If Nehru had to address Constitution Day, this is how it would sound like
Imagine that Nehru, somewhere in the heavens attended Constitution Day on November 26, 2015. This is what I think he may have to say:
Friends and Countrymen. When this great nation leapt into freedom on the midnight hour of August 15, 1947, we faced the future with hope, with fortitude.
Our subcontinent was divided along religious lines amidst violence. Then Bapu was assassinated. His extraordinary light went out. Two or so years later, I lost the Sardar who had done so much to bring India together. We wanted peace, but were borne into war by our neighbour, Pakistan. Alas we were from the same stock. These are the travesties of history.
Those who drafted our magnificent Constitution had done a wonderful job. I must confess I was not in the Assembly all the time, endowed, as I was, with running the nation during these turbulent times.
Future
I knew that we dared not be little. We wanted to destroy zamindari, for which we succeeded, in some measure obstructed by the Supreme Court. Even though the poor peasant was not empowered we had dismantled the past for a better future. I wanted a secular state in which people from all religions and customs could believe, propagate and practice their faiths. Decades later, they called my views pseudo-secularist. Such words are not known to me. Since I was committed to a rationalist approach and the scientific temper, critics thought I was confused.
There is no contradiction in believing in the India's exquisite multilingual, multi-religious and multicultural civilisation and yet ask people to think rationally. There were never stark alternatives. On some things I was wrong.
I should have acceded to the claim of Andhra to be a separate state as I did when creating Maharashtra and Bombay. Modernity required India to develop technology, education, dams, electricity. To this I funnelled support.
But India was faced with arrant corruption. I should have dealt Krishna Menon's Jeep scandal firmly. I had ordered inquiries into corruption in the railways, into my finance minister TTK who resigned, and chief minister Kairon. He too had to go. I set up the Santhanam Commission to find solutions to the cancer of corruption. Alas, this cancer has enlarged itself. Externally I wanted India as a leader of the Non-Aligned nations who were not to be bullied. I befriended China who invaded us to connect Sinkiang with Tibet. We were destroyed in spirit when the Chinese took our territory and shattered our peace. I could not believe it. We were not prepared for such an occasion. My end was near. I had left many tasks unfinished but left a nation that believed and wept for me.
Emergency
Lal Bahadur was a gem. Not hungry for power. He fought the war of 1965, dying in Tashkent - keeping the peace. But it was my daughter Indira whose politics astounded me. It was she, who along with Pant, had imposed President's Rule in Kerala in 1959. When in power, Indira brooked no opposition. Defeated in various states, she abused the Emergency power to impose President's Rule in the states, with no qualms that she was destroying constitutional federalism. She won a magnificent victory to create Bangladesh in 1971 but lost her way to impose a subversive Emergency (1975-77). It is unfortunate my grandsons joined politics without experience. As the prime minister, Rajiv got lost in credible allegations of corruption.
I mourn for the bloody deaths of my daughter and her sons. They did some good but many things that cannot be condoned. My family must realise that they have no divine right to rule or lead the Congress party.
I find that there is a deterioration in the constitutional fabric. It was unimaginable that elections were vitiated by violence and money. Legislatures were disrupted. Tables, chairs, microphones used as weapons of exchange. The level of debate is at an all-time low.
But, you know, I was wrong about the judiciary. The Supreme Court kept alive the spirit of constitutionalism, religious harmony and social justice. They are not above criticism, but have held their own.
A masjid was destroyed in 1992. I had stopped such attempts in Delhi in 1947. There were communal riots in 1993 and then again and again, brutally in 2002. I believe India to be a civilisation of many colours, cultures and faiths.
Hatred
To think of India as just a Hindu nation would be abhorrent. The RSS combine is an instrument of hate who have trapped our orator prime minister. For a decade or so, hate and intolerance are sweeping over India. No society can be led by its tape worms. We cannot show our face to the world if its largest democracy is putrid with hate. Corruption spoils governance, but intolerance destroys society. If our leaders cannot decry intolerance, they are not worthy to rule.
When the Republic began in 1950 there were 361 million people in India. Now it is about 1.2 billion. I do not envy those who rule. Half of India is in absolute poverty. Who lives if India dies? Who dies if India lives? A predatory global economy is on our door step. Our answer must remain the same: Democracy, social justice, secularism, and anti-imperialism. I look at our achievements with pride; and the daunting task ahead with courage and apprehension.