Ambedkar gets the credit for writing India’s constitution. Secondly, only macaulayite uncle toms measure success as the blind implementation of a british system, not on its results. To extol patently failed political and judicial systems just because they are imitations of the erstwhile colonial masters systems is proof of stupidity and servility.
Begging from both sides during the Cold War is something to be proud of to this spineless nehruvian apologist! The very fact that India was an international beggar and a hopeless basket case under almost two decades of Nehruvianism should have told Guha that his idol was a pathetic, miserable failure as a leader. India’s foreign policies have been a disaster from the very beginning. The humiliating fiasco of 1962 that finally exposed Nehru as a total fraud stands as proof.
To call India’s industrial and educational infrastructure ‘decent’ is the height of delusion. India’s infrastructure is shabby even by third world standards. Its educational system churns out rote learners by the lakhs only a few of whom are considered employable by modern corporations.
Like hell he did. The dalit Ambedkar was marginalized under his watch. He surrounded himself with sycophantic cronies in particular those of his own caste, kashmiri pundits. India was almost completely dominated by upper caste hindus under his rule and the sorry results of such casteist nepotism are there for all to see.
On the other hand the criticisms of Nehru by both left, right and center are more valid:
Nehru’s ‘secularism’ was more a pandering of religious minorities.
Absolutely. The white british colonials were replaced by colored native macaulayite wannabe sahibs trained in english-medium schools, run by christian missionaries, to be europeans in their thinking under their dark indian skins. A class of pathetic colonized creatures alienated from the masses of indians.
True dat. It was unforgivably idiotic of Nehru to abandon the villages where the overwhelming majority of indians lived and still live. Nation building starts from the ground up.
This arrogant yet pathetically clueless man was responsible for squandering a golden opportunity to set India on the right path. Yet there are still brainwashed indians such as Guha and his amen corner here who think he was a great leader!
Dhoni,
Awsesome post–sorry to just quote this one part of it–but this is the part that makes me feel uncomfortable (I agree with the rest!) I do have some “European” ways of thinking about the world–i.e., classical liberalism–Hume, Mill, Hayek, nozick–I don’t think this makes me non-desi… I’m not saying you do either, but I’m curious as to your views on this–i.e., what if I reject Macaulayite-thinking but want to adopt other Euro-derived political philosophy (and hell, the naxalites do, without even wondering about it!)
hello, prema@54! err… dhoni.
India 1945- Only Major country in Asia to be largely unaffected by WW2 (one war induced famine, minor shelling) – Economy unaffected, strongest in Asia. United Nation Strongest defense force in Asia — Battle proven force. Best Civil Service in the world. Diaspora spread across the world, capable of influencing several nations. Had a wealth of entrepreneaurs
Offered Permanant seat in UN, WB Highly motivated, driven political leadership and excellent political Had support of US Geopolitically located in a stategic area. Had immense goodwill across the world.
India 1962 Nation defeated by China Divided nation — both by partition and by internal fissures such as language Army weakened significantly by defeat and by political interference Economy sufferring from slowdowns/moving into recession despite major boost due to Korean war. (partly due to bad allocation of resources due to rigid central planning) 1st non-congress opposition party dismissed from power undemocratically. Quality of political leadership dipped significantly with many of the best marginalized (or dead without being replaced by people of similar caliber) Civil Service showing early signs of decline. US Support lukewarm despite Red Menace scares due to constant rebuffs. Business friendly wing of congress sidelined almost completely UN support mixed — No permenant seat, secretary general post turned down because of nepotism (India was offered the post, but Nehru’s sister was not nominated)
And yet Guha is a fan of Nehru
I think you mean Purushottamdas Tandon, who was bullied into resigning as Congress president, though only after the death of his main supporter in the party, Sardar Patel. All in all, though, you have to give Nehru his due. He was easily the most democratic leader of a post-colonial nation. Vain, impetuous, impractical, hypocritical, sometimes conniving, yes, but also (unlike his daughter) a democrat.
Guha describes himself as a centrist, or more precisely as just a shade left of center. It strikes me as a plausible claim, though it may be more accurate to describe him as belonging to the sane left as opposed to the hysterical (Arundhati Roy) end of the spectrum. Politics aside, he’s a fine writer and India After Gandhi is a balanced book.
sodden drum,
Thanks, yes i meant Tandon, forgot the name.. Well, he can afford to be a democrat. He was winning all the elections (within Congress after purging the rightwingers and outside Congress) hands down. The real test is whether you are a democrat when you lose power. unfortunately, the dismissal of the communist govt. in Kerala , and pressure tactics to get rid of Tandon doesn’t paint a rosy picture of him as a democrat.
Let’s ignore his treatment of Hindutvadis for now. What about his treatment of Sheikh Abdullah?. He was jailed by Nehru after a few years of using him as a the Congress/Indian Muslim face of Kashmir to the outside world. Guha’s treatment on this issue is laughable.. I think I’ll wait for Amardeep to blog that chapter later..
I suspect Nehru did more for upper caste Hindus / Hindutvadis than he was given the credit for.. His best action prior to Independence (according to me) is sabotaging the Cabinet Mission Plan of May 1946 (which is nothing but “Hindus returning to their dhimmi status” and “Mughal rule in disguise”).
Yet there are still brainwashed indians such as Guha and his amen corner here who think he was a great leader!
Dhoni, yes, I think he was a great leader, who held the country together, pushed it towards industrialization, and did the best he could with a bad hand inherited from (or perhaps produced by) the British.
There will be time enough to respond to your individual points as we work through the various chapters of the book.
For now, let me say this. You misread or ignore the content of several of Guha’s points in his lecture. Take, for instance, the point about Nehru’s inclusion of women, which is not a small one. You also don’t respond to Guha’s points about the freedom of the press and of the judiciary — the strength of democratic institutions has kept Indian democracy in one piece where so many developing nations have turned towards dictatorships. (By all political science models, a poor, fractious country India should be a dictatorship) And where Guha describes Nehru as the “architect of our democracy,” which he unquestionably was, you come back with a statement about Ambedkar drafting the constitution. These are two different things; and arguably Ambedkar did what he did only because Nehru’s leadership put him there.
Finally, you contradict yourself — first you complain that Nehru’s economic policies made India a “beggar” (an absurd statement; India’s economy was severely underdeveloped at the time of independence, and poverty was inevitable), then you attack Nehru for pursuing industrialization. So what are you, a Gandhian or a free marketer? Are you in favor of decentralized government and rejecting modernity with a system of village Panchayats (Gandhi), or a strong, modern, centralized government (Nehru)? You can’t be both at once.
Amardeep, dhoni is just the latest incarnation of a particular poster who does not necessarily argue sincerely. S/he has some personal identity issues (ask razib etc.); her/his aim is to basically demonstrate that “india is bad” (whatever that entails). So you will find contradictions galore, and your attempts at sincere argumentation are not going to be rewarded.
and its best to view this “dhoni” as the mirror image of the hyper nationalistic “india shining” crowd (the one reason i sometimes enjoyed “dhoni’s” comments)
Sin, you may be right… Often I don’t mind being a punching bag, but this morning I sort of minded — and hence the response above.
(Incidentally, according to IP, Dhoni is the same person as “Vikram,” a regular commenter.)
I think Dhoni raised a few valid concerns on Nehru. I agree with some and disagree with some.
Though personal life is a personal issue; to add the ammunition for the Nehru-baiters I wonder how much of his flirtings with Mountbatten’s wife ( read the recent book by Alex Von Tusselman – Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire ) affected the politics during the partition….
There is some truth to the fact that Nehru was too idealistic and removed from the ground realities in pre-partition India. Recent revelations of high British officials, in India, corresponding with the Foreign Office back in Great Britain (recently made public), show that they considered him too impatient and bombastic. The intention of the British, once they decided in the 30s that it would not be possible to hold India much longer, was always to maintain a strategic presence in the region, through the Commonwealth, a sort of client state with close defense and foreign policy ties. Indian nationalists, or the Congress Party under which they mostly congregated, were the most opposed to any dilution of their foreign policy and defense independence after the British left.
Nehru completely misread British intentions, which were a part of the Great Game, of propping up the Muslim League and Pakistan, which would be friendlier towards the British post-independence (for example: denying Russian access to the Arabian Sea). By following too idealistic and unworkable a path at various stages (after the 1937 pan-India elections to the Provincial Assemblies, on the question of Kashmir, on the question of India’s role in the British commonwealth after Independence, etc.), Nehru ensured that the British and Jinnah and the League would be naturally drawn to each other to the detriment of Indian interests, both before and after Independence.
54 Dhoni
Firstly, last time I checked the untouchable Ambedkar gets the credit for writing India’s constitution.
–> I think Ambedkar wrote his constitution walled in a basement room in bombay with no interaction with other human beings. He continued writing even after his pen ran dry of ink and his food supply ran out. After he finished writing, the constituent assembly of India accepted it without any discussion. All credit goes to Ambedkar for his magical performance.
To call India’s industrial and educational infrastructure ‘decent’ is the height of delusion. India’s infrastructure is shabby even by third world standards. Its educational system churns out rote learners by the lakhs only a few of whom are considered employable by modern corporations.
–> Can we please stick to Nehru’s achievements/failures ? It is not as if time stopped in India after his death in 1964.
Absolutely. The white british colonials were replaced by colored native macaulayite wannabe sahibs trained in english-medium schools, run by christian missionaries, to be europeans in their thinking under their dark indian skins. A class of pathetic colonized creatures alienated from the masses of indians.
–> And Nehru was the king who decreed it will remain so ? If Ambedkar gets the credit for writing the indian constitution, does he also fall under your description ?
True dat. It was unforgivably idiotic of Nehru to abandon the villages where the overwhelming majority of indians lived and still live. Nation building starts from the ground up.
–> And you would be on the side of gandhi building nation one wheel spoke at a time ????
50 Ponniyin Selvan
I think Nehru is a good man like Gandhi who just thought about the welfare of all the people.. And like all human beings had his own flaws. Guha is no “unbiased historian”.
–> I am sure, having finished the book, you would agree Guha does admit to having his biases.
You are mixing –up leaders. I think you are mixing –up leaders. The leader who kept India together was its pragmatic Home Minister Nehru’s accomplishments in unity include: Exacerbating partition (although he was not the prime reason behind this, he certainly played his part) Losing large parts of the north east to the Chinese Losing large parts of J&K to Pakistan Arbitrarily breaking up long standing political bodies on the basis of language. Arbitrarily making up rules in J&K preventing full assimilation Vetoing the assimilation of Nepal into India, Not preventing hostile foreign powers from gaining influence on border states (by turning a blind eye to Tibet) Over Centralization and a cow belt focus, leading to the effective disenfranchisement of most southern states
So out of the 170+ countries there has been no other choice made? This is Chewbecca defense at its finest. Personally I feel that the Cripps plan made a lot of sense, but different countries have had success with various degrees of decentralization. Nehru got the mix horribly wrong — over centralization following a british pattern that made no sense in India. He effectively limited local self governance.
Without local power and participation the participants in a democracy have no directly visible stake in democracy.
Nehru’s over centralization had severe detrimental effects on various states India and caused resentment (and separatist movements) against India among a lot of people outside the cow belt.
Most of these organizations developed under or were developed by the British. Nehru
People like Tilak (Kesari-1880) a put in the blood and sacrifices to make journalism in India fiercely independent long before independence.
Here is a list of today’s major papers and when they were founded. Indian Express – 1931, The Hindu-1889, Times Of India – 1938, Malayala Manorama – 1890
Institutions that were created by the British include: Civil service, Foreign Service, Judiciary, Army, the Indian Parliamentary system, Indian Railways, IPS, etc.
The institutions had been well established by the time of independence. If anything Nehru weakened these institutions,( for example, by removing the Jury system, by pushing incompetent generals on the basis of their ethnicity, etc). There were also a whole lot of powerful social and some beneficial religious organizations that have slowly withered away because of Nehru’s policies.
I have a pretty low opinion of Guha as a Historian. Your defense of Nehru and Guha’s bias
India was one of the few countries not to be battered by WW2 – it was certainly better off than any other Asian / African country. Its economy got a boost soon after independence due to the Korean War (our industries had an export market), but Nehru’s policies took its toll. Continuing the rupee to the pound link was a bad idea and hurt the economy, since Britain’s condition was quite different from India’s Establishing the license Raj killed off a lot of internal investment that India needed to develop its industries. Over-centralization meant that that govt of India allocated its resources (already limited by the quasi-communist policies of the govt) somewhat badly.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and deserves to be cut a a bit of slack. But to rake Dhoni over the coals for his post when a defense of Nehru has more holes than swiss cheese, is just mean.
Purush @67: nice comment, well stated. Thank you!
I alluded to the role of ‘Great Game’ strategists in encouraging the formation of Pakistan, and the Cold War in keeping it going, upthread, but you stated it very well.
For people interested in reading more on this issue, especially on the antics that preceded the NWFP assembly voting for Pakistan in mid-1947, the role of Sir Olaf Caroe (then Governor of the NWFP and former Foreign Secretary of British India) (Kush alluded to this episode upthread) – I strongly recommend a recent book by Brobst: The Future of the Great Game. An excerpt is available here.
What I got out of reading the book was a clear sense of the continuity in the policies of the pre-WW-II British and the Cold War US, especially the use of Muslim League politicians pre-independence, along with tribal chiefs etc – all the way to the present Afghan war, and how things might pan out in the future, vis-a-vis ‘new’ Great Games, involving players all the way from Central Asia to Burma, including China and Russia and etc.
67 Purush
By following too idealistic and unworkable a path at various stages (after the 1937 pan-India elections to the Provincial Assemblies, on the question of Kashmir, on the question of India’s role in the British commonwealth after Independence, etc.), Nehru ensured that the British and Jinnah and the League would be naturally drawn to each other to the detriment of Indian interests, both before and after Independence.
–> Other than on kashmir, what were the other congress leaders doing at the time ? Sucking their thumbs ?
I agree with your contention that Nehru was idealistic and sometimes suggested unworkable ideas but to jump from there to Nehru ensuring closeness between British and Jinnah takes a considerable leap of logic.
69 DizzyDesi
You are mixing –up leaders. I think you are mixing –up leaders. The leader who kept India together was its pragmatic Home Minister
–> Who happened to be in Nehru’s cabinet ? I am sure Indian people, by and large post-independence, voted congress to power on the fact that it was Patel’s party.
To me, Nehru and Patel were both good for India whereas they were much weaker by themselves.
Nehru’s accomplishments in unity include: Exacerbating partition (although he was not the prime reason behind this, he certainly played his part)
–> Patel wasnt involved in this ?
So out of the 170+ countries there has been no other choice made? This is Chewbecca defense at its finest.
–> Where did you get the 170+ number ? Werent there lesser countries at the time of Independence ?
Without local power and participation the participants in a democracy have no directly visible stake in democracy.
–> Totally agree. But isnt a country’s political culture constantly evolving ? That there was the opportunity to devolve power to the local level was good.
Nehru’s over centralization had severe detrimental effects on various states India and caused resentment (and separatist movements) against India among a lot of people outside the cow belt.
–> Agree even though hindsight allows us a comfortable perch to see what happened.
the freedom of the press and of the judiciary — the strength of democratic institutions has kept Indian democracy in one piece Most of these organizations developed under or were developed by the British.
–> Isnt it laughable that British are credited with developing press freedom when they routinely jailed editors of indian newspapers for sedition ? But, if that is how you wish to see it, so be it.
If British developed it, what would it have taken for Nehru, as PM, to crush them ? That he chose to respect their freedoms was in itself good when he could very well gone the way of lots of other post colonialist nations that enforced repression on press freedom after their independence.
The institutions had been well established by the time of independence. If anything Nehru weakened these institutions,( for example, by removing the Jury system, by pushing incompetent generals on the basis of their ethnicity, etc).
–> I didnt know Nehru pushed incompetent generals on the basis of their ethnicity ? Is this relating to the army officer who was in charge of bungling china border ? I am learning new things from your post. I didnt know pre independence India had a jury system. I thought we followed british system of jurisprudence and we didnt have juries ?
There were also a whole lot of powerful social and some beneficial religious organizations that have slowly withered away because of Nehru’s policies.
–> Who were these organizations ?
Hindsight is 20/20.
India had just been cobbled together from some 500 independent princely states. I think it was imperative to form a powerful centre while sacrificing many state rights in order to forestall any backsliding. Also the ills of socialism and the benefits of capitalism wouldn’t be really evident until at least a couple of decades after Nehru had passed away. It’s indisputable that Nehru was genuinely concerned about the well being of India’s poor and he might have been spooked by a free-for-all capitalist society that left the downtrodden behind. Maybe he wasn’t a visionary and he certainly was naive in not anticipating that Chinese invasion.
That’s right. I’m not sure if he said that in the book. But I have read in his interviews he claims himself to be a “Nehruvian secularist”. If you read my earlier comment I remarked that Guha was in love with Nehru.
Nehru was idealistic.. that part is right.. But you can’t dismiss everything he thought was unworkable. He was for universal suffrage when the literacy rate was 11%. That worked out very well.. atleast for the lower castes.
Linguistic states are good. Karunanidhi and co. (the DK folks, precursor to DMK) treated Aug 15, 1947 as the day of mourning.. Last week, He was quoting a poem in Hindi to mollify people who got offended by his anti-Ram remarks.. Linguistic states would have happened anyways irrespective of what Nehru thought / did. The fact that it happened with less violence is remarkable.
Actually British-Jinnah collaboration worked well for India.. well, i think everything depends on whether you think partition is good or not. I feel partition is the best thing to have happened to India in many hundreds of years..
The failure of Nehru was not in working diretly to drive the League and the British together, by being too nationalistic or too unrealistic, but instead by his failure to see how his actions in the world of realpolitik were causing the mindset of “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” amongst the British and the League/Jinnah. Nehru was the anointed Congress leader, favored by Gandhiji and talked about as the future PM. Posterity in # 73 makes a good point, but the price of leadership is judgement by history.
This is a fair point to raise, and it is possible that one of the reaons why the Cabinet Mission plan envisaged a weak Centre was so that the states and princes could be manipulated, as before, for post-colonial imperial aims, in continuing the Great Game.
But every version of the Cabinet Mission plan has ‘Defence, External Affairs, and Communications’ allocated to the Centre. I don’t think it was even considered from Britain’s pov – that the states could run their own foreign affairs or their armies, there being so many of them, it could only be a nightmare. Only the very biggest princely states – Kashmir, Hyderabad could even think in terms of independence and ‘neutrality’ and ‘standstill’. But that was after the Cabinet Mission plan had fallen through, in which they would have come in with the status quo intact.
So among Nehru’s misconceptions was the notion that a unitary nation-state in the post-Westphalian Europe mould could fit India as a whole. His failure to recognize the very real role that religion played in people’s lives, and his commitment to a socialistic command economy were, of course, two of the others.
Krishnan, can you please learn how to delineate your comments from the ones you are responding to THE RIGHT WAY?!?! Thanks.
74 Ponniyin Selvan
That’s right. I’m not sure if he said that in the book. But I have read in his interviews he claims himself to be a “Nehruvian secularist”. If you read my earlier comment I remarked that Guha was in love with Nehru.
–> He covers the effect of bias on him for about a page or so in the beginning and uses it as a reason why he thought this was a good time to start focussing on the path India took after independence. As for him being in love with Nehru, the same tone infected Shashi Tharoor in his invention of india book.
75 Purush
The failure of Nehru was not in working diretly to drive the League and the British together, by being too nationalistic or too unrealistic, but instead by his failure to see how his actions in the world of realpolitik were causing the mindset of “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” amongst the British and the League/Jinnah.
–> I thought Nehru and realpolitik went together like water and oil ?
That said, my opinion is that League/Jinnah and British didnt need a whole lot to drive them together. One was a humbled(and overstretched) power that had used religion as an instrument to divide its indian subjects and the other was a duplicitous politician who used religion to become a head of state. Contrast it with Nehru’s antipathy towards religion in general.
76 chachaji
His failure to recognize the very real role that religion played in people’s lives,
–> When he was leader, religion was usually backward-looking and repressive(not that it has improved much). To have instituted reforms in a major religion within a new nation, I would have thought, was an achievement he and Ambedkar would be appreciated for. Instead, we have Nussbaums of the world sloppily giving free pass to (backward looking)religions and targeting leaders who tried to address its inequities in a modern nation.
I would have liked him to have followed the separation of church and state model but that is only in hindsight.
It’s one of those strange twists of history that the US, which is currently held up as THE imperial superpower, was actually pressuring the British, in 1945-1947 to grant India independance without partition, as this was morally the right thing to do. It also was one with their overwhelming moral position, of freedom from German and Japanese fascism and tyranny, on which they waged and won the 2nd World War. Nehru spurned the US hand in friendship then, and even later when he visited JFK in the early 60s. He seems to be a poor judge of both, national and individual character.
Great idea Amardeep. I got the book a couple of months ago, got through the first three chapters and have shelved it. So its great that I have some motiviation to go back to it now.
I have been reading the comments on Nehru with some interest. I think it is very difficult to judge what he did (or did not) achieve all those years ago. One thing we have to keep in mind is at the beginning of the century not many people would have imagined that the Soviet Union would fall apart and communism (for the most part) would be swept away. Nehru’s ideas, might seem arcane now (hindsight is 20-20), but at the time he was hailed as a visionary.
Ah, the Cabinet Mission Plan where non-Muslims voluntarily become dhimmis, where there are communal electorates and communal vetos which requires 2/3rds of each community members present and voting on any issue that affects a community. I wonder if the US-India nuclear deal could have become one such issue with the Muslims generally against the US. and no chance of reforming the army to accept recruits from all the regions of India.. forget reforms in Hindu personal laws / abolition of communal electorates..
Moreover, all that CMP talked about was only for the British provinces (dividing into 3 arbitrary groups with their peculiar rules), the princely states were not even in the picture other than the 93 delegates “appointed” (read not elected) by the “princes” based on their divine rights to rule over 90 million people.. And the princes bailed out on a similar plan (the 1935 GOIA) and it came into force only for the provinces leaving out the federation..
Nehru should be praised and absolved of all his follies just for sabotaging this stupidity called the Cabine Mission Plan.
Nicely said.. I haven’t read Nussbaum on Nehru. Was that in her recently released book?. I just skimmed over the interviews that she had with RSS/BJP leaders in a book shop. din’t want to spend money on yet another “secular book”.. Maybe she belongs to the “Jinnah is secular and it is all the fault of Nehru” school.
This is one other thing Nehru should be praised for. He bulldozed over the opposition from the Hindu right wingers (Mr. Shyamaprasad Mukherjee resigned from Nehru’s cabinet and started Jana sangh – precursor to today’s BJP for that reason) and reformed the Hindu personal / property laws offering more rights to women, banning polygamy etc..
82 Ponniyin Selvan
Nicely said.. I haven’t read Nussbaum on Nehru. Was that in her recently released book?. I just skimmed over the interviews that she had with RSS/BJP leaders in a book shop. din’t want to spend money on yet another “secular book”.. Maybe she belongs to the “Jinnah is secular and it is all the fault of Nehru” school.
–> I read her book at a bookstore nearby. The book is not worth the paper it is written on. Given her audience is primarily american and european readers, I think it will be quoted more in the future. I had difficulty finishing it and I dont wish the torture on anyone. I did dump on the book in my blog. That book gives me hope that even I can write a better one if and when I choose to do so.
–> One of the book’s theses is that the rise of hindu fanaticism in India has to do with Nehru’s neglect of religion in public square after independence(which, according to her, Gandhi wouldnt have done) and overreliance on science and underreliance on humanities(which, according to her, Tagore wouldnt have done). She praises tagore, gandhi, amartya sen and amita sen(amartya sen’s mom) a lot and Nehru comes in for some harsh treatment, mainly for discouraging religious influence on public policy and attitude towards science. She has done a very good hatchet job on the sangh parivar. But some of her conclusions are bizarre and sounds more like wishful thinking than anything else.
–> The sad part of it is that the book’s central thesis is an effective counterpoint to Samuel Huntington’s clash of civilizations but the sloppiness of the exposition is nothing short of amazing.
I think there is some truth to it. But I’d not treat that as Nehru’s neglect of religion, but his selective treatment of religions. What is described as “Nehruvian secularism” in India is actually “appeasement of minorities”.
What is described as “Nehruvian secularism” in India is actually “appeasement of minorities”.
What did he do to appease the Muslims, Sikhs and Christians?
For the start, he left the personal laws of Muslims / Christians untouched. While talking eloquent about social reforms through legislations about Hinduism, remained silent on the other religions. A real agnostic / rationalist should treat every religion / God(s) the same..
I have read and heard that Muslim women are not allowed inside a majority of mosques. You should tell me if that is true or not. (It probably differs sectwise).. We have heard of temple entry legislations for Dalits, but haven’t heard of anything similar in the case of Muslim women. I personally don’t care if people goto mosques/temples, the less they go the better. But most of the mosques also serve as jamaats where the personal issues of property inheritance / divorce cases are decided. And if women are not even allowed entry how can they be offered justice. Typically their cases are decided without them even being present. If we are offended by the denial of rights to 200 million Dalits, shouldn’t we be offended by the treatment meted out to 75 million Muslim women?.
It’s Nehru’s fault that he acquiesced to the pressure applied on him by the Muslim regressive forces while standing firm on the case of Hindu regressive forces. Unfortunately we see the same behavior continue till today.
For the start, he left the personal laws of Muslims / Christians untouched. While talking eloquent about social reforms through legislations about Hinduism, remained silent on the other religions. A real agnostic / rationalist should treat every religion / God(s) the same..
There are good, practical reasons why Muslim Personal Law was left alone, and why a delicate treatment of the Indian Muslim community in particular was a good idea in the early 1950s. It may not be the case anymore (I have come out in favor of a fair uniform civil code), but as I’ve been saying all along, you can’t keep judging him by today’s standards.
Meanwhile, the reforms to the Hindu Marriage Act (though admittedly it’s often been left unenforced, esp. in villages) have helped ensure the potential of justice for millions of Hindu women. Passing the act was not a foregone conclusion, as prominent leaders like Rajendra Prasad (if I recall correctly) were dead-set against it.
Why not emphasize the positive sometimes? Why is that so difficult?
There is a problem with that approach. A good leader has to take the right decisions foreseeing the future and not worry about short term nuisances.
That’s right, the enforcement leaves much to be desired. But what’s more important on the part of the leaders is the “intention to reform”. If leaders lack even that it is a big problem.
Yes, Nehru was against the Hindu regressive forces both within and outside the Congress and I think that was explained well in Guha’s book. While Nehru was “strong willed” in the case of “Hindu personal law reforms”, he acquiesced to the “Muslim regressive forces”, I believe due to the veto power exercised by Maulana Azad on Muslim issues.
Hmm, I thought you wanted honest opinions. 🙂 this is what i said earlier. “I think Nehru is a good man like Gandhi who just thought about the welfare of all the people.. And like all human beings had his own flaws.”
86 Ponniyin Selvan
A real agnostic / rationalist should treat every religion / God(s) the same..
It’s Nehru’s fault that he acquiesced to the pressure applied on him by the Muslim regressive forces while standing firm on the case of Hindu regressive forces. Unfortunately we see the same behavior continue till today.
–> I think he treated every religion/god the same but it is also a matter of support from leaders of the specific religious community being reformed. In the case of hindu reform, there was support from Ambedkar and some congress leaders which made it easier for Nehru to push the reforms through. Nehru pushing muslim or christian or sikh reforms without a counterweight from those religions would just have added to problems of a new nation. But, as leader of the new nation, he does bear responsibililty, especially because he was public about the ill effects of influence of religion in society.
87 Amardeep
Why not emphasize the positive sometimes? Why is that so difficult?
–> I think it is especially difficult with respect to Nehru in part because of his family wringing major guilt trips out of indians for last 50 years. He was very clear about the perils of dynastic politics but the way his family has taken advantage of his popularity is also to blame. Or as Guha wrote in that web link someone had provided, he is dearly paying for the sins of his progeny.
Come on Krishnan, calling Ambedkar as the leader of the Hindu community is a big stretch. 🙂 .. He ended up a non-Hindu. If you think about it both Nehru and Ambedkar are non-Hindus but pushed through reforms in Hindu personal law. They could have done the same regarding the other religions. It’s tough to believe that there are no progressive thinkers among the Muslims. It is just that Congress / Nehru yielded so much space to the regressive elements like Maulana Azad and gave them the veto power..
I have read and heard that Muslim women are not allowed inside a majority of mosques. You should tell me if that is true or not. (It probably differs sectwise)..
I cant really speak on the situation in India as India is too big and diverse and I have never been outside 3-4 states in the North (Delhi, UP, Punjab, Haryana basically) I dont believe women are not allowed entry in Indian mosques. Women in general dont go pray in mosques in India and Muslim nations and usually pray at home. Mosques are not community centers in Muslim populous nations and are quite different from churches in the US. The US mosques are however setting themselves up on the same model as US churches and women have a more prominent role. In the US, Muslim women are struggling to have a more high profile role in Mosques and get elected on the boards etc. Asra Nomani (Wall Street Journalist and Daniel Pearl’s friend) has done a lot of work on improving the status of women in US mosques. For example, even though the US mosques are set up on the same model as US churches, the women’s entrance in US mosques are usually in the rear, the space for women to pray is usually cramped and not as nice as the space given to men etc.
I personally don’t care if people goto mosques/temples, the less they go the better. But most of the mosques also serve as jamaats where the personal issues of property inheritance / divorce cases are decided
Thats not correct. People go to Courts to settle inheritance issues if they cant settle it among themselves. The Courts in India will apply the Sharia rules to settle inheritance/divorce issues hence the clamor for Uniform Commercial Code.
There are good, practical reasons why Muslim Personal Law was left alone, and why a delicate treatment of the Indian Muslim community in particular was a good idea in the early 1950s. It may not be the case anymore (I have come out in favor of a fair uniform civil code), but as I’ve been saying all along, you can’t keep judging him by today’s standards.
I used to oppose the implementation of the Uniform Commercial Code but I support it now. The regressive elements in the Indian Muslim Personal Law Board, the Sunni Waqf Board and whatever other organizations control the Muslim personal law issues are incapable/unwilling to modernize the Muslim personal law especially when it comes to issues of alimony/child support.
Muslims have now had over 60 years to fix their personal laws and though they have made changes, the changes are too late and too few. The state needs to step in and modernize the laws.
http://www.hindu.com/lr/2004/10/03/stories/2004100300230400.htm
I’ve read similar reports of women denied entry into the mosque. I was searching for links. Ofcourse you or razib would know better.
This is an Islamic perspective from Bangladesh on why women should be allowed inside mosques. The writer is the Chairman of Islamic Information Bureau Bangladesh.
Hindus / Hinduism has been hammered so long for its treatment of Dalits / restricting their access to the places of worship etc.. etc.. and have been told that the egalitarian religions of Christianity/Islam allowed them free access and that’s the reason for conversion of lower caste into those religions etc..etc.. Never knew until a couple of years back that the egalitarian aspect stops with just the men.. 🙂
Ok, from Asra Nomani in Washington Post..
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50097-2004Jan2.html
90 Ponniyin Selvan
Come on Krishnan, calling Ambedkar as the leader of the Hindu community is a big stretch. 🙂 .. He ended up a non-Hindu. If you think about it both Nehru and Ambedkar are non-Hindus but pushed through reforms in Hindu personal law.
–> I didnt say Ambedkar was the leader of hindu community. He was one among them(which is how I referred to him). If Nehru had similar support from political leaders from other religions for reform, he might have succeeded. Ambedkar became a buddhist in 1956. Before that, he wasnt an atheist or agnostic, right ?
Krishnan:
Those are all lame excuses. The truth is “Nehruvian secularism” has come to mean “appeasement of the minorities”.
krishnan, i find your comments interesting and educational, but often find them hard to read because of your way of quoting text. could you use the convention of blockquoting stuff? the faqs describe how to under the question “How do I quote text in a comment so it’s all indented and spiffy?”. thanks!
Will do from now on. Thanks for pointing it out.
Probably too late but nevertheless since Amardeep talks about the politics of partition in this post, Chachaji@70 and Purush@67 would also be interested in the following book – The shadow of the great game: The untold story of India’s partition. The author was ADC to Mountbatten and has presented some interesting assesment of the personalities, politics during partition based on his nine years of research of various archives and libraries in US and UK.
According to blurb the book has little known facts about the pressure that USA exerted on Britain to give India independence and how the British having realized that Indian congress would not join them in the great game against soviet union, used Muslim League,Jinnah and partition to achieve their strategic objectives.