<p>Nehru’s niece, Nayantara Sahgal, seeks to remind us of the man who helped shape India’s foreign policy, and gave India a voice that resonated across the globe in the crucial post-1947 years. In her latest book, Civilizing a Savage World, Sahgal, with the help of her personal recollections as well as excerpts from the Nehru and Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit papers, gives us an idea of the tumultuous years that followed Independence.<br /><br />The USSR and the US were busy trying to exert their influence across the world, beginning an era that is best described as the Cold War years. Great Britain, France, Portugal, Belgium, and the Dutch were still trying to cling on to their colonies across Africa and Asia. It would have been easy for Nehru, then faced with the tremendous challenges of building India’s own internal resources — a full time occupation in its self — to turn an indifferent eye to the happenings across the world, or to even choose to lean towards one of the two emerging super powers.<br /><br />What this book perhaps does is to convey the tremendous moral courage of a man who, instead of taking these easy options, preferred to chart a different course, giving India stature in the world, and making it a voice of reason in the noise and din emerging from conflict-ridden Asia.<br /><br />The Non-Aligned Movement was perhaps Nehru’s most significant contribution to India’s foreign stand and international diplomacy. This set the tone for its future course of keeping its distance from the two super power blocks, but yet receiving support from both. It is conceivable that India’s present international stature, and therefore Asian politics over the years, would have been vastly different, had it not been for this development.<br /><br />Gandhi, as Sahgal writes, brought the common man to the centre stage of Indian politics. Nehru kept him there. Gandhi made non-violence an active force against oppression. Nehru made it his approach to world politics and the foundation of his foreign policy. Throughout the various crises that erupted across the world, it was because of this non-aligned approach, Sahgal points out, that India’s voice became increasingly recognised as one of sanity.<br /><br />This book is saved from becoming a hagiography because the numerous excerpts from Nehru’s letters speak for themselves. These include notes to Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, chief ministers of India (Nehru used to write a fortnightly letter to all the chief ministers in the country on domestic and foreign issues), and other leaders in the country and abroad. It gives a deep insight into the sensibilities of a man who was genuinely involved in both internal and international matters.<br /><br />Nehru was the architect of the various IITs in the country, as he believed strongly in the development of science. But his fortnightly letter to chief ministers after visiting the site of the IIT in Kharagpur reveals the depth of his awareness of what was going on around him. After writing about his exhilaration over the new structures rising up, the new ‘temples’ that would change the face and outlook of India, he notes in the same letter his reaction to the workers’ houses in Kharagpur and Kanpur: “...I saw the slum dwellings of the workers there... I was horrified and not yet recovered from the shock... I am convinced that it is better to have no houses at all and for the workers to be given an open space to live in temporarily than to be made to live in places which are not fit for domestic animals... I have a sensation that we do not feel this quite as acutely as we ought to feel. There is no sense of horror and urgency about it.”<br /><br />Sahgal, through another excerpt from a letter from Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit to Nehru in 1951, says that Oppenheimer, regarded as the father of the atom bomb, warned Nehru against allowing the USA to acquire thorium from India. “…Oppenheimer ‘begs’ India not to sell any thorium to the US voluntarily or through pressure,” Sahgal quotes Vijaya Lakshmi in her letter to Nehru.<br /><br />She goes on to say, “...Oppenheimer ‘begs India in the name of humanity’ to maintain her present foreign policy and not be swayed by any pressure, national or international, to depart from it.” This book also tells us that Oppenheimer’s anguish over his part in the atom bomb had turned him to the study of Hindu philosophy and Gandhi’s doctrine of ahimsa. He had written to Nehru several times in his search for comfort during his own period of soul-searching. This kind of feedback from Oppenheimer and other world leaders must have also reassured Nehru that his foreign policy was on the right track — a fact that clearly emerges from the book.<br /><br />This book is not just about how Nehru formed his foreign policy — it also brings to light several other path-breaking measures within the country, like universal suffrage that allowed both women and men to vote in elections (right from the first General Elections in 1952), and several reforms, including the modernised Hindu Code Bill. Nehru, the book reveals, often took the battle for reform to the general public, appealing for an understanding of its provisions.<br /><br />This book, written in Sahgal’s clear, lucid style, is a valuable insight into the mind of the man who shaped India’s course from Independence to the time he died in 1964.<br />It offers several thought-provoking questions long after one has finished it. It certainly adds to Indian history, and serves as a voice that ought to be taken into consideration whenever the thought of criticising Nehru for our woes today arises. Clearly, even those who are Nehru’s harshest critics will agree that the man was ahead of his times.<br /><br /></p>.<p><em>Jawaharlal Nehru — <br />Civilizing A <br />savage world<br />Nayantara Sahgal<br />Penguin<br />2010, pp 167<br />Rs 350</em></p>
<p>Nehru’s niece, Nayantara Sahgal, seeks to remind us of the man who helped shape India’s foreign policy, and gave India a voice that resonated across the globe in the crucial post-1947 years. In her latest book, Civilizing a Savage World, Sahgal, with the help of her personal recollections as well as excerpts from the Nehru and Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit papers, gives us an idea of the tumultuous years that followed Independence.<br /><br />The USSR and the US were busy trying to exert their influence across the world, beginning an era that is best described as the Cold War years. Great Britain, France, Portugal, Belgium, and the Dutch were still trying to cling on to their colonies across Africa and Asia. It would have been easy for Nehru, then faced with the tremendous challenges of building India’s own internal resources — a full time occupation in its self — to turn an indifferent eye to the happenings across the world, or to even choose to lean towards one of the two emerging super powers.<br /><br />What this book perhaps does is to convey the tremendous moral courage of a man who, instead of taking these easy options, preferred to chart a different course, giving India stature in the world, and making it a voice of reason in the noise and din emerging from conflict-ridden Asia.<br /><br />The Non-Aligned Movement was perhaps Nehru’s most significant contribution to India’s foreign stand and international diplomacy. This set the tone for its future course of keeping its distance from the two super power blocks, but yet receiving support from both. It is conceivable that India’s present international stature, and therefore Asian politics over the years, would have been vastly different, had it not been for this development.<br /><br />Gandhi, as Sahgal writes, brought the common man to the centre stage of Indian politics. Nehru kept him there. Gandhi made non-violence an active force against oppression. Nehru made it his approach to world politics and the foundation of his foreign policy. Throughout the various crises that erupted across the world, it was because of this non-aligned approach, Sahgal points out, that India’s voice became increasingly recognised as one of sanity.<br /><br />This book is saved from becoming a hagiography because the numerous excerpts from Nehru’s letters speak for themselves. These include notes to Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, chief ministers of India (Nehru used to write a fortnightly letter to all the chief ministers in the country on domestic and foreign issues), and other leaders in the country and abroad. It gives a deep insight into the sensibilities of a man who was genuinely involved in both internal and international matters.<br /><br />Nehru was the architect of the various IITs in the country, as he believed strongly in the development of science. But his fortnightly letter to chief ministers after visiting the site of the IIT in Kharagpur reveals the depth of his awareness of what was going on around him. After writing about his exhilaration over the new structures rising up, the new ‘temples’ that would change the face and outlook of India, he notes in the same letter his reaction to the workers’ houses in Kharagpur and Kanpur: “...I saw the slum dwellings of the workers there... I was horrified and not yet recovered from the shock... I am convinced that it is better to have no houses at all and for the workers to be given an open space to live in temporarily than to be made to live in places which are not fit for domestic animals... I have a sensation that we do not feel this quite as acutely as we ought to feel. There is no sense of horror and urgency about it.”<br /><br />Sahgal, through another excerpt from a letter from Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit to Nehru in 1951, says that Oppenheimer, regarded as the father of the atom bomb, warned Nehru against allowing the USA to acquire thorium from India. “…Oppenheimer ‘begs’ India not to sell any thorium to the US voluntarily or through pressure,” Sahgal quotes Vijaya Lakshmi in her letter to Nehru.<br /><br />She goes on to say, “...Oppenheimer ‘begs India in the name of humanity’ to maintain her present foreign policy and not be swayed by any pressure, national or international, to depart from it.” This book also tells us that Oppenheimer’s anguish over his part in the atom bomb had turned him to the study of Hindu philosophy and Gandhi’s doctrine of ahimsa. He had written to Nehru several times in his search for comfort during his own period of soul-searching. This kind of feedback from Oppenheimer and other world leaders must have also reassured Nehru that his foreign policy was on the right track — a fact that clearly emerges from the book.<br /><br />This book is not just about how Nehru formed his foreign policy — it also brings to light several other path-breaking measures within the country, like universal suffrage that allowed both women and men to vote in elections (right from the first General Elections in 1952), and several reforms, including the modernised Hindu Code Bill. Nehru, the book reveals, often took the battle for reform to the general public, appealing for an understanding of its provisions.<br /><br />This book, written in Sahgal’s clear, lucid style, is a valuable insight into the mind of the man who shaped India’s course from Independence to the time he died in 1964.<br />It offers several thought-provoking questions long after one has finished it. It certainly adds to Indian history, and serves as a voice that ought to be taken into consideration whenever the thought of criticising Nehru for our woes today arises. Clearly, even those who are Nehru’s harshest critics will agree that the man was ahead of his times.<br /><br /></p>.<p><em>Jawaharlal Nehru — <br />Civilizing A <br />savage world<br />Nayantara Sahgal<br />Penguin<br />2010, pp 167<br />Rs 350</em></p>
