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Moreover, he stayed on too long in a mixed economy and Rajaji and B.R. go to school and don’t like women in
office. After ten years as prime min- Shenoy were visionaries who went the workforce. So education or lack
ister, he should have retired. That’s against the grain. of it, is as much a social problem as
a question that will face Narendra a policy issue. For example, Hindus
Modi in a few years’ time. Parachuted into the leadership of the Con- confronted untouchability because
In sum, Nehru’s two great failures gress party himself, Nehru repeated the Gandhi told them it is immoral. He
were the lack of emphasis on pri- precedent by engineering the appointment told the public that it has to condemn
mary education, and his fantasy that of his daughter Indira Gandhi as president untouchability and allow Dalits into
he was indispensable to the nation. of the party in 1957. Thus he planted the temples. Gandhi and Ambedkar
But against these two failures are seeds of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty which didn’t say the government would
some absolutely remarkable achieve- persisted with neta-babu socialism that fight for Dalits’ rights. We have to ac-
ments. He was in many ways the corrupted and destroyed the country’s knowledge there’s something deeply
person who united India after the institutions of governance. What’s your flawed in our society that we don’t
wounds of partition and for that, we comment? whole-heartedly support universal
must be grateful This is totally false. True, Indira primary education and social reform.
Gandhi was appointed president of I believe we are regressing as a soci-
Immediately after independence, India’s the Congress. But soon after, she ety and we have ourselves to blame
several brilliant businessmen includ- retreated into private life and Nehru as much or more than politicians.
ing G.D. Birla, J.R.D. Tata, Walchand had no desire or hope that she would
Hirachand who had funded the freedom ever become prime minister. In 1964, What should be the Central government’s
movement and established heavyweight a few months before Nehru died, Top 5 priorities to double the annual GDP
conglomerates in the teeth of British Indira Gandhi wanted to move to growth rate and transform 21st century
opposition, were poised to conquer Asian London because both her children India into a middle class country?
and perhaps European markets. But they were studying there. There’s a lot of One is to totally abandon majoritari-
were suppressed by Nehruvian licence- fake news, misinformation about Ne- anism. Second, give up the cult of
permit-quota raj which favoured the pro- hru and Patel and about Nehru and personality built around Modi. Run-
motion of huge public sector enterprises. Indira. The story of Nehru is a rever- ning a government requires collec-
These perpetually loss-making PSEs sal of the biblical injunction which tive teamwork. Prime minister Modi
siphoned away national savings. To what says the sins of fathers are visited on would do well to learn from Gandhi,
extent, if any, do you agree? their children. In Nehru’s case, the how he built a great team — Azad,
The Bombay Plan of 1946, presented sins of seven successive generations Patel, Kamaladevi, Nehru. Three,
to the government by industry of children have been retrospectively respect federalism and refrain from
leaders, clearly endorsed a mixed visited on him. always trying to destabilise state
economy. The received economic All the sins of Indira Gandhi, Ra- governments ruled by opposition
wisdom of the time, also accepted jiv Gandhi and the incompetence of parties. It’s not advisable to govern a
in Japan and Germany, not just Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi and large and complex country with this
the Soviet Union, was that infant now Priyanka Gandhi, are happily type of adversarial attitude towards
industry needed state support. Later, attributed to Nehru. Only when all state governments ruled by other
Taiwan and South Korea adopted these Nehru-Gandhis retire that we parties. The fourth priority is that the
this model. In the 1940s, when the will be able to objectively assess the Central government should exhibit
first Planning Commission was set contributions Nehru made to India. I greater understanding of neighbour-
up, 24 top economists of the country believe that Nehru would have been ing countries, one of the greatest
were consulted about Central plan- appalled that Rahul and Sonia Gan- failures of the Modi government.
ning for the first five years. All of dhi are running the Congress today. We have antagonised Bangladesh,
them except B.R. Shenoy approved. He loved his daughter Indira but he Nepal, we have even lost Bhutan, the
By the late 1950s when Rajaji left the was very clear he wanted Shastri to countries that had close ties with us.
Congress and founded the Swatantra succeed him. Tragically, Shastri died We have lost them to China because
Party and coined the phrase licence- 18 months later. If he had lived a few of our arrogant, overbearing attitude,
permit-quota raj, we should have more years, India would have been a towards smaller neighbours.
begun liberalising and deregulating very different country. As in the case I believe that socially, politically
the economy. of Gandhi, I recognise Nehru’s colos- and economically the BJP/NDA gov-
But in the failure to do so, the sal achievements, but his substantial ernment has made a series of major
greatest sinner was Indira Gan- failures as well. blunders they cannot walk back.
dhi who went the other way and Because of prime minister Modi’s ar-
nationalised banks, coal and other To what extent do you agree that quality rogance and pride and refusal to ever
industries in the early 1970s. At the education for all is the magic bullet for the admit his mistakes, I believe we are
time, eminent economists including country’s problems? in for bad times.
Jagdish Bhagawati and Padma Desai Education cannot be the responsi-
had argued for outward-looking bility of the State alone. Society has This is an abridged version of a 50-min-
economic policies with industry and to agree to encourage education for ute interview with Dr. Guha. For full
trade liberalisation and shedding all. It shouldn’t tolerate citizens who video interview visit https://www.edu-
export pessimism. In Nehru’s early don’t want women or young girls to cationworld.in/educationworld-inter-
years, the consensus was in favour of view-with-dr-ramachandra-guha/

AUGUST 2021 EDUCATIONWORLD 77