The many challenges to Nehru's legacy today

Jawaharlal Nehru’s legacy is beyond any political formation and will continue to be relevant for the generations to come. He belongs to the entire nation and his ideals are cherished to this date by Indians belonging to all groups.

Nehru, who shaped the destiny of the country after independence, continues to be relevant several decades after his death.

I want the youth of today to draw inspiration from the four pillars of Nehru’s thoughts. The youth must learn from the way he supported democracy from taking roots in India by nurturing parliamentary norms. I think one big challenge today is to establish democracy in national Capital Delhi and in other state capitals across the country.

Secondly, we need to deepen democracy in India by pushing Panchayati Raj institutions. This remains an unfinished agenda of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, the grandson of Nehru. The youth must understand such grassroots institutions which can change the way we manage our villages and should work towards making them irrevocable.

Then, the young must work towards building a socialist pattern in society. After the Congress government started big economic reforms in 1991, these were explained to people as a consequence of the failure of an earlier model of development. That was not right. Now after 25 years, the Congress has to bring socialism back into national focus and retain its left-of-the-centre party image in 2014.

Besides advocating and practising secularism, the Congress would need to work on an independent foreign policy in which good rapport with both China and Pakistan would be key. This has to be done immediately and India must start a dialogue with both the Asian countries.

There are a lot of challenges to Nehru’s legacy today as the unthinkable has happened. The RSS, which is an exact opposite of the Congress ideology of pluralism, has taken power at the Centre through its political wing, the BJP. What is more surprising is that the Modi government is at variance from Indian secularism and believes in Hindutva ideology.

There is a rift valley in India where the secular majority and non-secular minority are heading towards a confrontation. This non-secular minority, which is in government today, is the real challenge on the 125th anniversary of Nehru. We have to be ready to face this challenge and defeat the communal forces.

I think the Congress could not follow Nehru’s ideology in not prioritising the Panchayati Raj institutions which was the central plank of Rajiv’s political philosophy. Our abandonment of socialism also has to be taken note of and correctives taken in time.

Nehru rose from inherited riches to self-imposed deprivation. He spent the better part of his adulthood in incarceration fighting imperial rule.

He embraced socialism during his 1927 visit to Europe, especially after his encounter in Brussels with the league against Imperialism. His espousal of state-sponsored economic development was vindicated by the spectacular Soviet miracle of the 30s that within a decade transformed the Soviet Union from a serf-ridden backwater into an economic and military superpower which withstood Hitler where all of West Europe had succumbed. But Nehru’s admiration for the Soviet economic model was tempered by repugnance at the immense human suffering it entailed. He, therefore, rejected the Stalinist model and opted for the democratic alternative of an indigenous mixed economy in which priority lay with the poor. That was the socialism he espoused through the freedom movement and into the 17 years of his premiership.

In foreign policy, Nehru went down the “road less travelled”. Non-alignment was the policy of just one country, ours, from 1945 (when Nehru became member for external relations in the interim Cabinet) to the Brioni Conference in 1956. By the time the Non-Aligned Summit was held in Delhi in 1983, two-thirds of the international community had embraced Nehru’s foreign policy. That is the measure of a pioneer.

(as told to Amit Agnihotri)