Letters: Nehru misunderstood

Shekhar Gupta's "Not quite the anti-Nehru" (May 28) is very timely, coinciding as it does with twin events - the 52nd death anniversary of Jawaharlal Nehru and second anniversary of Narendra Modi's installation as Nehru's successor, half a century removed. He has assiduously brought out the extent of similarities between the ideas, practices and policies of the two personalities despite the agenda of the Modi regime of destroying Nehru's legacy.

There is a major point, not mentioned by the writer, on which the anti-Nehru campaign of the present regime is based - the assumption of Nehru as the one who introduced dynastic politics in India. At no stage in his long political career did Nehru lend any support to dynasticism. He had anointed Lal Bahadur Shastri as his successor without bringing his daughter Indira Gandhi into the picture. After Shastri's death, a group of ambitious Congressmen did install Gandhi as prime minister, not out of reverence for Nehru but to appoint a person they thought they could dominate; it was a move to keep Morarji Desai out as he was not expected to follow their dictates. That Gandhi would turn out to be anything but a goongi gudiya (dumb doll) is now well known.

Also, Modi could consider Nehru an inspiring figure concerning the Constitution which he calls India's "holy book". Many like Babasaheb Ambedkar played a part in its framing but basically it was the product of Nehru's mind and heart; it was he who stuck to adult suffrage amid plenty of misgivings about it. The world admired Nehru as the one who gave it its largest democracy. By recognising that he is one of Nehru's successors, Modi would enhance his own stature and that of the nation.

R C Mody, New Delhi

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