On his birth anniversary, revisiting his books like The Discovery of India and Glimpses of World History shows Nehru as a secular, socialist, humanist educator and futurist whose literary legacy stands on its own
Today, the 14th of November, is the birth anniversary of independent India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964). And, like every year, there will be a host of articles and Op-Eds that seek to assess Nehru’s legacy in the context of Indian democracy; as indeed they should. But Nehru was also a prolific writer, who used his time in incarceration to fill several notebooks and write a great many letters.
Nehru’s works such as Letters from a Father to his Daughter (1929), Toward Freedom: An Autobiography (1936), The Discovery of India (1946) and Glimpses of World History (1934) have been sampled in university curricula across the country. Many of these books began life as history lessons for Indira, as he sought to impart a holistic education to her even as she was away at boarding school in Mussoorie, and he was in prison.
These books, then, reflect Nehru’s worldview not just as a historian or a philosopher (although he was both of those things) but also as an educator. Here was a thoughtful, erudite, well-meaning man seeking to pass on his learning to the one person he loved the most in this world: his 10-year-old daughter. It is worth our while, therefore, to consider the following question: If Nehru had never become prime minister, if we described his legacy solely on the basis of his literary output, what might that endeavour look like? And how did his literary voice tie in with what we know about his political career?
On understanding one another
In The Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru Vol. 1 (published by the Nehru Memorial Fund and freely accessible at nehruportal.nic.in), there is a copy of a speech that Nehru delivered on April 9, 1950, at the inauguration of the Indian Council of Cultural Relations, New Delhi. Nehru stressed the importance of understanding the cultures of one’s neighbouring countries, but in the same breath, he also warned the attendees against complacency in this context:
“Nations, individuals and groups talk of understanding one another and it seems an obvious thing that people should try to understand one another and to learn from one another. Yet, when I look through the pages of history or study current events, I sometimes find that people who know one another the most, quarrel most. Countries that are next door to one another, either here in Asia or in Europe, somehow seem to rub one another up the wrong way, though they know each other thoroughly. Thus, knowledge by itself does not lead to greater co-operation or friendship.”
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Considering this was the year 1950, that’s a counter-intuitive idea that Nehru is proposing in this passage, that countries with higher degrees of cultural overlap could actually present far greater threats to each other than foes on the other side of the world. But like with so many of his writings, the trajectory of 20th century geopolitics has proven him correct, not least in our own troubled history with Pakistan since the 1950s.
This passage is also a good example of the kind of historian Nehru was. Mindful that the first reader would be a child, Nehru followed a simple method in most of his historical writings — he would first lay down the pattern of facts in the most lucid, accessible way possible. He would then switch to commentary mode, wherein he would bring the disparate threads of the chapter together in an overtly moralistic way: ‘here’s what this teaches us’ was the overwhelming tonality.
A secular socialist and humanist
Between The Discovery of India and Glimpses from World History, he covered the basic elements of both Indian and world history in a largely accurate manner—no mean feat considering he was behind bars and did not have access to reference materials, relying on his memory alone. In these books Nehru spoke of the great Greek and Roman empires, the major phases of European history, the Crusades and so on.
Nehru’s works such as Letters from a Father to his Daughter (1929), Toward Freedom: An Autobiography (1936), The Discovery of India (1946) and Glimpses of World History (1934) reflect Nehru’s worldview not just as a historian or a philosopher, but also as an educator.
After every large chunk of narrative history, Nehru would write a small monologue about what history’s overarching patterns teach us. For example, in Glimpses from World History, after he delivers mini-lectures on Christianity and Islam’s origins, Nehru writes a chapter on the feudal system, noting that it was a system of oppression that united the elites of several different regions around the world (both Christian or otherwise):
“That has been the way of owners of land always and in every country. The ownership of land has given nobility. The robber knight who seized land and built a castle became a noble lord respected by everybody. This ownership has also given power, and the owner has used this power to take away as much from the peasant or the producer or the worker as he could.”
“Even the laws have helped the owners of land, for the laws have been made by them and their friends. And this is the reason why many people think that land should not belong to individuals, but to the community. If it belongs to the State or community, that means that it belongs to all who live there, and no one can then exploit others on it, or get an unfair advantage,” he further writes.
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Note how in the passage reproduced above, Nehru uses the present tense (“if it belongs to the state”) to indicate that he intended to do something about what he clearly viewed as a problem. This was a philosopher who also wished to be a man of action. This passage not only provides us with a window into Nehru’s overall worldview — socialist, humanist, secular and outward-looking — but also gives us a clear path from his secularism to his Marxism. In his anti-organised religion stance, a lynchpin is his disgust at the fact that historically, the Church was complicit in the feudal system’s excesses — Nehru calls the Pope himself a feudal lord.
A futurist who discerned patterns
That last bit might feel like rhetoric overdose today, but you have to understand, Nehru did not believe there was such a thing as a ‘neutral’ history. In Glimpses from World History, there’s a passage where he chides historian Edward Gibbon for his Eurocentrism, and his overall ignorance of India and China. Nehru was making a historiographic point there: if the only accounts of the world are by a small group of people, surely those accounts will be afflicted with the limitations of that small group.
Finally, it must be said that Nehru, over and above his labours as a historian and philosopher, was also a futurist, capable of discerning patterns not yet clearly visible to the mainstream. In a passage in The Discovery of India, when he is talking about India’s scientific and technological future, he expresses his concern about the idea that with exponential technological progress, authoritarian and fascist forces can also upgrade their powers manifold in a relatively short span of time. This passage, remember, was written a full decade before the US dropped nuclear bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
“We cannot tear the veil from the future. We see two processes going on today in the world, two rival and contradictory processes. One is the progress of co-operation and reason, and the building up of the structure of civilisation; the other a destructive process, a tearing up of everything, an attempt by mankind to commit suicide. And both go faster and faster, and both arm themselves with the weapons and technique of science. Which will win?”
Today is as good a day as any to discover anew the rich body of work left behind by Jawaharlal Nehru — statesman, philosopher and indefatigable writer who certainly did not require the prime minister’s chair to leave his mark on history.
