The Indian Panorama

Tag: Nehru

  • When Parliament should have spoken as one

    When Parliament should have spoken as one

    A unanimous resolution should have been adopted by both Houses against Pak terror. It would have been a signal of India’s unity on terror.

    By Vivek Katju

    Was it too much to hope that after all the political point-scoring on the Pahalgam attack and Operation Sindoor was done, a unanimous resolution would have been adopted by both Houses of Parliament against Pakistani terror? A resolution would have been a natural corollary to the sending out of the seven all-party delegations to show that India stood together after the Pahalgam attack and had endorsed the government’s kinetic action.

    It would have also been a potent signal to the international community that the unity displayed by India’s political class on Pakistani terror was not ephemeral but a reflection of national determination. Alas, the thought of a resolution did not even cross the minds of our leaders, whether in government or opposition; such is our current polarized polity.

    Consequently, the special parliamentary discussion did not rise above party politics. It became mainly an exercise in political declamation, of levelling accusations and counter-accusations, of evasion and silence. Of course, Parliament is quintessentially a political platform, but it is also the highest constitutional forum for serious debate to forge a national strategic consensus on security issues. This discussion gave a chance to leaders for an intense, constructive probing of these vital matters.

    Some strategic concerns were raised by the opposition — such as the nature of Sino-Pak nexus and its impact on India’s defense. Instead of responding positively, the ruling dispensation decided to regurgitate all the mistakes made by the Nehru-Gandhis. Thus, these issues were lost in an avalanche of rhetoric, which was only occasionally punctuated by some important diplomatic and strategic points. Perhaps, the most significant were made by PM Modi on India’s position on the Indus Waters Treaty. The operationalization of India’s intentions will not be easy for the rivers allotted to Pakistan under the treaty, except for the Chenab.

    It was legitimate for the Opposition to ask questions relating to the security and intelligence aspects of the attack. After all, the terrorists freely roamed the Baisaran valley on April 22 for over an hour, killing 26 men at will. The government did not respond to these queries but took credit for the elimination, just a day before the discussion, of three of the Pakistani perpetrators. The security forces did a good job in killing these men, but the questions on the absence of security will not go away with their avoidance by the rulers.

    The government also maintained a stony silence on the global narrative that India had lost aerial platforms on the first day of Operation Sindoor. The Opposition pressed in vain for it to come clean. The government could have chosen to adopt the valid position taken by the Indian military that despite some initial losses, it was able to decisively find pathways through Pakistani aerial defenses to strike nine of its airbases. Clearly, Modi sought to bypass the question when, in somewhat colorful language, he reported how abjectly the Pakistani Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) asked his Indian counterpart to end hostilities. This may appeal to a section of the ruling dispensation’s faithful, but would not put to rest the global narrative that India did not gain a decisive military edge over Pakistan in Op Sindoor. Modi’s revelation that India neutralized Pakistan’s aerial attack on May 9-10 was useful, but would it contribute to correcting international perceptions on Operation Sindoor?

    The government avoided direct refutation of US President Donald Trump’s claims of mediating between India and Pakistan. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar clarified that there was no conversation between Trump and Modi from April 22 to June 17. That, of course, proves nothing. Modi asserted, “No world leader had asked India to pause Operation Sindoor.” While no country may have specifically used such a formulation, in all their conversations with their Indian counterparts, the representatives of major powers were wanting armed India-Pakistan hostilities, which began with Operation Sindoor, to end.

    What India needs to conclusively establish is that an unacceptable terrorist attack by one nuclear state on another is the first step on the escalatory ladder; hence, Pakistan must strike out the use of terror against India from its security doctrine. Regrettably, this most important strategic point was not unequivocally stated by any ruling dispensation speaker. It was equally important for the Opposition to have endorsed it. But that would have required backroom discussions to be held prior to the debate on the message that should go out to the nation and world from the Parliamentary debate. Obviously, no such conversation took place.

     

    Jaishankar said this about India’s future approaches towards Pakistan: “There is now a new normal. The new normal has five points: One, terrorists will not be treated as proxies. Two, cross-border terrorism will get an appropriate response. Three, terror and talks are not possible together. There will only be talks on terror. Four, not yielding to nuclear blackmail. And finally, terror and good neighborliness cannot coexist. Blood and water cannot flow together.”

    Apart from a few sections of the political class who favor that the doors of dialogue with Pakistan should not be shut, the points mentioned by Jaishankar enjoy wide acceptance with the Indian people. A parliamentary resolution containing these issues, with an appropriate part regarding India’s desire for good ties with Pakistan but that it needs to abandon terrorism, would have found acceptance with all sections of Parliament. That is what should have emerged from these discussions. It would have carried global credibility. But that needs a political leadership, which despite political bickering, is in conversation on major national issues. That seems absent today.

    (Vivek Katju is a retired diplomat)

  • The Ineffaceable Legacy of Jawahar Lal Nehru

    A Syncretic Culture: Nehru’s gift to India

    “Mr. Modi personally has invested so heavily in his unrelenting campaign to demean, erase, and destroy the legacy of Jawaharlal Nehru from the pages of history…………….. Undoubtedly, behind that incessant obsession and diabolic mindset is the hatred towards the Nehruvian vision, the very idea of India as a heterogenous society where people of different religions, languages, ethnicities, and castes live together in relative harmony.”

    By George Abraham

    Reacting to renaming the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library to Prime Minister’s Memorial and Museum, the All-India Congress Committee said the following: ‘Mr. Modi possesses a huge bundle of fears, complexes, and insecurities, especially regarding our first and longest-serving Prime Minister. He has had a single-point agenda of denying, distorting, defaming, and destroying Nehru and the Nehruvian legacy… But he can never take away Nehru’s gigantic contributions to the freedom movement and his towering achievements in building the democratic, secular, scientific, and liberal foundations of the Indian nation-state, all of which are now under assault by Mr. Modi and his drumbeaters.”

    Mr. Modi personally has invested so heavily in his unrelenting campaign to demean, erase, and destroy the legacy of Jawaharlal Nehru from the pages of history. It is quite astonishing that sixty years after his death, the architect of modern India still remains a target of the current Prime Minister, who would like to see a great legacy banished. Will that effort succeed, or will the people of India ever forget the visionary who brought the country from oppression into freedom, modernity, and self-reliance? Undoubtedly, behind that incessant obsession and diabolic mindset is the hatred towards the Nehruvian vision, the very idea of India as a heterogenous society where people of different religions, languages, ethnicities, and castes live together in relative harmony.

    Nevertheless, as we celebrate the 135th birth anniversary of Jawaharlal Nehru on November 14th, 2024, we are in awe as we recollect his contribution to gaining India’s Independence and laying a strong foundation for a pluralistic and forward-looking India. When India gained Independence, there were monumental challenges resulting from the partition and the ongoing violence between Hindus and Muslims. The urgent task facing the leadership at the time was the resettlement of 6 million refugees and arresting the spread of further violence. Nehru put together a team of dedicated patriots such as Sardar Tarlok Singh, Sarojini Naidu, and S.K. Ghosh to limit the violence, as well as rescue and recover abandoned and abducted women and children.

    When the British left, the Government, headed by Nehru, faced another critical task: the national integration of 562 princely states. A newly created state department under the decisive leadership of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, along with Nehru, ensured the country’s integration in a remarkably short period. Let’s look back at history for a moment. We will admire how Nehru brought together exceptional people of different ideologies, such as Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, S.P. Mookerjee, John Mathai, C.H. Bhabha, and Shanmukham Chetty to be reflective of India’s secular and multi-faceted character in the Constituent Assembly. The Congress party delivered on the promise that the constitution they were about to create would reflect the aspirations of the Indian people.

    The Indian constitution was amongst the largest in the world, with 395 Articles and 9 Schedules. The preamble spells out the basic philosophy and the solemn resolve of the people of India to secure justice, liberty, equality, and fraternity for all its citizens. What Nehru accomplished through this document, with significant help and support from Ambedkar, is also part of his vision to empower marginalized sections of society.
    Nehru was committed to ensuring social justice and the welfare of the masses as far back as 1938 by setting up the National Planning Committee under the Congress Party’s banner to improve ordinary citizens’ quality of life. These efforts culminated in creating a permanent planning commission to establish a just social order to ensure the equitable distribution of income and wealth. Nehru’s actions in these matters paint him as a socialist. However, he firmly believed that planning was essential to the development needs of a poor country with scarce resources, which needed to be managed optimally.

    He was also concerned about unequal access to land, which was a big problem in rural India. After Independence, the issue was prioritized, and by 1949, different states had passed land reform legislations to abolish the ‘Zamindari’ system and empower the rural peasantry while eliminating the institutionalized exploitation by the feudal lords.

    The Man of the masses

    Nehru was a strong proponent of self-reliance, clearly recognizing that underdevelopment resulted from a lack of technological progress. Consequently, a new Industrial policy was enacted to develop key industries. While Independent India was in its infancy, he identified power and steel production for self-sufficiency and planning. In collaboration with other countries, India built steel plants in Rourkela (Orissa), Bhilai (M.P.) and Durgapur (W. Bengal). Dam projects were undertaken in various places to produce hydroelectric power, including the flagship Dam at Bhakra Nangal, Punjab. The first oil refinery was inaugurated in Noonmati, Assam, in 1962 as another leap forward towards industrialization. Nehru called them ‘the temples of modern India.’

    Nehru was determined to foster a ‘scientific temper’ as he provided leadership in establishing many new Engineering Institutes, the most important being the premier Indian Institute of Technology, 5 of which started between 1957 and 1964. His farsightedness is also evident in his granting deemed university status to the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, setting up the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and the Defense Research and Development Organization, and laying the foundation stone for the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. Nehru’s own words stated that these would become ‘visible symbols of building up the new India and of providing life and sustenance to our people.’
    Soon after Independence, India embarked upon a nuclear program aimed at developing its nuclear capacity for peaceful purposes. As we know by now, Dr. Homi Bhabha’s pioneering work in this regard is widely acclaimed for enhancing India’s capabilities in this area. Dr. Vikram Sarabhai, the father of the Indian Space Program, helped establish the Indian Space Research Organization.

    Nehru recognized the importance of education as a tool for empowerment. The establishment of the University Education Commission under the Chairmanship of Dr. S. Radhakrishnan and the Secondary Education Commission under the chairmanship of Dr. A. L. Mudaliar laid the foundation of education and higher education. The Indian Council of Cultural Relations was also established under Maulana Azad to promote policies pertaining to India’s external cultural relations.
    Nehru also played a crucial role as a leader of the non-aligned world, shaping India’s foreign policy for the post-independence period. His charismatic personality and a deep understanding of the country and the world enabled him to be an effective spokesman for the developing world and an advocate for liberation movements across the globe.

    Undoubtedly, Nehru helped to build institutions that stood the test of time. The emerging nations during that period, such as Yugoslavia, Egypt, and Ghana, failed in this regard, and the results are quite evident for all of us to see. Nehru’s vision and leadership were critical in shaping India as we know it today. According to ‘Journey of a Nation,’ edited by Anand Sharma, a senior Congress leader, Nehru laid the foundation of a self-reliant, productive, and confident India, creating many of its Institutions and leaving an indelible stamp on every aspect of the country.

    However, there are regressive forces at work now to undo the Nehruvian legacy and to take us back to the age when the soul of the nation was suppressed. Regretfully, there are some in the Diaspora who are beneficiaries of Nehru’s vision of education and climbed ladders of success abroad appear to be siding with the nexus of retrogressive elements defaming his legacy and downplaying his contributions. However, among reflective Indians, especially NRIs, it is time to realize that the ongoing Nehru bashing has been counterproductive. Nehru’s respect for democratic procedures and inclusive vision will remain relevant, without which a modern India might cease to exist! As Shashi Tharoor, author of ‘Nehru, the Invention of India’ put it, “Let us be conscious that his legacy is ours, whether we agree or not. What India is today, both for good and for ill, we owe in great measure to one man” – Jawaharlal Nehru.
    (The writer is a former Chief Technology Officer at the United Nations and vice-chairman of the Indian Overseas Congress, USA. He can be reached at gta777@gmail.com)

  • UP adds biographies of 11 leaders, including Nehru, Savarkar, to curriculum for Classes 9-12

    The Uttar Pradesh board of secondary education has included biographies of Hindutva ideologue V D Savarkar, Maratha king Chhatrapati Shivaji and tribal leader Birsa Munda in the curriculum for classes 9 to 12.
    Biographies of India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, spiritual leader Swami Vivekananda, Arya Samaj founder Swami Dayanand Saraswati, and writer and freedom fighter Pandit Shriram Sharma have been included in the curriculum.
    Uttar Pradesh Madhyamik Shiksha Parishad (UPMSP) Secretary Dibyakant Shukla told PTI that biographies of 11 leaders have been included in the moral education syllabus for Classes 9 to 12.
    Students will read about these leaders from academic session 2023-24, he said.
    Apart from this, many things from the field of science and technology have been included in the computer syllabus, Shukla said.
    He said the objective behind including new things in the curriculum is to ensure the all-round development of children.Surya namaskar, asanas, mudras and pranayama have been included in the Class 9 curriculum.

  • Khorana & Indian Science

    Khorana & Indian Science

    Real tribute to the Nobel Laureate would be to encourage young scientists and research

    By Dinesh C. Sharma

    The birth centenary of Nobel laureate Har Gobind Khoranais an occasion to recall the pioneering contributions he made to the fields of chemical biology and genetics and their continuing relevance. The centenary has brought into focus the lesser-known scientific legacy of undivided Punjab which was the birthplace of three Nobel laureates — Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, Abdus Salam and Khorana. The state also produced several other scientists like Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar, Ruchi Ram Sahni and Yash Pal. It is a shared legacy of the subcontinent that needs to be celebrated.

    The New Year has begun with a significant event on India’s science calendar — the birth centenary of Nobel laureate Har Gobind Khorana. It is an occasion to recall the pioneering contributions he made to the fields of chemical biology and genetics and their continuing relevance. The centenary has brought into focus the lesser-known scientific legacy of undivided Punjab which was the birthplace of three Nobel laureates — Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, Abdus Salam and Khorana. The state also produced several other scientists like Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar, Ruchi Ram Sahni and Yash Pal. It is a shared legacy of the subcontinent that needs to be celebrated. Larger issues relating to hierarchy, academic freedom, inadequate thrust on research and research-industry collaboration need to be addressed.

    Amidst the celebrations have surfaced stories about how Khorana failed to get a job after he returned to India in 1949 with a doctorate from the University of Liverpool and post-doctoral research experience at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, and that he was forced to return to Europe. Though the phrase ‘brain drain’ was not in vogue then, Khorana’s could be the most celebrated case of the phenomenon, in retrospect.

    Khorana was among the earliest products of the exercise to boost modern higher education in India, initiated by Sir Ardeshir Dalal, head of Planning and Development in the Viceroy’s Executive Council appointed in 1944. Dalal found that existing educational institutions were not capable of producing manpower necessary for developing an industrial base in India. It was his idea that India needed MIT-like technology universities. For the short term, he drew up a scheme, Government of India Fellowship Programme, to sponsor higher education of Indian students in Europe and America. Among the first set of students to benefit from this scheme was Khorana who had just finished post-graduation in chemistry from Punjab University in Lahore. Several generations of Indian students got this scholarship which was continued after Independence as well, and upon return to India they were deployed to work in scientific institutions and industry.

    At the time Khorana was beginning a career in science in the post-war world, scientific research in the newly Independent India was just getting organized. The Indian Agricultural Research Institute — where he was seeking an appointment — was far from being a vibrant research outfit. The facilities for basic research were lacking, as pointed out by several visiting scientists. For example, Kenneth V Thimann of Harvard University, who was in India to address the Indian Science Congress in 1957, wrote to PM Nehru: ‘Numerous young PhDs have gone abroad to receive some training in some aspect of modern plant physiology, but too often they return to a heavy schedule of teaching and a laboratory whose equipment can only be described as medieval.’

    The Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) — founded to meet the war exigencies in the 1940s — was being shaped to serve the needs of an aspiring nation. The overhaul of other colonial-era research councils such as agriculture and medical research councils was yet to begin. The work on a spate of new educational and research institutions meant there was a clamor for resources. The scientific community and the government were still debating the division of resources for utilitarian research meant for nation-building and basic research. Foreign exchange crunch meant scientists either had to fabricate instrumentation on their own or look for aid from UN agencies or foreign governments. Dollars needed for subscriptions to scientific journals had to be justified to the Reserve Bank of India.

    This answers if Khorana could have achieved in India what he did in universities in Europe and North America had he been employed in any Indian laboratory in the 1940s.

    In the early 1960s, Khorana moved from Vancouver to the University of Wisconsin at Madison to become co-director of the Institute for Enzyme Research where he did his path-breaking work on the synthesis of proteins. In India, biochemistry research then was just taking shape and the discourse centered on establishing a National Biological Laboratory on the lines of the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) and the National Chemical Laboratory (NCL) under the CSIR. The UGC was trying to figure out ways to promote biochemistry education and research in universities. Dr Pushpa Mittra Bhargava, then a young biochemist at the Regional Research Laboratory at Hyderabad, was prodded by his mentor Dr Syed Husain Zaheer to organize a group of biochemists to chalk out research agenda in this new field. The group met informally in January 1960 in Khandala – at a villa owned by writer Mulk Raj Anand who happened to be a close friend of Zaheer. Independent of this initiative, Dr Obaid Siddiqi networked with international groups to shape the Molecular Biology Group at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR). Siddiqi’s brainstorming sessions became famous as the Mahabaleshwar Seminars in modern biology, while Bhargava’s initiative continued as ‘Guha Research Conference’.

    Khorana was not directly involved in such efforts to promote biochemistry research and education in India but he was in touch with members of these groups, such as Dr GP Talwar at the AIIMS and Zaheer at the CSIR. Bhargava also interacted with Khorana at the famous Gordon Research Conference on Nucleic Acids in 1964, in which the who’s who of modern biology were present. Khorana was the vice-chairman of this landmark meeting where several past and future Nobel laureates were present.

    Scientific research in India has come a long way from the time of Khorana not finding suitable research opening in Indian laboratories in the late 1940s. The research infrastructure in Indian laboratories is no more ‘medieval’ as described by visiting scientists in the 1950s. Access to scientific knowledge is just a click away. Research funding is growing and multiple channels of funding are available. But larger issues relating to hierarchy, academic freedom, inadequate thrust on research in universities, research-industry collaboration etc., remain not fully addressed. A real tribute to Khorana would be to correct some of these imbalances to encourage fundamental research and provide opportunities to young scientists in emerging areas of new biology.

    (The author is a Science Commentator with The Tribune, India)

  • Sedition law must go

    British-era clause can’t be used to fix activists, journalists

    After over seven decades of Independence, India is struggling to get rid of the sedition law – widely misused against activists and journalists. In view of its ‘chilling effect’, the Supreme Court has decided to examine the archaic Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) in the context of media freedom after the filing of sedition cases against journalists in Andhra Pradesh. According to Section 124A, a person commits sedition if he/she brings or attempts to bring in hatred or contempt or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards the government established by law in India. It attracts life imprisonment.

    After Independence, sedition was proposed in the Constituent Assembly as one of the grounds to restrict freedom of speech and expression. But KM Munshi opposed it, saying that if sedition were allowed to stay, ‘an erroneous impression would be created that we want to perpetuate 124A of the IPC or its meaning which was considered good law in earlier days.’ After the Constitution came into force, the Punjab High Court in Tara Singh Gopi Chand v. the State (1951) declared Section 124A unconstitutional. Once described as ‘highly objectionable and obnoxious’ by Nehru, Section 124A continues to be on the statute book, thanks to the First Amendment piloted by him that added ‘public order’ to Article 19(2) as a ground to restrict free speech.

    It was on the basis of public order in Article 19(2) that the SC, in Kedarnath Singh’s case (1962), upheld the validity of Section 124A. However, the court restricted its scope to some extent. In Balwant Singh’s case (1995), it let off two men accused of raising anti-India slogans, hours after Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1984, saying that raising of slogans a couple of times – which neither evoked any response nor any reaction from the public – couldn’t attract sedition. The court’s comment about possible filing of sedition cases against news channels for showing a body being thrown into a river indicates that the problem runs much deeper. Many countries, including the UK and Australia, have abolished the sedition law. It’s time for India to follow suit.

    (Tribune, India)

  • TN Assembly has 2 Gandhis,  a Nehru and a Stalin

    Chennai (TIP): What is in a name?

    In Tamil Nadu, a name may be an indicator to one’s political leanings, nationalist passion or the ideology of the parents of the individual.

    After India’s independence, especially in southern Tamil Nadu, many were named ‘Bose’ after freedom fighter Subhas Chandra Bose.

    Similarly, the names of ‘Gandhi,’ ‘Nehru’ and ‘Jawahar’ are also common in the state, the objective being perpetuating the hallowed memory of freedom fighters.

    Also, pure Tamil names and those in memory of leaders of the Dravidian and Left movement are common.

    The subject of names is in focus again as the 16th Tamil Nadu Assembly has two ‘Gandhis’ one of them a Minister, a ‘Nehru’ who is also a Minister and a ‘Stalin’ who is the Chief Minister.

    As is well known, late DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi (1924-2018) named his son Stalin (Born March 1, 1953) after Soviet ruler Joseph Stalin who died on March 5, 1953.

    Though Joseph Stalin may have been a foreign premier and a dictator, Karunanidhi named his son out of his admiration for the Communist ideology.

    R Gandhi and K N Nehru, as Ministers for Handlooms- Textiles and Municipal Administration respectively would report to Stalin!

    Nehru, a party heavyweight in the Cauvery delta region won from Tiruchirappalli West and Gandhi from Ranipet segment in northern TN and BJP’s M R Gandhi, a veteran party leader emerged victorious in Nagercoil constituency in Kanyakumari district in the April 6 Assembly polls.

    Source: PTI