One spots a man lambast the crowds gathered at his rallies for their unruliness, and then, in the same vein, hears him hold them up to their own expectations, by beseeching them to “grab him by his collar” and throw him out of power if his promises went unkept. One watches a man keep sedately calm on a flight beset by a burning engine, and yet finds his temper jarred in action by the plainest of reasons. Nehru, described Gandhi’s advice to newlyweds to stay celibate for the sake of their souls as “abnormal and unnatural”, according to an essay “An odd kind of piety: The truth about Gandhi’s sex life” published in Independent. One sees a man beholden to the most saintly of the saintly personas - the Mahatma - for his political mentorship and mileage, and yet, refusing to yield blindly to his ways, publicly challenging his wisdom on more than one occasion, on issues as far ranging as public policy and marital sex. The good and bad of his policies and ideologies are for the more scholarly to analyse the Nehru I grew to know and admire, was the man he was beyond the pall of an everyday politician.Īmongst an avowedly religious pantheon of figures leading the freedom struggle, one finds Nehru a welcome exception.

These, along with other books including compilations of his letters and transcripts of his interviews, allowed me a glimpse of Nehru beyond the bad press for which he is now famous. I read Nehru’s biographies, one written by political scientist and teacher Michael Brecher, another by the Australian high commissioner to India, Walter Crocker, and all three volumes authored by historian Sarvepalli Gopal. I read books by KF Rustamji, Nayantara Sahgal, Vijayalakshmi Pandit, and Purushottam Agarwal. The more I delved into what he wrote, and the more I read of what’s been written about him (and there certainly was a lot to read), the more surprised I was by the portrait of the man that emerged. But blessed with the time and scope to dig deeper into the past, and cut through all the clamour, I discovered Pandit Jawarharlal Nehru on my own terms.

The toil and pace of daily life hardly allows for one to subject every strand of public opinion to rigorous research, and thus, there are many today who seem all too willing to hold Panditji guilty for all of life’s ills. The propaganda spewers have worked overtime in casting aspersions on Nehru’s integrity - smearing his personal and professional make-up alike.

Those faulting our ruling dispensation for lacking sincerity, haven’t accounted for their efforts in tarnishing the legacy of our first prime minister. Pandit Nehru, who had few equals to his popularity during his lifetime, has even fewer rivals to his posthumous notoriety today.

Nehru by Walter Crocker