Nehru's paranoid Internationalism

Those who are disappointed by their own nation may turn to Internationalism. Sadly, the International is composed of nations all of which are pretty much alike in that either coercion or commerce prevails though, no doubt, a lot of hypocritical shite is talked. But that is also true of Internationalism. This realization feeds a sense of paranoia in those not content with their own nation and its place in the world. 

In his autobiography, Nehru wrote- 

My arrest and trial in February (1934) coincided with upheavals and bitter conflicts in Europe. There was the ferment in France resulting in Fascist riots and the formation of a  National Government. And, far worse, in Austria Chancellor Dolfuiss was shooting down workers and putting an end to the great edifice of social democracy there.

Nehru does not mention Portugal which had gotten rid of its Monarchy before the Great War and then suffered under the misrule of unstable 'Liberal' coalitions. The army staged a coup in 1926 and Salazar, an economist, became Prime Minister in 1932 and stayed in that office till 1968. 

It was clear that 'Liberals' and 'Anti-Clerical' Leftists could not take control of deeply religious countries. If they resorted to violence, sooner or later, they would be massacred.

The National Government which was formed in France did exclude the far Left as the price of conciliating the Right. This was perfectly sensible. Nehru is ignorantly repeating the Leftist canard that what had happened was a Fascist putsch. One consequence was that the Communists stopped attacking the Socialists thus permitting a wholly useless 'United Front' administration to take office a couple of years later. 

Dolfuss, a deeply religious man of peasant background, was killed during a Nazi attempted coup. There was no 'edifice of social democracy' in Austria because the Great Depression had impoverished the urban population. There was no money for welfare schemes. Moreover, when the Social Democrats (who still supported unification with Germany) tried to use physical force, they were massacred. Incidentally, Mussolini sent troops to put down an German Nazi uprising in Carinthia. 

The news of the Austrian bloodshed depressed me greatly.

The Left had a naive belief in the military prowess of 'Red Vienna'. But it was deeply religious peasants who prevailed. 

What an awful and bloody place this world was and how barbarous was man when he wanted to protect his vested interests !

What 'vested interests' was Stalin protecting? The fact is people were running away from his Utopia to Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy. 

All over Europe and America Fascism seemed to be advancing.

In India, Congress was advancing. The Left considered it Fascist. What they didn't know was that it would become both Dynastic and Fascist. Ultimately it would be ruled by an Italian lady whose father was a committed Fascist.  

When Hitler came into power in Germany I had imagined that his regime could not possibly last long, as he was offering no solution of Germany’s economic troubles.

Yes he was- as Keynes would recognize. He wasn't very different from FDR.  

So also, as Fascism spread elsewhere, I consoled myself that it represented the last ditch of reaction. After it must come the breaking of the shackles.

And the slaughter of 'class enemies'- i.e. Nehru himself.  

But I began to wonder if my wish was not father to my thought. Was it so obvious that this Fascist wave would retire so easily or so quickly?

Franco and Salazar died peacefully in their beds. Fascism is fine- unless it loses wars. But many East European countries ended up under Stalin's heel. The lesson here is don't lose wars.  

And even if conditions became intolerable for the Fascist dictatorships, would they not rather hurl their countries into devastating war rather than give in?

Killing rivals for power means conditions never become intolerable for Dictators. Democracies don't even need to bother with such killing. It is enough for the police to arrest people who set up party militias. The Brits banned the Congress Seva Dal so Nehru could not get up to mischief even if he wanted to.  

What would be the result of such a conflict?

The economically stronger side would prevail- provided its people were willing to fight.  

Meanwhile, Fascism of various kinds and shapes spread. Spain, that new * Republic of Honest Men ’ — los hombres honrados — the very Manchester Guardian of governments, as some one called it, had gone far back and deep into reaction.

Spain had had a very foolish King who thought Morocco could be conquered and turned into a great source of wealth. For a while, the military held power but once the economy turned to shit, the army ceased to be cohesive. The King too had to abdicate. The question was whether civilians could do a better job of running the country. As in Portugal, the answer was no. One problem was anti-clerical violence. Not everybody thinks raping nuns is a good and salutary thing. The other problem was that 'reforms' meant to help the rural poor ended up hurting them. What is bizarre is the suggestion that politicians who had faced corruption charges again and again could be considered 'honest'. 

All the fine phrases of its honest Liberal leaders had not kept it from sliding down.

Why did they not help workers take control of factories? Also, they should have been holding nuns down so that, as one of their intellectuals said, 'young barbarians' could rape them so that they could become mothers and 'virilize' the nation. 

In the end it was Franco's Moorish troops who did the systematic raping- but not of nuns. Sad. 

Everywhere Liberalism showed its utter ineffectiveness to face modem conditions.

In the elections of November 1933, it was the Right which won most seats. Liberalism is about respecting the results of elections. Had a Right wing politician been allowed to form a Government, there would have been no Civil War. 

It dung to words and phrases, and thought that they could take the place of action. When a crisis came it simply faded off like the end of a film that is over.

Nehru was clinging to words and phrases- because he was sulking in jail.  

I read the leading articles of the Manchester Guardian on the Austrian tragedy with deep interest and appreciation. "And what sort of Austria emerges from this bloody struggle? An Austria ruled with rifles and machine-guns by the most reactionary clique in Europe."

No doubt, the Guardian would have preferred that the S.D's unite their country to Germany.  

"But why, if England stands for liberty, has its Prime Minister so little to say?

England stood for a Treaty which forbade Austria joining Germany. The PM was appreciative of Mussolini's role in preserving Austria from Hitler's clutches.  

We have heard his praises of dictatorships : we have heard him say how they ‘ make the soul of a nation live ’ and ‘ bestow a new vision and a new energy.’

Mussolini had forced Hitler to back down. 

But a Prime Minister of England should have something to say of the tyrannies, in whatever country, which kill often the body, but more often, and with a worse death, the soul.”

It is one thing for priests to prate of the soul. It is another for jobbing journalists to babble about its life or death.  

And why, if the Manchester Guardian stands for liberty, has it so little to say when liberty is crushed in India?

But Nehru & Co were breaking the law so as to get sent to jail. They were perfectly at liberty to obey the law and stay out of jail.  

We also have known not only bodily suffering, but that far worse ordeal of the soul.

Soul is being sodomized incessantly. It may top itself.  

"Austrian democracy has been destroyed, although to its everlasting glory it went down fighting and so created a legend that may re-kindle the spirit of European freedom some day in years to come.”

Nothing of the sort happened. Austria rapturously welcomed its favorite son, Adolf Hitler, in 1938. 

“ The Europe that is unfree has ceased to breathe; there is no flow or counterflow of healthy spirits; a gradual suffocation has set in, and only some violent convulsion or inner paroxysm and a striking out to the right and left can avert the mental coma that is approaching. . . . Europe from the Rhine to the Urals is one great prison.”

What about Czechoslovakia or Poland or the Baltic Republics?  

Moving passages which found an echo in my heart. But I wondered : what of India?

Gandhi unilaterally surrendered in February 1922. Thus India could not get what the Egyptians and Afghans and the Irish got at around that time.  

How can it be that, the Manchester Guardian or the many lovers of freedom who undoubtedly exist in England should be so oblivious to our fate?

The answer is that they had seen Gandhi unite Muslims, Sikhs, Dalits and non-Brahmin Madrasis against the INC.  Gandhi demanded that the Brits transfer control of the Army to Congress. In 1939 he repeated this demand while admitting that Congress was a Hindu party. It needed the Army to defend itself against Muslims and Punjabis. 

How can they miss seeing here what they condemn with such fervour elsewhere?

India, as Gandhi said, was not united. Either the Hindu majority should have agreed to Partition or else the Brits had to unilaterally impose some sort of Federal Government. The fact is, India and Ireland were similar. Partition was the price of Independence. 

It was a great English Liberal leader, trained in the nineteenth-century tradition, cautious by temperament, restrained in his language, who said twenty years ago, on the eve of the Great War : “ Sooner than be a silent witness of the tragic triumph of force over law, I would see this country of ours blotted out of the page of history.”

 Asquith was defending Britain's entry into the Great War on the issue of the German violation of the neutrality of Belgium. This was a Treaty obligation. 

A brave thought, eloquently put, and the gallant youth of England went in their millions to vindicate it. But if an Indian ventures to make a statement similar to Mr. Asquith’s, what fate is his? 

Plenty of gallant Indians had gone to die for the King Emperor. Gandhi had tried to recruit some such in his native Gujarat. He was chased away. 

The plain fact is, Asquith did what he was obliged, by Law (International Treaties have the force of Law) to do. Indians who enlisted in the British Indian Army were doing something perfectly legal and constitutional. Nehru & Co. decided to break the law and were sent to jail to cool down . Incidentally, they co-operated with the Brits by either pleading guilty or refusing to mount a defense. True, they were a nuisance, but a nuisance which could be easily curbed.

Incidentally, there was nothing stopping any Indian from saying 'I would rather India was blotted out of the page of history than that it does not honor its Treaty commitments'. No doubt, people may have laughed at such an Indian but so too might British people have laughed at a crossing sweeper who made such a declaration. The problem with talking high falutin' bollocks is that if you aren't actually a Cabinet Minister or Ambassador or something of that sort, people think you are drunk off your head.  

National psychology is a complicated affair.

No it isn't. We think we are better than furriners.  

Most of us imagine how fair and impartial we are; it is always the other fellow, the other country that is wrong.

In this case, it was Indians like Nehru who were wrong. The Brits were doing a good enough job running their country.  

Somewhere at the back of our minds we are convinced that we are not as others are:

What was at the back of Indian minds is that we were worse than the Nepalese or Afghans or Ethiopians. For some reason, we were incapable of ruling ourselves, or- at the very least- making it impossible for any foreigner to do so.  

there is a difference which good breeding usually prevents us from emphasising.

Though the whole point of 'good breeding' is to emphasize this in a manner which requires no long verbal exposition.  

And if we are fortunate enough to be an imperial race controlling the destinies of other countries,

fortune is unlikely to be what has brought about this state of affairs. It is likely that we are more economically or administratively efficient.  

it is difficult not to believe that all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds, and those who agitate for change are selfseekers

Gandhi kept demanding that the Brits hand over power to him and his merry band of blathershites. This was a naked type of self-seeking.  

or deluded fools, ungrateful for the benefits they have received from us.

Deluded fools agitate. Smart people change things. Nehru & Co weren't smart. Essentially, what Nehru is saying is 'why can't all you reactionaries just fucking slit your throats already? Surely, Liberty demands nothing less? Also, kindly hand over all your power to me before you top yourself. That's what a well bred chap would do.'  

The British are an insular race

Insular people don't rule far off countries. They stay at home.  

and long success and prosperity has made them look down on almost all others. For them, as some one has said, “ les negres commencent a Calais ”. But that is too general a statement. Perhaps the British upperclass division of the world would be somewhat as follows: (i) Britain — a long gap, and then (2) the British Dominions (white populations only) and America (Anglo-Saxons only, and not dagoes, wops, etc.), (3) Western Europe, (4) Rest of Europe, (5) South America (Latin races), a long gap, and then (6) the brown, yellow and black races of Asia and Africa, all bunched up more or less together.

This is nonsense. The British upper-class liked European aristocrats provided they owned vast estates. Penniless Princes of the Russian sort were welcome to serve as waiters or chauffeurs. Canadians, especially Press Barons, were respected. America was acknowledged to be ahead in many things though it was increasingly difficult to marry one of their heiresses. 

Maharajas had sovereign immunity in England and were received by the best people. Nehru's social circle in England was more circumscribed. However, he hit it off famously with the Mountbattens. 

How far we of the last of these classes

who had to attend Harrow rather than Eton 

are from the heights where our rulers live! Is it any wonder that their vision grows dim when they look towards us, and that we should irritate them when we talk of democracy and liberty?

What irritated the British was law breaking and blind-alley behavior.  

These words were not coined for our use. Was it not a great Liberal statesman, John Morley, who had declared that he could not conceive of democratic institutions in India even in the far, dim future?

Nehru's daddy didn't seem to have any problem with Morley back then. The fact is, India had always been a land of Rajas and Maharajas. Congress itself became dynastic.  

Democracy for India was, like Canada’s fur coat, unsuited to her climate.

That is certainly the view of the Congress Party. If Italian lady can't rule, her son or daughter should do so. If neither is so inclined, perhaps they could kindly entrust that responsibility to their puppy dog.  

And, later on, Britain’s Labour Party, the standardbearers of Socialism, the champions of the under-dog, presented us, in the flush of their triumph, with a revival of the Bengal Ordinance in 1924, and during their second government our fate was even worse.

Because Gandhi kept doing stupid shit or, if he was keeping quiet, then Motilal and CR Das were doing stupid shit.   

If democracy is not suited to India,

it is. Hindus like elections. That's why India is democratic.  

it appears to be equally unsuitable for Egypt.

Egypt has never been a democracy unless you count the brief reign of the Brotherhood.  

I have just read a long despatch from Cairo in the Statesman 1 (for this daily is supplied to me now in my present gaol). We are told that the Premier, Nessim Pasha, " has now aroused no little alarm in responsible-minded quarters owing to his declaration that he hoped to get the political parties to co-operate, especially the Wafd, and either to have a national conference or elections for a constituent assembly, in either case for the elaboration of a new Constitution. This can only mean in the end ... a return to the regime of the popular democratic government which history shows has always been disastrous for Egypt, since in the past it has ever pandered to the worst passions of the mob. . . . No one knowing anything of the inner working of Egyptian politics and of the people, doubts for one moment that elections will again result in the return of the Wafd with a majority. Unless something is done, therefore, to prevent this procedure, we shall within a short time be again saddled with an ultra-democratic anti-foreign revolutionary regime.”

The Wafd party had failed to mobilize the youth which is why it was outflanked by the Brotherhood. What sealed it fate was acquiescence in the 1936 treaty with Britain though, by then, the 1923 constitution had been restored. 

It is suggested that the elections should be “ run ” by administrative pressure “as a counterpoise to the Wafd,” but, un-happily, the Premier has too much the legal mind to do any such thing. The only other course that remains, we are told, is for Whitehall to intervene and to “ let it be known that it will not tolerate the return of a regime ” of this kind.

Nehru doesn't seem to have understood that Wafd, under El-Nahas, wasn't particularly radical. Indeed, in 1942, the British Army forced the King to appoint him Prime Minister.  

What steps Whitehall may or may not take, or what will happen in Egypt I do not know. 1 But this argument put forward by presumably a liberty-loving Englishman

why presume any such thing? The guy was concerned with British lives and property at risk in Egypt. He wasn't prating about liberty or democracy.  

does help us to understand a little, some of the complexities of the Egyptian and Indian situation.

El Nahas, of Wafd, had been Premier before and would be Premier again. He just didn't get on too well with the King. India's situation was quite different. Two thirds of the country was directly ruled. There were no Kings there to make trouble.  

As the Statesman points out in a leading article: “ The root evil has been that the way of life and attitude of mind of an ordinary Egyptian voter are inharmonious with the sort of way of life and attitude of mind out of which democracy is developed.”

History has confirmed this judgment. Egypt is not a democracy. This does not mean it hasn't accomplished much worthy of admiration.  

This want of harmony is illustrated further on : “In 'Europe, democracies have often been brought down because there were too many parties; in Egypt the difficulty has-been there only being one party, the Wafd.”

But there was a Monarch who didn't like Wafd. What should England have done? Depose the Khedive? That would have had ramifications for the Trucial States, Saudi Arabia, Malaya, not to mention the Indian Princes. 

In India we are told

by Mahatma Gandhi who told Hasrat Mohani that India could not become free till Hindus and Muslims were united (though at that time they were united) and this would take hundreds or thousands of years 

that our communal divisions come in the way of our democratic progress and, therefore, with incontrovertible logic, those divisions are perpetuated.

By Gandhi & Co who kept demanding the Brits hand over the Army and everything else to  the INC leaving everybody else out in the cold.

We are further told that we are not united enough.

Indians didn't need to be told that.  

In Egypt there are no communal divisions and it appears that the most perfect political unity prevails. And yet, this very unity becomes an obstacle in the way of democracy and freedom!

Because there was a King who could dissolve Parliament.  

Truly the path of democracy is straight and narrow.

A Democracy can have a King but only if the fellow reigns but does not rule- i.e. is a figurehead simply.  

Democracy for an Eastern country seems to mean only one thing : to carry out the behests of the imperialist ruling power and not to touch any of its interests. Subject to that proviso, democratic freedom can flourish unchecked.

Moreover, such democratic freedom can raise economic productivity and military capacity to a point where the 'imperialist ruling power' can no longer interfere. India, under Nehru, could have taken that path. It chose to turn into a vast begging bowl instead. 

Nehru was under a lot of mental stress during the Civil Disobedience campaign. I believe it was then that his Internationalism became infected by a hysterical type of paranoia. He kept hearing voices which told him that the East could not have Democracy because the West was actually very mean and reactionary. Yet, the only voice Nehru was listening to was that of the Mahacrackpot.

Some days later the weekly Statesman came to me, and I read in it the statement which Gandhiji had issued when withdrawing Civil Disobedience. I read it with amazement and sinking of heart. Again and again I read it, and Civil Disobedience and much else vanished from my mind and other doubts and conflicts filled it. “This statement,” wrote Gandhiji, “owes its inspiration to a personal chat with the inmates and associates of the Satyagraha Ashram. . . . More especially is it due to a revealing information I got in the course of a conversation about a valued companion of long standing who was found reluctant to perform the full prison task, preferring his private studies to the allotted task. This was undoubtedly contrary to the rules of Satyagraha. More than the imperfection of the friend whom I love, more than ever it brought home to me my own imperfections. The friend said he had thought that I was aware of his weakness. I was blind. Blindness in a leader is unpardonable. I saw at once that I must for the time being remain the sole representative of civil resistance in action'

The meaning of this is clear enough. Gandhi thought Satyagraha was a means of getting reborn on a paradisal planet where there would be no sex or dirty pictures. Then he found out that one of his merry men wasn't doing it properly and thus might be reborn in a place where sex occurred. Thus he stopped others from doing this type of Satyagraha. He would do it all by his lonesome.  

The imperfection or fault, if such it was, of the ‘ friend ' was a very trivial affair. I confess that I have often been guilty of it and I am wholly unrepentant.

Nehru had sex with his own wife! Chee! Chee! 

But even if it was a serious matter, was a vast national movement involving scores of thousands directly and millions indirectly to be thrown out of gear because an individual had erred?

Yes. The purpose of that 'national movement' was to save Indian people from being reborn in places where sex occurred. Where there is sex, sooner or later there will be dirty pictures. Moreover, having sex makes you impotent. True manliness requires us never to have sex or we will become no better than eunuchs.  

This seemed to me a monstrous proposition and an immoral one.

The Statesman- which was owned by a British company- was right. Indians who followed the maha-crackpot were as stupid as shit. Their sulking in jail had nothing to do with 'liberty' or 'democracy'. It was imbecility of some religious sort.  

I cannot presume to speak of what is and what is not Satyagraha, but in my own little way I have endeavoured to follow certain standards of conduct, and all those standards were shocked and upset by this statement of Gandhiji’s.

The man was trying to be a good little Commie but then Gandhi would babble some nonsense and the fellow would rush off to jail.  

I knew that Gandhiji usually acts on instinct (I prefer to call it that than the ' inner voice ’ or an answer to prayer), and very often that instinct is right.

It was always wrong. Still, Gandhi's financiers did well out of his antics.  

He has repeatedly shown what a wonderful knack he has of sensing the mass mind and of acting at the psychological moment.

Swindlers often do.  

The reasons which he afterwards adduces to justify his action are usually afterthoughts and seldom carry one very far.

They are convenient lies. After you have swindled people you can always claim you had a change of heart and decided that those who had trusted you are as yet undeserving of the wonderful treasure you are holding in trust for them.  

A leader or a man of action in a crisis almost always acts subconsciously and then thinks of the reasons for his action. I felt also that Gandhiji had acted rightly in suspending civil resistance.

Because it was useless.  

But the reason he had given seemed to me an insult to intelligence and an amazing performance for a leader of a national movement.

Gandhi, like other scam-artists, knew that by appearing a complete imbecile you forestall the wrath of those you have swindled. They suddenly connect the dots and realize that you had always been saying crazy shit. It was their own fault if they had swallowed the bait.  

He was perfectly entitled to treat his ashram inmates in any manner he liked; they had taken all kinds of pledges and accepted a certain regime.

But to become a member of Congress, even now, you have to pledge that you are a 'habitual weaver of authentic Khadi' and never take alcoholic drinks and so on. 

But the Congress had not done so; I had not done so.

Nehru had taken that pledge.  

Why should we be tossed hither and thither for, what seemed to me, metaphysical and mystical reasons in which I was not interested?

Why did Nehru not leave Congress?  

Was it conceivable to have any political movement on this basis? I had willingly accepted the moral aspect of Satyagraha as I understood it (within certain limits I admit). That basic aspect appealed to me and it seemed to raise politics to a higher and nobler level. I was prepared to agree that the end does not justify all kinds of means. But this new development or interpretation was something much more far-reaching and it held forth some possibilities which frightened me.

Why? Civil Disobedience was a gamble. It failed. Viceroy Willingdon had been given a free hand to crackdown on Congress. He jailed 80,000 and was going after their property. They surrendered.  

The whole statement frightened and oppressed me tremendously. And then finally the advice he gave to Congressmen was that “ they must learn the art and beauty of self-denial and voluntary poverty.

Nehru certainly imposed poverty on India after he came to power.  

They must engage themselves in nation-building activities, the spread of khaddar through personal hand-spinning and hand-weaving, 

Nehru had spun cotton.  

the spread of communal unity of hearts by irreproachable personal conduct towards one another in every walk of life,

please don't fuck each other. Sex is very evil.  

the banishing of untouchability in every shape or form in one’s own person, the spread of total abstinence from intoxicating drinks and drugs by personal contact with individual addicts and generally by cultivating personal purity. These are services which provide maintenance on the poor man’s scale. Those for whom the poor man’s scale is not feasible should find a place in small unorganised industries of national importance which give a better wage"

 Better still, just crawl into a corner and starve to death while muttering 'Ahimsa! Ahimsa!' 

This was the political programme that we were to follow. A vast distance seemed to separate him from me. With a stab of pain I felt that the chords of allegiance that had bound me to him for many years had snapped. 

They hadn't really. Gandhi got money for Congress. Non-violence means money. In every country there is either the rule of violence or the rule of money. Internationalism too is either just  money or violence. But money is vulgar and violence is icky. Whatever are Ind's eternal adolescents to do? Pretend to be Marxist so as to seem Manly but go running to lay your head in some Mahatma's lap. We must scold the Universe if we are ever to bring about Hindu Muslim Unity. What would be intolerable is Hindu Hindu unity.