Anchored in Cosmopolitanism

Nehru’s Non-Aligned Movement was about freedom of choices

- Seem Guha

IN today’s polarised environment, Jawaharlal Nehru is often derided and blamed for much of the country’s ills. Nehru baiters have cropped up across the country. Social media posts filled with Nehru trolls taking many of his views out of context have proliferated in the last decade. Sadly, he has become a controversial figure, especially now with national elections round the corner, though he died about sixty years ago. This is because many of Nehru’s ideas have endured and still remain relevant.

Nehru was a product of his times and was influenced by the dominant liberal ideas sweeping the world at the turn of the century. He may have made some mistakes in judgement like every human being, but he was a visionary and a leader who placed India firmly on the world stage as a democratic, secular nation (though secular was added to the Constitution later).

Foreign policy was Nehru’s forte and right through his tenure he remained his own foreign minister. His education, intellectual appetite, erudition and eloquence made him at home on the world stage. He firmly believed that India, with its ancient civilisation, had a role to play in international politics. He worked towards that despite the many problems a newly independent nation was facing. Nehru was the architect of India’s foreign policy and much of New Delhi’s present stand on international affairs reflects his ideas.