Jawaharlal Nehru

"Jawaharlal Nehru's impact on India is too great not to be re-examined periodically. His legacy is ours, whether we agree with everything he stood for or not. What we are today, both for good and for ill, we owe in great measure to one man. That is why his story is not simply history."

"Culture is the widening of the mind and of the spirit. It is never a narrowing of the mind or a restriction of the human spirit or the country's spirit."

"Without peace, all other dreams vanish and are reduced to ashes."

"Nehru is popular among Congressmen with modern outlook because his demagogy rationalises Gandhi's irrationalism ... none can deny that Nehru stands for medievalism. ... He has contempt for the weak, because he is a weak character; the weakness is hidden to himself by an exaggerated belief in his strong will and hardness, and rationalized, when it can no longer be hidden, by the dogma that the mind is a slave to the heart. ... Personal attachment to Gandhi precludes his moving in the direction of genuine political greatness and creative leadership .... Nehru found his God in Gandhi and dedicated his life to rationalizing the latter's medieval ideals and obscurantist ideas .... After Gandhi's death, Nehru could have recovered his soul, could he resist the lure of power? The lure of power, however, can result from a strong sense of responsibility. It has been so in the case of Nehru. Nevertheless, it has done him more harm than to others. ... He has failed as a diplomat, being too honest to be one ... The tragedy of Nehru is all the greater because he could be the real leader, if he had a stronger character ... The vicissitudes of party politics and the lure of power have strangled a good man who could shine more brilliantly as a poet or an actor ... The lure of greatness has made the world poorer by one good man potentially possessed of creative talent."

"Thirty years of struggle and sacrifice have left their mark. Each year has taken away something of the warmth, gaiety and outgoing charm ... The brown eyes that were ever ready to sparkle at some witty sally often hold an expression now of hard defiance or weary frustration. His face is that of a tired man who seems to be driven by some internal force which never relents, never lets go. His smile today is the smile of a self-possessed man, a polite Prime Minister, fully aware of his power, defying any criticism... In the eyes of the world, he is undoubtedly the only man in India who can guide and control her destiny in these difficult times. Nevertheless, there is danger for him and for India if he is spoiled too much with adulation. In his own words, "It must be checked. We want no Caesars!""

"I do not think that the ease with which he might have taken more tempting paths is understood. I do not believe his greatness is fully appreciated, but I have every confidence that if mankind is allowed to survive he will be recognised in a manner adequate to his stature."

"We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures that we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open."

"I have become a queer mixture of the East and the West ... Out of place everywhere, at home nowhere. Perhaps my thoughts and approach to life are more akin to what is called Western than Eastern, but India clings to me, as she does to all her children, in innumerable ways ... I am a stranger and alien in the West. I cannot be of it. But in my own country also, sometimes I have an exile's feeling."

"Nehru instead was a great politician—she (Indira) should have half her father's talent! Look, even though he was against the principle of Pakistan, I've always admired that man. When I was young I was actually enthralled by him. Only later did I understand that he was a spellbinder with many faults, vain, ruthless, and that he didn't have the class of a Stalin or a Churchhill or a Mao Tse-tung."

"History has already recorded his monumental contribution to the molding of a strong and independent India. And yet, it is not just as a leader of India that he has served humanity. Perhaps more than any other world leader he has given expression to man's yearning for peace. This is the issue of our age. In his fearless pursuit of a world free from war he has served all humanity."

"So important to all of us, that if he did not exist — as Voltaire said of God — he would have to be invented. ... One of the most difficult men with whom I have ever had to deal."

"This man has overcome two of the greatest failings in human nature -he knows neither fear nor hatred."

"[Nehru's father was] in Macaulay's famous phrase, 'Indian in blood and color, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals and in intellect'. ... There being no vacancies at Eton, in 1905 he packed 15-year-old Jawaharlal off to Harrow, determined that the boy grow up a proper English gentleman. He succeeded beyond his wildest dreams, and years later, at Cambridge, Jawaharlal wrote his father asking permission to transfer to Oxford: 'Cambridge is becoming too full of Indians.' Those disliked countrymen, much to their ruin, would one day be led by Jawaharlal"."

"It is difficult to believe that in any other democratic state, [Nehru] and his cabinet could have survived...his survival was due to the fact that the Sino-Indian imbroglio had left the mass of the Indian people untouched and those inside the Congress who might have wished to topple Nehru and were in a position to do so were unwilling to lose their greatest electoral asset."

"I am the last Englishman to rule India."

"Time is not measured by the passing of years but by what one does, what one feels, and what one achieves."

"Great causes and little men go ill together."

"Instead of understanding and following the teachings of Jesus, the Christians argued and quarreled about the nature of Jesus’s divinity and about the Trinity. They called each other heretics and persecuted each other and cut each other’s heads off. There was a great and violent controversy at one time among different Christian sects over a certain diphthong. One party said that the word Homo-ousion should be used in a prayer; the other wanted Homoi-ousion-this difference had reference to the divinity of Jesus. Over this diphthong fierce war was raged and large numbers of people were slaughtered."

"You don't change the course of history by turning the faces of portraits to the wall."

"I am English by education, Muslim by culture and Hindu merely by accident."

"Above all, our basic goals are the same. Ten years ago, your distinguished Prime Minister, when I was his host at Columbia University in New York, said: "Political subjection, racial inequality, economic misery--these are the evils we have to remove if we would assure peace." Our Republic, since its founding, has been committed to a relentless, ceaseless fight against those same three evils: political subjection, racial inequality, economic misery."

"One has to read his writings and speeches, and evaluate his policies from a Hindu point of view, to realize that so far as Hindus and Hinduism are concerned, he was a combined embodiment of all the imperialist ideologies - Islam, Christianity, White Man's Burden, and Communism - that have flooded this country in the wake of foreign invasions or interventions. And by the time he assumed command, he represented a sizable and powerful class of self-alienated Hindus which had started taking shape during Muslim rule, and had multiplied fast under the British dispensation."

"Jawahar is the only Englishman in my camp."

"Your country, your people and, indeed the whole world will miss this truly great leader and statesman who was a man of extreme courage, an ardent advocate of peace and a great champion of human liberty."

"It was with a feeling of great sorrow that we learned of the death of the outstanding statesman of our time, the great and sincere friend of the Soviet Union, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. The name of Jawaharal Nehru enjoyed the tremendous respect and love of the Soviet people, who knew him as a tested and wise leader of the Indian people's struggle for national independence and the rebirth of their country, and as an active fighter against colonialism. Jawaharal Nehru is known as an outstanding statesman of modern times who devoted his entire life to the struggle for strengthening friendship and cooperation among peoples and for the progress of humanity. He was a passionate fighter for peace in the world and an ardent champion of principles of peaceful coexistence of states. He was the inspirer of the nonalignment policy promoted by the Indian Government. This reasonable policy won India respect and, due to it, India is now occupying a worthy place in the international arena. In our country Jawaharlal Nehru is well known as a sincere friend of the Soviet Union a statesman who has done much for strengthening and developing friendship and cooperation between the Soviet and Indian peoples. All those who happened to meet J. Nehru and speak to him were especially aware of his deep humaneness, combined with statesmanship and worldly wisdom . In these mournful days for the Indian people and all the friends of India, we express our deep-felt and sincere condolences to the Indian people and government. We ask to convey our sincere condolences to the family of the deceased."

"I have been wanting to see you. If you had not come I would have come to you. You are a man of peace."

"There is only one genuinely nationalist Muslim in India—Jawaharlal."

"Upon Gandhi's assassination in 1948, a year after independence, Nehru, the country's first Prime Minister, became the keeper of the national flame, the most visible embodiment of India's struggle for freedom. Gandhi's death could have led Nehru to assume untrammeled power. Instead, he spent a lifetime trying to instill the habits of democracy in his people — a disdain for dictators, a respect for parliamentary procedures, an abiding faith in the constitutional system. He himself was such a convinced democrat that, at the crest of his rise, he authored an anonymous article warning Indians of the dangers of giving dictatorial temptations to Jawaharlal Nehru. "He must be checked," he wrote of himself. "We want no Caesars.""

"My father was a statesman, I'm a political woman. My father was a saint. I'm not."

"I have met many leaders of the world throughout my career. I met Khrushchev. I met Chiang Kai-Shek. I've met American generals. But I have never met a more arrogant man than Nehru."

"We talk about a secular state in India. It is perhaps not very easy even to find a good word in Hindi for "secular". Some people think it means something opposed to religion. That obviously is not correct. What it means is that it is state which honours all faiths equally and gives them equal opportunities; that, as a state, it does not allow itself to be attached to one faith or religion, which then becomes the state religion."

"We have laid down in our constitution that India is a secular state. That does not mean irreligion. it means equal respect for all faiths and equal opportunities for those who profess any faith."

"America is a country no one should go to for the first time."

"The experience of a man should not be measured by the number of years he has lived, but rather by the number of problems he has solved."

"The Bhagavad Gita deals essentially with the spiritual foundation of human existence. It is a call of action to meet the obligations and duties of life; yet keeping in view the spiritual nature and grander purpose of the universe."

"To be successful in life what you need is education."

"We believe that it is the inalienable right of the Indian people, as of any other people, to have freedom and to enjoy the fruits of their toil and have the necessities of life, so that they may have full opportunities of growth. We believe also that if any government deprives a people of these rights and oppresses them the people have a further right to alter it or abolish it. The British government in India has not only deprived the Indian people of their freedom but has based itself on the exploitation of the masses, and has ruined India economically, politically, culturally and spiritually. We believe therefore, that India must sever the British connection and attain Purna Swaraj or complete independence."

"Religion is not familiar ground for me, and as I have grown older, I have definitely drifted away from it. I have something else in its place, something older than just intellect and reason, which gives me strength and hope. Apart from this indefinable and indefinite urge, which may have just a tinge of religion in it and yet is wholly different from it, I have grown entirely to rely on the workings of the mind. Perhaps they are weak supports to rely upon, but, search as I will, I can see no better ones."

"The only alternative to coexistence is codestruction."

"Democracy and socialism are means to an end, not the end itself. We talk of the good of society. Is this something apart from, and transcending, the good of the individuals composing it? If the individual is ignored and sacrificed for what is considered the good of the society, is that the right objective to have? It was agreed that the individual should not be sacrificed and indeed that real social progress will come only when opportunity is given to the individual to develop, provided "the individual" is not a selected group but comprises the whole community. The touchstone, therefore, should be how far any political or social theory enables the individual to rise above his petty self and thus think in terms of the good of all. The law of life should not be competition or acquisitiveness but cooperation, the good of each contributing to the good of all."

"Democracy is good. I say this because other systems are worse. So we are forced to accept democracy. It has good points and also bad. But merely saying that democracy will solve all problems is utterly wrong. Problems are solved by intelligence and hard work."

"Work remains, and must remain, though in the future it is likely to be pleasanter and lighter than in the trying early years of planning. Indeed, the maxim of the Soviet Union is: 'He that will not work, neither shall he eat.' But the Bolsheviks have added a new motive for work: the motive to work for social betterment. In the past, idealists and stray individuals have been moved to activity by this incentive, but there is no previous instance of society as a whole accepting and reacting to this motive. The very basis of capitalism was competition and individual profit, always at the expense of others. This profit motive is giving place to the social motive in the Soviet Union and, as an American writer says, workers in Russia are learning that, 'from the acceptance of mutual dependence comes independence from want or fear'. This elimination of the terrible fear of poverty and insecurity, which bears down upon the masses everywhere, is a great achievement. It is said that this relief has almost put an end to mental diseases in the Soviet Union."

"The tremendous growth of the Soviet Union was in itself a remarkable sign of prosperity. It was not due, as in America, to immigration from outside. It showed that in spite of the privations and hardships of the people there was, as a general rule, no actual starvation. A severe system of rationing managed to supply the absolutely necessary articles of food to the population. Competent observers tell us that this rapid growth of population is largely due to a feeling of economic security among the people."

"Apart from its effect on the war, the Revolution was in itself a tremendous event, unique in world history. Although it was the first revolution of its kind, it may not long remain the only one of its type, for it has become a challenge to other countries and an example for many revolutionaries all over the world... The March Revolution had been a spontaneous unorganized one, the November one had been carefully planned out. For the first time in history the representatives of the poorest classes, and especially of the industrial workers, were at the head of a country."

"But, as I have told you, this Five Year Plan brought much suffering, and difficulties and dislocation. And people paid a terrible price willingly and accepted the sacrifices and sufferings for a few years in the hope of a better time afterwards; some paid the price unwillingly and only because of the compulsion of the Soviet Government. Among those who suffered most were the kulaks or richer peasants. With their great wealth and special influence, they did not fit into the new scheme of things. They were capitalistic elements which prevented the collective farms from developing on socialist lines. Often they opposed this collectivization, sometimes they entered the collectives to weaken them from inside or to make undue personal profit out of them. The Soviet Government came down heavily on them. The Government was also very hard on many middle-class people whom it suspected of espionage and sabotage on behalf of its enemies. Because of this, large numbers of engineers were punished and sent to gaol."

"But the privation, especially of the upper and middle-class peasantry, was very great, and often it seemed that the whole ambitious scheme would collapse, and perhaps carry the Soviet Government with it. It required immense courage to hold on. Many prominent Bolsheviks thought that the strain and suffering caused by the agricultural programme were too great and there should be a relaxation. But not so Stalin. Grin-fly and silently he held on. He was no talker, he hardly spoke in public. He seemed to be the iron image of an inevitable fate going ahead to the predestined goal. And something of his courage and determination spread among the members of the Communist Party and other workers in Russia."

"Russia today is a Soviet country, and its government is run by representatives of the workers and peasants. In some ways it it the most advanced country in the world. Whatever actual conditions may be, the whole structure of government and society is based on the principle of social equality."

"It is science alone that can solve the problems of hunger and poverty, of insanitation and illiteracy, of superstition and deadening of custom and tradition, of vast resources running to waste, or a rich country inhabited by starving poor... Who indeed could afford to ignore science today? At every turn we have to seek its aid... The future belongs to science and those who make friends with science."

"Nations have, in the past, concentrated all their efforts on the accomplishment of one great task, but this has been so in times of war only. During the World War, Germany and England and France lived for one purpose only - to win the war. To that purpose everything else was subordinated. Soviet Russia, for the first time in history, concentrated the whole strength of the nation in a peaceful effort to build, and not to destroy, to raise a backward country industrially and within a framework of socialism."

""For Russia, therefore, this building of heavy industries at a tremendous pace meant a very great sacrifice. All this construction, all this machinery that came from outside, had to be paid for, and paid for in gold and cash. How was this to be done? The people of the Soviet Union tightened their belts and starved and deprived themselves of even necessary articles so that payment could be made abroad. They sent their food-stuffs abroad, and with the price obtained for them paid for the machinery. They sent everything they could find a market for: wheat, rye, barley, corn, vegetables, fruits, eggs, butter, meat, fowls, honey, fish, caviare, sugar, oils, confectionery, etc. Sending these food articles outside meant that they themselves did without them. The Russian people had no butter, or very little of it, because it went abroad to pay for machinery. And so with many other goods..."