Atanu Dey On India's Development

India, the Lamb State

February 16, 2007 by Atanu Dey

Don’t know much about history. Thanks to the government control of education, we are not told inconvenient truths. Fortunately, in this day of free information flow, one is slowly getting wise. I think it is just a matter of time before Indians figure out the truth. I find it bitter irony that India’s national motto is “Satyameva Jayate” — Truth Alone Prevails — and the powers that be do all they can to delay the victory of truth.

Here is a brief lesson in history from Brahma Chellaney, India, the lamb state, hauled from the archives of rediff (Jun 2004). An excerpt:

The India-China territorial dispute is another problem bequeathed by Nehru to future generations of Indians. Nehru’s first blunder was to shut his eyes to the impending fall of Tibet even when Sardar Patel had repeatedly cautioned him in 1949 that the Chinese Communists would annex that historical buffer as soon as they had installed themselves in power in Beijing. An overconfident Nehru, who ran foreign policy as if it were personal policy, went to the extent of telling Patel by letter that it would be a ‘foolish adventure’ for the Chinese Communists to try and gobble up Tibet — a possibility that ‘may not arise at all’ as it was, he claimed, geographically impracticable!

In 1962, Nehru, however, had to admit he had been living in a fool’s paradise. ‘We were getting out of touch with reality in the modern world and we were living in an artificial atmosphere of our creation,’ he said in a national address after the Chinese aggression. [Emphasis mine]

The “we” above is the royal we and refers to Nehru rather than the collective Indians.

We are not amused.

  • http://ysrinivas.blogspot.com Srinivas

    Deriding Nehru and his vision has become fashionable among the Intelligentsia of these times. Nehru may have failed to foresee the trouble with China, but he clearly stands the tallest among all the leaders of post colonial nations. We only need to look to our neighbors to understand where India would have been without his leadership and emphasis on technical education and Scientific Manpower, during those times.

  • priyank

    This is not the first blog that criticizes nehru for his decision’s and some where some how we know history is always distorted and re-written by the people in power , specially in country like india where its is said “mera desh mahan” its a crime to say thuth that’s against india or its leaders.

  • http://indiaunwired.blogspot.com/ Aravind

    Why is Nehru often criticized for the decisions he took regarding economy or China? The fact is Nehru was part of our system and he worked within the democratic framework. The fact that he was taller than any other politician in India at that time and he could override any other view with ease is the result of ecosystem of leadership at that time. We didn’t have other leaders who could convince Nehru or force leadership to act otherwise. As Laloo and Mayawati are part of our system, Nehru is too part of our system. China could blame Mao or Dan Xiaoping for China’s failures as they were operating under different system. Nehru was a true patriot and his fallacies as PM should be interpreted as integral part of the failure of governance at that time.

  • Guru Gulab Khatri

    Aravind,
    Do you know any facts regarding that era that the rest don’t know about?
    Fact is Nehru sat on this issue for years.
    He and Menon had decided to protest Chinese invasion of tibet in UN. They did and then abruptly stopped and muffled debate on this issue. When kriplani had written regarding this issue that the chinese intentions are for sin their, Pundit joked it was in sindh. and did nothing.
    Meanwhile Menon botched up every thing defense related.
    So why is it not ok to criticize nehru for this ?
    How was nehru taller when i see him as some one encouraging nepotism by placing his college dropout daughter in political positions.
    He did not even have the conviction to tell the truth about feroze not being a parsi.

  • Subhasreddy

    The previous comment led me to a Google search on ‘feroz’ ‘parsi’ where I found the truth: http://vlbjcas.com/Articles/10/Truths-about-the-Nehru-Dynasty.htm

    What a corrupt family, Nehru’s was! What should we say about Gandhi, who promoted Nehru at the expense of many great people like Sardar Patel? Gandhi threw Subhas Bose out of the party (Bose was the president then) and eventually, out of the country. The evidence shows that Subhas Bose was incarcerated in Siberia till his death, by the Russian government which was then an ally of Britain. Govind Ballabh Pant, the home minister at that time, extended for 10 more years, an agreement with Britain that India will hand over Bose if found.

    I’m very sad that Indians as a whole committed great sins, to deserve such kind of leaders. Nothing happens without a cause. A particular combination of factors resulted in Gandhi and Nehru emerge to the top (Gandhi, though of inferior intellect, has a far superior controlling power over people because of his practice of brahmacharya).

    I fervently implore the current generation to take a pro-active part in the country’s
    rise.

  • Venkat Ramanan

    More from Nehru. You will be AMAZED to read this!!!!

    —————————
    When confronted with the question of the undefined border, Nehru said, “All these are high mountains. Nobody lives there. It is not very necessary to define these things.” And in the context of whether the Chinese might invade India, here’s Nehru again: “What might happen is some petty trouble in the borders and unarmed infiltration. To some extent this can be stopped by checkposts… Ultimately, however, armies do not stop communist infiltration or communist ideas… Any large expenditure on the army will starve the development of the country and social progress.”
    —————————–

    I was laughing for close to 15 minutes after I read these *naive* words from Nehru.. Rajeev Srinivasan in one of his articles says

    “”"”"
    The naivete leaves the neutral observer speechless. What might be even more alarming is that there are supposedly serious Old Left analysts today, in 2004*, who mouth these same inanities about not spending money on the Indian Army. Why they do not take their cue from China, with its enormous Army, is mysterious, because in all other respects they expect India to emulate China. Except that is, no nukes, no military might for India.”"”"”"

    *The article was written in 2004, but the situation is no less different now :P

  • Srinivas gupta

    It is true that the present state of affairs are mainly due to the policies of Successive Congres governments and ill conceived policies of Nehru and Indira’s governments. But, at the same time it is also true that those policies were better options among the available options at the time, the only thing they should have done was to change them according to the change of times. I am no fan of Congress governments or its rulers, but only the most enterprising leader in Congress was Mr. P.V. Narasimha Rao in my opinion, the economic reforms which he laid down has seen us to soar high into twenty first century, but does anyone remember him.

  • Guru Gulab Khatri

    LMAO regarding “…has seen us soar high into twenty first century”
    Yeah really high on something.

  • jala

    Reply to Mr Srinivas:
    Sir, With all due regards to Nehru, He did create many issues, if not passed it to us.

    When we say the above, We aren’t accusing him, but we are saying it with disappointment.

    To take cue from Mahabharatha, “Raja is the creator of times” viz., Ruler is responsible for the good & bad of his subjects.

    If we are still suffering from adversities, who else but the first (most revered) leader to point at?

  • http://www.lifeandsomething.blogspot.com Gaurav

    “…has seen us soar high into twenty first century”

    And people are allowed to vote. :-)