By Hugh & Colleen Gantzer
We listened, with great interest, to the PM’s speech at the India Today Conclave. Brief references were made to the previous government but without a word of praise for his predecessors. So, in this column we will try and rectify that omission.
In 1947 Mr. Nehru inherited a country torn into three, bleeding and seething with sectarian hatred. His three Defence Service Chiefs were Brits. According to rumours in the Officers Messes, these three gentlemen conspired to hold back Indian troops or else Lahore would have been part of the Indian Union and the POK would not have happened. In spite of all these terrible birth pangs Nehru and his inexperienced government retained the integrity of the Indian Union. But the old hatred erupted again and a fanatic Nathuram Godse shot Mahatma Gandhi on 30th January 1948. There should have been reprisals against the west coast organization to which the assassin reputedly belonged, but the Nehru government kept this rage from boiling over.
India was still a Dominion under the British Crown. On the 25th of January 1950 we established our Election Commission. The next day on January 26, 1950 we declared ourselves a Republic. India, under Nehru, gave itself a Constitution and the British
Empire collapsed. The British Monarch was no longer the Emperor of India and as he had never been the Emperor of any other country, Nehru had effectively destroyed the British Empire. To reaffirm our new identity Nehru started the Republic Day Parade. It was inspired by the Victory Day Parade held on the 9th of May in Moscow’s Red Square.
Now the Brits’ image of India as a land of snake charmers and dancing girls had also to be broken. Nehru did this by building the Vighyan Bhavan as an International Conference Centre, the Ashoka Hotel for accommodation for international guests and then invited UNESCO to hold its conference from 5th November to 5th December 1956. Before the Conference started Nehru’s government passed the states re-organisation Act. This classifies states under their linguistic identities. Since language is the tag that identifies the community to which the speaker belongs, this far-sighted move ensures that the cultural sinews of India remain strong. As a TRIPOS in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University, Nehru knew that the interlocking web of diverse species was the strength of the natural world. This, we argue, is the reason why his government reorganised Indian states on linguistic lines on the lst of November 1956. In other words since language is the prime medium of a culture, the Linguistic States would ensure that the diversity of India would remain. Yet, Nehru also brought India in line with the European world by introducing the metric system which took effect on 1st November 1958.
India’s international clout had risen immensely. It began to be regarded as the leader of the newly emerging nations stepping out of the group of formally colonial countries. Our Defence Minister Krishna Menon, coined the phrase “Non-aligned Movement”. The new nations, breathing the fresh air of freedom, refusing to join either the Soviet or the western group, looked to India as their new found leader. The non-aligned movement was founded in 1961 and its membership rose to 121 accounting for 60%of the UN’s overall membership. The international status of India had never been higher.
Nehru’s India caught the attention of the world when Jawaharlal Nehru on 7th July 1954 inaugurated the Bhakra Nangal Dam, the second tallest dam in Asia. He reportedly said “these are the new temples of the people.” It was not a very orthodox remark even though it came from a Kashmiri Pandit! But then, orthodoxy is not the prime domain of our politicians who often use religion as a spring board to political success. We are talking about folk like Rasputin of Russia, of course.
We could also have talked about the Nationalization of the banks, the Railways, the Oil Marketing companies and the many government ventures in tourism, if space had not constrained us. We are nobodys bhakts but we do believe in honesty and fairplay. All these innovations were done under the regime of the Congress. We stand on the shoulders of giants. If you wish to belittle them, you are reducing your own stature.
(Hugh & Colleen Gantzer hold the National Lifetime Achievement Award for Tourism among other National and International awards. Their credits include over 52 halfhour documentaries on national TV under their joint names, 26 published books in 6 genres, and over 1,500 first-person articles, about every Indian state, UT and 34 other countries. Hugh was a Commander in the Indian Navy and the Judge Advocate, Southern Naval Command. Colleen is the only travel writer who was a member of the Travel Agents Association of India.) (The opinions and thoughts expressed here reflect only the authors’ views!).
