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is possible that Nehru, a man of moderation, would not have gone as
far as he did if, for one thing, Krishna Menon, who had spent much
of his adult life in London amidst socialists of different
varieties, had not come to exercise enormous influence on him and
if, for another, the west under Britain's inspiration had not titled
towards Pakistan and the Kashmir issue.
It follows that the concept of
secular nationalism more or less divorced from the country's
cultural heritage could not have been a vital proposition if it was
not girded by the promise of a brave new socialist world of
equality. As far as I know, Nehru never spoke of creating a new
Indian. Mother India stuck to him as he said she stuck to every
Indian whatever he may do or think. On account of the same
restraint, he did not think in terms of dragooning India into the
socialist Utopia as Stalin did in the Soviet Union and Mao Zedong in
China. There was also another side to his personality which linked
him to India's past. He was more than a deeply moral human being. He
yearned for spiritual light. He was particularly drawn to Swami
Vivekanand and the Ramakrishna Ashram. It is known that he sought
solace from Anandmai to whom Indira Gandhi also turned. Once he
visited Sri Aurobindo Ashram as well and met The Mother. Dr. S.
Radhakrishna, President of the Indian Republic, disclosed that in
the last years of his life, Nehru used to come to him frequently to
listen to the Upanishads which, as The Discovery of India shows,
always fascinated him programme was intended to produce a new Indian
in the style of the new Soviet man or China man.
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