Why Modi feels the need to demolish Nehru

India Today

2 days ago

Narendra Modi has always been a consummate performer: give him a stage, a mike, and a captive audience and the prime minister will more often than not be a showstopper. For 102 minutes in the Lok Sabha this week, Mr Modi was doing what he relishes most: talking about himself in third person while relentlessly targeting the Congress.The speech may have been a tad too long, but since the prime minister speaks so rarely in Parliament, few will grudge him the extra air time. And yet, while Modi punched hard at his critics on the government's handling of Operation Sindoor, there was a familiar name from the past that kept recurring throughout the speech. On 14 occasions, the prime minister referred to the 'sins' of one of his predecessors, Jawaharlal Nehru. Which leads one to ask: what explains Modi's Nehru fixation?advertisementNehru died in May 1964 when Modi was in his early teens. Since then, India has had 13 different prime ministers, including Modi himself. The prime minister's first tryst with politics was in the Indira Gandhi era. It was, after all, the fight against the Emergency as a student activist in 1975 that kickstarted his political career. If there is any past prime minister Modi should feel aggrieved with, it ought to be Indira who arrested him and many hundreds of RSS swayamsevaks in the Emergency years. So, why is Indira so rarely the object of his derision while Nehru almost always is?
Firstly, it must be emphasised that Nehru was unarguably the most committed 'secular' prime minister the country has seen. For him, a non-discriminatory, vigilant secularism was an article of faith, core to his wider political thought system. The fervent desire to ensure that India never became a 'Hindu Rashtra' or a 'Hindu Pakistan' meant that he often tangled with Hindutva forces, making every effort to marginalise, even ostracise them. The assassination of Mahatma Gandhi by Nathuram Godse only firmed up his resolve to challenge Hindu communalism at every juncture, seeing it as fundamentally antithetical to his idea of a plural, multi-religious India.For the RSS then, Nehru was the prime 'enemy', someone who they viscerally hated at an ideological and political level. By contrast, Indira Gandhi was a leader who the RSS felt they could engage with and even secretly admired for her staunch 'nationalistic' credentials, which in her later years was also embellished with a distinct 'soft Hindu' touch.For Modi, who grew up in the womb of the Sangh Parivar, Nehru was inevitably always seen as a villainous figure who had tried to crush the saffron brotherhood. One of the most influential figures in shaping Modi's political beliefs is the RSS's longest-serving chief, MS Golwalkar, better known as Guruji.In 2008, Modi authored a book titled Jyotipunj (Beams of Light) in which he retold the biographies of 16 RSS men who had inspired him. Pride of place was given to Guru Golwalkar who was compared to Buddha, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj and Bal Gangadhar Tilak. Through his long tenure as RSS sarsanghchalak from 1940 to 1973, Golwalkar saw Nehru as his principal adversary, as someone who was preventing Hindutva from gaining wider acceptability. In 1952, the RSS journal Organiser even wrote that 'Nehru would live to regret the failure of universal adult franchise in India'. When the Guru could have such deep animus to India's first prime minister, could his ardent follower be far behind?advertisementThe second reason for the acrimonious Modi versus Nehru battle must lie with the Congress party itself. Post Nehru's demise, the Congress party effectively elevated Nehru into a demi-god rather than a democratically elected leader of post-Independence India. It meant that there was a hagiographic narrative built around Nehru which prevented a serious debate on the achievements and mistakes of a prime ministerial tenure stretching 17 long years. Preventing a more critical analysis of Nehru in the Congress era – be it on socialism or his Kashmir and China policies -- meant that the BJP seized on the opportunity once in power to systematically undermine the Nehruvian legacy at every turn.Which raises a third contentious issue: the rise of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. The post-Nehru Congress has been principally shaped by the dominance of dynastical politics, revolving around a single family. It was Indira Gandhi who made the party a family inheritance and yet somehow Nehru is accused of being the progenitor of the 'dynastical' principle when the reality is that it was Lal Bahadur Shastri who was his chosen successor.advertisementAs historian Ram Guha writes, 'The actions of his descendants have deeply damaged Nehru's reputation.' Not only was Nehru engraved in statues, his name was etched in public consciousness by a renaming spree that focused on him and other Gandhi-Nehru family members. A Right to Information query in 2013 pointed out that over 450 schemes, building projects and institutions were named after three family members: Nehru, Indira Gandhi, and Rajiv Gandhi. Once again, this blind adoration, bordering on outright chamchagiri, has given a Modi-led BJP an opportunity to target Nehru through the actions of his heirs.Which leads one to make a final key point on Modi's Nehru fixation. For a larger-than-life prime minister who only last year saw himself as a 'non-biological God', Nehru alone stands between him and a yearning to be recognised as India's greatest prime minister. Having only just surpassed Indira Gandhi as the prime minister with the longest continuous tenure in office, only Nehru remains between Modi and an impressive statistical landmark.But this isn't just about a record-breaking numbers game. Modi needs to ceaselessly focus on Nehru to convince his followers that he is the first prime minister to totally break away from the Nehruvian idea of India and reshape and build a 'new' India based on principles which the RSS is fiercely aligned with.advertisementWhere the RSS looks to glorify a civilisational past and ancient Hindu scriptures, Nehru was seeking to build a modern society based on reason and science. To shatter the Nehruvian monopoly over ideas, Modi needs to demolish the man himself. The only way to do that is to attack every decision that Nehru took, be it on foreign policy or on the domestic front. Then, be it dismantling the Planning Commission or now suspending the Indus Water Treaty, the larger aim is clear: downsize Nehru by highlighting his flaws and negating his many achievements. In the process, Modi and his cheerleaders are making a cardinal mistake: the more you slander Nehru with half-truths and lies, the more he comes alive in the public imagination.Post-script: Amidst the recent 'retirement' at 75 years buzz, I asked a BJP leader when, if ever, Prime Minister Modi might consider giving up the chair. 'Not till 2031 at least,' was the response. Why? 'Because that's the year Modi will overtake Nehru to become India's longest-serving PM!'(Rajdeep Sardesai is a senior journalist and author. His latest book is 2024: The Election That Surprised India)- Ends(Views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author)Tune InMust Watch
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