“It is given to few leaders to achieve in their life-time all that they set out to accomplish in their youth…. Whatever may be the verdict of posterity a hundred years hence on Jawaharlal’s achievements and failures, he has a secure place in history as a great national leader who used his high prestige and influence among the nations in the cause of world peace and international understanding. His greatest achievement, undoubtedly, is the fact that, despite the horrors of the partition and the surge of communal passions and linguistic loyalties, he kept India united within a democratic secular framework and set her firmly on the road to economic development and modernisation.”
MAY 28, 1964
Jawaharlal Nehru
AN ANGUISHED NATION MOURNS TODAY THE SUDDEN PASSING of her most beloved son. The authentic voice that spoke for India for many years before freedom and for seventeen years after achieving independence, is stilled. To millions from the snowy wastes of Ladakh to the warm waters of the Indian Ocean the sad tidings will come with the poignancy of personal bereavement. For no leader in our times had come so close to the millions of our people so often and so intimately as Jawaharlal Nehru. He was a child of the Indian revolution which found its true and historic expression in the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi. But he was also a child of Western Rationalism, Fabian Socialism and the new Humanism that is struggling to take shape to take humanity beyond the conflicts of ideologies to a juster and more harmonious world. In a sense he was a favoured child of fortune, if not of destiny. He was blessed in his parentage and the stimulating atmosphere in which he grew up. Leadership came natural to him and he proved himself a man of the masses almost from the time he plunged into the Non-Co-operation Movement. Crowds inspired him, even as they themselves felt attracted to him in an inscrutable way. The years of the freedom struggle had pre-determined him for the historic role he was to play as Free India’s first Prime Minister.
Like the other great Titans of the freedom struggle – Patel, Azad and Pant – Jawaharlal has died in harness, like a warrior at his post. He had carried for far too long burdens which would have overwhelmed a lesser man many years ago. A man of boundless energy and meticulous discipline, he never spared himself in the discharge of his multitudinous official duties. In addition, he had to carry the burdens that fell to him as the supreme leader of his party and a national symbol whose presence was there at any event of importance anywhere in the country. It is useless to speculate whether his end would have come so soon if he had taken the advice of many of his friends and withdrawn himself from the active leadership of the Government after the illness he had in 1962. One suspects that it was out of a deep sense of unfinished commitments that the Prime Minister decided to carry on, even though he must have been aware that his ailing frame was no longer equal to the task.
It is given to few leaders to achieve in their life-time all that they set out to accomplish in their youth. Jawaharlal must be deemed exceptionally fortunate in this respect because he did achieve a great many things in a life of crowded activity and, in the last few years, as the wielder of immense power and influence over a nation of four hundred and fifty millions. Whatever may be the verdict of posterity a hundred years hence on Jawaharlal’s achievements and failures, he has a secure place in history as a great national leader who used his high prestige and influence among the nations in the cause of world peace and international understanding. His greatest achievement, undoubtedly, is the fact that, despite the horrors of the partition and the surge of communal passions and linguistic loyalties, he kept India united within a democratic secular framework and set her firmly on the road to economic development and modernisation. Unlike Gandhiji, who was wedded to a doctrine of the simple life led in righteousness, Nehru believed in the inevitability of a modern technological society based on the expanding progress of science and the triumph of man over his environment. The impulse which he gave to science and technology during the past fifteen years will remain a permanent memorial to his record as Prime Minister, apart from his other achievements. Mr. Nehru believed at the same time passionately in individual freedom and social justice and he was anxious that in the process of creating a modern industrial society, we should not sacrifice other important human values. His eclectic as well as pragmatic approach to social problems arose out of his faith in the democratic socialism that must continue to serve as the inspiration and guide-post for Mr. Nehru’s successors in the Government and outside.
The Nation must and will bear with courage and resoluteness the tragic loss it has suffered. It can pay no more fitting tribute to his memory than by thus striving to overcome the crisis it faces today. The ruling thought in everyone’s mind today must be a supreme concern for the Nation’s unity and discipline. The perils that we face are obvious enough, both externally and internally. Only an utter dedication to the national interest and a ready willingness to accept the disciplines of democracy will enable us as a people to face successfully the challenges – political, economic and international – that confront us. May the great spirits that moulded the destinies of our nation from Vyasa and Valmiki to Gandhiji and Nehru guide us on the right path!
Reference:
The First 100
A Selection of Editorials, 1878-1978, THE HINDU, VOLUME I