Explain Pt. Nehru's views on Modern India.
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pt. nehru 's view on modern india.
Jawaharlal Nehru was the first and foremost leader of freedom struggle in the last decades before independence. He was chosen by the Mahatma as his successor, in spite of his apparent differences in political and philosophical areas with his disciple. Patel’s efforts on national integration were conducted under the leadership of Nehru.
He and his team were the architects who laid the foundations of modern India. At the time of independence, India was a miserably poor country with over 80% of the people struggling for two meals a day. The average life span of an Indian was 31 years. Think about that - 31 years was a ripe old age to die. That was the average, the median age was much lower.
There were no work opportunities. Illiteracy was the rule, with just 15% of the people able to write, 20% able to read. The country had had a blood-stained partition with a lot of religious hatred in the border states as well as UP & Bihar.
From that, Nehru built a country that was inclusive, that provided equal rights to all. Realizing thaHe built huge infrastructure projects like the two Hydel-Irrigation projects, the Bhakra-Beas and Damodar Valley Corp, the steel plants in Durgapur, Rourkela & Bhilai, and hundreds of other public sector industries to make machinery & equipment.
He built the IITs, IIMs, and AIIMS for top level higher education, and thousand of primary, secondary and higher secondary schools. We today stand with proud chests for having these, as graduates from these places are at the cutting edge of technology & management world wide.
There were huge pressures from the hindu fundu types to abolish English, but Nehru understood that the language was a bridge to the world. It was, and remains, the means to access knowledge. His vision has been proven, today our infotech business is founded upon our people knowing English.
Globally, the world was divided between the US and Soviet blocs and their dependents (often boot lickers). Nehru steered an independent course which came to be known as Non-Aligned Movement.t feudal land holdings and bonded tillers could spell an early end to democracy, he abolished zamindari and re-distributed the lands to the tillers.
Their were massive centrifugal forces threatening to tear the country apart even after Patel had persuaded the 550 kingdoms to merge with India. Nehru created linguistic states, which gave people the power to express themselves in their mother tongue, and took off the pressures to split apart.
A huge number of people, almost half the population, were considered "low caste", and for over a millennium had less rights than cattle. To bring them into mainstream society, he and Ambedkar created reservations for them in government educational institutions and jobs. Affirmative action in India predates that in the US.
He had his failings as well. The biggest one was his trust of the communist dictators of China who took advantage of this weakness and stabbed the country in the back. Not only by annexing Aksai Chin, not only by invading India briefly in 1962, but also by creating the Naxal movement (after Nehru's death).