Some books make us look back on our past, and the experience is rather like glancing at a mirror that reflects lost expectations and squandered possibilities while encompassing the regular pomp and show. Prime Ministers of India, a compilation of articles by historians, observers and scribes, is one such publication.
The recent past of a nation is best understood in comparison to its present continuous form. Now, when India faces a plethora of crumbling socio-political challenges – terrorists from Kashmir and Pakistan, the destructive dissent of the Maoists, the danger of khap panchayats assuming a Taliban-like role, caste acrimony and ethnic discrimination, and, above all, gargantuan corruption – these articles serve as glimpses of what the nation could have achieved. To understand why, one has to look further inward and to clues in society.
Bipan Chandra writes on India’s first Prime Minister: “… Nehru’s life and work, his legacy, his social vision and his achievements are a source of great strength to us, the Indian people, in our endeavour to build a happier and healthier society and an independent, united, secular, democratic, and socialist India, where caste, class and gender oppression will cease to exist.”
Does it not sound like irrelevant malarkey when twittering Ministers dub Nehru’s foreign policy “moralistic running commentary”? Perhaps that is to be expected in a country where the World Bank’s proposed definition of “middle class” will not apply to a single person. That definition ($10 per day per capita) applies only to the top 5 percent of the population in this country, who cannot be dubbed middle class. That is where Nehru’s egalitarian India has finally landed.
Move over to Indira Gandhi. Read these lines by Inderjit Badhwar and be sadly reminded of the leaders of the day who are gradually making India overtly dependent on the US: “Her dogged stand in which the Indian army helped the democratically elected Mujibur Rehman come to power in a newly-independent Bangladesh and subsequent defeat of Pakistan was in the teeth of opposition from Nixon and Kissinger who sent the US Seventh Fleet into the Indian ocean. The leader of a poor, half-literate nation which had once been dependent on food aid from the US had had the temerity to stand up to Uncle Sam when the integrity of her nation had been at stake….”
Come to Morarji Desai, to the days of his fall and read Hasmukh Shah and Mira Desai’s words: “When George Fernandes after making a brilliant defence of the regime in Parliament parted company within hours, the battle lines were drawn. A group of Akali leaders called on Desai and offered him their support. Akalis liked him. They also requested him to agree to three of their pending demands… Desai’s reply was characteristic. In substance it was: your demands are easy to meet but I cannot make a deal – main saudabaji nahin karunga.”
There are many such passages. Vir Sanghvi, Sunil Shastri and Mani Shankar Aiyar throw up interesting personal anecdotes. The piece on Charan Singh is a bit too critical, overlooking his role in ending the Congress hegemony in India’s political system. The article on Chandra Shekhar is similarly harsh. This is not to say that the writers’ arguments are flawed but they jar in a compilation of articles in which no persona is portrayed in black or white (except those written by close associates). Nonetheless, every piece is worth a read.
The photographs, which make up half the book, add equal value despite the fact that all are not captioned. Some proofing errors mar what is, on the whole, a commendable effort in compilation and editing by Neena and Shivnath Jha.
