Nehru' nationalism

NEHRU was not sure.

“Merely by being born in India does not make you an Indian,” he says. Then what makes you an Indian? “To be an Indian, in the real sense of the term,” he says, “you have to lay claim on your inheritance.” In this country, only the Hindu claims the Indian inheritance.

Nehru himself was a great admirer of his Indian inheritance. Naturally, he was a true Indian—a true Indian nationalist.

Muslims make no claims on their Indian inheritance. Except on the land. They say they are different from the Hindus. Which is why they called for Partition. Do they, then, deserve to be called Indians? By the logic of Nehru, they do not.

Nehru recalls how proud the Greeks and Italians were (and are) of their past, although they are Christians today. But why are Indian minorities (Christians and Muslims) not proud of India’s past? This is a complex issue. Let me explain.

Sheikh Abdullah writes: “Nehru used to call himself an agnostic. But he was also a great admirer of the past of India and the Hindu spirit of India.” But who inspired him? He was inspired by the “same revivalist spirit as seen in Dayanand Saraswati and K.M.Munshi”, Sheikh says. (Atish-e-Chinar)

It is clear Abdullah did not like India’s past. Obviously, he was no nationalist. Dr. Akbar Ahmed says that Muslims of the Indian sub-continent have failed to explain their past, present and future. More so the past.

Here is another example. In 1948, Nehru was addressing the Aligarh Muslim University convocation. He asked the assembled Muslims—the cream of Muslim society—whether they admired the past of India. There was deafening silence. But let me explain this in some detail. He told them: “I am proud of our inheritance and our ancestors, who gave an intellectual and cultural pre-eminence to India. How do you feel about this past?” (Only a nationalist could have asked such a question.) Not one Muslim got up to answer Nehru’s question. But it calls for an answer. The Muslims cannot ignore it.

To Nehru, nationalism was more an emotional attachment to the motherland, to its fauna and flora, to its mountains and rivers, to its people, to its past. But “to the average Indian,” he says, “the whole of India was a kind a punya bhoomi”(holy land).

What is more, says Nehru, “In moments of crisis, a country calls up its traditions to raise a high pitch of effort and sacrifice.” This was the case when India had to fight the British empire. Only a people with a past can call up their past.

India is no holy land to Christians and Muslims. That is the difference between the nationalist Hindus and the minorities. For us, Hindus, India is holy. She is the “mother.” For them, India is a piece of territory. Jerusalem is holy to them. Mecca is holy to them. Not India.

That is precisely why we Hindus have a greater stake in the destiny of this land. “The fate of India is largely tied up with the Hindu outlook,” says Nehru in a letter written on November 17, 1953 to K.N. Katju, his Home Minister.

Is the fate of India tied up with the Muslim outlook?

To this he has a highly significant reply. He says: “The Muslim outlook may be and, I think, is often worse. But it does not make much difference to the future of India.”

Can you believe that this was written by Nehru, the man with a soft heart for the Muslims? But it is true. How is one to explain it?

By 1953 Nehru was a changed man. His faith in Muslims was shattered after Sheikh Abdullah betrayed him. Thus the nationalist in him came out in full force when he wrote his Last Will and Testament.

It was Nehru’s hope that his secularism would provide for Hindus and Muslims a framework within which they could bring about the necessary adjustments. But it was a false hope.

Nehru was no great thinker. He made many many mistakes. But he was a great lover of his country. And he could express his love in most beautiful words.