Modi’s Mid-Term: Efforts to Usurp Nehru’s Legacy and Copy Indira

Modi’s term is marked by an effort to usurp Nehru’s legacy and reclaim Indira’s mantle, writes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay

Despite being India’s first post-Nehruvian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi marked the first PM’s birth anniversary this year by laying foundation stones for six infrastructure development projects for eastern Uttar Pradesh in Ghazipur. Later, addressing a public meeting organised by his party as part of its Parivartan Yatra to drum up support for the approaching assembly polls, Modi ran down Jawaharlal Nehru – first, because he was allegedly unaware of extreme poverty in the region till 1962, and subsequently, for allowing a report prepared by economist (and later Finance Minister) HM Patel, to gather dust.

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Invoking Nehru

Nehru was not the last Prime Minister from UP, Modi reminded the audience, adding that he was the ninth premier elected from the state – though he skipped mentioning that the list included one-time Bharatiya Janata Party stalwart, Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Despite Nehru’s neglect of the region, Modi had chosen 14 November for the visit “deliberately” because he wanted to inform people that what was initiated by Nehru in 1962 was not given a second look till 2016 (when Modi came along).

He elaborated: Pandit Ji, aapki aatma jahan bhee ho, in gareeb logon ke liye, unki aastha aur apekshaon ko aap file mein daboch ke chale gaye...aur agar aapke dal ke neta, agar aapke parivar ke neta mujh par jhoote-jhoote aarop lagate hain, to bhi Pandhitji, aapke hee janamdin par, aapka adhoora kaam aaj main poora karne chala hoon. Panditji, isse pehle aapko isse bari shrandhanjali kisi ne naheen di hogi...(Panditji – wherever your soul is – the poor are given to believe that their wishes and expectations have been relegated to files. Despite the allegations by your party and family members, today, on your birthday, I pledge to fulfil those dreams. No one would have paid a bigger tribute to Panditji before.)

Why does Modi run down Nehru, while simultaneously being unable to prevent himself from making a reference to him, albeit sardonic? Why is it that he invokes Nehru in certain places – for instance, in the UK during his visit last November – but chooses to ignore the first PM on other occasions, as he did during the India-Africa Summit in New Delhi last October?

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Need for the Nehruvian Plank

In more ways than one, Nehru, for Modi, is somewhat akin to “liquid oxygen” from that iconic Ajeet joke (the villain in films in the 1970s): public admiration for Nehru does not allow Modi to overlook him but his inclusive politics and development priorities prevent him from idolising the first PM. Moreover, Nehru’s titular position in Indian iconography is an obstacle in Modi’s attempt to construct an ahistorical political narrative of India, centred on Sardar Patel. Unquestionably, Nehru’s legacy is a thorn in Modi’s flesh.

Initially, Modi thought that he could do without a Nehruvian strand in the political narrative he was weaving and on the day after his inaugural, regrettably because it was Nehru’s 50th death anniversary, he chose not to make the customary visit to Shanti Van. When eyebrows were raised at the omission, Modi snappily tweeted: “I pay my tributes to our first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru on his punya tithi.”

Yet, within six months, on Nehru’s 125th birth anniversary, Modi’s response was more embracing and he took to Twitter early enough not once, but twice. He was comparatively more fulsome and he wrote that he was joining the nation in remembering “Pandit Nehru's efforts during the freedom struggle and his role as the first Prime Minister of India”. As someone who belongs to the Sangh Parivar which belittles the Congress’s role in the national movement, this was a significant concession to popular belief. Modi’s government also launched the Bal Swachh Mission on the day, though as events later revealed, this was mere lip service.

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Attempts to Usurp Legacy

A few weeks earlier, he restructured the committee to plan commemorative events through the year. But by the time Modi realised that it was not feasible to erase Nehru’s legacy from public memory and government policy, he had already announced the dissolution of the Planning Commission. The long gap between disbanding the plan body and formation of the Niti Aayog demonstrated that for Modi, removing the Nehruvian order was more important than creating new policy-making structures.

In two-and-a-half years, Modi has been unable to purge Nehru’s legacy from public debate. Consequently, he has attempted to recast the former premier’s image to his convenience and slowly undermine his achievements by focusing on the ‘misses’ of the Nehruvian era, like in Ghazipur. Modi wouldn’t have had this dilemma if he had acquired power in a non-electoral process.

How can Modi run down Nehru as an idea while championing Parliament as the temple of democracy, and the Constitution as his only holy book? After all, even the most clamorous Nehru critic is unable to deny that the former Prime Minister remained steadfast in upholding the two.

Using Indira as a Shield

Unlike the discomfort over Nehru’s legacy, it has been easier for Modi to demonise memories of Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi by constant mention of the Emergency and the anti-Sikh carnage of 1984. That Indira Gandhi’s assassination coincided with Sardar Patel’s birth anniversary enabled Modi to underplay the tragedy and celebrate the Sardar’s anniversary initially as Rashtriya Ekta Divas and now as a week-long Rashtriya Ekta Saptah.

The violence post assassination of Indira Gandhi and the Congress party’s complicit nature in the brutalities has been used to shield Modi for the Gujarat government’s role in the 2002 post-Godhra riots. Though he and his admirers dispute the argument, there are striking similarities between Modi and Indira Gandhi. Both were demagogues and contested most important elections (Modi in 2014 and Indira in 1971) on hollow slogans. There are striking similarities between Garibi Hatao and Modi’s proclaimed fight against black money.

The authoritarian nature of the two leaders also links them. But the difference between the two is critical – while Indira Gandhi’s actions were impelled solely by pursuit and consolidation of power, Modi is driven, in addition, by ideological conviction. Depending on which side of today’s polarised polity the assessor chooses to be, this attribute would make Modi appear either as a leader who uses state power for the people’s benefit or as a bigger threat to the fundamentals of the Indian Republic.

(The writer is an author and journalist based in Delhi. His most recent books are ‘Sikhs: The Untold Agony of 1984’ and ‘Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times’. He can be reached @NilanjanUdwin. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)

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