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.
It is the military leadership that must accept responsibility because the decisions of strength, operational viability and logistics rest with military commanders. Moral and professional challenge. In case of failure natural for us to blame others . Happened in 62 may happen again unless institutional mechanism formalised.
General Panag in his honest forthright approach is following in the footsteps of another GOC Lt.Genral Gurbaksh Singh who wrote not just an article but an entire book “War Dispatches” giving an unvarnished account of the 1965 war with the sole intention that future generations benefit by learning the real facts rather than hubris. General Panag as an army man laments that the defense budget is too less but when I as a citizen find that the defense budget is Rs 450000 crores and the health budget just Rs 69000 crores I am appalled. I am appalled at the difference between the two allocations and I am appalled that the army still feels that like Oliver Twist it needs more. How do we avoid making the defense department a bottomless pit?
For a balanced view point we must go back to 1947 rather than 1962 . Article 370 and special status of J &K was a concession to the fact that Jammu and Kashmir which includes Ladakh was not a part of the Radcliffe Award.Nehru was fully aware of this as he had to manoeuvre deftly sometimes with Sheikh Abdullah and Mountbatten,sometimes at the UN and sometimes with Russia as a non aligned to obtain a Russian veto to secure the State for India.This was something that only Nehru was capable of. This wheeling dealing ( sometimes skulduggery as in 1953) came at a certain price. This price was that not only the feelings of the people of J&K but of neighbors had to be taken into account. Thus in Nehru’s time the J & K State had a Prime Minister.The forward policy of 1962 was rhetoric which got out of hand. The present dispensation by abolishing Article 370, fragmenting J&K into Union Territories and showing off the 56 inch chest in general has acted like a bull in a china shop. I personally do not think that the broken pieces can be put back again. The politics of the subcontinent,for better or for worse, has moved beyond an inflection point. It is quite possible that President Xi or General Bajwa or Prime Minister Oli or any of the other rulers of the neighboring States for that matter might also have a 56 inch chest.