Rajnikant Puranik - Nehru’s Poverty-Perpetuating Socialism, “Secularism” & All That

It has been said that the road to hell is often paved with best intentions, and despite the probable best intentions, The Nehruvian Era, 194764 unfortunately laid the firm foundations of Indias misery. The same are detailed in this book.

This is the second part of the two-part book on the Nehruvian era (194764). Part-I covered the Kashmir botch-up; erasure of Tibet as a nation; the Himalayan blunder of the India-China war; prevention of Pakistan-II by integration of the Hyderabad Princely State into India by Sardar Patel, despite Nehrus muddle-headedness; and the failed foreign and external security policies of Nehru. This part covers the rest, followed by evaluation of the Nehruvian era.

For a fair and objective evaluation of the Nehruvian era, the book adopts a set of rules, the dos and the donts :

Rule-1 (Dos) . When evaluating a national leader, evaluate his or her contribution to the nation on a set of vital parameters, for example, GDP, Per-Capita Income, Relationship with Neighbours, Internal Security Position, External Security Position, Literacy Level, and so on. Determine those set of parameters at the start of the tenure of that leader, and also at the end of his or her tenure. Check the difference.

Rule-2 (Dos) . The above, by itself, is not sufficient. Some progress would anyway be made with the passage of time. The point is whether the progress was as much as it could or should have been. For this, also determine a set of developing, but fast-growing countries against whom you would like to benchmark your performance. Evaluate the progress of those countries for the same period. Compare.

Rule-3 (Donts) . Do not mix the personal with the professional or the political. There is little point offsetting poor political performance against good personal traits, and vice versa.

Rule-4 (Donts) . Greatness has nothing to do with popularitymedia can be managed, popularity can be purchased, general public can be manipulated and led up the garden path. Nor has greatness anything to do with ruling for a long time. The point is, what you did for the people and the country. If you did little, you actually wasted the precious time of the people and the country.

Rule-5 (Donts) . Dont go by generalised descriptions or attributes that dont measure the real comparative position on the ground. For example, statements like, He was a great democrat, thoroughly secular, highly honest, scientific-minded person who loved children and gave his all to the nation, dont help the purpose of evaluation.

Rule-6 (Donts) . Dont go by what the person wrote or spoke or claimed. A person may talk big on lofty ideals and make grand claims, but the real test is what concrete difference he made to the nation and to the lives of people.

Unless a leader scores high as per rules 1 and 2, he or she cannot be adjudged as great. This is quite logical. You do not evaluate Sachin Tendulkar's cricket on his personal goodness, you evaluate it on his performance on the field, on runs scorednot in isolation or as an absolute, but in comparison with others. You evaluate Ratan Tata or Mukesh Ambani or Narayan Murthy by evaluating the performance of the companies they are heading. If the companies are doing well, you give credit to them. But, rare is a case where a company does badly or goes into bankruptcy, and you still evaluate the person heading it as good and competent. Strangely, this common sense approach goes for a toss when you try to evaluate a political leader.

This book looks into the concrete aspects of India after independence during the Nehruvian era to evaluate Nehru and the Nehruvian era. The book does not trouble itself with the personal side of Nehru like how he looked or his sartorial style or with other irrelevant issues.

Rajnikant Puranik