Today a senior friend said to me that Guha is a Nehruvian, a word that says he is an admirer of Nehru, and if I continue reading his works I may end up having wrong and prejudiced opinion about Nehru (though he did not say this but it seems to be the most likely of conclusions and which I could have drawn from his gestures - shades of holmes???).
Well, I could have allowed myself to indulge in a debate with him on this topic but since I had some other prearranged thoughts in my mind (gossiping, after a long time!), I did not.
Obviously, I can afford to do that now.
Why does someone admire some other person? May be because they like some aspects of their personality, their acts and their thoughts. And Mr. Guha, considering that he is the one who wrote the book India After Gandhi, surely had done a lot of reading not only about Nehru but many other eminent personalities. So, this argument easily establishes the point that he, in complete certainty, knows a lot about Nehru than me and my senior friend and that too based on facts which can be validated to the source unlike many of us who base their opinions on mere hearsay or dubious sources or wishful thinking or even wild imaginations.
First I talked about knowing the facts correctly because more often than not this comes out to be the main point of deviation. There are people who fight passionately in order to assert themselves as correct but disregarding the facts altogether or even distorting them in way that benefits them. So first know your facts!
Second thing is about knowing the facts as it is but disagreeing with regards to their application, that is, a difference of opinion.
So they Say: Nehru is blamed for appeasement of minorities, for economic policies, for neglect of threat from China, for neglect of primary education and for continuing dynasty politics in Congress or more appropriately in all spheres of life. [Want to know Nehru correctly, then read his biography by Sarvepalli Gopal, The Idea of India by Sunil Khilnani, India After Gandhi by Guha, Nehru by B.R. Nanda, and many more authentic books]
When India achieved freedom there was not a single western observer who said that nation such as India would even survive for more than a day considering her huge diversity in terms of Religion, Culture, Language, etc. After Patel had done his tremendous task of merging more than 500 princely states to the Union of India and Ambedkar had done his part of consolidating hugely divergent opinions into a constitution for the working of this newly formed nation, it was left to Nehru to build a nation on a democratic framework because Patel had died in 1950 and Ambedkar had resigned from the cabinet in 1951 following the stalling in parliament of his draft of the Hindu Code Bill, which sought to expound gender equality in the laws of inheritance, marriage and the economy. [facts - India After Gandhi]
And, where most other former colonies turned into dictatorships and yet others into unstable democracies, India survived and she is still a democracy. That we do not even in the wildest of our imaginations ever consider India would ever be turned into a dictatorial regime that we breathe and live democracy then the man responsible at least deserves a bit of respect for this from a race of ingrate and selfish human beings! [generally speaking - exceptions are always there]
I sometimes wonder what we would have done to Bhagat Singh had he lived long and implemented his thoughts, which would have seemed highly revolutionary and inflammatory to the Hindu extremists or for that matter, any kind of extremist.
It will be very appropriate to say, “You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain [Batman, The Dark Knight]”, Bhagat Singh is a hero and Nehru is a villain (and so they say), whereas I am hundred percent sure that had the former hero of mine lived and would have been able to bring the “social, economic revolution - the way he conceived”, then even the person who is at present his staunchest of supporter, would have appeared chastising him.
They lived, had flaws, but did their part of work and now it is up to us to learn from their good things and bad things, and contribute to the nation.
But what are we doing picking up few icons for worship and vilifying others!
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