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For Nehru, secularism wasn’t a happy word but a possible source of dogma: Historian

At Nehru Memorial Lecture Thursday, Madhavan Palat said Jawaharlal Nehru had an affinity for Buddhism and viewed Mahatma Gandhi as an avatar of Buddha.

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New Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru was indifferent to religion but he never made an attempt to denounce it, noted historian Madhavan Palat said Thursday.

Speaking at the Nehru Memorial Lecture to mark the country’s first prime minister’s 130th birth anniversary, Palat said Nehru “distrusted” the word secular as he thought it was not a happy word and may be a source of dogma.

“Nehru identified secularism as a possible source of dogma and this is what he said at a meeting of the Congress Parliamentary towards the end of his life: ‘Secularism is not a happy word. It does not mean we are anti-religious, it just means India is not formally entitled to any religion as a nation’”, Palat said while speaking on the topic, ‘The Spiritualism in Nehru’s Secular Imagination’. 

The historian said Nehru had his doubts about “the manner in which secularism was being used in the course of the development of the state”.

Palat said Nehru even in own writings rarely mentioned the word secular and always maintained that the freedom of religion had to be guaranteed under fundamental rights.

Palat spoke after Congress president Sonia Gandhi delivered a speech at the event, slamming the BJP-led central government for being a bigot.

“We must speak up against bigotry, injustice and the mismanagement of the last six years,” Gandhi said. “We must put away the hypocrisy to expose the darkness underneath.” 


Also read: When Nehru sat down for a tell-all on Sardar Patel, Maulana Azad & Netaji’s Hitler leaning


Paradoxes of Nehru

Nehru, said Palat, straddled contradictions and paradoxes of liberalism and conservatism, socialism and internationalism, and scientific temper and religiosity.

“Nehru was completely committed to the idea of freedom of the mind, by which he meant people would not accept any kind of dogma — not only from religion, but from other sources,” Palat said.

“For Nehru, everything that tended to be in excess, which is dogma, had to be tempered. Religion was tempered by reason, reason by scientific temper. Science by transcendentalism, liberal individuals by socialist corporations, socialism by conservatism and pragmatism. Nationalism by internationalism and secularity by spirituality.”

“For Nehru, conservatism, liberalism, socialism that seem incompatible to a theorist like myself, were fully compatible,” Palat said. He combined all three while appealing to spirituality at the same time, he added.

According to Palat, Nehru viewed Hinduism from the prism of intellectual enquiry and not  as a moral system. He had great fondness for the Upanishads, the Vedantic philosophy and the Hindu epics, he said.

Nehru also attempted to balance his views on religion and science through his own interpretation of secularity — that was a condition wherein human beings can discover their own lives, according to the historian.

“He was a socialist, obviously liberal, but plainly conservative in certain arguments and set them all under the rubric of spirituality to combine all these positions despite their seeming contradictions,” Palat said.

“This led Nehru to avoid two pregnant words — democracy and socialism — while framing the Constitution as he believed that these divide rather than unite people,” Palat added. 

The historian said even though Nehru was a proffered socialist, he did not want to engage in theoretical formulae but rather wanted to listen to the “genius of the people”, which, Palat added, was another way of saying he valued tradition.     

Nehru had an affinity for Buddhism

Of all the religions, Palat said, Nehru had a fondness for Buddhism.

“It is why Buddhist symbolism can be found in the symbolism of the Indian state. The chakra in the (Indian) flag and the Supreme Court, the horse shoe-shaped entrance of the Vigyan Bhawan, inspired by Ajanta and Ellora caves, are a testament to that fact.”

According to the historian, Nehru believed Hinduism had absorbed the best of Buddhism, which is why it was so tolerant. “For Nehru, Hinduism was marred by caste, which is something he could never accept,” Palat added.

The historian said Nehru, in his writings, revealed his love of Buddhism by extolling Buddhist rulers such as Ashoka, Kanishka and Harshvardhan. “Nehru did not admire the military exploits of Hindu emperors,” Palat said. “One needn’t go further than look at the title of his chapters on the Gupta dynasty in which he refers to the period as the ‘imperialism of the Guptas’ whereas Ashoka is referred to as the beloved of the gods.” 

Nehru viewed Gandhi as an avatar of Buddha

This strain of thought on Buddhism made Nehru view Mahatma Gandhi as an avatar of Buddha and himself as an incarnation of Ashoka, the historian said.

“If ever, Nehru the great agnostic came close to worship it was that of Gandhi,” Palat said. He added that even though Nehru knew that Gandhi was essentially a man of religion, “Hindu to the depths of his being”, he believed that Gandhi’s conscience had nothing to do with dogma. 

“Gandhi followed what Nehru called the law of truth,” Palat said, adding, Nehru viewed Gandhi as an English public schoolmaster who was building the character of a nation.

After Gandhi’s death, however, Nehru re-imagined him as a repository of spiritual virtues, Palat said. Nehru then took on the role to build character and turned towards developing a party machine based on discipline.


Also read: The many plots to kill Jawaharlal Nehru from 1948 to 1955


 

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6 COMMENTS

  1. Nehru could not fully understand the feelings and thought process of the lower strata of society in India. He could only think about the creamy layer who always played with English words like secularism, socialism etc.. while enjoying life to its hilt. The system in India is fit for the 1 pcnt creamy layer.

  2. Nehru could not fully understand the feelings and thought process of the lower strata of society in India. He could only think about the creamy layer who always played with English words like secularism, socialism etc.. while enjoying life to its hilt. The system in India is fit for the 1 percent creamy layer.

  3. Nehru could not fully understand the feelings and thought process of the lower strata of society in India. He could only think about the creamy layer who always played with English words like secularism, socialism etc.. while enjoying life to its hilt. The system in India is fit for the 1% creamy layer.

  4. None of the kings mentioned can be boxed in one group. Harshvardhan was also follower of Lord Shiva. Similar syncretism can be found of Kanishka. Chakra is a dharmic symbol, the idea of dharma chakra predates the birth of Lord Buddha. One can see above lot of overt unnecessary generalisation.

    Also one paragraph is quite confusing.

  5. There was nothing small or petty about Pandit Nehru. His intellect and heart were large enough to encompass the expanse and diversity of India.

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