May 25, 2007

Jawaharlal Nehru was, in the truest sense, the builder of modern India. He saw the naked poverty and hunger of the Indian people and registered his protest through his lectures in meetings throughout the country, and through his writings against the British Government. He was a true national leader.
“Nationalism of the modern type,” as Jawaharlal pointed out, “was yet to come. India had still to go through much sorrow and travail before she learnt the lesson which would give her real (…)

Destination Man was the ideal of advance for our people, which Jawaharlal Nehru put forward in one of his earliest speeches in Parliament after our freedom.
Growing from within the two worlds of Asia and the West, aware of the heritage of ruin of feudal wars, imperial hegemonies and two big bloodbaths of the world, he wanted, specially the freed peoples of the ex-colonies, to emerge into a world without war, in a hundred years of peace—by which he meant peace forever.
And (…)

Secular artists, writers, painters, dramatists, and film directors have increasingly become the main targets of both Hindu and Muslim fundamentalists (who are nicknamed ‘fundoos’ by the writer Githa Hariharan). Arrest warrants were issued against Richard Gere, who has been doing sterling work in the HIV-AIDS campaign in India, and Shilpa Shetty for a public kiss, because a Magistrate in Jaipur decided that the kiss was “sexually erotic”. It is estimated that 27 million such cases are (…)

This week free India mourns afresh the passing of its chief architect. The events of last the three years, and particularly the new situation thrown up by the Fourth General Election, have only helped to underline the continuing validity of Jawaharlal Nehru’s ideas and general direction of approach to the task of building a socialist India.
In what amounts to a fitting anniversary-eve tribute, even those who, yielding to pressures from big business and foreign influences, had chosen (…)