You Can Remove Nehru’s Name From Schemes But Can’t Undo His Legacy

The Ministry of Youth Affairs & Sports has prepared a proposal to drop ‘Nehru’ from ‘Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan’.

(Photo: Harsh Sahani / The Quint)

The Ministry of Youth Affairs & Sports has prepared a proposal for the Cabinet to drop 'Nehru' from ‘Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan’ and rename it ‘National Yuva Kendra Sangathan (NYKS)’. This is in keeping with the present government's practice of renaming or repackaging public schemes introduced during the Congress and UPA rule.

‘Indira Gandhi Awas Yojna’ is now ‘Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna’. ‘Rajiv Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojna’ is now ‘Deen Dayal Upadhyay Gram Jyoti Yojna’. ‘Swavalamban Yojna’ has been reborn as ‘Atal Pension Yojna’. ‘Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission’ has been replaced with ‘Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation’.

Since 2014, the NYKS will be the twentieth scheme introduced in the Congress era to have undergone a change in name.

Even So-Called ‘Liberals’ Are Falling for Anti-Nehru Propaganda

Nehru, however, has been singled out, among Congressmen. While evoking the names of other Congress premiers in their speeches, the present BJP leadership seldom mentions Jawaharlal Nehru. In an attempt to reinterpret history, alternative narratives are being created that marginalise Nehru. His role in the freedom struggle and his many significant achievements as India's first prime minister are denigrated. His patriotism is questioned. People are indeed being swayed by this bitter, well-orchestrated campaign.

A few days ago, a CEO of an MNC, and a beneficiary of Nehru’s legacy, enthusiastically belittled Nehru in front of an ‘intelligent audience’ that listened to him patiently and did not challenge him. But my temper rose, and I corrected him, listing the great strides India had made under Nehru’s visionary leadership, of which every single family in the luxurious sitting room had been a beneficiary.

Before the false propaganda takes root, before the aversion to his name becomes universal, before he is toppled from his high pedestal and the purge is complete, the people need to be reminded of the miserable circumstances under which Nehru assumed power, the series of complex problems that he inherited and of his untiring efforts and single-mindedness of purpose in taking the republic forward.

Goals & Achievements of NYKS

I am not even a "four-anna" member of the Congress or any political party. It was not political patronage but my organisational abilities, real or perceived, that led to my appointment as the first director general of the NYKS, an autonomous organisation under the Ministry of Human Resource Development in 1987 by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

My stated objectives for the NYKS were twofold: To develop a national character based on our national values of love, compassion, tolerance, non-violence, truth, sacrifice and spirit of cooperation; and to develop the rural youth as responsible and productive citizens.

This was in keeping with Nehru’s (and Gandhi’s) adherence to humanist values and his belief that the youth must be actively involved in the development process. The village youth clubs were to be the foundation of the NYKS movement. The NYK District Youth Coordinators, trained at Ramakrishna Mission campus in Narendrapur, Kolkata, assisted the democratically-elected youth club leaders in developing an annual programme of work and in mobilising resources from within the village to fund their plans. The youth clubs were to be self-reliant, capable of standing on their own feet, and not dependent on government grants.

In less than three years we had set up a NYK in every district of the country and established a network of about 1,25,000 village youth clubs. Youth club members took up diverse activities like:

1. organising vaccination camps for babies,
2. tuition and physical training classes for children,
3. cleaning of village ponds,
4. tree planting,
5. building proper drains,
6. installing hand pumps for clean drinking water,
7. collecting money for buying a blackboard for the village school,
8. staging plays on social themes like dowry,
9. book collection drive for setting up a village library,
10. running an inter-village football league or a vocational training course in sewing for girls,
11. assisting families in event of a death

Youth Leadership – Cornerstone of NYKS

Tens of thousands of youth club members were sent by the NYKS to participate in youth leadership training camps, inter-state visits, national integration camps and adventure programmes. The growing network of youth clubs also showed that it was capable of coordinated endeavour.

Under the Adult Literacy Mission, youth clubs ran 16,000 adult education centres (later increased to 50,000 centres) and 1,500 Jan Shiksha Nilayams – making about 1.2 million adults literate over a period of two years.

During the Rajasthan drought in 1987, when cattle were dying by the thousands, youth club members in Punjab, Haryana and western UP collected fodder and sent it by trucks and rail to the youth clubs in the worst-affected districts of Barmer, Jaisalmer and Jodhpur.

When an earthquake struck parts of Bihar in 1988, youth clubs in other parts of the country immediately launched a collection drive in their villages for plastic/polythene sheets, durries, blankets, clothes, utensils, lanterns and candles. These items were sent through their district Nehru Yuva Kendra to the affected areas.

The youth clubs in the affected districts distributed the material to those in need. Besides collection and distribution of materials, they also helped the administration in surveying interior villages and compiling lists of people needing urgent assistance.

When the voting age was lowered to 18 years, NYKs, through their youth clubs, organised a mass campaign to educate the new voters in their rights and responsibilities. The conventions on "Youth and Democracy" held in 2,500 blocks of 400 districts were one of the largest mobilisation of youth ever witnessed in India.

Notable Campaigns, Reforms of NYKS

The mass campaign on ‘Human Survival Values’ was another significant initiative to educate the youth on family planning. I resigned in October 1989, just three months short of my three-year tenure, to assist Prime Minister Gandhi in managing his election in Amethi.

In 1990, the VP Singh government, suspecting the NYKS to be acting as a frontal organisation of the Congress, instituted a planning commission enquiry which concluded that: The NYKS is a well-managed organisation; more public programmes should be routed through its network of village youth clubs; and its budget should be substantially enhanced.

The present government may like to favourably consider the recommendations of the Planning Commission – now Niti Aayog. The NYKS now has a network of youth clubs in two lakh villages covering every block in the country. Though the NYKs have floundered due to neglect, even during the UPA regime, most of the youth clubs survived – as they were self-reliant and not dependent on government grants.

Other organisations, such as UNICEF and National AIDS Control Organisation, have also sought partnership with the NYK youth clubs for delivering their programmes in rural areas. The government must realise that the Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan can succeed in awakening widespread popular participation in its plans and can organise this participation on a national scale.

Along with economic reforms, the government must have more programmes that emphasise on social change. We must realise that for economic regeneration, a new attitude, a new thinking is required. We will have to create an environment where healthy competition and honesty is encouraged.

And it is the youth who must initiate this. Under the umbrella of the Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan, these youth clubs, composed of young men and women who possess the confidence of their communities, are ready to spearhead a movement to accelerate the pace of socio-economic transformation – regardless of whether it is under the Congress, the BJP, the UPA or the NDA government.

BJP Will Do Well to Keep History Intact

The Nehru Yuvas, as the youth club members were once called, as beneficiaries and guardians of the great Indian tradition, pledged themselves to building their nation. This was the ideological perspective offered by the Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru's vision of a country of dynamic, modern-minded, productive and responsible citizens is, I assume, shared by Prime Minister Modi.

The 2014 Lok Sabha election was a vote for Narendra Modi and not the BJP. The youth were his staunchest supporters. It was their firm belief that Modi, in keeping with his election promises, will focus on development and employment generation. Having reached the summit of national affairs, Modi must concentrate on creating conditions where the youth get work.

About 18 million jobs need to be created every year. Just that thought would give any prime minister sleepless nights – as Chairman Deng Xiaoping once told President George HW Bush. If Modi’s efforts to create mass employment meet with success, and if he can borrow Nehru’s flame of liberalism, the youth of India will shower him with greater love and affection than they bestowed on their beloved ‘Chacha’ Nehru.

Prime Minister Modi has a real opportunity to make a legacy for himself. He must not fritter away precious time in destroying the legacy of others.

It is said that the character of a nation can be gauged by the kind of men it honours. By retaining ‘Nehru’ in NYKS, the government will confirm its commitment to the spirit of participative democracy, liberalism and inclusive growth.

(Akhil Bakshi is a former Director General, Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan. This is an opinion piece. The views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)

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