Priya Satya on Nehru

In her 2024 Nehru Memorial lecture- 

 'Professor Satia said that Indian anti-colonialism did not necessarily have nation-state as its goal.

She is wrong. Indian anti-colonialism (as opposed to dreams of reestablishing Mughal or Sikh or Maratha power) iunderstood that there were only two options available or desirable from the 1880s onward

1) a self-administering, self-garissoning, Federation on the model of Canada (1867),  Australia (1901) & South Africa (1910). The Nehrus, Motilal & Jawaharlal, were initially 'naram dal' (moderates) who foresaw a gradual transition to 'Dominion' status. However, the disaster that was the Great War showed that though British naval protection was desirable (but it might be a 'free good') there was a good reason to prefer full sovereignty (India paid a lot of money for a conflict in which it had no vital interest). 

The British accepted that (1) was the way forward. 

The Montagu Declaration of August 20, 1917, was a historic statement delivered by Edwin Samuel Montagu, the British Secretary of State for India, in the House of Commons. It promised the gradual increase of Indian participation in government and the eventual realization of responsible self-government in India as an integral part of the British Empire.

The question was whether it was feasible. Maybe the British 'Umpire' would be retained by the squabbling Indians. However, from 1916 to 1922 there was considerable unity in India because Congress & the Muslim League had made a deal.  

The second alternative, to which younger people gravitated was- 

2) Republicanism of the Mazzinian type. After 1917, it was obvious that the age of multi-ethnic Empires was over. Wilsonian Nation States were the only way forward. Stalin took Communist Internationalism off the table in 1924. Pan-Islamism, too, was off the table after Ataturk abolished the Caliphate in that year. Thus, the aim was either a Secular Socialist Republic or one founded on a particular Religion. 

There were other possible futures being imagined, including pan-Asian,

Nonsense! It was obvious that Burma would want to go its own way and Indian politicians accepted this. The only people who talked of 'pan-Asianism' were in the pay of the Japs.  

pan-Islamic,

The Caliphate was gone for good. The Arabs may have wanted pan-Arabism. They feared coming, once again, under Turkish or Iranian domination.  

and global Communist visions.

Stalin had a Nationality doctrine and proclaimed the 'Socialism in one country' dogma in 1924. It was only in Sri Lanka that there were some Trotskyites. Indian Communists were either directly under the Kremlin or else influenced by the British Communist party (which included Saklatvala & the Dutt brothers)  

Nehru was also influenced by the ideas of the time

Nehru, like other younger politicians, was disillusioned with Gandhi. His response to the increasing magnitude of Hindu-Muslim riots was to turn to Secular Socialism from about 1925/26. However, he remained close to his father & thus appeared to be too moderate to the Reds in Europe.  

and, in 1927, after attending a meeting of the League Against Imperialism, he was convinced about the importance of working class mobilisation and the interdependence of nationalism and anti-imperialist internationalism.

Nehru wasn't utterly stupid. He knew that 'anti-imperialist internationalism' had failed in 1914. The working classes supported their Kings of Emperors. Moreover, in his view, the Labour Government, which came to power in 1924, had done nothing for India. If the British working class thought that Indian independence meant fewer jobs in textile mills or a higher price for a 'cuppa' tea, then they would demand the hanging of Gandhi.  

Professor Satia said that Nehru’s interactions with Egyptian anti-colonial leaders

There were none. Spontaneous demonstrations in Egypt (re. the exile of Zaghloul) caused that country's full independence to be recognised in 1922- just like Ireland & Afghanistan. 

Nehru did meeet Ramadan Pasha- a monarchist- but they had nothing in common. India was still a colony. Egypt was no longer a 'Veiled' Protectorate. 

show that he had absorbed Gandhism’s insistence on ethical accountability in the present,

It was the British who insisted on accountability. Had they not done so, they Empire would have gone bankrupt.  

a challenge to colonialism’s instrumental ethics.

I suppose Priya means going to jail at regular intervals. The problem was that, each time Congress did a spell of porridge, the Brits showed they could run things without them and thus they got to dictate the scope and pace of reform.  

However, she said, after the Government of India Act was passed in 1935,

the question was wheter Congress would bend the knee and participate in elections. It bent.  

Nehru became conscious of being in a sphere of institutional political power,

because his party won in all Hindu majority Provinces. He was seen as the future Prime Minister of the country.  

setting him apart from those who were being political from outside the state.

He was outside the state. He did not hold ministerial office.  

Revolutionaries, including pre-1937 Nehru himself,

He was not a revolutionary because he did not seek the violent overthrow of the State. Rather, he campaigned for constitutional change using only peaceful methods. The hope was that they people would be so rebellious if Congress was in jail that the country would become ungovernable. Sadly, this never happened.  

seek to change the accepted state of possibility. But statesmen, in this conventional Westphalian mould,

Seventeenth century statesmen represented Kings, Emperors, and feudal Lords. Nehru was not in that mould at all. He was in the mould of the Edwardian British barrister politicians. 

take the political and economic constraints on change as pre-given, as the international framework, as the world as it is.

Nehru was not a diplomat. Nobody in their right mind would call him a realist of any type. He wasn't transactional & had zero concern or understanding of how a 'balance of power' might work. He babbled idealistic nonsense because he was, after all, a verbose Babu. 

Priya writes-

'As a statesman, Nehru took a far more pragmatic approach to the adoption of ideals like secularism, anti-imperialism and socialism.

Nehru liked talking about ideals. But his fear was that India would be dragged into costly conflicts in distant places which is why he didn't want a permanent seat on the Security Council.  

For instance, when Vietnam asked for India’s material support in its anti-colonial resistance against France, Nehru offered only moral support because of his concerns about India’s relations with France post-Independence.

The Vietnamese were sad that the British Indian Army handed the country back to France. They understood that Nehru had no power (indeed, he was in jail) during the War, but they thought he might have some pull after he became PM. But he was reliant on the Brits (Mountbatten & Blackett were close advisers on military matters and India had a British admiral till 1958) who followed the American lead. It must be said, Nehru was aware of the British role in defeating Communism in Malaya. His own army had cracked down on Reds in Telengana. He hadn't spent 9 years in jail to make a present of the country to what he called 'the stupidest party in the world'. 

Nehru had visitied Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi in 1954 (when he also met Mao) and Minh came to India in '58. But Diem had come the previous year. 

Professor Satia said that Nehru understood India’s interest in “terms inherited from the colonial state as industrial catch up,”

No. The colonial state thought of India as a supplier of raw materials, not high value to weight manufactured goods. Nehru wanted a 'socialist pattern of society'- i.e. collectivisation but without coercion. That is why JP, in following Vinobha Bhave, could be seen as 'Nehruvian'- indeed, his logical successor. Sadly, Bhoodan (gifting away land) turned out to be a fraud. 

setting aside critiques of colonial models of industrial civilisation.

The colonial model kept heavy industry as the monopoloy of the metropole. Colonies were supposed to provide raw materials and captive markets. India went for 'import substitution' which is autarkic, on the basis of 'export pessimism'. 

She said the transformation of Nehru from revolutionary to statesman

He was never a revolutionary. Sedition isn't the same thing as waging war against the King Emperor. One could say that Nehru refused to become a statesman- i.e. neither sought nor would have accepted any post (e.g. an appointment to the Imperial War Cabinet) in the gift of the British Government. 

is a commentary on the limits of 20th century attempts at decolonisation

There was no limit on it at all. Colonialism ended because it was unprofitable. 

and urged that we can learn from this to reimagine alternative futures for South Asia in a time of challenges such as climate change, pandemics and artificial intelligence.

we can imagine a world where South Asians come together to provide free and compulsory instruction in self sodomy for senior citizens. The fact that this hasn't already happened proves that the British Empire is still occultly ruling the sub-continent. As for the US, don't tell me you are naive enough to believe that George Washington 'defeated' Mad King George? 

Priya says- 

I hope that this story of the contested and contingent way that decolonisation actually led to a world of nation states accidentally, rather than a world of federations, might help us to see the present less as a natural formation, and might open up our horizons to different political futures.

This is utterly mad. The Brits wanted a Federal India. Nehru was against it. He pulled the trigger on Partition. But, by then, everybody could see the thing was unworkable. 

The Great War was a conflict between Imperial cousins. Sadly, war was no longer the 'sport of Kings'. It was a grim, industrial, business which involved mobilizing proles and peasants. When Empires fall, Nations rise. However, some of those Nations may have 'Imperial' DNA. But the opposite is also true, if an Empire is the successor state to a bunch of National Crowns (e.g. the Hapsburg Empire) then there is some 'national' DNA in the Imperial government. 

What about dreams of Vegan Lesbian Collectives running everything? Is it not the case that the task of the Historian is to analyse how and why guys with dicks- like Nehru- or gals whose daddies had dicks- like Indira or Sonia- have singularly failed to fulfil Martin Luther King's dream of a world where every heterosexual dick would turn into a harmless vegetable upon which nice bunny rabbits can snack.