GANDHI AND NEHRU

FENNER BROCKWAY

The association of Gandhi and Nehru for over thirty years is an epic in human co-operation. Their names are indissoluble in the record of India’s struggle for freedom. Gandhi comes first, for he was one of the world’s great figures not only of his own time, but of all time; that another name should be coupled with his at all is tribute enough to Nehru’s stature. So long as history is written and read, they will be remembered together.

Yet, in many ways Gandhi and Nehru are opposites.

Although he influenced, above all others, one of the most progressive events in history–the recognition by Britain of India’s right to independence–Gandhi was, in the real meaning of the word, a conservative. He hated the impact which science has on life during the last century, the industrial revolution, the machine age, the new atomic age. His ideal was the simple life of the village and its domestic crafts.

Nehru, on the other hand, has always been essentially a progressive. He does not quarrel with history. He hates the way in which science has been applied; but he rejoices in the expanding powers of man. He believes that they can be used for the emancipation of the human race, and he sees his task as the aiding of this process.

How did it come about, then, that these two men, with their fundamentally different social philosophies, came to be wedded in such close political partnership?

The contact between them began, of course, in their common devotion to the cause of Indian freedom. Growing towards manhood, Nehru read with excitement and admiration of Gandhi’s defiance of racial discrimination in South Africa. Under Gandhi’s leadership the Indians of Natal and the Transvaal were asserting their human equality not merely by resolutions and speeches, but by dynamic action. An army of them crossed the frontier, from one province to another, without the passes demanded only of “coloured” persons; hundreds of Indian miners stopped work; arrested Indians filled the gaols. Nehru in those days did not pause to examine the social philosophy of Gandhi–indeed, the Mahatma’s basic beliefs were then only in a formative stage. He was not troubled by the issue as to whether resistance should be violent or nonviolent. He saw only that challenging and courageous deeds were being performed in Africa and that they were proving effective. Gandhi became a hero to him.

When young Nehru met his hero, he fell under the charm and magnetism of the sublime personality of the man who was both saint and politician. It was this personal devotion to Gandhi s unique character, which, more than anything else, bound Nehru to the Mahatma all through his life, despite their differences of social outlook. Gandhi’s utter selflessness, his entire fearlessness, his complete identification with the poorest peasant and the scorned “untouchable”, the beauty and kindliness and simplicity of his life-these won Nehru reverence, so that philosophy became of less account in their relationship than personality. What mattered Gandhi’s views of social progress, when he was prepared to fast unto death for the emancipation of India?

Nehru found, too, that Gandhi’s sense of human values was his own, even if the Mahatma gave them different intellectual expression. Gandhi’s devotion to the peasant; that became Nehru’s first devotion also when he had seen for himself the cruel privations under which they lived, Gandhi’s passion for Hindu-Moslem unity: the achievement of that became equally Nehru’s mission, when he saw how both were humiliated by alien rule and exploited by economic privilege, Gandhi’s claim for the natural equality of all human beings, whatever their race: that was no less Nehru’s supreme motive. Spiritually Gandhi and Nehru were one in all these essential principles, however different their conceptions were of the way of social advance.

But, in addition to these personal approximations, there was an historical reason for the political partnership of Gandhi and Nehru. Gandhi’s philosophy was suited to the stage of struggle which India had reached, and Nehru understood this. Nehru might not accept entirely Gandhi’s belief in non-violence, but he knew that in India no other policy was possible. However much he differed from Gandhi’s subjective approach to political problems, he knew that the Mahatma was expressing in this the mind and spirit of the millions of peasants of India. Gandhi’s saintly character, his manner of thought and life, the example of his own courage and sacrifice, his voluntary abandonment of all material possessions, the sincerity of his religion–these were in tune with the soul of India, and only Gandhi could bring about the spiritual revolution which must precede India’s political revolution. Nehru appreciated this and devoted himself loyally in service of the man destined by history to lift India from its knees, to give it the spirit to stand erect, the conscious equal of all.

And now India has passed to another stage. It is not only standing self reliantly and proudly erect. It is marching forward. And here the qualities of Nehru are required.

His modern constructive mind, his grasp of social changes in every part of the earth, his understanding of international affairs, these qualities were held in reserve during the struggle for Independence, waiting for the day when India would need them, used even then as occasion demanded but germinating for full use when they would be supremely necessary.

That time has come.

March 15,1949

From Jawaharlal Nehru, 60th Birthday,

Abhinandan Grandh.

Back