Failing History

“The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggles.” Many of us are familiar with this resonant opening from Communist Manifesto (1848). Much later, one of its co-authors, Friedrich Engels (1820-95), added a footnote to this statement to clarify it. He wrote, “The written history, that is…” Sometimes the written is also dubbed as the recorded. Engels had great insight for his readers. He suggested that writing creates inequality. In our time, or perhaps forever, writers wielded social and political power and were class apart.

Historians are powerful people. They write to legitimise and challenge nation-state projects, invent and discard heroism, and create official and resistant histories. Historians are also citizens. They have politics. They have parties. They are partisan. Biases make them subjective. However, objectivity remains an aspiration because those who make a claim on “scientific and secular histories” or otherwise are confined by the hold of methods on them. With that caveat, let us dive into Aditya Mukherjee’s Nehru’s India: Past, Present and Future (2024).

Mukherjee delivered his General Presidential address to the 82^nd Session of the Indian History Congress (IHC) at Kakatiya University in December 2023. It was on Jawaharlal Nehru. The address after being available on YouTube was reproduced with footnotes on The Wire and Janata Weekly. Now it is available in its “considerably enlarged version” as a Penguin hardbound.

The Most Definitive Book?

“The Most Definitive Book on Jawaharlal Nehru” is a marketing ploy. But a reader and a reviewer demand some scrutiny and fact-checking. In the book, Aditya Mukherjee has eight short chapters. A few of these could have been sub-headings at best in a standard monograph. The book starts with “Demonizing of Nehru” and ends with “Scientific Temper”. The last chapter is just around 650 words. Mukherjee could have learned from historians of science and made “Scientific Temper” into a full-length chapter, but his priorities are different. He mostly emphasises “Nehru and the Idea of India” and “Nehru on Communal Challenge.” Before discussing these themes, let’s discuss his methods.

Mukherjee abandons objectivity early in the book. That way, his honesty is commendable. His preface underlines how “India has witnessed a massive regression” in all those values that Jawaharlal Nehru championed. He briefly outlines that many sections of people have “demonstrated their capacity to resist this downward slide.” The resistance came a full circle, as Mukherjee thinks, with “A Bharat Jodo Yatra and a Bharat Nyay Yatra.” The historian adds “The call of ‘Daro Mat, Darao Mat’ by Rahul Gandhi, the current Leader of the Opposition, was a much-needed elixir.”

As far as historiography is concerned, Mukherjee has offered a one-sided take at its best. In the last decade, several historians have written on Nehru. They almost share, like this reviewer, Mukherjee’s sincere concern that Nehru has often been unnecessarily demonised. The likes of Benjamin Zachariah, Srinath Raghavan, Tripurdaman Singh and Adeel Hussain, Rudrangshu Mukherjee, Taylor Sherman, and several others never find any mention in Mukherjee’s history writing, not even in the bibliography. If Mukherjee wished to side-step academics and focus solely on mass market paperbacks, he would have done one-on-one with the likes of Rajnikant Puranik and not merely mention them in passing. On the contrary, the book is full of references from Bipan Chandra, Mridula Mukherjee, Sucheta Mahajan and Rakesh Batabyal. For those who remain ignorant to the politics of history writing, it must be made clear that these choices are never innocent. Mukherjee consciously cites from his kins and overlooks others. This method never allows him to make a wider conversation and consultations on Nehru and examine his legacy comprehensively. It also leads to frequent self-citation and replication of argument.

For instance, in the chapter “Nehru on the Communal Challenge”, Mukherjee begins by reproducing the discussions from a paper by Mridula Mukherjee. He cites so many common footnotes from it that one cannot overlook the replication of arguments. We are told how the first general elections of 1951-52 was turned by Nehru into “a virtual referendum on what was to be the nature of the Indian state?” Simply a ‘Hindu Rashtra’ or a secular-democratic Indian state? The basis of the argument is nothing but what Mridula Mukherjee has earlier called Nehru’s “finest hour”. But wasn’t the nature of the Indian state determined during 9 December 1946 and 26 January 1950? If Nehru had to go to a general election seeking a referendum on it, what were the 22 committees in the Constituent Assembly doing? What transpired during the 114-day democratic debates in Constituent Assembly, totaling nearly 2,736 hours, determined the nation-state’s form. No?

The ‘Great Man Theory’ Trap

Aditya Mukherjee has lost a real opportunity to show that the making of the new republic of India was the handiwork of a collective and not just an individual. An erudite scholar has fallen in the trap by making Nehru the prime focus. He blatantly overlooks different ideologies that came together to work out their differences for the new republic. Why else Mukherjee has a chapter called “Nehru and the Idea of India”. Singular and one! What was the need to revisit the bunk question of how Mahatma Gandhi chose Nehru as his successor and not C Rajagopalachari and Sardar Patel? Was Gandhi after 1942 in a position to choose somebody as a successor?

The author suggests that Nehru “quintessentially represented and fought for all the core values of the Indian freedom struggle which have in short been called ‘The Idea of India’”. Historians make such inadequate and hollow assertions when they hide details. After 75 years, while we should have done a national reassessment of the Indian freedom struggle, advancing Congress’ “Official History” won’t let us far. Let us lay bare a few uncomfortable facts.

Our school textbooks or even the ones that Bipan Chandra and Mukherjees have written for early college graduates never tell their readers the number of British that lived in India. In 1939, India had about 90,000 adult white males, and a total of 1,60,000 white men, women, and children. The Indian population was about 35 crores. That means for 1 British there were 2100 Indians. Quite a revolutionary figure! Still, independence didn’t come in 1931, 1935, 1937 and certainly not in 1942.

The official fables that have circulated and propagated for decades don’t allow historical thinking among people. How did the British Raj function effectively for 27 years after Gandhi launched the Non-cooperation Movement in September 1920? We won’t ever be told that in the high noon of Gandhian mass struggle during the Civil Disobedience Movement (1930-4) only 60,498 people were convicted and about 70,000 during the renewed movement. Knowing that the population was inching towards 35 crores, readers could do the math on percentages and ratios. The Movement happened amidst a global economic recession. Every department witnessed pay deductions except the Indian police who saw a rise in their salaries by 10%. These were mainly Indians in uniforms lathi-charging and assaulting Indians standing for civil disobedience. Freedom struggle as a black-and-white struggle between Indians and British is a myth that Mukherjee and his mentors have devised. Not embarrassing them further we aren’t going back to the 18^th and 19^th centuries and will only discuss the period from 1920 to 1947.

Next comes the issue of prison terms. In the book, Mukherjee does not regard VD Savarkar as a nationalist because the former “compromised his nationalist credentials by repeatedly apologizing to the British once jailed.” Mukherjee again fails to inculcate historical thinking. He never allows his readers to know after the 1920s, the convicts in British India were classified into three classes. Class A contained “non-habitual” offenders of “good character.” Class B consisted of European, Anglo-Indian, and Indian convicts with a higher standard of living than the ordinary jail population. Prisoners in Class C were those who didn’t meet the requirements for A or B Class. Elite Congress leaders enjoyed more liberty than C-class prisoners. Readers must know memoirs of Nehru and Gandhi to know that. They could also read Pattabhi Sitaramayya’s jail dairy titled Feathers and Stones (1945) to know what elite Congress leaders including Nehru did as prison inmates at Ahmednagar Fort after Quit India Movement (1942). They spent their time playing badminton and card games and organising intellectual salons in big halls with electric fans. Do the jail experiences of Gandhi, Nehru, Azad and a few others compare anything to Savarkar, Bhai Parmanand, Barindra Ghosh or Rishikesh Kanjilal in Andamans or Jatindra Nath Das or Jai Prakash Narayan in Lahore? And then Mukherjee citing Irfan Habib compares Nehru’s prison terms with Antonio Gramsci. This is a disservice to the nuances and contexts of historical writing.

Nehru against Communists

Mukherjee mainly discusses Nehru contesting “communal fascists” in the early years of the Republic. He easily​ forgets the Communists. Unlike Bharatiya Jana Sangh and Hindu Mahasabha, CPI believed “The leaders of the Congress have not won freedom for our country. They have betrayed our freedom struggle.” CPI attacked the Nehru government because it “made India a part of the British commonwealth”. They pressed charges on Nehru to side with landlords and monopolists. The party depicted the foreign policy against world peace. CPI even called the Nehru Government a “Government of Lathis and Bullets”. Their examples. Thirteen workers were killed in the Bombay strike of 1950 by police and home guards. In 1951, people in Cooch-Behar, demanding cheap rice, were met with murderous volleys that echoed across the land. Calcutta youth were repeatedly shot to maintain the corrupt ministry ruling West Bengal with Nehru’s blessings. Four women were killed by the police in Calcutta on a single day in 1949. The students of Cuttack whose only crime was that they protested the raising of fees were attacked by the armed forces of the police. And so on.

The vehemence of these attacks was not directed through a party organ. These attacks were part of the Election Manifesto of CPI in 1951-52. Still for Mukherjee, Nehru was only concerned with Hindu-identity-based parties. In December 1954, Nehru called Indian Communists “Anti-India, antipeople, anti-progress.” He called them, “dazzled by Russia and China, but ignorant of India. They were without moorings in the land of their birth. They are pledged to a policy of creating mental and physical conflict.” The vehemence of Nehru’s attack was such that even Time in USA carried a report about it. Such examples could be multiplied by hundreds.

Everybody knows how RSS was banned after Mahatma’s assassination. Should we also know how the Nehru government led a nationwide “round up” of pro-China Communists on 21 November 1962 and beyond under the Defence of India Rules? Even Communist legislators were not spared. Two members of Parliament from Madras, KTK Thangamani and R Umanath, the leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly, Jyoti Basu, and in the Andhra Pradesh Assembly, P Sundarayya, were arrested. Only in West Bengal, on a single day, 44 Communist leaders were arrested. Why was CPM government suspended in Kerala in 1959? Shouldn’t these details be also a part of Nehru’s India?

Spare History Please

The few chapters where Mukherjee lists the establishment of various institutions by Nehru are laudable. Young Indians should know how Nehru and his successive governments laid a strong foundation for a new republic. However, qualifiers must be in place. One easily recounts how the Nehru Government went on setting up IITs and IIMs and motivating different universities. Simultaneously, we also need to explain why it took years when Daulat Singh Kothari was asked to head a commission to examine the issue of education holistically in 1964.

In the chapter “Building Democracy” we are told how freedom of the press was essential as a civil liberty to Nehru. We should also be told about Brij Bhushan vs The State of Delhi and how periodicals like Organiser Weekly had to fight ‘pre-censorship orders’ in 1950 only. We need to discuss why Nehru moved the Constitution (First Amendment) Act, 1951, on 10 May 1951 and it was enacted by Parliament on 18 June 1951. Should we also ​m​ention how more than 27,000 government employees were suspended in a week in July 1960.  These workers called for a nationwide strike on July 12 to demand higher wages. Such examples could be multiplied by hundreds.

Historians should avoid playing ball-boys/girls on a political grass court. Any serious student of Modern India is perplexed by the growing and many times unsubstantiated attacks on Nehru. But the defence could not be the one that Mukherjee has offered. It is one-sided, skewed and most importantly, weak. Nehru is being attacked on​ issues of Kashmir, China, a weak foreign policy, and UN Security Council. He is also being cornered on handling national integration, neglecting mass education, overlooking minority communalism and whatnot. Writing better and more informed histories is the only way forward. Such histories must be critical and comprehensive. There cannot be a going back to great man theories. Historians must remember Engels’ footnote. That could be done by eliminating the inequalities of historical knowledge which arise due to selectively discussing a few individuals, events and strands and overlooking several others.

About The Author

Shaan Kashyap

Shaan Kashyap is a PhD candidate at Ravenshaw University, Cuttack. Currently, he is Sir Jadunath Sarkar Fellow for Indian History (2024-25)