Yesterday’s policies, today’s success

It is usually the new rich who routinely sneer at Jawaharlal Nehru, but if they were to pause and reflect they would quickly realise how much they are indebted to him. Such people, and their intellectual allies, tend to partition Nehru’s legacy into disconnected blocks such that one aspect of his contribution is judged independently of the other. This is particularly the case with those who trace all contemporary economic problems in India to Nehru’s socialism and to his pampering of the public sector.

It is almost as if the economic initiatives inaugurated by Nehru did not have important social and political cohorts. The truth is that without these supports the economic status of the new rich today and the possibility of realising global standards after liberalisation would have been almost impossible to achieve. Nehru’s economic policy should be seen in conjunction with his success in keeping India together and democratic and steering the country through its most troubled times when anything could have happened. But will the Nehru baiters ever understand this?

Indeed, Nehruvian economics and India’s stability as a unified, liberal, democratic country are of a piece, and those who thoughtlessly knock Nehru down in the belief that they would have been richer quicker ignore this connection altogether.

If Nehru had not encouraged economic self-reliance through the massive hydro-electrical projects and other major infra-structural investments, this country would have not stayed either united or democratic for too long. The temptations to yield to World Bank and American initiatives to take the conventional capitalist route and “bet on the strong” would have created enormous political divisions, and made us economically less competent as a consequence.

The Bhakra Nangal dam brought electricity to power industries and water to irrigate fields in ways that would have been unimaginable in the past. Heavy engineering and electrical industries were set up by the State after the Second Five Year Plan to provide private enterprises with technical implements and tools as the Indian capitalist class in those years had neither the initiative nor the wherewithal to initiate industrial growth.

Which capitalist would have gone to Hardwar or Sindri to set up factories there? It is the public sector that brought the hinterland centre stage and we should not undermine the significance of this contribution for the strengthening of our democracy.

The story of steel is too well known to bear repetition here. No Indian capitalist had the stamina or the capital to set up steel production of the kind necessary to service India’s growing industrial needs. For the record, it needs also to be mentioned that Nehru got the best deal possible, given the prevailing cold war conditions, to set up units like those in Bokaro and Bhilai. If Bangalore is an important financial and industrial hub today, do not forget that the State set up its aeronautical institute along with some of the most important institutes of science and learning there. It is this combination that spurred this city to be India’s silicon valley today.

The dispersal of public sector companies to different regions of India should be seen in tandem with the deepening of democracy at the popular level on account of Nehru’s adherence to the principle of linguistic enfranchisement. The fact that Indian states are demarcated on linguistic grounds has let loose a surge of democratic energy of the kind that elite politicians of the earlier era found difficult to handle.

Maharashtra’s extraordinary success from industry to sugar co-operatives would not have been possible if the Bombay Pradesh Congress Committee had had its way and held back the formation of Maharashtra. Only after this unilingual state was carved out of the erstwhile bilingual province of Bombay did Maharashtra begin to develop rapidly.

Neither should we forget that it was under Nehru that bold steps were taken to get India out of periodic famines and perennial food shortages. The first Five Year Plan laid the groundwork for much of this, but over the years India saw the emergence of agricultural research institutes too which provided the technical inputs for initiating and sustaining the Green Revolution which began in the 1960s. If we are self-sufficient in food today it is because of Nehru’s vision.

It was Nehru’s legacy that not just kept India united and democratic, but also brought about horizontal and vertical economic linkages that gave its political credo practical resonance. If India hopes to expand its IT export earnings five-fold in the next eight to 10 years it is because there is skilled manpower at our disposal to realise this ambition. It was Nehru again who set up the IITs, the various universities, institutes of higher learning, and so on.

If today, India can boast of being as good as, and at times better than the rest, it is because of its human resources. Don’t forget it was Nehru who made us hold our heads high as a nation of achievers and intellectuals. No country can be prosperous on a material plane without this all-important back up.

The writer is a professor of sociology at Jawaharlal Nehru University.