Congress must be grateful to BJP for promoting Nehru by default

When the Left Front was in power in West Bengal for 34 long years and used to get more than 40% of votes in eight Assembly and 10 parliamentary elections held between 1977 and 2011, the percentage of real Communists in the state was hardly between 10 and 15. Even in the 2011 Assembly poll, it got more than 41% votes though it was ousted from power by the Trinamool Congress which secured 7-8% more votes.

Something similar is the situation with Bharatiya Janata Party in the north and west Indian states now. The number of those espousing the cause of Moditva may be less than half of those who vote for the party in elections.

Voting for a particular party does not mean that the electorate is necessarily endorsing all its actions. Several factors motivate a voter to vote for a particular party.

On one count at least the BJP should be a bit cautious before it is too late. That is, its over-aggressiveness against the first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru is not going down well among a large section of its voters. Not to speak of general voters, even a sizeable number of BJP leaders accept his contributions. This includes former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

So by unnecessarily dragging the name of Nehru for no valid reason and that too about six decades after his death, the BJP top brass is, by default, promoting him. The irony is that they are not aware of what they are doing. The whole exercise has the potential to backfire.

The Sangh Parivar bigwigs should understand the difference between crude propaganda and subtle and scientific way of sending the message. By degenerating Nehru day in and day out and not highlighting his achievements on the occasion of the completion of 75 years of independence the BJP has done a great disservice to itself.

The truth is that in the last five decades we have not been discussing the achievements of Nehru so much as now. None else but the BJP is directly responsible for renewing a fresh debate on the feats of the first PM of India.

True, Nehru’s daughter, Indira Gandhi, and grandson, Rajiv Gandhi, during their tenures named many educational institutions, stadiums, roads, etc after him but they had been in general busier in promoting their accomplishments. The media then—both government and private—were busier in highlighting their works or their misdeeds, rather than debating Nehru.

Those who have lived through those years are well aware of how Indira Gandhi was hailed for bringing about the Green Revolution, bank nationalization, victory in Bangladesh over Pakistan, the nuclear test in 1974, etc. She came under strong criticism for imposing |Emergency and handling the Sikh militancy in Punjab which ultimately took her life. But it can not be ignored that a single bench of Allahabad

High Court had on June 12, 1975, dared to disqualify the election of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi from the Rae Bareli parliamentary seat in 1971. A fortnight later she imposed an Emergency.

Rajiv Gandhi’s five-year term is remembered for accords in Punjab, Assam, and Mizoram and the telecom revolution. Like mother, he too was more busy highlighting his own government’s deeds than recalling that of Nehru. The print media—there was no private electronic channel then– would occasionally discuss what Nehru had achieved. In the later years Rajiv came under fire for alleged Bofors kickback, not handling the Babri Masjid-Ram Janambhoomi movement properly and misadventure in Sri Lanka, which ultimately cost him dearly—he was killed by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam, though he had sent the army in Sri Lanka to protect them.

When the Narasimha Rao government introduced Liberalization, Privatization and Globalization in 1991 the policies adopted by Jawaharlal Nehru in the earlier years came under heavy fire; even though the fact is that whatever steps he took then were, too much extent, appropriate as state promotion was necessary for laying the foundation of the country.

In contrast, never had the media paid so much attention to Nehru as in the last eight years. No doubt, most of the time the television channels would carry speeches of the BJP stalwarts in which they would be heard lambasting Nehru for whatever problems India is facing today—be it his foreign and economic policies, loss of territory to China in 1962, Kashmir crisis, etc. But the non-stop campaign against him opened a gate for objective debates on his achievements.

A section of the media started it. He had undoubtedly failed on several fronts, but that was quite natural for a man who ruled the country for 17 long years, and that too just after two centuries of loot by the British imperialist.

The relentless propaganda against him did attract some people in the initial years, especially those who were already hardcore supporters of the BJP. But when the counter-argument started coming in his favor it opened the eyes of many in the country, who may have voted for the BJP yet do not agree with all that is being said.

In TV debates held recently many of the apologists of the BJP appeared defensive and conceded that Nehru deserves his due and has certainly done much for India. It would be dishonest if one does not recognize his works.

Eight years later even a sizeable section of the BJP voters want to listen to what the present government had achieved on economic fronts. The intrusion of Chinese forces in Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh has silenced many of them.

The saffron brigade needs to understand that every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

-INDIA NEWS STREAM