Cameraperson: Shiv Kumar Maurya
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Tuesday, 12 November, said at an event in Delhi, that it's because of Nehru's institutional structures that even a chaiwala could aspire to, and eventually become the prime minister of the country.
“There is an unfair and ridiculous charge by the ruling party today that Nehru tried to groom his daughter as a successor. On the contrary, at no stage did he indicate a preference for any successor,” he said. If today we have a chaiwala as the prime minister, it’s because Nehruji made it possible through institutional structures –through which, any Indian can aspire to and rise to the highest office in the land,” said Tharoor.
Tharoor was speaking, on the eve of Nehru’s 129th birth anniversary, at the re-launch of his 2003 book – Nehru: The Invention of India. UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi delivered the inaugural address, in which she invoked the values of Nehru, spoke of his legacy and the ‘efforts by the ruling BJP government’ to undermine that legacy.
Praising Nehru's institutional values, Tharoor said that Nehru believed in democracy despite it being the toughest choice, given the state of the country after Partition.
“It would have been easy to say, ‘We need a firm hand, democracy is not an option.’ But Nehru never considered this an option,” Tharoor stated.
Nehru was Open to Criticism: Tharoor
Tharoor also said that Nehru was always open to criticism, whether it came from the Opposition or his own party.
“Nehru gave importance to the Opposition. Nehru made sure the Opposition felt free to criticise him and he took that criticism seriously. Nehru also encouraged his own party members to speak out against him. The most famous such example being Feroze Gandhi taking him on, issue after issue,” he said.
“Shankar, a famous cartoonist back then, used to regularly poke fun at Nehru... Nehru took it all,” Tharoor added.
Nehru Had No Time for Sadhus, Mullahs: Tharoor
Commenting on Nehru’s views on religion, Tharoor said that while Nehru didn’t care for religion, he also didn’t speak one unsavoury word against a religious group or community.
“He was also not particularly religious. We have to accept the fact that the well springs of Nehruvian secularism did lie in agnosticism,” he said.
“It was not that he disrespected religion, but he had no time for the professed leaders. In one of the letters that I quoted, he said he has no patience for mullahs and maulavis or sadhus and sants and that they don’t have answers to all the problems of the nation. That is an interesting thing because while that was very much his personal proclivity, he never imposed that on a nation which is very deeply steeped in religion,” Tharoor said.
BJP Hits Back
In a rather sarcastic tweet, the BJP on Wednesday, 12 November said that Nehru was the sole reason humanity exists.
“Minor correction Dr. Tharoor, Nehru is the sole reason why humanity exists. Don’t trivialise his role to mundane matters like making Prime Ministers and all that ,” the tweet read.
Union Minister Prakash Javadekar said that the Congress cannot look beyond one family or recall the contribution of others to the country.
“If democracy is thriving in India, it is because of the Constitution. It was the constituent assembly headed by Baba Sahab Ambedkar and having many other eminent people which laid the foundation of democracy,” Union minister Prakash Javadekar told reporters.
Javadekar said the Congress talked only about one family and never mentioned the likes of Mahatma Gandhi, Subhas Chandra Bose and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. The opposition party wanted to restrict historical references to one family, he added.
Modi was such a "magnanimous" prime minister that he had mentioned umpteen number of times that all prime ministers had contributed to the country while the Congress never mentioned the name of P V Narasimha Rao, Javadekar said.
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