Triveni Journal
1927 | 11,233,916 words
Triveni is a journal dedicated to ancient Indian culture, history, philosophy, art, spirituality, music and all sorts of literature. Triveni was founded at Madras in 1927 and since that time various authors have donated their creativity in the form of articles, covering many aspects of public life....
THE NATION PANDITJI BUILT*
Nehru鈥檚 monument is modern India.
He was its builder. Where Gandhi and a whole generation prepared the way for freedom it was Nehru who gave it substance. He took control of an entire subcontinent with splendid possibilities, drawn from the best of the British inheritance. But it was terribly torn by the struggles for independence and it could have crashed under the weight of its regional and religious divisions and its overwhelming economic problems.
This one man held this huge people together and led them like a father and told them what to do, scolded when they fell apart, pleaded and drove them, imperiously overruled them when they were willful, and still left them free with the sinews of their democracy stronger than any other new country large or small.
This will be debated for a long time. For Mr. Nehru鈥檚 paternalism seemed to hold other men down and keep a generation of leaders from fulfilling themselves. For long years the ageing man had grown more austere and remote from the machinery of the government he was responsible for and it lagged in many respects. Paradoxically he was closer to the masses, from whom he drew his strength in those great open-air meetings characteristic of India, than to his ministers.
And yet the India he leaves behind is 颅sturdy and self-reliant to a degree that would not have seemed likely or possible. We confidently expect that events will make this plain. In respect to the most important factor of all, the quality and coherence of national life and the aspirations of the people, Mr. Nehru builded better than perhaps he himself and surely they knew.
This India today is a triumph of the parliamentary process. - British became authentically Indian. It is articulate in debate, devoted to the rule of law, struggling to build self-government in its half million villages, passionately mastering its passionate diversities on a scale that is beyond comparison in the developing world. It has become, under Mr. Nehru鈥檚 hand, the symbol of how to progress as rapidly as economics can be dislodged from their customary slow process and made to serve mankind.
The ancient has become modern. This, living India, its momentum and vitality and its 聽very free spirit, are uniquely Mr. Nehru鈥檚 master-piece.
* The above Editorial dated Thursday, May 28, 1964 was a spontaneous tribute; paid by one of Americas leading newspapers - CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR to Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru on the day following his demise 聽聽聽聽 -Editor