Jawaharlal Nehru was the first Prime Minister of Independent India, and its longest-serving till date, being in office for more than 16 years. Nehru was a barrister by profession, and played a key role in India’s freedom movement. He is often called the architect of modern India, laying the foundations of a free, independent and modern India. Nehru is also celebrated for his charisma, and huge crowds used to turn up to hear him speak.
Born into a privileged, educated family, he was sent to England at age 15 to study. He returned with democratic and liberal values. Nehru was a socialist at heart, and his policies reflected that. Nehru promoted a pluralistic multi-party democracy in India. He implemented moderate socialist economic reforms and committed India to a policy of industrialisation. In foreign affairs, he played a leading role in establishing the Non-Aligned Movement. Under Nehru’s leadership, the Congress emerged as a catch-all party, dominating national and state-level politics and winning elections in 1951, 1957 and 1962.
Some of the highlights of his tenure as prime minister included the India-Pakistan war of 1947-48, the India-China war of 1962, the reorganisation of states along linguistic lines, the Five-Year plans setting up of IITs, IIMS, ISRO, DRDO, among others. Nehru died while in office, serving as the PM for the fourth time.
We would not have got the sciences and engineering without exposure to western education. Modi is as usual selling his propaganda based on half truths.
Promoting Hindi or Bharatiya languages over English alone won’t suffice.
What we must do is reintroduce Bharatiya education.
IKS is a welcome step but actually a reinforcement of the same ‘captive mindset’, for we teach everything by default still with the western paradigms, and IKS as a separate subject.
It should be the other way around, IKS should be the default in every discipline, and WKS (Western Knowledge Systems) an additional subject for global exposure.
Also while we are at it, it felt sad to hear the key ideas expressed with a dash of Urdu (ghulami, azadi, etc.), as if a last desperate attempt to get those on board who we know were never and will never be on board with Bharat and Bharatiyata unless it is diluted with qaumiyat.
Disappointing to see the author conflate learning English as a language (which should never be a problem… Speaking for myself, that honour should only be reserved for the قومی زبان which promises none of the benefits and all of the brainwashing) and English as the medium of instruction.
Learning the language opens up all the claimed benefits. Replacing the medium creates an entry barrier that stops the vast majority of people from success, turning language into the new caste.
Also it should be borne in mind that teaching, for instance, the sciences and the social sciences in English = Smuggling in Eurocentric paradigms, frameworks, and philosophy. Once again, not intrinsically a bad idea to study how different parts of the world think, but problematic when taught as the only truth, almost like an exclusivist religion.