The question can be Nehru or Modi? But the answer always has to be: Nehru and Modi.
The BJP, which is always looking for benchmarks to celebrate the Narendra Modi government, hit a notable marker recently. On 10 June this year, Prime Minister Modi completed 4,399 days in office, crossing former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s record of 4,398 days in office as an “elected” Prime Minister. The distinction here is that the BJP is not taking into account the first five years from 15 August 1947 to 21 February 1952 because during this stint Nehru had occupied the PM’s chair without facing a Lok Sabha election.
That nuance aside, it is still a notable feat. Modi is the first non-Congress Prime Minister to serve a consecutive 12 years in office. And counting. For at the rate he is going, Modi will probably cross Nehru’s record of 17 years in office as well. That is not the catch. The catch is that here is a party that misses no opportunity to denigrate Jawaharlal Nehru. All the ills of the past (and present) are blamed on him. Then why is the BJP spending so much time and effort celebrating this first past the Nehruvian post moment? If Nehru was such a failure why pitch yourself against his track record? The answer is purely political. Doing so will invite comparisons; and the BJP will get another chance to bench a Congress benchmark and course-correct the Nehruvian narrative.
Former BJP general secretary Ram Madhav is quick to point out that until the advent of Modi the Congress was marketing Nehru as India’s icon. He adds “comparisons are natural, for in post Independence India, if there was one leader who played a dominant role in Indian politics it was Nehru. And today that record has been successfully broken by Prime Minister Modi”.
The comparisons are not just restricted to the longevity of office but also their governance styles and respective legacies. While comparing the two, BJP leaders begin by pointing out how Nehru lived a life of privilege vis-Ã -vis Modi’s chai-wala background. The Congress rebuts this by saying that struggle is not always measured against a poverty index. Was not Nehru part of our freedom struggle against the British? Did not Nehru fight against the very colonial rule that Modi is now waging war against by demonizing Lutyens Delhi? Did not Nehru spend 3,259 days imprisoned in British jail? As former Rajya Sabha MP, Pavan Varma once remarked, you don’t have to be a Nehruite but a patriotic Indian to appreciate him.
Similarly, you don’t have to be a Modi Bhakt to acknowledge that Narendra Modi is India’s tallest leader today. During the Nehruvian era there were other leaders who could have just as easily become Prime Minister had not Gandhi pushed Nehru’s name. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel immediately comes to mind, for it was he, not Nehru, who was the Congress party’s first choice. However, in the Modi era one cannot think of another name to counter the current Prime Minister. Both within the BJP and outside, he remains India’s tallest leader. To win three consecutive general elections is no mean feat (and here Modi crosses Indira Gandhi’s record as well).
Numerically, the BJP today does not have an outright majority on its own. Yet Modi’s political clout far exceeds his numerical mandate. The Opposition may have come together to oppose the NDA but the I.N.D.I.A bloc has not been able to convert its numbers into electoral wins. There is only one reason for this: the persona of Narendra Modi. It is not as if the opposition lacks issues to take on the government. What it lacks is a credible leader to voice these issues. Therein lies the vacuum, or as they say—mind the gap.
Here we see another stark difference between Nehru and Modi. At no point during his 17 years in office did Nehru’s Congress have less than 40% of the popular vote. In the 1952 elections, the Congress won 364 out of 489 seats, in 1957 it won 371 seats and in 1962 it won 361. But that did not stop Nehru from engaging the opposition and making it a part of his governance model. He even singled out opposition leaders for praise, a young A.B. Vajpayee being one of them. The only opposition leader whom Modi has lavishly praised is Shashi Tharoor, mainly for his diplomatic prowess, but also partly because the PM knows this would irk Rahul Gandhi no end.
Every text has a context. Both Modi and Nehru occupy two very different moments in India’s story. In hindsight it is easy to criticise Nehru’s model of socialism or his outreach to Muslims who did not cross the border. In a freshly partitioned India, Nehru’s instincts veered towards integration. But did he overcompensate? One could say that Modi’s brand of Hindutva is a reaction to the appeasement policies of Nehruvian secularism. You only have to listen to the chatter on WhatsApp groups post 2014. It is not just the Sangh Parivar but even the liberal parivars whose progenies study at Modern School and play tennis at Delhi Gymkhana Club that saw Modi’s arrival as a carte blanche to speak up, type and forward. All the untapped resentment came pouring out against the Congress for making the majority community feel like second class citizens in their own country. (In hindsight, Amit Malviya did not have to work all that hard.) These were not saffron-clad bhakts but Prada wearing, London trotting Indians who could finally voice their frustration that Lord Ram did not have a resting place in His own janmabhoomi. And when the temple was built at Ayodhya, the verdict was clear. Nehru may have built our nation but it was Modi who did the pran-prathistha of her soul.
Modi may be right-wing in his politics but his economics are left of centre. Whether it is Modi’s welfare schemes or Nehru’s very Russian socialist model, the goal is the same: inclusive growth that reaches the poorest of the poor. BJP leaders who are so good at quoting statistics forget that in an India ravaged by the British, as many as 90% of Indians lived below the poverty line. At the time, Nehru adopted the path he thought best suited for the times. Unfortunately, he did not have the hindsight of his critics to help him in his choices.
The question can be Nehru or Modi? But the answer always has to be: Nehru and Modi. Both have achieved greatness in a paradigm that is uniquely his own. It is the tragedy of India that is Bharat, that we cannot celebrate one without denigrating the other. You may call it a Nehru jacket or a Modi jacket, but don’t forget, it is made of the same swadeshi cloth. With or without a rose.
