Jawaharlal Nehru would have been very disappointed that even after 60 years of his death, he keeps coming up in public discussion in his country on some pretext or the other.
Sometimes someone’s crudity is compared to his refinement, sometimes an example of his simplicity is given to criticise someone’s ostentatiousness. Someone’s cooked up popularity is compared to the spontaneous love that people showered on him. Even Nehru would have detested this, as he was in favour of comparing the best with the best. The use of his sublimity to highlight someone’s pettiness would also have irritated him.
He never fades from public life. This year on the day of his funeral, or its 59th anniversary, Nehru remained the subject of discussion even on the occasion of the inauguration of the new parliament building. This time it was the rediscovery of the sengol, a sceptre, the symbol of ‘the unbroken Indian culture’ from the shelves of the Allahabad museum which brought the focus back on Nehru.
The sengol’s discovery gave yet another proof of Nehru’s contempt for Indian culture. What else, if not his hatred for Indian customs, could have driven him to hide this sacred symbol far away from Delhi? So this time it was sengol and Nehru. A sengol which was presented to him 75 years ago on the eve of August 15 by some priests from Tamil Nadu and which was also publicised by these priests through advertisements in the Hindu newspaper.
Nehru had graciously accepted the offer. He had no time to argue with them that he did not believe in the theory of the divine right to power. Nehru had a lot to worry about at that time. After accepting this gift, he sent it where it belonged, that is, to a museum.
According to the rulers of today’s India, by doing so he had insulted the ancient Indian custom or culture. According to them, that symbol of the divine right of power should have been enshrined in the centre of independent India’s power, that is, in the Parliament, because it is a symbol of the continuity of the power of Dharma. It represents what the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) would like to call ‘dharmocracy’! Nehru despised it, as is evident by his act of putting it in a museum.
Nehru would have accepted this allegation. But not the way it has been made. You could have blamed him for it had he refused to accept sengol. He did not do it. Nor did he insult the priests for their belief in the divine right theory.
There was another reason for it. All this was happening at a time when developing a national consensus, and discouraging division was of importance. The challenge of Partition was already in front of Nehru. Apart from this, he knew it better than anyone that society exists simultaneously at many levels of consciousness. Nehru detested the idea of forcibly bringing them to one level, the level on which he lived. He was impatient with ignorance but he also had basic respect for all human beings, with all their follies.
It should not be forgotten that Gandhi, his greatest teacher and friend, had also trained him to tolerate human quirks. Nehru had seen Gandhi’s perseverance and patience while arguing with the Sanatanis in his struggle against untouchability, whom Nehru called “thick headed”. That’s why Nehru accepted the sengol from the priests of Adheenam. He did not want them to feel unwelcome but it was impossible for him to accept the idea behind it. That is why he sent it to a museum.
The records do not speak much about this event. Did he ask for it to be sent to Allahabad? Or did someone in his office decide this? Whatever the case may be, it was done so that future scholars could understand that Indian democracy was born amidst many conflicting views while fighting with them as they traditionally remained strong. And that struggle would never end because no idea ever dies completely. Such is the case with the idea of divine right to power. After all, Dr. B R Ambedkar had cautioned that the sapling of the constitution was being planted in a socially anti-democratic land. A struggle lay ahead to break that ground and make it conducive to democratic ideas. It would be dangerous to assume that democracy would take root on its own.
Before we talk about Nehru’s vision in the context of the sengol affair, let us dwell on this episode for a while. The present day rulers want us to believe that on August 14, when the transfer of power from Britain to India was to take place, the question of how it should be performed came to the mind of the then Viceroy Lord Mountbatten. He asked Nehru, who in turn asked Raja Rajagopalachari what to do! There is a clever hint here that Nehru was unaware of traditions and therefore he turned to Rajaji who knew Indian traditions.
Rajaji, being a native of Tamil Nadu, asked the priests of his state to get a sengol manufactured, which the Chola kings used to wield as holders of power with divine sanction. These priests took the sengol to Delhi in a special aeroplane, then presented it to Mountbatten who passed it on to Nehru as a symbol of the transfer of power from the British to India. The truth in this whole episode is that the priests of the Adheenam in Tamil Nadu did ceremoniously give this sengol to Nehru.
Everything else is a lie.
Neither did Mountbatten ask Nehru about the rituals associated with transfer of power, nor did Nehru discuss it with Rajaji. And Rajaji definitely didn’t ask anyone to fabricate a sengol. There are photos of nearly each and every moment of August 14 to 15. So it is unimaginable that the Adheenam from Tamil Nadu, who could get a photograph of its priests with Nehru printed, would not publicise their picture with Mountbatten too. Similarly, it is inconceivable that there would be no official record of such a significant moment. Those who do not believe in Darwin’s theory of evolution because there is no evidence, no photo of monkeys turning into humans, want us to believe their word and not ask for evidence.
However the only purpose behind fabricating this whole story is to hide from today’s Hindu society that 75 years ago even a section of orthodox Hindus in India had respect and reverence for Nehru, knowing well that he did not agree with their views at all. They wanted approval from Nehru only. If the sengol-Nehru episode has any meaning, it is this. By presenting the sengol to him the Adheenam priests made a statement in consonance with their ideology that Nehru had the divine sanction for leading the country. It is a different matter that it would have amused Nehru.
But it is true that Nehru, in spite of all his decency, treated the sengol as a museum piece. As for him, a monarchy could only be a thing of the past. With the news of the departure of the British from India, greed had arisen in the princely states of India that now the moment had come for them to re-establish their kingdoms, big and small. They were also conniving with people from the Hindu Mahasabha, RSS and Savarkar to achieve this end.
The obstacle in their way was the republican consciousness that had developed during the freedom movement. The idea that the source of power could only be the people, not any divinity had grown very powerful. It was Gandhi, not Nehru, who was repeatedly warning the princes of the princely states as independence approached that it would be better for them to accept the people’s right to power and consider the sovereignty of the same people as paramount. With the passage of time, Gandhi’s tone became harsher. It was also one of the reasons for the royals’ discomfort with Gandhi.
People are the source of power, not any divine law: this was not only Nehru’s view but also that of most people involved in India’s freedom movement. This thought was also of those who were religious like Mahatma Gandhi or Rajaji or Sardar Patel or Maulana Azad. The idea of the sovereignty of the people and their rights being inviolable was very much there in the Objective Resolution presented by Nehru in the Constituent Assembly itself, which clearly stated that the source of all the powers of independent and sovereign India would be the people. The Constitution was also given by the people of India to themselves, not by any divine authority.
It was, therefore, impossible that a symbol expressing any idea other than this would be given a place by Nehru in parliament or any such place. Nehru did not do it, as is propagated, because he was completely cut off from India’s past and his sensibilities were steeped in the Western idiom. Nehru’s symbolism drew essentially from ‘Indian’ sources. His choice of the Ashoka Chakra on the National Flag and the Ashoka lions or the national motto ‘Satyamev Jayate’ from the Mundakopanishad tells you a lot about the way his imagination worked.
We must be cautious here as the imagination of Nehru was not something which others of his times did not share. Yes, he was the one who took the final decision but there were other minds and hearts who were creating new symbols for the new India. Laila Tyabji has described beautifully how these symbols came into being. Her parents, neither Hindu or Buddhist, were the ones who suggested the lion capital with minor changes and the Ashoka Chakra be adopted. Nehru took no time in accepting them. Gandhi made a minor change in the colour of the Chakra. Laila’s mother had painted it black and Gandhi got it changed to blue.
All this was because Nehru felt that the choice of symbols from the Indian past and tradition could alone give depth to the modern democratic and republican consciousness and also tell the public that there is a kind of continuity of this consciousness in our cultures. Nehru’s cautious approach towards symbolism can be seen in these choices. Sengol could not be a symbol of republican consciousness in any way because it gives priority to some divine power over the people.
The RSS alleges that Nehru despised Indian culture and banished all traces of it from public spaces. They know that they are lying. Evidence of Nehru’s curiosity about the Indian past is his book Discovery of India. He humbly writes that as time passed, ‘this country kept growing on him and it remained a wonder for him’. A lot of it remained a mystery to him. Only a lover can talk like this. He also knew that for the Republic that independent India wants to become, only those elements from the past could be taken which could give strength to this new sensibility.
It is good that the sengol episode has given us one more occasion to examine the values of Nehru and also think about the values with which this government wants to replace the republican values that we have been living with thanks to our ancestors, Nehru being one of them. It is also an occasion to think about the journey that we have made.
(Apoorvanand teaches at Delhi University. Courtesy: The Wire.)
