WITH HIS ‘WHITE MANS BURDEN’ HAUTEUR, THE LAST MUGHAL JAWAHARLAL NEHRU RELISHED HIS VICEREGAL LIFE-STYLE

According to Rafi Ahmad Kidvai, the last Mughal Nehru not only performed last rites of MK Gandhi on his slaying by Pt. Godse but also that of ‘Gandhism’ though he had visualised, Nehru would follow his path and ideals after he was gone. Nehru was a hard-core communist in the garb of a socialist sneering at bourgeois and ranting against Maharajas, Zamindars, Navabs etc. yet lived like an embellished, high-nosed Viceroy occupying plush house of British Commander-in-Chief now known as Teen Murti Bhavan, second most ostentatious after Viceroy House later named Rashtrapati Bhavan. His ministers too, emulated his norms by occupying huge sprawling bangalows constructed by British-intruders to convey their genetic ‘superiority’ and monarchical rights over wretched poor Hindu-s. That British Prime Minister at 10, Downing Street had just two suites to nest, Swedish PM lived in his own three-room flat with his small car without driver, Australian PM in two rooms at one mediocre hotel close to his office without official vehicle etc. failed to motivate the so-called visionary to live a spartan life in a pauperized, plundered for centuries ancient nation. What an irony !! That was the life-style of a so-called Gandhian donning white Congress cap of Khadi witnessing his favourite brand of cigarette being air-lifted from Indore while he was staying at Bhopal Raj Bhavan once upon a time. And Congress had the gall to declare him ‘Peoples’ Prime Minister !! 

If anyone wished to see or know about a Narcissist-incarnate, (s)he will not have to struggle excessively as the last Mughal Jawaharlal Nehru happened to be one of that in world history. One may name any ideal or virtue, Nehru is declared to have possessed it in its highest order, be that an academic, intellectual, scientific disposition, knowledge on how to develop the nation and everything else one may visualise under the blazing sun. Not only that, he was so ‘highly accomplished’ with all possible virtues that he could call all others ‘childish’, ‘juvenile’ etc. and he would utter that explicitly without any inhibition. On the contrary, reality was diametrically opposite as he was so mediocre that he had too many things to be humble about, too many blunders to be apologetic about, too many issues to be ashamed about and what not. He nurtured an intense perception that he was entitled to be an arrogant snob and he declared to his so-called father Motilal Nehru in July 1910, “My chief reason for wishing to go to Oxford is, Cambridge is becoming too full of Indians !” 

Once he admonished Shri Lankan Prime Minister John Kotelawala for not sharing his speech beforehand berating communism in a conference in 1955 to which he retorted, “Why should I ? Do you show me yours before you give them ?”

Sankar Ghose quoted Chau En Lai in his ‘Jawaharlal Nehru, a Biography’ purportedly said in Oct. 1964, “I have met many leaders of the world…I met Khrushchev. I met Chiang Kai-shek, I’ve met American generals. But I have never met a more arrogant man than Nehru. I am sorry to say this, but this is true.”

His breakfast business meeting at the White House in 1961 was a disaster as narrated by Kuldip Nayyar, “Kennedy organised a breakfast meeting between Nehru and top US economists and foreign policy experts. Nehru was late for the meeting, generally monosyllabic in his responses and the breakfast was over in 20 minutes. Some of them reported this to Kennedy who remarked in the presence of his aides that Nehru had lived too long.”

And Dalai Lama declared him a bully in his autobiography, “I then explained that I had not originally intended to seek India’s hospitality but that I had wanted to establish my Government at Lhuntse Dzong. Only the news from Lhasa had changed my mind. At this point he became rather irritated.  ‘The Indian Government could not have recognised it even if you had,’ he said. During other parts of the conversation he banged the table. ‘How can this be?’ he asked indignantly once or twice. However, I went on in spite of the growing evidence that he could be a bit of a bully…”. Even Brit-Goras found him too supercilious as two Viceroys Linlithgow and Wavell conceded him no significance at all. In his bid to appear ‘more loyal than the King’, he assimilated too much lordliness from Brit-occupiers of the nation. 

He had far superior peers who could have trounced Nehru into trash-bin had they not been shooed out of the party. From Sardar Patel to Netaji Bose to Dr. SP Mukherjee to C. Rajgopalachari to PD Tandon, it’s a long way to go. The last Mughal Jawaharlal Nehru was a moving bundle of blunders and a curse for the nation. Much to the misfortune of this beleaguered nation, he remained glued to the Chair for 17 long years single-handedly steering the nation into disasters galore.