From the construction of the Somnath temple, to the first amendment of the Constitution… Journalist and author Rahul Shivshankar spoke to Brut about Nehru’s liberal image.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00The way Nehru has been built up by the left, the yardsticks that have been used to then judge other Prime Ministers
00:07by suggesting that Nehru was this real liberal Templar, right?
00:12Actually, Nehru wasn't very liberal.
00:13Let me tell you, Babri Masjid wasn't the only Masjid that was broken to build a temple.
00:19There was a mosque in Somnath that was also demolished under whom? Nehru's government.
00:23I want to go over some of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's images that we've seen in news in the past few years.
00:34One is, of course, with Ayodhya now coming in, with the Ram Temple coming in, the Pran Pratishthan happening.
00:43And we did see in news when the Bhoomi Puja took place, probably.
00:49It was Prime Minister Modi who did the Bhoomi Puja, right?
00:52In your book you say, ordinarily a Prime Minister would be a chief guest and the Puja would be done by a religious leader.
01:00No, I don't think I said that. I'm quoting somebody.
01:03You're quoting somebody.
01:04A particular writer, an observer of politics, I think it's Mr. Pradhan, if I'm not mistaken, he made that point.
01:10Okay, thank you for correcting me on that. The other image of Prime Minister Modi when the new Parliament building was inaugurated
01:16and it was about the historic Sengol, right, where he placed it near the Lok Sabha Speaker's chair in the newly built building.
01:22And Jawaharlal Nehru had been handed the Sengol during India's independence.
01:26While most of us remember the Crispr Destiny speech, your research says Dominic Lapia and Larry Collins wrote,
01:33They sprinkled Jawaharlal Nehru with holy water, smeared his forehead with sacred ash, laid their scepter on his arms and raped him on the cloth of God.
01:43To the man who had never ceased to proclaim the horror the word religion inspired in him,
01:48their right was a tiresome manifestation of all he deplored in his nation. Yet, he submitted to it with almost cheerful humility.
01:57It was almost as if that proud rationalist had instinctively understood that in the awesome task awaiting him,
02:04no possible source of aid, not even the occult that he so scornfully dismissed, was to be totally ignored.
02:11There are these parallels that keep coming up between Nehru and Mr. Modi. Why do you think that is?
02:20Look, I am not going to use any strong words, but I feel that the way Nehru has been built up by the left,
02:28the yardsticks that have been used to then judge other prime ministers by suggesting that Nehru was this real liberal templar, right,
02:36actually Nehru wasn't very liberal. Let me give you an example. So, what do people say?
02:41Arey, Modi is going to sit there and become Yajman. This is a complete conflation of the state with religion.
02:48Nehru would have turned in his grave. At the end of the day, Dominic Lapierre says that Nehru submitted with cheerful.
02:56Paunch gaya na, parliament mein, with all his vibhuti and everything. He got there, right?
03:03He could have said, no, nothing doing. On Somnath he put his foot down, yet his cabinet approved the construction of Somnath.
03:09Let me tell you, Babri Masjid wasn't the only masjid that was broken to build a temple.
03:15There was a mosque in Somnath that was also demolished. Under whom? Nehru's government.
03:22The president there was the Yajman, so to speak, loosely put. He was right there. Many of his cabinet ministers were there.
03:30Mahatma Gandhi in young India had espoused for the construction of a Somnath temple at that very spot.
03:36Now, there was a mosque there. So, did Mahatma Gandhi obviously prophesize when he was making that statement that that mosque had to be brought down?
03:44The first amendment to our constitution was about what? Proscribing what? Free speech.
03:52That was the first amendment. And why did it come out? Because of a very, very, very narrow political interest.
03:59Nehru was facing to a couple of his policies a large number of protests from landowning classes.
04:06And he said, no, no, the job of a state and a government rather, executive, is to have an unimpeded run of implementing its policies.
04:19You look at Congress government successfully. What did P. V. Narasimha Rao's government do? Or let's just look at Rajiv Gandhi.
04:28Today, the Congress is falling over itself to take credit for the Ram temple. They said, look what Rajiv Gandhi did.
04:35Rajiv Gandhi, grandchild of Nehru, supposedly extremely influenced by Nehru's liberalism.
04:42He wanted to bring the Post and Telegraph Act which would have pretty much made the press elapdor. Right?
04:51This is a policy I am talking about. If Nehru and his cabinet can give complete authority to build the Somnath temple,
05:01here, under Modi's NDA, a second iteration, it's not the government that has constructed,
05:09I mean, that has taken it upon itself to pass some sort of an ordinance or a law to build it. It's the Supreme Court.
05:17It is only executing the direction of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has said, form a trust where people will be elected.
05:24And then you build this Mandir. And also, the Supreme Court has given five acres of land.
05:30Were the Muslims given five acres when Somnath came up?