Jawa Nehru_SOCIALISM Based on a book by

Sanjeev Sabhlok

2

Dedicated most importantly, to your freedom to think and to be.

3

This is a book about changing India. About setting us free.

This is a book about restoring our values and our national

character. A book about making India a great place to bring

up our children. More a pamphlet than a book, this is a

conversation between one Indian and another, an attempt to

discuss what we have lost by letting socialists trample on our

country’s ancient genius and moral character for 60 years;

and to explore what it will take to bring back India to the

right path – of freedom – and then take it to a tryst with true

greatness.

Sanjeev Sabhlok Melbourne, Australia

Read now _ this review or extract

4

Nehru’s socialist legacy-1

As Nehru was the single most powerful source of

socialism in India since the 1930s, with his

emotionally charged glorification of its alleged

successes and relentless implementation of its

principles, to him must go the credit of being the

Messiah of Indian Socialism. Nehru

influenced an entire epoch, one that is still

under way.

5

Nehru’s socialist legacy-2

All things that have happened in India under socialist design

since independence are Nehruvian, therefore Nehru is the

most apt symbol of India’s first 60 years since independence.

Nehru influenced an entire epoch, one that is still under way.

In his Presidential Address at the 1936 Lukhnow Congress,

he reiterated his ‘faith’ in socialism, remarking, ‘socialism is

thus for me not merely an economic doctrine which I favour;

it is a vital creed which I hold with all my head and heart’.

6

Established unworkable Systems

We can clearly trace India’s failures in

governance to Nehru. Nehru is the source;

others merely followed what he

established. It will be clearly shown that

the systems Nehru designed for us were

unworkable and could never have

delivered their intended outcomes.

7

Nehru made the government so important and

so large in our lives that it has now become our

(modern) God. So how could a common man –

argue in favour of its getting demoted to

becoming our servant? Nehru’s legacy

undoubtedly lives on long after his death. His

socialist way of thought flourishes today as

never before, weak-kneed Indian liberalization

notwithstanding. And so, wherever Nehru

himself did not create socialist policies, his

successors stepped in and made his

policies ‘sharper’.

8

Nehru’s socialist Frankenstein, which now stood large on

India’s murky horizon, grew unchecked and ran amuck,

stomping over everybody after Nehru’s death in 1964.

Indeed, this monster gained a truly fierce bite with his

daughter Indira Gandhi’s ascension to India’s

‘throne’ in 1966. Claiming Nehru’s socialist legacy, she

embarked on a frontal assault on freedom. Property rights

were diluted even further. She dismantled large private

organizations by nationalizing almost everything in sight

including banks and cloth manufacturing mills.

9

We must classify Nehru’s followers as his socialist

godchildren. They include not only his daughter

and his grandchildren but also his political

contemporaries (except for the Swatantra Party)

and his political successors like the Bharatiya

Janata Party (BJP), Congress (I) and, of

course, communists of various shades; all

Nehruvians, every single one of them. We can

hear the echoes of Nehru’s voice in all their

conversations and actions. They talk of self-

sufficiency, of the mixed economy.

10

Seventeen years of Nehru leadership

But we must pause to ask: what could possibly

have gone so wrong that despite Nehru’s

relentless efforts and leadership, India continued

to perform miserably on many fronts for

decades, and has now gained global notoriety

as one of the world’s most corrupt nations? For,

were not most of our systems and practices put

in place during Nehru’s time? He had nearly 17

years to kick-start India’s march towards

freedom and prosperity. He did not bring about a

system of freedom with accountability.

11

At a fundamental level, let us think about India’s

freedom. We need to break free of Nehru in order

to restore our freedoms. To become free. To be

unleashed. Not because we dislike Nehru in any

way. Freedom in the abstract may not sound

important enough, or even relevant, as we spend

our daily energies fuming over the chronic

problems of misgovernance, corruption, poverty

and a seemingly excessive population. But it is this

freedom that we need more than anything else

today in India.

12

Freedom is the missing ingredient that will deliver

the final blows of death to poverty and corruption,

and create an unprecedented equality of opportunity

in India. To acquire an understanding of this missing

ingredient in our policy we must first find out

where we stand in relation to freedom today, and

having done that, determine where we should go

next. And each time we analyse the facts we

discover that Nehru deliberately and consciously

blocked our freedom.

13

Little do Nehru’s godchildren realize that freedom, with

equality of opportunity which includes the elimination of

poverty and provision of school education, is the finest

human face, being both just and justly compassionate.

Only societies that are underpinned by freedom and hence

by justice have the capacity, through wealth generation, of

displaying compassion and providing everyone with equal

opportunity. All the socialism in the world cannot bring

about even the most basic outcomes – of justice, of

education for all, and of the elimination of poverty.

14

This new India, which is resplendent, clean,

beautiful, healthy, wealthy and innovative,

sits right below our nose, waiting to be uncovered

by our minds and hands,

by getting rid of the chaff of socialism and

removing barriers to our freedom.

The magic wand of freedom will unveil a truly

Shining India like Aladdin’s lamp unveiled the cave

containing unimaginable treasures.

15

For India to aspire to much higher growth rates, to

eradicate poverty and corruption, and to preserve

its environment, we now have to internalize the

requirements of freedom which call for individual

• responsibility and

• accountability.

• India has not yet, as a nation, understood what

it means to be free. Let us start with a bird’s-

eye view of freedom in Indian life.

16

Recent economic growth has helped to reduce

poverty and has made a few people very rich, but

all this has not translated into a significant

improvement in the quality of life of the vast

majority of Indians, who continue to be illiterate

and poor. That is primarily because our governance

is still driven by socialist and other antiquated

principles.

17

England had a head-start in freedom which

would take many countries a long time to catch up

with. Apart from Raja Ram Mohan Roy, other

contributors to the political discourse on

freedom in nineteenth century India included

Dadabhai Naoroji (1825– 1917), Mahadeo Govind

Ranade (1842–1901), Gopal Krishna Gokhale

(1866–1915) and Pherozeshah Mehta (1845–

1915).

18

A competing theory to the theory of freedom had

arisen in the dying years of feudalism – the theory

of socialism (or communism). Both liberalism and

socialism agreed that kings were no longer

needed. But on what would come next, they

differed completely. These radically opposed

Western world views, one founded on freedom,

the other on equality, had begun a battle for the

minds and hearts of people.

19

While socialism overpowered parts of Europe by the

late nineteenth century, England and USA remained

the bastions of freedom and kept trying to improve

their political and democratic institutions of

governance.

The greatest advances in freedom therefore took

place only in the West, not in India. The Indian

intelligentsia remained focused on its challenge of

independence.

20

A few Indians did raise broader issues in relation to

freedom, such as Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941)

and M K Gandhi (1869–1948). However, that was

incidental to the focus on self-rule and opposing

racism.

This great mental energy led to the most awe-

inspiring independence movement the world has

ever seen. It was an exemplary movement – far

ahead of its times in its principle-based standards of

political protest.

21

In addition, the British were gently taught a very

important lesson in freedom by Gandhi. His

exposition of the equality among peoples and of

non-violent protest were significant contributions

to the freedom of mankind as a whole.

Through humane and dignified protest he

demonstrated that all humans were equally worthy

of regard. This was of course helped by allegiance

of the British to their rule of law.

22

His methods also reminded the people of Britain

that they should not lower their own principles of

liberty by diminishing the liberty of others. As a

result of Gandhi’s actions the age of racial

discrimination officially came to an end in many

parts of the world. Oppressed peoples of the past,

such as the blacks of the USA and South Africa,

acknowledge the contributions of Gandhi.

23

Gandhi brought about a

fundamental shift in the world’s

landscape of freedom.

Gandhi was a influential proponent

of individual liberty (and thus,

indirectly, of classical liberalism) in

India in the first half of the

twentieth century.

24

Gandhi opposed the collectivist and centralized

approaches of communism not on intellectual

grounds but because of his ‘intuitive’ grasp over the

concepts of accountability and justice. Quotations

from Gandhi in the table below tell us about his

liberal credentials.

‘Government that is ideal governs the least. It is no

self-government that leaves nothing for the people

to do’

25

‘I look upon an increase of the power of the State

with the greatest fear because, although while

apparently doing good by minimising exploitation, it

does the greatest harm to mankind by destroying

individuality which lies at the root of all progress’

‘Submission to a state wholly or largely unjust is an

immoral barter for liberty. Civil resistance is a most

powerful expression of a soul’s anguish and

an eloquent protest against the continuance of an

evil state’

26

‘The means to me are just as important as the goal, and in a sense more important in that we have some control over them, whereas we have none over the goal if we lose control over the means’ ‘I hope to demonstrate that real Swaraj will come not by the acquisition of authority by a few but by the acquisition of the capacity by all to resist authority when abused. In other words, Swaraj is to be attained by educating the masses to a sense of their capacity to regulate and control authority’

27

Nehru, who was far more aware of the history of

liberalism than Gandhi seems to have been, had

surprisingly little faith in an individual’s

ability to think for himself and to take personal

responsibility. He did not ask us to undertake self-

reflection and to choose ethically at each step. He

believed, instead, that the government should

make our choices for us. In his model, all decision-

making powers were to be concentrated in the

government.

28

History will soon prove that Communism, instead of

being the final flowering of human civilisation, was a

temporary aberration of the human mind, a brief

nightmare to be soon forgotten. Communism, as it

grew up in Russia and is growing up in China now,

represented the darkness of the soul and

imprisonment of the mind, colossal violence and

injustice. Whoever thinks of the future of the human

race in these terms is condemning man to eternal

perdition. _ Jayaprakash Narayan

29

Tagore’s poem is truly embarrassing, for socialists. Each of Tagore’s lines resists socialism. Tagore doesn’t sing poetically about how our government will do things for us when we become free. He doesn’t sing praises to public sector undertakings; doesn’t sing praises to equality; doesn’t aspire for commanding heights of the economy; doesn’t aspire for planning.

30

Tagore is asking for each individual to achieve this

‘heaven of freedom’. Tagore’s poem points to an

enabling role for government, not an organization

that closely monitors our religion, caste and tribe,

and bakes our bread. Nehru never reminded us of

this embarrassing poem. If he had a modern

shredder, he would have shredded it. And so the most

important task of all for independent India, namely,

of creating mechanisms to defend our freedom, was

ignored.

31

The good thing about Nehruvian socialism is that

being a less extreme form of socialism than Russian

communism, it has probably inoculated us.

Once India fully recovers from its socialist fever and

its head clears up, it should remain free of equality

and socialism forever, unlike Russia which may yet

revert to communism once again.

32

33

When we talk of equality, it is for the eradication of poverty. Just a brief comment first – poverty cannot be eliminated unless we foster conditions which create great wealth and great inequality. We need sufficient numbers of extremely rich people whom we can tap into, both as taxpayers and high calibre experts, to help us banish poverty. The two reasons often used by governments to intervene in markets, namely the quest for perfect competition and equality, are very bad reasons. Criminals and fools flourish under the guise of these two excuses.

34

Some poverty will remain even upon changing from

Nehruvian socialism to comprehensive capitalism.

Some people will remain who are not in the

physical or mental position to compete in the

marketplace and support themselves and their

children. More capable people, should step into

support these unfortunate fellow citizens to the

point when they are empowered to stand on their

own feet and resume normal activity in the

marketplace.

35

It is in the nature of free societies that as a result of

competitive efforts in the marketplace, some

middleclass and even rich families will regress into

grim poverty even while those who were poor

earlier begin to flourish and become rich. While

well-off families are expected to insure themselves

against poverty, once a family does become poor, it

will tend to lose the capacity to further insure itself,

particularly its children.

36

We must create uniform prohibitions on certain

actions, minimum standards of accountability in

social matters, but most important of all, equality of

opportunity through elimination of poverty and

provision of school education for all children.

Enforcing equal opportunity and taking action

against discrimination will also help. Such policies

will yield a far superior outcome to the unjust and

anti-freedom strategies found in our Constitution.

37

The formula for ensuring equality of opportunity in a

society is therefore:

• Expect everyone in the society to produce the

greatest possible wealth they can through free

markets.

• Transfer a sum directly to those who failed to

rise above the poverty line despite their best

efforts, through an objective and non-

discretionary process that will bring their

incomes above the poverty line.

38

As free people we are required to balance the forces

of our physical and emotional energy in our

interactions with others to make sure that no one

else is made worse off by our actions (or inaction).

Nothing requires us to go out of the way to help

others. We may, of course, choose to do so, but

that is not an obligation on us.

39

All freedom calls for is that we must not ever make

others worse off – for that would diminish their life,

even if by a tiny amount.

This accountability exists whether it is enforced by

a nominated third party or not.

40

Think clearly about self-discipline, moral

responsibility, enlightened self-interest, even

enlightened selfishness. There is a point

where the philosophy of freedom merges

seamlessly with the highest spiritual

philosophies of mankind. However, ethical

liberalism is a philosophy of action and does

not tolerate corruption and decadence.