Nehru ’s note to chief ministers in 1958: Imposition of ideas is bound to fail

The complacency and even arrogance that tends to characterise our political leadership today is in sharp contrast to the way Jawaharlal Nehru was constantly thinking about fundamental questions such as the meaning of life, the contradictions posed by the progress of science and exhaustion of civilization, can wrong means lead to right ends, the ineffectiveness of violence, and sharing his doubts and thoughts with his colleagues.

Unless we have some clarity of vision or, at any rate, are clear as to the questions posed to us, we shall not get out of the confusion that afflicts the world today. I do not pretend to have that clarity of thinking or to have any answers to our major questions. All I can say in all humility is that I am constantly thinking about these questions…

On the one side, there is this great and overpowering progress in science and technology and of their manifold consequences, on the other, a certain mental exhaustion of civilization itself…religion comes into conflict with rationalism. The old question still faces us, as it has faced humanity for ages past: what is the meaning of life?

The old civilizations, with the many virtues that they possess, have obviously proved inadequate. The new Western civilization, with all its triumphs and achievements and also with its atomic bombs, also appears inadequate and therefore, the feeling grows that there is something wrong with our civilization…

I have the greatest admiration for many of the achievements of the Soviet Union. Among these great achievements is the value attached to the child and to the common man. There the systems of education and health are probably the best in the world. But it is said, and rightly, that there is suppression of individual freedom there.

And yet the spread of education in all its forms is itself a tremendous liberating force which ultimately will not tolerate that suppression of freedom. Unfortunately, communism became too closely associated with the necessity for violence and thus the ideal which it placed before the world became a tainted one. Means distorted ends. We see here the powerful influence of wrong means and methods…

This is completely opposed to the peaceful approach which Gandhiji taught us. Communists as well as anti-Communists both seem to imagine that a principle can only be stoutly defended by language of violence, and by condemning those who do not accept it…It is not the approach of tolerance of feeling that perhaps others might have some share of the truth also. Speaking for myself, I find this approach wholly unscientific, unreasonable and uncivilized, whether it is applied in the realm of religion or economic theory or anything else. I prefer the old pagan approach of tolerance, apart from its religious aspects. But whatever we may think about it, we have arrived at a stage in the modern world when an attempt at forcible imposition of ideas on any large section of people is bound ultimately to fail. In present circumstances this will lead to war and tremendous destruction. There will be no victory, only defeat for everyone.

This was exemplified by the Suez incident in 1956. Also, what happened in Hungary demonstrated that the desire for national freedom is stronger than any ideology and cannot ultimately be suppressed. What happened in Hungary was not essentially a conflict between communism and anti-communism.

It represented nationalism striving for freedom from foreign control. If the society we aim at cannot be brought about by big-scale violence, will smallscale violence help?

Surely not, partly because that itself may lead to the big-scale violence and partly because it produces an atmosphere of conflict and of disruption. It is absurd to imagine that out of conflict the social progressive forces are bound to win.

In Germany both the Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party were swept away by Hitler. This may well happen in other countries too. In India any appeal to violence is particularly dangerous because of its inherent disruptive character. We have too many fissiparous tendencies for us to take risks. But all these are relatively minor considerations. The basic thing, I believe, is that wrong means will not lead to right results and that is no longer merely an ethical doctrine but a practical proposition.”

(Extracts from a note sent as enclosure to a letter to the chief ministers dated July 13, 1958. Selected and edited by Mridula Mukherjee, former Professor of History at JNU and former Director of Nehru Memorial Museum and Library)