History,
it is stated by the poet, is a stern sculptor—and there
are many who mistake the prologue for the epilogue.
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, happens to be one such—he finds
brilliant flashes in the prologue and dazzled by it,
he mistakes it for the epilogue. He and those who admire
him and those who pay homage to him in the hope of getting
the crumbs, that are thrown from the Table at Delhi,
loaded with all the dainties that an infant democracy
places before the Supremo, forget that there are chapters
yet to be written—or to be more correct there are chapters
not yet published.
None doubts, about and in recent times, none has attained,
the tall stature that Pandit Nehru is favoured with.
To probe into the causes for the same, might form part
of a chapter—it is not necessary to disturb the delightful
mood of Pandit Nehru just at this juncture. Let us assure
him of this—all of us recognize this fact, that the
has ascended to a wonderful height—almost dizzy height.
Perhaps, had the Mahatma been alive, he would have thrown
words of caution—taken or rejected. Even if Sardar Patel
had been spared, he would have administered words of
wisdom, with a strength of will, that would have either
ended or mended the Pandit's way of thinking and acting.
Pandit Nehru was left in the wilderness as it were—and
curiously enough, it was a wilderness with a rosy hue.
Brimful of the first flush of enthusiasm generated by
the advent of freedom, the people expressed their over-abundant
feelings of implicit faith and confidence in Pandit
Nehru; they even forgot, temporarily though, the art
of thinking about the problems of the day. "Nehru
knows everything! Nehru is there to look after every
problem!" the people thought and said with an almost
childish glee! The false dictum, 'The king can do no
wrong' was transplanted here, with a slight modification—'Nehru
can do no wrong'.
We charge Nehru of having exploited the innocence of
the people and having betrayed their confidence.
What has been offered as a token of deep affection has
been misconstrued as a declaration of abject servitude.
And Pandit Nehru, perched on a pinnacle of glory refuses
to recognize the basic fact that the source and authority
of power is the people.
"The people? Oh! the people!" he seems to
exclaim with disdain, "I know how to offer delightful
sweets to them. They can't be expected to know their
own minds".
It is said that the Czar of Russia used to call his
people as his "little children".
It is also said that Louis of France used to thunder
forth, "I am the State".
Pandit Nehru has become a curious bundle of these two
sentiments!
Dubbed as the darling of the nation, he devotes much
of his time moving in their midst, cajoling, promising,
scolding, placing tit-bits before them and predicting
an era of peace, plenty and prosperity.
The moment the people begin to express their discontent
in any form, the Pandit becomes enraged.
Possibly, scenes of those activities in which he was
the hero or the prime mover pass before his mind's eye,—scenes
of heroism and valour, of devotion and self-sacrifice—scenes
of defiance of authority and courting imprisonment and
the like—and he begins to get enthused himself, and
mutters, "How ungrateful these people are! I have
served them so much, and now they begin to doubt my
devotion, question my authority and think that they
can direct me—me, whose name was enough to floor the
mighty Imperialism".
The feeling is understandable—but what is difficult
to understand is this—how can such a student of world
affairs as the Pandit, forget the fact that all the
power, all the authority, all the veneration that he
is able to muster are in the name of and for the people.
A Chenghiskhan or a Timur, need not and would not think
that way. For they were mighty warriors who led semi-starved
savages, for loot and arson and a hundred other wild
joys. Pandit Nehru cannot degrade himself to that level.
He is the leader chosen by the people, who were not
prepared to bear the yoke of an imperialism, even though
it gave them some glimpse at least of the modern life.
"The essence of democracy" said an erudite
scholar, "is humility".
The greater the influence one is fortunate enough to
wield, the more humble he ought to become—that perhaps
was best of all he lessons that Mahatma Gandhi gave—and
while the world seems to have benefited by this lesson
to a great extent, the 'inheritor' as Pandit Nehru is
called, failed to catch the very significance of that
lesson.
Harsh and harsher are the words that come gusting from
him, and he spares none, and brooks no advice, welcomes
not any suggestion.
The moment he is possessed of any idea, however ill-baked
and ill-digested, he begins to vend and not even in
a persuasive tone.
Mahatma launched, we know the 'Quit India' movement,
and Pandit Nehru has introduced his own and that seems
to be 'Quiet India!'
Be Quiet, whatever the bunglings are—be quiet whatever
the troubles and tribulations that face you!—Seems to
be the Nehru Movement.
And for how long—and for what purpose? He has no explanations
nor time-schedule.
We charge hence Pandit Nehru, of stifling the aspirations
of the very people, for whom he is called upon to shoulder
a mighty responsibility.
Pandit Nehru is interested in the building up of a might
mansion and in his enthusiasm forgets that the bones
and blood of the people are used as brick and mortar.
Pandit Nehru frets and foams at the slightest provocation
and becomes full-throated when he begins his fulminations.
Pandit Nehru admires his administration himself, though
the outcome of it seems to be frustration as far as
the people are concerned.
Pandit Nehru sings sweet songs of sobriety, goodwill
and the like at the gilded halls of New York or London,
but at the chowks and grounds here, he becomes the roaring
lion, prepared to use the claw and the teeth, in tearing
up, not the arguments of his 'opponents' but their own
personal prestige.
If they are grey-haired, they are dubbed, old, and senile!
If they are the youths, they are just urchins! If they
are his colleagues, they are power-mongers and if they
are devoid of the burden of office, they are power-seekers!
If the critics happen to be Congressmen, they are dubbed
as having lost the spirit that pervades the great national
organisation; if they are non-Congressmen, well then,
they are a lot of traitors who ought to be driven out
of 'Bharath' bag and baggage. If they offer suggestions
on methods, they are but 'trinketing' with the problem
and if they talk about fundamentals, they just are not
empowered to do so. If they are educationists of eminence,
well, Pandit Nehru finds them dull-witted, un-imaginative
and imprisoned in a maze of parchments, and if they
are those that offer unconventional methods they are
brushed aside as people who are not imbued with the
ancient heritage of 'Bharath!' If they are labourers,
they are a rabble of trouble-makers, and if they happen
to be industrialists, they need a knowledge about the
modern techniques!
When Scientists gather, Pandit Nehru would pounce upon
them and scold them for not understanding the 'spiritual
dimension' —and when those well versed in spiritualism
meet for discussion, he is there to remind them of the
sputnik age! Only those who untie his boot-laces are,
favoured with his sunny smile.
Having borne for too long a time all the affront, and
insult, the people and leaders of thought here and elsewhere,
are now coming out in the open, to place their point
of view even at the risk of courting the displeasure
of Pandit Nehru.
When Pandit Nehru, forgetting all sense of democratic
decorum and even conventions in the legal field, attacked
Periyar, in a scathing manner, the people were shocked.
They never imagined that Pandit Nehru would lose his
balance in such a way and indulge in abusive language,
unworthy of his position. Here is, what the 'Deccan
Herald' has to say on the matter:—
"Unless statesmen delve a little more deeply into
the causes of the propaganda which we all deplore, we
may find that warnings go like words writ on water.
... "Our leaders could always be branded for treason
since it was a movement to deprive the king Emperor
of his sovereignty.
"Pandit lashes out at 'divisive' tendencies but
is he unaware of certain provocations that perturb sentiment
in the South? He makes a fetish of the 5 year plan and
the publicity due to it but what can Congressmen do
when there is the minimum of allotment to enterprise
south of Vindhyas? Are they to boast about Bhakra and
Bokaro when food scarcity is acute and even drinking
water in the cities is running short.
"The cascade of hard words has its limitations
but the Prime Minister of India could not be content
with saying that talk of North Indian domination is
just bosh".
But, others kept mum because they thought that Pandit
Nehru was dealing with a dangerous situation and hence
had to be aggressive, uncharitable and insulting.
But even before the chuckling was over, Pandit Nehru,
was there to hurl, equally awkward terms of abuse and
insult, on the ex-Governor-General, considered to be
the mentor of even the Mahatma, Mr. C.Rajagopalachari,
Dr. C.P.Ramasami Ayyar, Sir. Mirza Ismail, and Mr. M.Ruthnaswamy,
tallest sons of the South, who are unperturbed on various
occasions but come out only to offer their words of
wisdom, on the most critical problems.
The 'Amrita Bazar Patrika' has written a leaderette,
captioned, "A Danger Signal". And we give
an extract from the same:-
"When a man of the stature of Mr.Rajagopalachari,
a man so deservedly noted for sobriety and wisdom born
of ripe experience speaks in terms of a fight between
the North and the South even Hindi enthusiasts should
take serous note of the misunderstanding which may even
break up our national unity, and unloose the flood-gates
of chaos in the country".
"The reaction in the South has to be viewed in
the light of the actions of the Hindi protagonists in
the North. In the first flush of freedom the Hindi protagonists
started a campaign to oust English both in the administrative
as well as the educational spheres. Jaw-breaking words
were being coined in linguistic laboratories and target
dates for discarding English in schools, colleges, offices
and public utility services were being fixed up with
unseemly haste in various states. The people of Madhya
Pradesh know only too well the linguistic haste displayed
by the Shukla Government and the ridiculous way in which
words were being manufactured to order in a linguistic
laboratory in Nagpur. The Hindi enthusiasts went about
propagating Hindi using the big-stick method.
"The Hindi enthusiasts would do well to remember
that Hindi is spoken by not more than 42 percent of
the population, that the language is far from developed
and that it was chosen as the official language by the
Congress party members in the Constituent Assembly in
the teeth of opposition. In view of the fact that Hindi
has yet to be adopted voluntarily by a 100 million people
in the South and by sizeable sections of the population
in other non-Hindi speaking states, it would be prudent
on the part of government to allow English to continue
as the official language for two or three decades if
not more"—writes the "Hitavada"
"That a pauper language of conflicting dialects
should serve as the medium of official communications
in a vast country making forward strides, would mean
that only cheap, semi-bazaar affairs constitute the
subject of correspondence. The thing just won't work
and if there is any loud mocking at the protest and
counsel voiced in Madras, short sighted Hindiwallahs
of lower calibre in the North might take advantage of
the feeling that the Prime Minister is rampageously
on their side. It would be playing with fire to let
the dormant masses feel that the advice of even sedate
elders is summarily spurned"—so writes the "Deccan
Herald" and it is titled, "A Slap on the Face".
Pandit Nehru's way of emitting abuses, has caused such
an irritation in the minds of millions, that they think
that they have failed to safeguard their self-respect
for too long a time.
We, the members of the D.M.K., have taken upon ourselves,
the task of placing the wounded feelings of the people
of the South before Pandit Nehru by staging a peaceful
Black Flag demonstration when he visits Madras.
The D.M.K. is fully aware of the huge responsibility
involved in such a demonstration, but trained in discipline
and decorum, the D.M.K. is sure and certain, with the
co-operation and goodwill of the people, to carry out
the Black-Flag demonstration, in a peaceful, and dignified
manner.
If by any chance, the powers that be, begin to harass
the D.M.K., we request with all the ability at our command,
to the people and members of the D.M.K. to be calm,
peaceful, and dignified.
Whatever the provocation from the authorities, the D.M.K.
is to remember its supreme duty towards the people,
and should behave in such a way, as to hold aloft the
high ideals for which the D.M.K. stands.
It is only during such occasions, that a party's moral
strength is tested, and we are sure, that with the active
and sympathetic co-operation from all law-abiding people,
the D.M.K. would come out with flying colours.
To the powers-that-be, we but desire to remind, that
the D.M.K., on taking upon itself this task of vindicating
the honour and self-respect of the South, is not at
all motivated by any mean and unworthy thought, and
hence is prepared to pay the price, demanded.
"No cause can be lost for ever
Whose cost is coined from Freedom's blood"
said the poet.
It is the duty of the South irrespective of party affiliations
and petty squabbles, to rally round the cause, which
the D.M.K. is determined to uphold—and let the South
remind, Pandit Nehru, of the poet's warning, that he
is wounding the feelings of the South by his uncharitable
abusive, insulting remarks,
"While History, stern sculptor, moulds already
Of you, a most uncomplimentary statue"
(Editorial - 05-01-1958)