Nehru was Chief architect of modern india justify
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Jawaharlal Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi’s second-in-command in the country’s freedom struggle and the architect of post-independence India, passed away fifty years ago on May 27, 1964. His contributions during the freedom struggle and as the first Prime Minister of India are manifold and are worth recalling.
It was he who put India’s freedom struggle in the international context. He explained to the then Congress leaders that India’s struggle was a part of the worldwide struggle against colonialism and imperialism.
It was Nehru who conceived, in the thirties of the last century, the idea of economic planning. It was at his instance that the then Congress President, Subhas Chandra Bose, set up the National Planning Committee of the Congress, with several sub-committees under it, on December 17, 1938.
It was Nehru who evolved free India’s foreign policy. The policy had three distinct features: not getting involved in the Cold War between the United States and Soviet Union; treating the socialist world led by the Soviet Union as India’s friends; and pursuing an independent foreign policy of anti-imperialism and consoli-dating the unity of the Third World countries, most of which, like India, had just thrown off the yoke of foreign rule.
Years before he became free India’s Foreign Minister, Nehru became the ambassador-at-large of the country, still struggling for freedom. During a visit to Berlin toward the end of 1926, Nehru came to know that a Congress of Oppressed Nationalities would be held at Brussels in February next year. He persuaded the Congress leadership to nominate him as the party’s representative to the Brussels Congress.
There he came in contact with the Communist and Socialist leaders from the European countries. He realised that fascism was on the ascendancy in Europe and it would inevitably drag the world into another World War. In between, he had visited Moscow to participate in the tenth anniversary celebrations of the October Socialist Revolution. He came back from Brussels and explained the international situation to the Congress leadership and impressed upon them the imperative of opposing fascism. He also told them that fascism could not be fought without fighting imperialism. Nehru’s distinct imprint is quite visible in the Congress Working Committee’s ‘Quit India’ resolution of August, 1942. It said:
Whereas the British War Cabinet proposals by Sir Stafford Cripps have shown up British imperialism in its nakedness as never before, the All-India Congress Committee has come to the following conclusions:
The committee is of the opinion that Britain is incapable of defending India. It is natural that whatever she does is for her own defence. There is the eternal conflict between Indian and British interest. It follows that their notions of defence would also differ.
The British Government has no trust in India’s political parties. The Indian Army has been maintained up till now mainly to hold India in subjugation. It has been completely segregated from the general population, who can in no sense regard it as their own. This policy of mistrust still continues, and is the reason why national defence is not entrusted to India’s elected representatives.
Japan’s quarrel is not with India. She is warring against the British Empire. India’s participation in the war has not been with the consent of the representatives of the Indian people. It was purely a British act...
What happened next is history. Immediately, Gandhiji, Nehru and all the senior Congress leaders were arrested and imprisoned. That was the starting point of the ‘Quit India’ movement.
The concept of planning that Nehru envisaged as early as the 1930s, found concrete shape in the setting up of the Planning Commission in March, 1950. In Nehru’s vision, India’s would be a ‘mixed’ economy in which there would be place both for public and private enterprises but the ‘commanding heights’ of the economy would be dominated by the public sector. Earlier, in January that year, the Constituent Assembly had ratified free India’s Constitution which, in its Directive Principles of State Policy, stated, inter alia¸ that “The State shall, in particular, strive to minimise the inequalities in income, and endeavour to eliminate inequalities in status, facilities and opportunities, not only amongst individuals, but also among groups of people...” [Article 38(2)]
Later, Nehru’s daughter Indira Gandhi, as the Prime Minister, included the words ‘socialist’ and ‘secular’ in the Preamble to the Constitution of India. Now all these are in the danger of being undone.