The Gandhian Heritage
Q. Mr Prime Minister, as I was waiting outside your office for this interview, I heard someone mention that next year happens to be your father Motilalji’s centenary. I wonder if this is correct?
A. Quite so. He was born in 1861.
Q. I had no idea that a whole century had passed. What a fabulous period it has been! A. Yes indeed — and do you know that father was born on the same day as Rabindranath Tagore?
Q. The same day, sir?
A. Yes, the same day, the same month, the same year — a remarkable coincidence!
Q. They must constitute two of the most vital influences with Gandhiji and, of course, yourself, on this Indian century. In fact, one thinks of Motilalji, yourself and Gandhiji in terms of the Father, Son and the Holy Mahatma in a sort of an Indian National Trinity?
A. I would not put it that way, but it is true that the three of us exercised considerable influence upon one another. And most of all, Gandhiji on both of us. He was a powerful and revolutionary personality and a very effective one too. So was father in his own way, very strong and stubborn, and, of course, of a very different mould, but Gandhiji persuaded him out of his ways and beliefs to join the freedom struggle. The way this change was brought about by persuasion, consent, and patient handling of human nature, without any coercion and at the same time, without any compromise on essentials, struck me as something very remarkable and also very effective. It was typical of Gandhiji’s strategy of winning over opposition. It brought results, produced major changes, not only in relation to father but in relation to all people, the masses and, in fact, the whole country.
Q. And yourself most of all?
A. Yes, myself most of all. The transformation of father under Gandhi’s influence, as also the revolution he was producing in the minds and hearts of the people by truthful and honest means, non-violent means, peaceful and persuasive rather than coercive means, and yet effective means which brought about results, was something new and revolutionary. It gave me what I was searching for.
Q. A lever for your own solutions?
A. A lever certainly. My approach to problems was different, very different, from Gandhiji’s at that time; but on the main issue of freedom and the strategy for the struggle we agreed completely, both in regard to the ends and the means. One doubted his way of going about the fight, but he bowled out all opposition by producing results, moving the masses in a big way and in the right direction, till we realized that he was a great revolutionary force in action.
Q. Would it be a correct analysis to say that this triangular relationship between Motilalji, Gandhiji and yourself produced the elements which have since fashioned what is known today as the Indian approach or the Nehru line in national and international affairs?
A. It is wrong to call it the Nehru line or anything of that sort. It was fundamentally an Indian approach, as you say, and Gandhiji, of course, represented it. That is why he was able to create such revolutionary changes.
Q. What I meant to suggest was that Motilalji was in some ways the great Victorian representing the best traditions of European liberalism, while Gandhiji was the pure and simple nationalist with some kind of an atavistic approach. The link between these two vitally diverse personalities could perhaps have been Jawaharlal Nehru, come back to India deeply imbued with Marxist Socialism and conscious of social, scientific and historical forces. Perhaps, it could be said that the inter-action of these three influences produced the Indian approach which we see functioning today in domestic as well as international affairs?
A. One cannot define personalities in such a sharp manner. Gandhiji, for example, was much more than the nationalist, pure and simple and atavistic, as you call him. He was a great man and a mighty leader. He had a deep social conscience, not in the socialist or class-struggle sense, but as reflected in the almost continuous struggle he waged against inequality for the under-dog, the Harijans and the peasantry, for example. Take the caste system and consider how he used the lever of his challenge to Untouchability to shake and overturn, as it were, the whole structure.
What I mean to say is that Gandhiji, too, had a social philosophy which emerged right from the beginning of his career in South Africa. This is one reason why our freedom struggle was never without its social content — in fact, the latter was its base and this is why the strategy produced such tremendous results. Gandhiji believed in the complete identification of the leadership with the masses, even if that meant falling behind somewhat and slowing down the pace of progress so as to carry the whole people forward with him.
Q. To carry the whole national mass continuum forward?
A. Yes — that is, without dividing or splitting the movement and causing factional opposition by being unnecessarily aggressive or dogmatic. Gandhiji always sought to function within the social fabric in which the masses had been living for centuries and tried to bring about gradual but revolutionary changes, instead of destroying the fabric or uprooting the people from their soil. He insisted on continuity with the past and he accepted the existing social system as a base for his political and social strategy. Again, taking the Caste system as an example, you can see how he functioned. He sought the weakest point in the armoury of the Caste structure — that is, Untouchability — and by undermining and dynamiting it, he shook the whole fabric without the people realizing the earthquake he had unleashed. In this way, Gandhiji introduced new and revolutionary processes in the mass mind and brought about mighty social changes.
Q. That may be so, sir. Nobody doubts Gandhiji’s enormous influence on the Indian revolution, even though people of my way of thinking consider his philosophy to be somewhat confused and unscientific. However that may be, the Gandhian era ended with the assumption of political power by the Congress. The year 1947 ushered in what is universally hailed as the Nehru epoch in our country. Should I be right in the inference that from Freedom onwards, you used the Gandhian means to serve the Nehru ends — that is, Socialism within the fabric of Parliamentary Democracy, first of all; Secularism next; and, finally, and most importantly, your insistence on a foreign policy based on World Peace and Non-alignment?
A. You are wrong in using words like the Nehru epoch or the Nehru policy. I would call ours the authentic Gandhian era and the policies and philosophy which we seek to implement are the policies and philosophy taught to us by Gandhiji. There has been no break in the continuity of our thoughts before and after 1947, though, of course, new technological and scientific advances since have made us re-think in some ways and adapt our policies to the new times. But here also Gandhiji was in many ways prophetic. His thoughts and approaches and solutions helped us to cover the chasm between the Industrial Revolution and the Nuclear Era. After all, the only possible answer to the Atom Bomb is non-violence. Isn’t it?
Q. If I may interrupt, sir, you have gone beyond non-violence to the discovery of a more positive solution to this threat of the Atom Bomb in Panch Sheel or the Doctrine of Peaceful Co-existence.
A. All that was inherent in Gandhism. In fact, this approach of Panch Sheel, co-existence, peace, tolerance, the attitude of live and let live, has been fundamental to Indian thought throughout the ages and you find it in all religions. Great emperors like Ashoka practised it and Gandhiji organized it into a practical philosophy of action which we have inherited. There was no place for the ‘cold war’ in Ashoka’s mind, and Gandhiji gave the world the most practical substitute for war and violence by bringing about a mighty revolution with the bloodless weapon of passive resistance. The most important thing about our foreign policy is that it is part of our great historical tradition. Do you know the story of Chanakya?
Q. I don’t seem to remember it, sir.
A. It appears in a very interesting Sanskrit book translated by my brother-in-law, the late Mr Pandit, who was a Sanskrit scholar. You must get the English translation and read it if it is available. It tells a story of King Chandragupta and his Prime Minister Chanakya. Chanakya was typical of the Indian genius: peace-loving, shrewd, cunning, very scholarly, proud and selfless and reputed to be a very wise man. Now some kings and chieftains opposed Chandragupta and organized themselves into a confederation and declared war on the Kingdom. Chandragupta called Chanakya to lead the defence, and this person, who appears to have been a great statesman and a superb diplomat, succeeded in confusing and defeating the enemy front without resorting to anything like a war or even a battle. Somehow the enemy was won over. Then came the test. Chandragupta asked Chanakya’s advice as to what to do next. Chanakya replied that his job was done. He had dispersed the foe and won a victory for his king. All he desired now was to be relieved of his responsibility so that he may retire to the forest and attend to his reading and writing. The King was shocked. For who would substitute Chanakya as the Chief Minister? Chanakya’s reply was classic and very symptomatic of Indian thought. He told the King to get the defeated leader of the enemy confederation to serve him as his Chief Executive. That was the only way to restore peace and goodwill to the Kingdom. Now that was co-existence some 2,000 years ago. Wasn’t it?
Q. True enough, Mr Nehru. I stand corrected, but still the conviction remains amongst progressives that Gandhiji broke and emasculated your earlier faith in scientific Socialism with his sentimental and spiritual solutions.
A. Some of Gandhiji’s approaches were old-fashioned, and I disputed them, even combated them, as you know well enough. But on the whole it is wrong to say that he broke or emasculated me or anybody else. Any such thing would be against his way of doing things. The most important thing he insisted upon was the importance of means: ends were shaped by the means that led to them, and therefore the means had to be good, pure and truthful. That is what we learnt from him and it is well we did so.
On the other hand, what you say about sentimental and spiritual solutions may be true. I take it that by sentiment you mean humanity—that is, the deep human approach which has always been as much part of my thinking as it was of Gandhiji’s. The spiritual approach, too, is necessary and good, and I have always shared it with Gandhiji, probably more so today when we see the need of finding some answer to the spiritual emptiness facing our technological civilization than I did yesterday. Scientific Socialism, as you call it — I take it your reference is to Marxist Socialism — also has to be adapted to the new scientific era which has progressed beyond the Industrial Revolution which was responsible for Marxism. New changes pose new riddles which demand new answers.