NEHRU -- HIS LIBERAL, LIBERATING TOUCH

NEHRU -- HIS LIBERAL, LIBERATING TOUCH

I do not like fanatics, even patriotic fanatics. I like the liberal way of thinking. I am a patriot, often a fierce and a vociferous one when it comes to defending my motherland and my Hindu religion and culture against organised assault by communists, Islamists and proselytising Christian bigots. But other than that when I may seem to be a bigoted Hindu which I am not -- for Hinduism is 'as vast as the sky and as deep as the ocean' (Swami Vivekananda's words in another context but pertinent here as well) -- I am a spiritual and human liberal, centred in Truth and seeking the Truth. Which is why I like a liberal like Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru above all other national leaders other than Gandhiji, perhaps, at times and quite often so. Nehru liberates my soul labouring under the constant strain of defending the Sanatan Dharma and the motherland, and my struggle to fight the evils of organisation and popular perceptions steeped in half-truths owing to propagated cherry-picked quotations from the greats to perpetuate public allegiance despite decay in spiritual standards. Nehru comes as the great healer, the 'balm of my hurt mind' (Shakespeare). His balanced intellectual approach, at once human and pronouncedly sympathetic to all human developments -- viewed, as he does, in a supremely scientific light -- clears the dross of the soul and settles it. No wonder Hiren Mukherjee, the great communist Parliamentarian, hailed him in his biography of Nehru as 'The Gentle Colossus'.

I am not a politician, neither am I a member or remote affiliate of any political party. I am simply a lay person, an observer of day-to-day events, an ordinary student of history and a commentator on life whereby I give expression to my thoughts and reactions to the happenings of life around me. I swing from end to end of the pendulum of emotions and give vent to my feelings and people find it hard to locate my fixed stance which generally men have. But not I, for life itself is so unfixed, being borne up and down, hither and thither by the billows which are beyond our control. My only fixity is in my Self/Atman which is your fixity as well whether you know it or not. As I said, I am centred in Truth and am forever seeking this Truth in real and in the relative experience of life. A wayfarer am I through the thoroughfare of life, a progressive pilgrim unto perfection. As such I have no fixed abode beyond that which ever carries me in Its arms, the Divine Beloved, the Atman which in essence I am. 

Nehru liberates me, so does Swamjji. Because these are seminal beings who ever progressed without ideological fixation as such. Nehru was an agnostic but a seeker of Truth in his own way who studied human history and sought to understand its evolution, adjustments and implications for the future growth of humanity. We were blessed to have him amidst us as a leading light, a quasi-enlightened soul in the socio-historical context and a human being with profound sympathies for the common mass of humanity. I am not concerned with his personal life, although to many that may be the be-all and end-all of his being, neither am I here deliberating on his 'hundred historical blunders' as a book chronicles his doings. I am torn in my being by the conflicts abounding in society,  by the climate of violence in a world that has yet to emerge from barbaric ages, clothed as nations and cultures are with traditional and modern weapons of war, both material and psychological. I am rent asunder by the violence of ignoramuses and the egotistical affirmations which are worse violence of men and women of letters who spare none with their verbal tongue-lashing at every conceivable opportunity.

Spring is departing, the cuckoos will soon go into musical hibernation and the scorching summer sun will soon pelt down its radiant darts to reduce us further. Nehru comes here in my solitary study as the summer shower, the fragrant spring breeze, the autumnal blossom, the cool ice flakes of winter. He releases me from death unto life, from darkness unto light, from despair unto renewed hope. Such sympathy flowing in his words rejuvenates my soul. And therefore I read Nehru whose waterfall refreshes me.

Written by Sugata Bose