JAWAHARLAL NEHRU

AND THE INDIAN RENAISSANCE

The Indian renaissance was nearly a hundred years old when Jawaharlal Nehru entered the field of Indian political life in the second decade of this century. And he was in the thick of it for half a century. It is interesting to study how he viewed this national renaissance and what impact he had on it.

India in the Early Nineteenth Century

The seed-time of this renaissance was the nineteenth century. It was occasioned by the impact of the dynamic and modern culture of the West on the ancient but weakened culture of India. The strength of the ancient Indian culture lay in the sphere of spirituality and philosophy; it was extremely weak in the positive sciences and in the socio-political fields. The glorious vision of the inherent divinity of man and his capacity for limitless development, bequeathed by her philosophers and sages, emphasizing the inherent worth and dignity of man, had failed to become incorporated into the political and social consciousness of her people. The Indian body-politic, accordingly, had been vitiated by social inequality and injustice to an amazing extent, and by every conceivable form of exploitation of the many by the few. This had reduced the status and stature of man in India to a deplorable extent. It had weakened the national life, which had accordingly become, steeped in narrow attitudes, foolish superstitions and cheap easy mysticisms. The vision of the universal and the human in the national heritage lay submerged in this muddy pool.

The Modem Renaissance in India

The culture of the modern West that came to India in the wake of the British subjection and through the English language represented, on the other hand, the spirit of manliness and of socio-political strength, arising from scientific and technological advancements. The contact of such a powerful culture could easily have spelt death to the decadent Indian culture; some contemporary western thinkers had predicted it, and some others had even hoped for it; but exactly the opposite happened. Instead of dying, India burst forth in a renaissance of her ageless spirit. This was obviously because there was a close kinship between the inner core of the two legacies, which Indian renaissance was to make explicit in Swami Vivekananda seven decades later. The renaissance was sponsored and nourished in the early nineteenth century by the great Raja Rammohan Roy who strove to inject the modern progressive spirit into his nation and who represented within himself a fine synthesis of the East and the West.

In his Discovery of India (p. 342), Jawaharlal Nehru refers to this renaissance ferment of the nineteenth century in these words.

The impact of western culture on India was the impact of a dynamic society, of a “modern” consciousness, on a static society wedded to medieval habits of thought which, however sophisticated and advanced in its own way, could not progress because of its inherent limitations...Change came to India because of this impact of the West, but it came almost in spite of the British in India. They succeeded in slowing down the pace of that change to such an extent that even today the transition is far from complete.

Ramakrishna-Vivekananda and the Spiritual Revolution

Towards the end of the century, this renaissance found its most authentic voice in two great personalities, Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda.

Sri Ramakrishna represented the undying Spirit of India; in his deep spirituality, broad human sympathies, universal toleration, and love and concern for man, immortal India rediscovered herself. And in his great disciple, Vivekananda, this rediscovery became blended with the spirit of the modern age. In Ramakrishna and Vivekananda the renaissance movement, which had proceeded haltingly during the preceding seven decades became a powerful flood destined to fertilize all aspects of Indian life, as also of humanity abroad. Dealing with Vivekananda’s contribution, Jawaharlal Nehru says in his Discovery of India (pp. 400-402):

‘Rooted in the past and full of pride in India’s heritage, Vivekananda was yet modern in his approach to life’s problems and was a kind of bridge between the past of India and her present...Wherever he went, he created a minor sensation not only by his presence, but by what he said and how he said it...He wanted to combine western progress with India’s spiritual background. “Make a European society with India’s religion.” “Become an occidental of occidentals in your spirit of equality, freedom, work, and energy, and at the same time a Hindu to the very backbone in religious culture, and instincts”....Vivekananda spoke of many things, but the one constant refrain of his speech and writing was abhay – be fearless, be strong.’

On the impact of Vivekananda on Indian renaissance, Romain Rolland says in his Life of Vivekananda (p. 376):

‘So India was hauled out of the shifting sands of barren speculation wherein she had been engulfed for centuries, by the hand of one of her own sannyasins; and the result was that the whole reservoir of mysticism, sleeping beneath, broke its bounds, and spread by a series of great ripples into action.’

Dealing with the same subject, Jawaharlal Nehru says in his lecture on Ramakrishna and Vivekananda (pp. 6-7):

‘He was no politician in the ordinary sense of the word and yet he was, I think, one of the great founders–if you like, you may use any other word–of the national modern movement of India; and a great number of people who took more or less an active part in that movement in a later date drew their inspiration from Swami Vivekananda. Directly or indirectly, he has powerfully influenced the India of today.’

The direction that Vivekananda gave to the renaissance was towards man-making, nation-building, and international unity. Its national objectives were, to quote his own words (Letters of Swami Vivekananda, p. 64).

‘...to struggle unto life and death to bring about a new state of things–sympathy for the poor and bread to their hungry mouths, enlightenment to the people at large, and struggle unto death to make men of them who have been brought to the level of beasts by the tyranny of your forefathers.’

Gandhiji and the Political Revolution

Immediately after Vivekananda, India saw his ideas and spirit entering the national movement, with the result that the renaissance progressively entered its dynamic phase of collective action by organized masses, first, through the revolt of Bengal, and, later, through the movement of Tilak, and finally, through Gandhiji, when, in the words of Rolland quoted above, ‘the whole reservoir of mysticism, sleeping beneath, broke its bounds, and spread by a series of great ripples into action.’

Jawaharlal Nehru’s own contributions to the Indian renaissance began with his Prime Ministership of free India. But the pre-independence national movement did not remain unaffected by him, even though it was then under the effective stewardship of Gandhiji. The objectives and policies of the Congress since 1928 unmistakably bear the impress of Jawaharlal’s mind; his touch tended to make them more and more radical politically and economically. He also made the Indian national revolution aligned with the liberation struggles of other Afro-Asian nations. His own voluminous literary contributions, some of them of rare grace and charm, also helped to educate the national mind on the lines of his own political ideas and social vision.

Jawaharlal Nehru as Pilot of Free India

The supreme opportunity to translate his ideas and visions into social realities came to him when he became the first Prime Minister of a divided but free India in 1947. Soon after independence, the nation, under his guidance, achieved the first political objective of the renaissance by giving to itself a Constitution, with an inspiring preamble and high directive principles, and proclaiming India a sovereign democratic secular republic.

The seventeen years of his of stewardship saw the steady progress of India on many fronts. All aspects of Indian life bore his enlivening touch. Free India has extended all help to promote literature and the fine arts which have accordingly flourished, and which bid fair to surpass, in the years to come, its own glorious past achievements. He placed democratic socialism as the guiding principle of the state. India’s infant parliamentary democracy attained maturity and strength through his wise handling of parliamentary affairs. Its stability has stood the test of three general elections based on adult franchise; it has successfully stood a more severe test involved in the present transition of national leadership at the death of Jawaharlal himself. Through his vigorous policy of planned industrialization and economic development, aided by scientific research through a chain of national laboratories and the nationwide community project movement, Jawaharlal Nehru has laid firm foundations for the achievement of another important objective of the Indian renaissance, namely, the economic and social redemption of the Indian masses. By his policy of non-alignment and active support to the United Nations Organization, he has not only helped to reduce international tensions, but also helped to project an image of India abroad as a creative force for peace and international fellowship, thus achieving a third important political objective of the Indian renaissance.

Conclusion

No student of Indian history can fail to discern the spiritual continuity of her modern renaissance from Rammohan and Vivekananda to Gandhi and Nehru. The political contributions of Gandhiji and Jawaharlal Nehru have helped to clothe the modern Indian renaissance in flesh and blood and to put India on the road to the development of a body-politic worthy of her undying spirit. Every socio-political ideology of the future in India cannot escape being conditioned and controlled by the fundamentals of this Gandhi-Nehru contribution.

SRI SWAMI RANGANATHANANDA

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