EMPEROR ASOKA THE GREAT AND PANDIT JAWAHARLAL NEHRU

Over the last few years, I have caught quite a bit of flak as an overzealous fan of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.  Nevertheless, I could not resist sharing with you all the following information about My Great Man.  It all started when I came across an article where I found that Nehru was a great admirer of King Asoka the Great.  The article indicated that his great admiration of Asoka the Great played a major role in the adoption of the Asokan Pillar and the Wheel of Law in the Indian flag as our national emblems.  I looked for additional references in Google to validate my findings, which I present below.  It further reinforces my view of Nehru as the primary architect of modern India.  The legacy of Asoka the Great as symbolized in the pillar and the wheel is as much a symbol of modern India as are the country’s democracy, secularism, non-alignment, the IITs and the IIMs, the AIMS, Planning Commission, Atomic Energy Commission, ISRO and so much more.  And can we deny that they all are in a big way a legacy of our first Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru?  See below:

Even within India, Ashoka is not a living presence. This is despite the emblem of the Republic of India being the celebrated Mauryan-age stone capital from Sarnath that shows four lions standing guard over four “wheels of law”, and the Indian flag having the same wheel of law at its centre (sometimes misinterpreted as a Gandhian spinning wheel).

These symbols were chosen in 1947 by India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, an admirer of Ashoka. Nehru named his daughter (and future PM) Indira Priyadarshini Nehru, her second name meaning “Beloved-of-the-Gods”: the favourite title adopted by Ashoka in his rock and pillar inscriptions scattered across India.

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/ashoka-search-india-s-lost-emperor-charles-allen-7468480.html

Perhaps a process of rediscovery is due. Maybe a young set of leaders will rise who will read the humanitarian edicts of Ashoka and study the astute advice of Kautilya on the ins and outs of good governance while preparing to accept positions of public responsibility. They could do well to remember that one old leader, Jawaharlal Nehru, revered Ashoka and thought Kautilya was much cleverer than Machiavelli.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/edit-page/Rediscovering-Emperor-Ashoka/articleshow/6714387.cms

Ashoka’s pillars of stone with their inscriptions would speak to me in their magnificent language and tell me of a man who, though an emperor, was greater than any king or emperor.” [The Discovery of India, p. 52.]

https://www.buddhistdoor.net/features/jawaharlal-nehrus-statements-on-the-buddha-and-buddhism

The first Indian ruler to make such international treaties to ensure peace through negotiation. Ashoka’s peaceful relations with neighbours were most certainly an inspiration for India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, also the country’s first External Affairs Minister, in formulating peaceful ties based on negotiation with our neighbouring countries.

https://www.dnaindia.com/lifestyle/report-modern-lessons-from-the-ancient-king-ashoka-2367127

Jawaharlal Nehru admired Ashoka’s secularism and his efficient administration.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/mar/16/ashoka-india-emperor-charles-allen-review

Ashoka in Ancient India breathed new life into a towering figure of the ancient world, one who, in the words of Jawaharlal Nehru, “was greater than any king or emperor.”

https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674057777

Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister, argued that this new nation’s first and ideal ambassador was Emperor Ashoka, who had ruled in the third century BCE.

(The Loss of Hindustan)

Ashoka, the third emperor of the Mauryan Empire, erected and inscribed … was adopted as India’s official emblem by then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru

https://www.pbs.org/thestoryofindia/gallery/photos/6.html

• Dadabhai Naoroji tagged British Raj as “Blood Sucking Vampires”
• Saratchandra Chattopadhyay called them, the “Most devilish race under the Sun God ever created”
• It is a fact that in 150 years Colonial British Raj had transformed India from a fabled land to a land of beggars as if sucking out the last blood drop of our motherland.
  Please ponder on these statements and tell us how/why Pandit started flirting with Lady Mountbatten from such a Vampire/Devil Colonist when all the freedom fighters were being hanged or transported to Cellular jail in Port Blair facing extreme/inhuman torture. It seems to me that you have not searched and/or read the right history on the freedom movement, only distorted information as dictated by Nehru after removing Rameshchandra Mazumdar.
•  National Congress Party from its very inception was cautioned by Swamiji, “Try to understand the motives of these Colonial British before going into a negotiation, not by appeasing/compromising.. He reinforced his message by saying, I like football (soccer) only because just to kick against a kick.”
• How cunningly Nehru was played as a pawn under the British Raj remains a mystery, because he was the only leader in negotiation with the British to divide India.
• Giving away the vast land to Muslims and promoting India as a secular country with 200 million Muslims was another grave mistake. Now it is becoming revealed that Pandit’s Muslim ancestry compelled him to do so to share with his half-brother Jinnah, what a tragedy!
• And the holocaust that follows…..unprecedented in humanity…. millions slaughters, millions raped, millions uprooted for which India is still bleeding.
• Next Pandit’s pro-western inclination incurred severe setbacks towards our progress; we were almost oblivious to our own culture
• Corruption was very much engrained with him and his dynasty which started with looting huge amounts of donations to help INA

Pradiptada:

I was dismayed at receiving this post from you.  I have been holding you in high esteem.  Besides, I am well aware of your admiration of Kautilya and Asoka.  It is you who gave me the book ‘Upholding the World’ from which I gained so much information about the two great men. What bothered me all the more is, like most others, that you took to criticizing and denigrating Nehru rather than discussing my piece.  Comments from you would have meant a lot to me. Now to specifics:

• not paying adequate attention to basics, such as education and health. The effects of this are felt today and will not end anytime soon.

Probably by education, you mean ‘basic education’.  You may have some point there. But should it not be more of a State issue? Besides, people needed money in their pockets before they put their children to school.  Hence, industries may have been given priority.  As for higher education, many colleges and institutions of higher learning were established during his regime.

As for healthcare, see the link below.  It provides important information from individuals knowledgeable about the issue.

https://m.economictimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/view-nehru-and-science-in-the-age-of-coronavirus/articleshow/74803294.cms

• Instead of ruling with an even hand or equal fairness, the mollification of one minority became the guiding principle

This is being said so often that one starts believing it without clear-cut evidence.  Can you provide convincing, credible evidence for me?  

• big projects and five-year plans became the structural hallmark of the future- instead of focusing on basics, such as agriculture

It is so easy to criticize after the fact, particularly when you have ideological differences with the earlier regime.  India needed the industries for the people to find work to buy the food.  Also, it is difficult for me to accept that our agriculture was in such a bad shape that the Green Revolution occurred in such a short time.  The Green Revolution took effect in 1968 (Nehru died in 1964).  India surely had the background and the industrial base to make it possible.  It should be noted that Norman Borlaug of Mexico, widely held as the Father of the Green Revolution visited India in 1961 at the invitation of the then Agriculture Minister, M.S. Swaminathan.

• misjudging China’s intentions, resulting in the 1962 debacle.  This lapse has repercussions even today  

This is one issue, for which I can offer no satisfactory rejoinder.  All I can think of is that China is a real Tricky Dick.  As evidence, I put up its sudden emergence as a World Power rising from the ashes of the devastations caused by the brutal Communist Revolution. 

• he was fixated on leading the “nonaligned movement” instead of focusing locally on home.

I like to think that it was not just an idealistic fixation. His efforts were for a better world, and thus a better India.  I tend to think it served India well.  Being stuck in one block would most likely have stunted its development.  The world as it evolved shows no signs of any adverse effect on India for pursuing its non-aligned path.  Rather to the contrary.

• he was put in place by Gandhi, a megalomaniac of questionable morals. Nehru paid back by instituting or proclaiming Gandhi as the Father of the Nation.  The British regarded his contributions as “minimal”.

Is that all Gandhi was to you?  Too much has been made of his sexual improprieties in my opinion.  Besides, Nehru was no pushover – he was a leading player in Indian politics at the time.  

Nehru justified the selection by his contributions for which he was elected by his countrymen in three successive elections with overwhelming majorities. overwhelmingly in three successive elections.

It was not Nehru who first called him the Father of the Nation.  It was most likely none other than Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose.  And it was indeed so appropriate.  No one had united the whole country as one nation before or since, as so aptly put by Ram Chandra Guha.

The assertion that Gandhi’s contributions towards the independence of India from the British were “Minimal“, is attributed to Earl Attlee, who was the Prime Minister of UK at the time of independence.  It is based on only one record: a conversation between Earl Attlee and Justice PB Chakravarty several years after independence.  It is reported by the Justice in a letter to the historian RC Majumdar, who reports about it in his book several years later.  Besides all this, there are enough questions regarding the veracity of the conversation as related in the link below:

https://apis.mail.yahoo.com/ws/v3/mailboxes/@.id==VjN-RLd0ZkIolitgFIiIvR5w782iDO_4mf1_AvbV_2O8pSZvdGblj2-A28NOm6WJ28TVpXSQPIt7834jXjyRXCwNNg/messages/@.id==AGa0NGk1vbt_ZwRe4Apr-Mq7w-Q/content/parts/@.id==2/refresh?appid=YMailNorrin&ymreqid=65791bff-51f6-b2af-1c51-a10007010300

• Much more could be said, but it is a sad commentary.  For the optimistic version see “Verdict on Nehru” by Ram Chandra Guha.

Then why not read the optimistic version?  It may be more credible.

Here I end my long rejoinder.  I hope you and others find it fruitful and enjoyable.  I have tried my best to avoid any insulting comments.  If I have gone overboard, I sincerely ask for your consideration.

Partha Sircar

On October 7, Chuni Saha wrote to Partha, following an answer from Partha.

On October 14. Partha Sircar replied as follows:

Chunida:

I sincerely beg of you, please do not take any offense from my response. I will try to be civil and not to be abusive in any way. If I do make some missteps, I ask for your consideration in advance.

I am surprised, nay bothered, that in a very short time, you sent out 3 e-mails, all throwing Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in a really bad light. Furthermore, like all your posts, almost all others in this e-mail group do the same. It is particularly disturbing to me that they were all
responses to my post where I tried to showcase Nehru’s appreciation and admiration for Asoka the Great and his influence in foisting a premier position for Asoka and his ideals for India. It was not an effort to showcase Nehru’s overall greatness – far from it.

I would also like to point out that most of these adverse comments, to me, can be seriously disputed. They suffer from a double whammy in that they smell of deep-rooted BJP/Hindutva propaganda, mixed in with proverbial conspiracy theories of the creative Bengali mind. That is a potent combination. I sincerely request you to read some authentic material like established biographies of Nehru like those by Prof. Sarvapalli Gopal (son of Radhakrishnan), Shashi Tharoor, Frank Moraes or Ramchandra Guha’s pieces; Nehru’s
Autobiography, Discovery of India, and other similar pieces.

Now to specifics (My responses are in bold):

• Dadabhai Naoroji tagged British Raj as “Blood Sucking Vampires
•  
• It is true that Dadabhai Naoroji was no admirer of the British.   Thus, it is not surprising that he may have said that.  But we should not miss that he left India to settle in England.  He even ran twice for a seat in the British Parliament.  He won the first time and lost the second time.  Make what you want out of it.

• Saratchandra Chattopaddhya called them, “Most devilish race under the Sun God ever created”

Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay is a leading figure in Bengali literature.  He has the reputation of being the most translated Indian author of all time.  But there is no record of his prowess in world history.  Therefore, I wonder what and how much to make of his comment of a devilish race about the British.  There is no doubt that the British were no saints as colonists.  But was there any firm basis for Saratchandra to state that they were any worse than the French, the Dutch, the Spaniards, the Portuguese or the Japanese? 

• It is a fact that in a span of 150 years Colonial British Raj had transformed India from a fable land to a land of beggars as if sucking out the last blood drop of our motherland.
  Please ponder on these statements and tell us how/why Pandit started flirting with lady Mountbatten from such Vampire/Devil Colonist when all the freedom fighters were being hanged or transported to Cellular jail in Port Blair facing extreme/inhuman torture. It seems to me that you have not searched and/or read right history on freedom movement, only distorted information as dictated by Nehru after removing Rameshchandra Mazumdar.
  It is because of the transformed fable land that the freedom fighters were fighting for independence.  Nehru fought no less  than all the rest of them. Over a period of 25 years, he spent a total of 9 years in jail.  Lady Mountbatten met Nehru for the first time in 1947.  By that time, revolutionary politics was essentially over and sending to Andamans had stopped.

 Ramesh Chandra Mazumdar was a great historian.  But he was also known for his heavy biases against the Muslims in India.  Thus, his banned work, which came out afterwards in full, suffers from some heavy bias from  what I learn..  By the way, the major reason why he was replaced by Tarachand was because he was adamant that Sepoy Mutiny in 1857 was not the beginning of the Indian independence movement.  According to him, it started with the Partition of Bengal by Curzon in 1905.

•  National Congress Party from very inception was cautioned by Swamiji, “Try to understand the motives of these Colonial British prior to go into negotiation, not by appeasing/compromising.. He reinforced his message by saying, I like football (soccer) only because just to kick against a kick.”

I could not find any evidence of the statement you cite.  After all, Congress was established only in 1885.Revolutionary activities in India started only after 1905.  The nearest evidence I found was in Vivekvani (https://vivekavani.com/swami-vivekananda-quotes-indian-national-congress/) where a quote from him in 1896 is discussed. It is quite at variance from what you say.

Regarding football, he had said: our young men must be strong. Religion will come afterwards. Be strong, my young friends; that is my advice to you. You will be nearer to Heaven through football than through the study of the Gita ( “You Will Be Nearer To Heaven Through Football Than Through The Study Of The Gita” — A Presentation – VivekaVani).  It does not indicate that he was alluding to Indian National Congress in this in any way.

How cunningly Nehru being played as a pawn under British Raj remains a mystery, because he was only leader in negotiation with British to divide India.

I found no indication that Nehru was the sole negotiator with the British to divide India.  Was there no representative of the Muslim League, no Jinnah?  On June 3, 1947, Nehru and other leaders met with Lord Mountbatten, the Viceroy of India, to negotiate the partition of India. Also, what I found was that Nehru was  “Nehru was initially against the partition of India, but reluctantly agreed when he saw no other way to gain independence from Britain. “

• Giving away the vast land to Muslims and promoting India as secular country with 200 million Muslims was another grave mistake. Now it is becoming revealed that Pandit’s Muslim ancestry compelled him to do so to share with his half-brother Jinnah, what a tragedy!

Secularism is probably the greatest gift to India by Nehru after democracy.  It has helped India many great strides.  And let us not forget that great Indian leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose espoused secularism wholeheartedly in their freedom struggles.     Pakistan and even Bangladesh are no better off for not espousing secularism

 

The allusion to Jinnah as a half brother of Nehru is nothing but a BJP propaganda.  Nehru’s ancestral lineage is very well established.  Besides, would it have mattered if Jinnah were a Hindu and not a Muslim?  Incidentally Jinnah’s ancestors were Rajput who had converted a few generations back.  The claim that Nehru agreed with the Partition because he had a Muslim ancestry is baloney.  It smacks of BJP misinformation propaganda.

 

The 200 million Muslims were already there in various parts of India.  His administration did not take up the cudgels to drive them out.  His policies made Indians welcome in the Arab countries leading to significant economic gains for the huge numbers of laborers that went there and also for the country.  Also, if you did not accept the Muslims, how would you accommodate then Kashmir?

• And the holocaust that follows…..unprecedented in humanity…. millions slaughters, millions raped, millions uprooted for which India is still bleeding.

The holocaust was undoubtedly an unprecedented calamity of horrendous proportions. But can it be in any way blamed con Jawaharlal Nehru?  Can you by any means blame it all on him?  Was he that powerful, that influential?  Are you not overestimating his abilities and influence?  Also, by all accounts, the refugees that came over have settled down as to be expected after 77 years.  

• Next Pandit’s pro-western inclination incurred severe setback towards our progress; we were almost oblivious to own culture

Is this a joke?  Was not the pro-western inclination a boon, an absolute necessity of the times.  Can you deny that it has served us well?  Our grounding in our own culture was already deep-rooted in our psyche when Nehru stepped in.  Swami Vivekananda’s words from 50 years before had seeped into our psyche.

• Corruption was very much engrained with him and his dynasty which started with looting huge amount of donation to help INA

This is really a new one for me.  I had not heard about it before.  Can you throw in some authentic information onit?  Incidentally,I did hear that Sardar Patel had charged Netatji for nisappropriation of funds.  He had even dragged Netaji to court.  The funds were reportedly left by Sardar’s younger brother, Vittalbhai for Netaji to use for INA.

I recalled an article on “DESH” magazine in early sixties stated like this: “Nehru was lucky being born in India, if it had been one of the African countries he would be deep fried in boiling oil.” As the days passing by more of his misdeeds open up that turned him to be the most hated leader in Indian history.

The DESH article sounds like another outstanding creation of the proverbial Bengali mind seeped in conspiratorial theories. More of Nehru’s ‘misdeeds’ will be discovered by the RSS/BJP coterie of propagandists.  Recall that this same group of people sat out the independence movement but have the gall to criticize Nehru, whose contributions in it were exemplary.

 

PS: I heard from grapevine that Nehru’s ancestors were migrated from Uzbekistan, We must check this out at zoom presentation from our friend Dipak who just visited that place.

Yes, it will be interesting to confirm from  that Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru descended from Ujbook (dim-witted) origins.  He will at least be awarded a Padmashree for it.

I welcome comments from you all.  In particular, I would like to be pointed out if and where I may have misspoken.  This is for my own edification.  

 

Now I bid adieu.   —–     Partha Sircar