Nehru, intellectual giant of his time

Long, long years ago, a brilliant politician born in one of the richest Indian families of the time which gave so much to the freedom struggle wrote, forgetting his aristocratic beginnings that ‘The ambition of the greatest men of our generation has been to wipe every tear from every eye.

That may be beyond us, but so long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over.’

And he also wrote that ‘Blood and tears are going to be our lot, whether we like them or not.

Our blood and tears will flow; maybe the parched soil of India needs them so that the fine flower of freedom may grow again.’

Words and phrases which are eminently worth recollecting at a time when the first prime minister of India, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru is under attack in the Lok Sabha for his remark that ‘Indians were lazy and of low intelligence.’

The barrister that he was, a great personality like Nehru always had a choice of carrying on with his life in the best of circumstances considering his classy upbringing.

But the Kashmiri Brahmin family including his father, the venerated Motilal Nehru, sacrificed all they had to plunge into the freedom struggle; they gave away their properties, shed their England bred instincts and plush attire and merged with the common Indian, rubbing shoulders with them to face the British lathis head-on.

They had no doubt a worthy peer to emulate in every sense, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, An England educated barrister himself whose father Karamchand Gandhi was the Diwan of Porbandar state in Gujarat, Gandhi was born into affluence like Nehru.

These were men and women of a different calibre - they responded in full measure to the call of the times, suffered lathi blows and harsh prison terms for months or even years as the nation fought to shed the yoke of colonial rule, Benjamin Disraeli’s famous saying that 'Man is not the creature of circumstances, circumstances are the creatures of men,’ could eminently apply to these heroes of the freedom movement.

With their dogged persistence and unique modes of protest, they created the conditions which virtually made it impossible for the British to remain in India and rule the country anymore.

And thus was born freedom for every Indian. Belittling the contributions of intellectual giants like Nehru a full sixty years after his death, may not be difficult for today’s politicians but he will be remembered for generations to come for the indelible mark he left on the nation’s endeavour to develop itself after the mess left behind by the British who bled the economy white.

Huge dams and massive industries, winding highways and power plants – leaders like Nehru who had to build this nation from scratch, did it steely determination which is why we are able to enjoy the fruits of freedom and development today.

Great personalities such as Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, Sarojini Naidu and many others will continue to tower above everyone else for their selfless efforts for nation building despite all attempts to belittle their sterling contributions.

Picking quotes selectively from their speeches to show them in bad light will do no good to a nation slowly but steadily emerging from the grim shadows of poverty, dogmatic beliefs and under development.