THUS
SPAKE NEHRU
‘Thus Spake Nehru’ is about Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of
free India. He was born at Prayagraj (then Allahabad) on 14th November 1889 and
passed away on 27th May 1964 in New Delhi. His birthday is
celebrated as Children’s Day in India.
According to English author Mary
Howitt (1799-1888) Gd sends children for another purpose than merely to keep up
the race ---- to enlarge our hearts; and to make us unselfish and full of
kindly sympathies and affections; to give our souls higher aims; to call out
all our faculties to extended enterprise and exertion; and to bring round our
firesides bright faces, happy smiles, and loving tender hearts.
Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) says in Gitanjali
, his Nobel Prize winning anthology of songs, on the seashore of endless
worlds the children meet with shots and dances.
They build their houses with sand and they play with empty shells. With
withered leaves they weave their boats and smilingly float them on the vast deep. They know not how to swim; they know not how
to cast their nets. Pearl fishers dive
for pearls, merchants sail in their ships, while children get their pebbles and
scatter them again. They seek not for
hidden treasures.
Pt. Nehru believed that children are
like buds in a garden and should be carefully and lovingly nurtured, as they
are the future of the nation and the citizens of tomorrow . Only through right education can a better order
of society be built up.
Nehru’s range of interests was very
wide. It extended over history, statecraft,
science, religion, literature and natural history. He had an open and
full mind on a number of subjects. Prejudices, bigotry and dogmatism found no
place in his philosophy of life. He was a dreamer of a brave new world, with people
having a scientific temper rather than
irrational beliefs.
Given below are some of his precious
views and observations, generated by his vast study and day-to-day experiences.
For quoting them here, I sincerely acknowledge my fulsome indebtedness to the
publishers of Pt. Nehru’s two great books – An Autobiography and The
Discovery of India.
1.ON THE
MOON. (From
Ahmadnagar Fort, 13th April 1944). The new moon, a shimmering
crescent in the darkening sky, greeted us on our arrival here. The bright
fortnight of the waxing moon had begun. Ever since then each coming of the new
moon has been a reminder to me that another month of my imprisonment is over.
So it was with my last term of imprisonment which began with the new moon, just
after the Deepavali, the festival of light. The moon, ever a companion
to me in the prison, has grown more friendly with closer acquaintance, a
reminder of the loveliness of this world, of the waxing and the waning of life,
of light following darkness, of death and resurrection following each other in
interminable succession. Ever changing, yet ever the same, I have watched it in
its different phases and in its many moods in the evening, as the shadows
lengthen, in the still hours of the night, and when the breath and whisper of
dawn bring promise of the coming day. (Discovery of India).
2.ON
PRISON HUMOURS. One
begins to appreciate the value of the little things of life in prison. One’s
belongings are so few and they cannot easily be added to or replaced, and one
clings to them and gathers up odd bits of things, which in the world outside,
would go to the wastepaper basket. The property sense does not leave one even
when there is nothing worth while to own and keep. Sometimes a physical longing
would come for the soft things of life ---- bodily comfort, pleasant
surroundings, the company of friends interesting conversation, games with
children….A picture or a paragraph in a newspaper would bring the old days
vividly before one, carefree days of youth, and a nostalgia would seize one,
and the day would be passed in nostalgia. (An Autobiography).
3.ON
BHARAT MATA. Sometimes
as I would reach a gathering , a great roar of welcome would greet me : Bharat Mata Ki Jai ----“Victory
to Mother India.” I would ask them unexpectedly what they meant by that cry,
who was this Bharat Mata, Moher India, whose victory they wanted? My
question would amuse them and surprise them, and then, not knowing exactly what
to answer, they would look at each other and at me. I persisted in my
questioning. At last a vigorous Jat, wedded to the soil from immemorial
generations, say that it was the dharti, the good earth of India, that
they meant. What earth? Their particular village patch, or all the patches in
the district or the province, or in the whole of India? And so question and
answer went on, till they would ask me impatiently to tell them all about it. I
would endeavour to do so and explain that India was all this that they had thought, but it was much more. The
mountains and the rivers of India, and the forests and the broad fields, which
gave us food, were all dear to us, but what counted ultimately were the people
of India, people like them and me, who were spread over all this vast land. Bharat Mata, Mother India, was essentially these
millions of people, and victory to her meant victory to these people. You are parts of this Bharat Mata,
Mother India. I told them, you are in a manner yourselves Bharat Mata,
and this idea slowly soaked into their brains, their eyes would light up as if
they had made a great discovery. (Discovery of India).
4.ON
RELIGION. Words are
well known to be, by themselves, very imperfect means of communication, and are
often understood in a variety of ways. No word perhaps of any language is more likely to be interpreted
in different ways by different people as the word ‘religion’ (or the corresponding
words in other languages). Probably to no two persons will the same complex of
ideas and images arise on hearing or reading this word. Among these ideas and
images may be those of rites and ceremonials, of sacred books, of a community
of people, of certain dogmas, of morals, reverence, love, fear, hatred,
charity, sacrifice, asceticism, fasting, feasting, prayer, ancient history,
marriage, death, the next world, of riots and the breaking of heads, and so on.
(An Autobiography).
5.ON
SCIENCE. There is no
visible limit to the advance of science, if it is given the chance to advance. Yet it may be that the
scientific method of observation is not always applicable to all the varieties
of human experience and cannot cross the uncharted ocean that surrounds us….The
applications of science are inevitable and unavoidable for all countries and
peoples of today. But something more than its application is necessary. It is
the scientific approach, the adventurous and yet critical temper of science,
the search for truth and new knowledge,
the refusal to accept anything without testing and trial, the capacity
to change previous conclusions in the face of the new evidence, the reliance on
observed fact and not on pre-conceived theory, the hard discipline of the mind
– all this is necessary , not merely for the application of science but for
life itself and the solution of its many problems. (The Discovery of India).
6.ON MAN.
How amazing is this
spirit of man ! In spite of innumerable failings, man, throughout the ages, has
sacrificed his life and all that he held dear for an ideal, for truth, for
faith, for country and honour. That ideal may change but that capacity for
self-sacrifice continues, and because of that, much may be forgiven to man, and
it is impossible to lose hope for him. In the midst of disaster, he has not
lost his dignity or his faith in the values he cherished. Plaything of nature’s
mighty forces, less than the speck of dust in this vast universe, he has hurled
defiance at the elemental powers, and with his mind, cradle of revolution,
sought to master them. Whatever gods there be, there is something godlike in
man, as there is something of the devil in him. (Discovery of India).
7.ON ‘A
TRYST WITH DESTINY’. Long
years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall
redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of midnight hour, when the
world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes
but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age
ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance. It is fitting that at this solemn moment we
take the pledge of dedication to the service of India and her people and to the
still larger cause of humanity. (Speech to the Constituent Assembly, New
Delhi, on the eve of Independence, August 14, 1947.)
-------------
G.R.Kanwal
: 14thNovember 2020
