A Suitable Boy(650)

‘Panditji,’ said Mahesh Kapoor with surprise and pleasure, ‘I will do my best.’

‘And of course we cannot have reactionary forces winning sensitive seats,’ said Nehru, pointing in the general direction of the Fort. ‘Where is Bhushan – is that his name? Can’t they organize anything?’ he continued impatiently. He stepped onto the verandah and shouted for the man from the District Congress Committee who was in charge of logistics. ‘How can we expect to run a country if we can’t get together a microphone and a platform and a few policemen?’ When he heard that the irksome and interminable security arrangements were finally secure, he ran down the steps of the Circuit House two at a time and jumped into the car.

The cavalcade was stopped every hundred yards or so by adoring crowds. When they reached the grounds where he was due to talk, he ran up the steps of the flower-strewn podium before doing namasté to the vast throng gathered below. The people – townsfolk and villagers alike – had been waiting for him with growing anticipation for more than two hours. When they sensed his arrival, even before they saw him, an electric shiver ran through the huge, excited audience, and they shouted: ‘Jawaharlal Nehru Zindabad!’ – ‘Jai Hind!’ – ‘Congress Zindabad!’ – ‘Maharaj Jawaharlal ki jai!’

This last was too much for Nehru.

‘Sit down, sit down, don’t shout!’ he shouted.

The crowd laughed delightedly and kept cheering. Nehru got annoyed, jumped down from the podium before anyone could stop him, and started physically pushing people down. ‘Hurry up, sit down, we don’t have all the time in the world.’

‘He gave me a push – a hard push!’ said one man proudly to his friends. He was to boast about it ever afterwards.

When he returned to the podium, a Congress bigwig started introducing and seconding someone else on the platform.

‘Enough, enough, enough of all this, start the meeting,’ said Nehru.

Then someone started talking about Jawaharlal Nehru himself, how flattered, honoured, privileged, blessed they were to have him with them, how he was the Soul of Congress, the Pride of India, the jawahar and lal of the people, their jewel and their darling.

All this got Nehru very angry indeed. ‘Come on, don’t you have anything better to do?’ he said under his breath. He turned to Mahesh Kapoor. ‘The more they talk about me, the less use I am to you – or to the Congress – or to the people. Tell them to be quiet.’

Mahesh Kapoor hushed up the speaker, who looked hurt; and Nehru immediately launched into a forty-five minute speech in Hindi.

He held the crowd spellbound. Whether they understood him or not was hard to say, because he rambled on in an impressionistic manner from idea to idea, and his Hindi was not much good, but they listened to him and stared at him with rapt attention and awe.

His speech went something like this:

‘Mr Chairman, etc, – brothers and sisters – we are gathered here at a troubled time, but it is also a time of hope. We do not have Gandhiji with us, so it is even more important that you have confidence in the nation and in yourselves.

The world is also going through a hard time. We have the Korean crisis and the crisis in the Persian Gulf. You have probably heard about the attempt ofthe British to bully the Egyptians. This will lead to trouble sooner or later. This is bad, and we cannot have it. The world must learn to live in peace.

Here at home also, we must live in peace. As tolerant people we must be tolerant. We lost our freedom many years ago because we were disunited. We must not let it happen again. Disaster will strike the country if religious bigots and communalists of all descriptions get their way.

We must reform our way of thinking. That is the main thing. The Hindu Code Bill is an important measure which must be passed. The Zamindari Bills of the various states must be implemented. We must look at the world with new eyes.

India is an ancient land of great traditions, but the need of the hour is to wed these traditions to science. It is not enough to win elections, we must win the battle of production. We must have science and more science, production and more production. Every hand has to be on the plough and every shoulder to the wheel. We must harness the forces of our mighty rivers with the help of great dams. These monuments to science and modern thinking will give us water for irrigation and also for electricity. We must have drinking water in the villages and food and shelter and medicine and literacy all around. We must make progress or else we will be left behind…’



Sometimes Nehru was in a reminiscent mood, sometimes he waxed poetic, sometimes he got carried away and scolded the crowd. He was, as they had sensed in their earlier slogans, rather an imperious democrat. But they applauded him, almost regardless of what he said. They cheered when he talked about the size of the Bhakra dam, they cheered when he said that the Americans must not oppress Korea – whatever Korea was. And they cheered most of all when he requested their support, which he did almost as an afterthought. In the eyes of his people, Nehru – the prince and hero of Independence, the heir of Mahatma Gandhi – could do no wrong.