Taylor Sherman & Seven Nehruvian Myths

 Taylor C Sherman, a sensible enough historian, has a new book out titled 'Nehru's India: a History in Seven Myths'. 

Sadly, Sherman has no 'structural causal model' of the period. Thus she is reduced to carping at caricatures which, however, have some explanatory value.

I will now briefly present the common-sense explanation for Nehru's dominance- viz. he was slightly less shit than his nearest rival. The fact is the 'Nehru Report' was more sensible than anything anybody else came up with, which is why it became the basis of the Indian constitution. Moreover, 'Discovery of India' is the only book written by an Indian politician which a guy in Washington could read without saying to himself, 'them Orientals are cuckoo for cocoa puffs'. Nehru's plan for India, at that time, was to secure American finance and technology so as to displace the Brits and encourage indigenous industrialists like the Tatas (whom people in Pittsburgh knew well). Furthermore, Nehru's sound anti-Fascist credentials and his knowledge of what was happening in China (where the KMT was supported by the Americans) made him the ideal interlocutor for Uncle Sam. Sadly, Mountbatten seduced him and so India remained within the Sterling zone. Still, individual American ambassadors had very good relations with him.

Sherman says that it is a myth that Nehru was the 'Architect of Independent India'.  The fact is, after 1945, it was the US and the US alone which decided how decolonization would proceed. They were stern with the Dutch in Indonesia and, later on, would pull the rug from under Eden over Suez. If India was going to have an architect, it would have to be someone America approved off. They, for their part, saw that Nehru had been saying the same thing since 1928. Moreover, Alan Dulles had met him and his sister in Allahabad before the War. This was no arriviste or demagogue but a proper lawyer/politician who would not be out of place in the America Senate.

Contra Sherman, it is not a myth but a fact that Congress adopted not some Gandhian shite but the Nehru Report of 1928 as its official policy position. On taking office in 1937, Congress Ministries rapidly got rid of stupid Gandhian schemes like 'Nai Talim'. 

Seeing that Hindus gained no protection in Muslim majority areas, Congress as a whole  rejected separate electorates and were happy to apportion residuary control rights to the Center. Nehru and Nehru alone stuck with this plan of centralization which entailed the marginalization of Muslims and other minorities- e.g. Justice Party Tamils. 

Nehru pulled the trigger on Partition and then ensured that the Center would grow in power. He dragged his feet a little on Linguistic re-organization which the Report had been sympathetic to- but nobody really held this against him.

The Mahatma may have been Congress's mascot- attracting money and votes- but Nehru and Nehru alone gave it a manifesto. Why? He was genuinely less crazy than his colleagues.

Consider the following list of Nehru's rivals 

1) Subhas Chandra Bose who signed the Nehru report. But the man was a nut case! He allied with Hitler and Tojo though he knew what Japan had done to China and was doing in Indonesia etc. His brother was even crazier- he played footsie with Shurawardy even after Direct Action Day. The guy would have gone along with a united Bengal which his own people would soon have had to flee.

2) Vallabhai Patel who had lived in the shadow of his more charismatic older brother.  Liaquat, as Finance Minister, had run circles around him.  Had he led Congress, it would have been defeated in 1952 by the Socialists who would have rallied under Nehru. Furthermore, he was older than Nehru and his health was poor.

3) J.P Narayan- nut case. Crazier than a bedbug.

Anyway, Nehru was a Hindi speaking Brahmin. Kayasthas are numerically much smaller in number. Patels had begun to ascend in Gujarat, but they had a long way to go before they could stake a claim to power.

The plain fact is that Indians had lots and lots of shit inside their brains. Fortunately the Brits had left behind a pretty much idiot proof administration. Nehru, despite being shit, was still less shit than anybody else India could point to. That's why, when he died, the Soviets, the Americans and the Brits all turned up in Delhi to ensure Nehru's loyal poodle- Lal Bahadur Shastri- got elected. Morarji, of course, was hated by all Indians, while Krishna Menon, who was bonkers, was hated by all foreigners. 

Sherman gives 3 reasons why Nehru dominated post-Independence India. Actually, there was only one.  Everybody else was either bonkers or totally shit or totally shit, bonkers, and also unelectable. Democratic politics like free market economics is based on minimizing opportunity cost. It's about selecting the least bad alternative. Thus Nehru's charisma, or its lack, didn't matter. Personally, I find it hilarious that the guy looked and sounded like Alaistair Sim. But what was the alternative? There was none. 

Sherman wonders why Nehru had the image that he did. The answer is that countries where there is no fucking alternative to the leader (or, later, his daughter and then his grandson etc) have to invest in giving that leader a good image. No country says 'our leader is shit. But his rivals are bonkers or much much shittier. This is because our country is a shithole. Seriously, the place smells bad. Don't visit. You'll get dysentery if you don't die of typhoid first.'

In India's case, Indians had to gas on about Maharajahs and Snake Charmers and the Taj Mahal before mentioning that the current beloved leader studied Science at Cambridge and, what's more, could wear a suit and a tie and use a fork and knife. 

Suppose some dude other than Nehru had a workable plan for India. Imagine a sort of super-powered Sapru who had as interlocutors some smart Dewans. Then, by about 1937, there would have been a Federal Government with different Princes taking it in turn to be Rashtra-Pramukh. Nehru wouldn't have wanted to be Premier of UP- coz that's no job for a gentleman- but might have made a good Ambassador to the Soviet Union or something of that sort. Sadly, there was no plan for India that wasn't shit. What mattered was that Hindus decided to hang together, not because they liked Hinduism but because they feared Muslims. The History of India was replete with instances of valorous Hindus defeating Muslim or British invaders. Then those wily Muslims or Brits would invite the Hindus for iftar or brunch or whatever. One thing would lead to the another and suddenly the Muslim or British dude's dick is in your mouth! Since the Nehrus had served the Mughals as police officers, and then John Company as vakils, they would naturally have developed some limited immunity to this outcome though, it is true, Nehru's sister had married a Muslim dude her Daddy had been foolish enough to invite under his own roof tree. The Mahatma was able to put an end to that marriage and arrange a suitable Brahmin boy for Vijaylaxmi.

Sherman mentions Nehru desire to retire in 1958. She doesn't mention why Nehru didn't follow through. The answer is that his daughter would be roped in to defeat any nominee of his own. Even if she remained loyal, her vulgar cad of a Parsi husband (who only died in 1960) would be sure to make a bid for the throne. Similarly, Indira had to enter Shastri's Cabinet because otherwise her fucking Aunty would have taken the job. It is not the case that Indians- a deeply spiritual people- have any great attachment to property or positions of power. They just don't want to see their relatives getting such things. I suppose, Sonia is only keeping Rahul in politics, because she doesn't want Maneka and Varun to take over the INC. 

Sherman says that it is a myth that Nehru towered over India, sculpting it to his will. Yet, the fact is India followed Nehru's plan for it after he pulled the trigger on Partition and started centralizing power so Hindus would feel safe from those cunning Muslims or Brits who might get us to eat a kebab or a sausage roll and then drink sharab or G& T and...fuck that's not a kebab, or a sausage roll, it's a Muslim or British dick in my mouth! Again!

Nehru got Congress to call itself Socialist and Nehru inaugurated the whole 'Hindi-Chini bhai bhai' and Panchsheel shite. It may be said that India was shit, not marble to be sculpted. But the Indian turd stood out from the Pakistani turd because Nehru had shaped it a little. 

Turning to the other six 'myths', these are

1) Non-alignment. Nehru's non-alignment was premised on the notion that the Whites would get India to eat sausage roll but it wouldn't be a sausage roll at at all! It would be dick! That's why he turned down a UN Security Council seat though it was offered by both the Soviets and the Americans even after Mao, in 1954, signaled he would be cool with that. 

The Hindustan Times, reviewing Sherman's book writes, 

 'Sherman believes it is misleading to look at non-alignment as a comprehensive foreign policy as it cannot explain “India’s various roles in the international plane”.

The reverse is the case. India had participated in both World Wars. Nehru was determined that henceforth India's contribution should be zero. It must itself become the hole in the begging bowl of Ind's eternal Gandhian soul. It would feed itself with donated wheat while leaving Uncle Sam to defend it from China. However, it would bite the hand that fed it so that it would drop the supposed sausage roll which was in fact a dick which might otherwise end up in India's mouth.  

In the context of India’s position vis-a-vis the Ukraine war,

we want cheap oil. That's it. That's the whole story. 

it will be interesting to look at criticisms against the non-alignment policy.

There is only one valid criticism. Non-alignment was making India militarily weaker than not just China but also Pakistan. That's why Indira had to sign a Defense pact with Moscow and seek shelter under the Soviet nuclear umbrella. We continue to depend on the Russian Security Council veto. 

India paid a high price for treating International Politics as a zero sum game involving sausage rolls which were actually White Men's dicks. 

Indeed, the advantage that India enjoys today is mainly owing to that legacy of non-alignment.

The advantage of being able to buy cheap oil arises out of having the money to pay for it.  

In recent years, there has definitely been a paradigmatic shift in India’s approach to foreign policy as can be seen in the writings of key foreign policy makers, particularly Shiv Shankar Menon, Shyam Saran and S Jaishankar.

Not really. Manmohan was keen to bring in people like Shashi Tharoor to correct the anti-American bias of the IFS. Modi went the extra mile by sacking Sujatha Singh. But what Jaishankar had to do was push back against American interference. Quad may be a sausage or sushi roll which turns out to actually be White Man's dick.  

There seems to be a consensus on India’s new approach between the right-wing ruling elites and the non-BJP parties, including the Congress run by Nehru’s descendents.

Somebody should tell Rahul who keeps appealing to America to intervene in India's domestic affairs and who denies that India is a nation. It is actually a loose federation like the EU which any state is welcome to exit. Perhaps this is why Stalin calls him 'Sir' and still thinks he should be the next PM. 

It is increasingly apparent that India’s foreign policy is governed by its rather hard notion of national interest.

In other words it is sensible and predictable. 

This was not the case when Nehru was at its helm.

Because it was nonsense. If China has a claim to Tibet then it also has a claim to any territory Tibet has a claim to and any territory that those territories have a claim to. Say goodbye to Assam, folks! 

As a prominent global voice of anticolonialism, he did introduce some moral elements beyond the hard calculations of national interest alone.

Anti-colonial policies were in the national interest. However, doing deals which made the country stronger was even more so. That's where Nehru fell down. But his rivals would have been even more useless. The fact is, smart ICS people- like Raghavan Pillai- could manage Nehru. Nobody could manage a nutter like JP. 

2) Hegemonic Secularism- In the Indian context this meant Congress keeping a cowed and frightened Muslim vote-bank in the North precisely because Congressmen had ethnically cleansed Muslims once before and could easily do it again. Nehru may have objected to the UP cow-slaughter ban in 1955, but he had to go along with it just as he had to go along with the ethnic cleansing of Muslims in Delhi in 1947. He himself passed a law preventing those who had fled in panic returning to reclaim their citizenship and their property. 

The chapter on Nehru’s secularism is particularly insightful. Right-wing factions have almost been successful in discrediting secular ideology by presenting it as vote bank politics.

i.e. democratic politics in a populous nation.  

The author presents a detailed explanation of the post-Partition situation and of police action in Hyderabad. What emerges from her narrative is the prevalence of communal ideology at various levels of the bureaucracy that obstructed the healthy practice of secularism.

Meaningless jibber-jabber. Ethnic cleansing is about grabbing land and money and cornering all the government jobs. In practice, this does not always mean killing lots of people. It is enough if they run away and settle down on marginal land somewhere else. 

Nehru himself, however, often went out of his way to protect minority rights and stand by the Muslim community.

Sadly, this was mere playacting. 

Taking off from this, the right wing has found it convenient to present India’s secular experiment as a Muslim project.

There genuinely was a Brahmin-Harijan-Muslim formula for some Hindi speaking states. Congress derided the Jan Sangh as being the vehicle for 'trading castes' but it could do both cow-protection and ethnic cleansing better than anybody else.  

Crucially, the author points out that Dalit rights need to be seen as part of India’s secular project.

This is mad! The Brits had excluded Christian Dalits from affirmative action in the 1935 Act. Ambedkar excluded Muslim Dalits from such protection as they had previously received. Later Sikh Dalits got protection as did, many years later, Buddhist Dalits. 

Ambedkar and J.N Mandal may have hoped to get a better deal from the Muslim League. Indeed, the highly secular, Jinnah appointed Mandal his first Law Minister just as Nehru gave the same job to Ambedkar. But Mandal had to run away from Pakistan. Like Ambedkar he inherited the political wilderness. 

This particular aspect of the analysis – especially the connection between Dalit rights and secularism – is an innovative way of looking at the contribution of secular politics in modern India. The idea that the goal of Nehru’s secularism is beyond Muslim interest is noteworthy and deserves wider appreciation in the academic and the political domain. Highlighting this dimension of the debate would perhaps ensure that secularism continues to be relevant even during this era of majoritarianism.

The author of this piece is 'Shaikh Mujibur Rahman'.  Perhaps there is some subtle comedy to the above which I am missing. 

3) Successful Democracy.

Nehru was unique because he could see himself as a Dictator and others shared this perception. He had become the first president of the Congress Seva Dal and had appeared in para-military uniform.  Bose and Sampurnanand had gone the extra mile and had dressed up in Comic Opera generalissimo outfits. Nehru got along well enough with both. He was more acceptable to a wider range of people than any other candidate for the job of Dictator which is precisely why he could also win elections and keep up the trappings of Democracy. Still, he ruthlessly pushed through the First Amendment against shrill opposition from Shyama Prasad Mukherjee and Acharya Kripalani. But it was Frank Anthony who captured the mood of the House when he said '“The only way to stop the inevitable, ultimate dictatorship, Communist dictatorship is dictatorship of Jawaharlal Nehru. But because I believe that a dictatorship today is the only way to prevent a later dictatorship, I am prepared to give blanket powers to Jawaharlal Nehru. That is the only reason for supporting these amendments completely.”

Nehru may have been willing to be a Dictator- after all, there was a time when being an Il Duce or Fuhrer or Caudillo seemed cool- but he knew he'd look silly if he came to be seen as founding, or continuing, a mere dynasty of a parochial Indian type. It was to avert this outcome that he didn't resign in 1958- which would have entailed becoming a pathetic King Lear- though, of course, this merely ensured the outcome Nehru had feared. He ended up looking weak whereas his daughter looked strong. By the Eighties, Indians were resigned to Dynastic rule. They hoped that the widow or daughter or son of the Ruler might have learned from Hubby's or Daddy's or Mummy's more egregious mistakes though of course the Regent or Heir might just choose to be a Roi Faineant who does nothing but bleat about Secular, Socialistic Democracy dedicated to Sarvodaya and saying no to offers of sausage roll which, inevitably, will turn out to be White Man dick. 

4) High-Modernism. This was not a myth. There is a considerable body of evidence to show Nehru was wearing tighty whities not langot. He was using water closet rather than sloping off to the fields carrying a lota of water so as to perform ablutions after answering call of nature. Mind it kindly. Aiyayo. 

5) Strong State. Nehru had actually read books by the Myrdal cretins. Indira hadn't. But Indira knew the Indian State wasn't soft at all. It was well hard. Under Nehru there had been a massive expansion in reserve police and paramilitary forces. The Army was distrusted but Civilian control over means of coercion continually increased. When Ted Heath declared a State of Emergency, his head Mandarin went mad and started rolling around naked on the floor of Number 10. Indira showed Britain how to do the thing properly. 

6) the myth of Socialism

Nehru was a Socialist of a Stalinist, rather than Butskellite 'mixed economy', type. Worse, he was ignorant of how 'materials balance' planning- i.e. horse-trading between enterprises- actually functioned. Indeed, his faith in Planning was mystical. The thing could not be done rationally. But must be done anyway for some Spiritual reason. He made the following note-

Nehru could see that India very quickly ran out of money if it ignored 'costs or profits of individual prices'. No money meant grandiose Plans had to be ignored. Still, Nehru stuck with Socialism because that was his dogma come rain or shine. 

 More damningly, as the following extract from his notes on Myrdal's book makes clear, Nehru believed in the 'Sen-Dobb thesis'- i.e. squeeze the workers so as to invest in Capital goods. The problem with this view was that since India's workers were malnourished, their consumption had to go up for productivity to rise. India needed to mobilize savings by offering capital gains and positive real interest rates. Further, it needed a mechanism to ensure those savings flowed towards investment projects with high marginal efficiency of Capital. That's called Capitalism if the thing is done by financial markets. It is called Socialism if it is done by the Planning Ministry. But India had a shit Planning Commission. It should simply have concentrated on Fiscal budgets and the Balance of Trade. Give tax-breaks to wage good producers so that economies of scope and scale are realized and export markets are tapped. Tell Mahalanobis to go fuck himself the moment the Second Plan ran out of money. 

There is a direct road to deindustrialization and agricultural involution from 'compulsory'- i.e. confiscatory- redistribution of income from factors of production to the State. On the other hand, Nehru did preside over a big growth in the bureaucracy. Indians wanted clerical jobs doing stupid, counter productive, shite. That's what they got. Smart people emigrated. Industrialists paid bribes and got their own money out of the country so that it was Public Sector Banks etc which took the downside risk. 

Nehru was not a Democrat because he didn't get that tax-payers should decide how tax-money is spent. Parliament is about guys getting paid by industry to demand that industry be helped against its overseas rivals. Since there was plenty of corruption in Nehru's India, the country could have grown like Taiwan, South Korea etc. Why did it fail to do so? The answer is that almost all Indian politicians were actually stupider or crazier than Nehru or Indira or Rajiv or Sonia. It is only since about 2012, that we are stuck in a situation where almost any Indian politician is less shit than Rahul. 

Sherman may not be aware of the Hindu notion of 'mithak'- something which is neither true or false- which is different from the notion of 'mythos' as a story or narrative such as those represented in the Epics or 'Itihasas'. Nehru, from a lineage of poet/metaphysicians would understand that 'mithak' is related to 'majaz' or 'maya'- i.e. a sublatable phenomenon which, however, could be existentially affirmed for a 'life-project' which, however, actually fitted into an Occasionalist monadology in some ironic and occult manner. Thus, he was highly self-aware of his own constitutive 'mithak'. 

Kavita Puri- a BBC journalist and thus no stranger to the fabrication about myths about India- writes of Sherman's book as follows in the Spectator-

In Jawaharlal Nehru’s final will and testament he asked for most of his ashes

not be flushed down the toilet. Seriously folks, that will gum up the plumbing.

be taken in an aeroplane

he liked planes 

and scattered ‘over the fields where the peasants of India toil, so

Nehru's ashes might mingle with their sweat? No. 

they might mingle with the dust and soil of India and become an indistinguishable part of India’.

Actually, composting a corpse is an even better way to achieve this salutary end. 

Taylor C. Sherman says this ‘request was a humble acknowledgement of his own relative insignificance’,

Coz when an insignificant fellow dies in India, air-craft are immediately chartered to scatter his ashes over toiling peasants- right? 

but that it also makes India indistinguishable from Nehru.

Not while he was alive. Sadly, after death, one way or another, sooner or later, most corpses end up indistinguishable from the soil.  

The iconography of the man was already indistinguishable from India.

Very true. Mrs Kennedy said to her hubby, 'Darling come look at this photo I took of the Taj Mahal!'

'That isn't the Taj Mahal', her husband grumpily replied 'it is Nehru's back side'. 

Similar things happened to other photographers in India. They'd think they'd taken a charming shot of an elephant or a snake-charmer but when they developed the reel, all they could see was different portions of Nehru's anatomy. 

He was there at the moment the country gained its hard- fought independence.

He was already the Prime fucking Minister. Where else could he be? The British transferred power to him. He had to stick around and accept the gift even if he wanted to slope off to Monte Carlo for a bit of R&R. 

In a well known image, he stands at the Red Fort in New Delhi before crowds of thousands in August 1947.

Instead of standing in front of a urinal in Monte Carlo 

It was the culmination of his decades- long nationalist struggle as the leader of the Indian National Congress Party – which also saw him imprisoned by the British.

This is a remarkably astute observation for a BBC journalist. Mark my words, she will go far. 

He had argued passionately against partition, wanting a united India, once the British left, to accommodate its 100 million Muslim minority; but in the end, he reluctantly conceded to the new dominion of Pakistan.

Just as Jinnah and Liaquat conceded that Muslims would be second class citizens in India- unless they were ethnically cleansed which is what happened in Delhi on Nehru's watch. The Muslim proportion of the population plummeted from one third to about five percent. Nehru passed a law forbidding the return of Muslims who had fled in fear. Their property was needed to resettle non-Muslim refugees.  

This ambitious and impeccably researched book focuses on his premiership after independence until his death in 1964.

Because focusing on what a guy does after he is dead would be silly.  

Sherman writes: ‘Nehru is widely regarded, for better and for worse, as the architect of independent India.’

Because India did indeed follow the blueprint he set out in the 'Nehru report'. 

She identifies the moment when the mythologising began.

Nehru started self-mythologizing himself by writing books in prison which both helped the national cause and were financially successful enough to make Nehru independent of the Tatas, Birlas, Bajajs, Dalmias etc, etc.  

It was in the hot spring of 1958.

By which time Nehru was one of the most famous men in the World. Time Magazine had him on its cover 6 times in all. The first was in August 1942, the next in October 1949 and then again in May 1951 and July 1956. Indeed, the publication of his autobiography in 1936 had been a global hit. Nehru's strong anti-Fascist credentials made him a popular figure during the War. He represented tolerance and sanity in a world gone mad.

Nehru had asked permission from the Congress party to retire from his post, even if temporarily. He was 68. Yet there was no scramble to replace him.

His daughter's name was immediately suggested- indeed she became Congress President immediately afterwards. Nehru may have thought it noble to abandon office and go off to the Himalayas. What he didn't want was to become a Lear-like figure spurned by his daughter and her uncouth cad of a husband.  

The party refused to countenance life without him:

The party got its way because, even if Indira stayed loyal, it could promote her husband- whom Nehru loathed.  

The image of Nehru as the titan of post-colonial India was not the creation of Jawarharlal the aspiring supreme leader.

He himself said the opposite in his 1937 'Chanakya' article- ' “(Nehru has) all the makings of a dictator in him — vast popularity, a strong will directed to a well-defined purpose, energy, pride, organisational capacity, ability, hardness, and, with all his love of the crowd, an intolerance of others and a certain contempt for the weak and the inefficient.” Govind Vallabh Pant reacted by declaring Gandhi the 'Il Duce' and 'Fuhrer' of India. 

Rather, the myth of Nehru as indispensable was orchestrated by his party to persuade a weary senior citizen to stay at his desk.

Why didn't they create a myth of Nehru as smart and good at economics and diplomacy? That way Nehru would have been forced to become smart and to adopt sound economic and diplomatic and military policies.

The plain fact is, Parties have no magical ability to prevent the resignation of the PM. All they can do is threaten to put in some guy the PM hates.  

It was an image, Sherman believes, that persists to this day.

An absurd belief shared by nobody in India.  

The tenets of Nehruvianism became entwined with this image, notably non-alignment, secularism, socialism, the strong state, democracy and high modernism.

Nonsense! Nobody was advocating alignment with either Moscow or Washington. The Jan Sangh was formed when S.P Mukherji quit the Mahasabha because it wouldn't admit non-Hindus. Nobody wants a weak and shitty state- at least, they don't come out and say so. Parties which contest elections have to pretend that Democracy is super-cool coz the masses are gonna start voting for them any day now. As for modernism- everybody was for it coz we live in 'modern times'. Ancient times sucked ass. Moreover 'high modernism' is better than 'low modernism', more especially if it involves sleeping in sewers. 

Sherman argues that these are all myths to varying degrees, though born from a kernel of truth. One by one she dismantles them.

Strawmanning is easy. 'Steelmanning'- i.e. attacking the strongest version of the thesis- is hard. The steelmanned argument relevant here is that Nehru was better than any conceivable combination of his rivals. That's the thesis, Sherman should have attacked. But she can't because it is true. Instead she is pretending that Congress Party was just going about its business in 1958 when suddenly it was bitten by a RADIO-ACTIVE spider! It gained magical 'MYTHOLOGY' powers but, sadly, wasted those powers on persuading an elderly Alastair Sim look-alike to keep showing up for work. 

Most effective and revelatory is her analysis of secularism, which is closely associated with the establishment of India

Hindus want secularism because the alternative is a revival of sectarian animosity. But ecumenical Hinduism- i.e. Hindutva- is just as good or, indeed, better, because JNU and Jamia Millia nutters are bound to go crazy holding beef eating parties and such like with the result that there is Hindu vote consolidation.  

and, many claim, is currently under threat from the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party.

Unless RADIO-ACTIVE spider bites Rahul Baba so he gains MYTHOLOGY super-powers. This will cause people to see than Narendra Modi is actually a White dude named Nicholas Maugham! Also sausage roll isn't really White Man's dick. It is tasty and healthful snack. Mind it kindly. Aiyayo.  

But Sherman’s analysis makes us re-evaluate this narrative.

It makes us re-evaluate our respect for LSE Professors- unless we actually attended that institution in which case we are simply relieved that Sherman is neither masturbating nor micturating in Public.  

Nehru’s version of secularism was a country where people of all faiths shared in the national project

unless they had fled to Pakistan in panic, in which case they weren't welcome to return 

and felt an equal sense of belonging, an image the country wanted projected on the international stage.

Because projecting your country as a shithole which everybody wants to run away from is otiose.  

This was not, however, the reality. Relying on new scholarship,

i.e. stuff other academics pulled out of their arses 

Sherman gives, in fascinating detail, examples of the gaps between Nehru’s high ideals of secularism and the ‘messy realities of how Muslims and Dalits were treated after 1947’.

But she does not mention the glaring gaps between Nehru's high ideals regarding farting and masturbation and the messy reality of how everybody- even Dalit Muslims!- were farting or having a crafty wank any chance they could get. 

In one example, in July 1948, a permit system was introduced to deal with what was deemed the problem of the ‘influx’ of Muslims into India. It was extremely difficult for them to obtain permanent visas, so many Muslims were forced to travel from Pakistan on temporary permits, even if they wanted to remain in India. Call it a ‘myth’, or a disconnect from the ideal of secularism and its implementation in practice.

Nehru & Co said, very frankly, that there had to be an exchange of property after the exchange of population. Only if all refugee claims could be otherwise satisfied would the Custodian of Evacuee (later 'Enemy') Property cease to harass Muslims.  

Another case in point was the passing of the Untouchability Offences Act (1955), which aimed to transform the lives of Dalits.

Nehru bears no responsibility for this. He had never been a Chief Minister nor had he any relevant experience as a lawyer of legislator. Responsibility for this subject falls entirely on the Home Ministers at the Center and the States. 

Dalit intellectuals do feel Nehru was insensitive to this problem but they readily grant that his interest was in foreign policy 'economic planning' and other such abstractions. As a meat eater, he did not share the visceral revulsion some 'Caste Hindus' express for Dalits- or, indeed, Christians or Muslims or 'Westernized' people.

After the first year, conviction rates dropped dramatically, and soon Dalits lost faith in the Act and stopped bringing cases altogether.

This has zero to do with Nehru.  

The legislation did not prevent large-scale violence against Dalits in places such as Tamil Nadu after the Act was enshrined.

Nor did it provoke it. The thing was irrelevant. Congress Home Ministers could have done more to tackle the problem more particularly because Dalits were a safe vote bank, but, ultimately, economic interests, not religious prejudices, dictated outcomes. 

There are illuminating nuggets in Sherman’s analysis of the other pillars of Nehruvianism. In a discussion of socialism, she explains why India’s model cannot be compared with the Soviet Union.

The Congress Party, unlike the Bolshevik Party, did not have control rights over factors of production and thus could not evolve a 'material balances' heuristics.  

One success story was the bicycle industry, which had protection in the form of import duty and restrictions on foreign ownership.

This was under conservative Finance Ministers like Mathai and Deshmukh. Rai Bahadur Janki Das Kapur, founder of the Atlas brand, deserves special praise. But this has nothing to do with Nehru. 

In a single decade the number of factories grew from nine to 88. The main company was nationalist (not nationalised), employed partition refugees and built a workers’ colony. It was a socially responsible private industry thriving in socialist India.

It fell apart because of a family quarrel. The big problem with Nehruvian Socialism & Indira's abolition of managing agencies, is that there was an incentive for the promoter to keep ownership opaque while control rights could become highly contestable if the heirs fell out with each other. This is still a big problem, not just in India but in other countries where Hindu Undivided Families operate- e.g. Hindujas in UK. 

But, Nehru neither knew about nor had any part in creating this problem. Nobody says he does. Indira- yes- she got rid of Managing Agencies, but Nehru was innocent of any such thing. Why mention the matter in a book about him? 

This is a scholarly book,

No. It is a book by a scholar who, if not a cretin herself, teaches cretins and thus is well on her way to becoming a drooling imbecile. 

and Sherman has the natural flair of a storyteller.

She is telling a very stupid story. Apparently, one fine day, she watched a shitty Film Divisions documentary on Nehru. Bizarrely, it focused only on Nehru! Why did it not include material on Japanese Samurai warriors? The answer, it turned out, was that a RADIO-ACTIVE spider bit the Congress Party in 1958. This caused Congress to invent seven myths so as to prevent Nehru from running away from his job. Indian peeps are too stupid to understand all this. That is why Sherman is writing nice book for them to read.  

It is a timely reappraisal of the early years of the state of India at a moment when Nehru’s legacy is being fought over.

It is stupid shit. Nehru's legacy is Rahul Baba. The fellow is a moon calf. Congress may put up a fight by saying 'Rahul Baba is able to walk! Also he is able to talk! Moreover he can grow beard! How can you say he is not greatly superior to Modi or Mamta or Mulayam? Can Modi walk? No! Actually, he is only able to hop! Cunning CGI effects are being used to befool the bahishkrit masses of India! Everybody is saying 'I saw Modi walking, not hopping' ! But it is all a lie! Modi can't walk. He can only hop. He can't talk. Just some actor is doing dubbing. Also the fellow can't grow beard. It is a fake news! OMG! Why you people can't just go Harvard-LSE and learn proper truth from Professor Sen or Sherman of Merman or whatever?!' 

Seventy-five years is young in terms of a country’s lifetime.

No. It is a short period in the lifetime of a civilization.  A 75 year old democracy is mature. Few of its citizens will be able to remember a time when power was not concentrated in the hands of elected leaders. 

India is now an economic super-power, overtaking its former colonial ruler.

Which has one twentieth the population. On the other hand, its Hindu PM is younger than that of India. 

But questions persist about inequality,

as they do in England. How come my dick isn't bigger than Big Ben? 

the treatment of its minorities

how come Punjabi Hindus get to be PM whereas Tambrams (who are a very small minority among British Hindus) don't even get elected Taoiseach despite all the brave sacrifices of members of they Iyerish Republican Army?

and the strength of its democratic institutions. Sherman shows these are not recent concerns, but have existed since India’s inception, despite the original lofty ideals.

Why bother show an such thing? Just quote the figures for ethnic cleansing in 1947-48.  

The fight for Nehru’s legacy, she believes, is

between Rahul and Varun?  

‘not a history war but a war of myths’.

surely history wars are wars of myths?  

And maybe it is a continuing fight for India, and what it should stand for.

India won't stand for stupid bullshit of this sort. Continuing fights may be confined to Leicester after Indo-Pak cricket matches. Kavita Puri can report on them for the BBC and then Sherman can write books about the seven myths such reportage is based on.  Meanwhile, possession of a PhD in shite of this sort will be recognized as proof of feeblemindedness and thus become a passport to Welfare benefits and Time Share accommodation in a padded cell.