75.VIOLENCE AS THE LANGUAGE OF POLITICS: VIOLENCE IN THE POLITICS OF LANGUAGE

75. VIOLENCE AS THE LANGUAGE OF POLITICS : VIOLENCE IN THE POLITICS OF LANGUAGE

Mahatma Gandhi's chief claim to fame rests solidly on his advocacy of non-violence as a policy. It can be shown that the idea of non-violence under all circumstances is illogical. It can be shown that it did not succeed or even work in his own lifetime.It can be shown that his followers- the Gandhi caps- were more guilty of violence than even the British. But the popular mind does not digest new facts and change its opinion.

Gandhi was sincere. During the Second World War, on 2 July 1940 he appealed to every Briton:

I do not want Britain to be defeated, nor do I want her to be victorious in a trial of brute strength, whether expressed through the muscle or the brain. Your muscular bravery is an established fact. Need you demonstrate that your brain is also as unrivalled in destructive power as your muscle? I hope you do not wish to enter into such an undignified competition with the Nazis. I venture to present you with a nobler and a braver way, worthy of the bravest soldier. I want you to fight Nazism without arms, or, if I am to retain the military terminology, with non­violent arms. I would like you to lay down the arms you have as being useless for saving you or humanity. You will invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your possessions. Let them take possession of your beautiful island, with your many beautiful buildings. You will give all these but neither your souls, nor your minds. If these gentlemen choose to occupy your homes, you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourself man, woman and child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to them.

 But even he had in the end to give up and give in, when Pakistan engineered an invasion of Kashmir. On 29 October 1947, he openly stated that " the job of the armed forces is to march ahead and repel the attacking enemy".  Still, Gandhi's was only a reaction to a situation forced on the nation, not his spontaneous action. However, it proves that non-violence and appeasement or pacifism does not serve as state policy. It marks the decisive end of non-violence as a policy tool. Unfortunately, for all his sincerity, and the praise heaped on him posthumously, Gandhi's life did not witness fruitful culmination  in any field .

Still, we respect Gandhi because, he at least tried to establish the principle.

Krishnalal Shridharani, a Gandhian follower  wrote a beautiful book in1939, (published in India in the 60s), titled "War Without Violence". He stated there succinctly the Gandhian line as: 'adjustment of contending claims instead of annihilating the opposition.' Yet,  this is precisely the point: certain evils do not end except with the end of the evil doers.  This after all is the lesson of the Gita!

Book cover of the American edition by Harcourt, Brace and Co.Shown here for educational purpose.

Hidden violence in Gandhi

Keen observers have pointed out that Gandhi's methods generated or involved violence indirectly. When he undertook a fast, it usually meant that he was forcing the people to accept his views, which otherwise they might not!  His nonviolence directed at his followers also  became violence. And he inflicted violence on himself. When a discipline meant for a Sadhu is made into a general rule for political society, tragedy is bound to result.

Violence as reaction

To engage in war when necessary is one thing, but to use violence as a normal state policy is entirely different. India has had to engage in war with China and Pakistan since Independence. It can be surmised that this was mainly because those countries took us to be a 'soft' state and our leaders to be mere talkers. We did  not win against China- they went back, as they had come, on their own. But with Pakistan our engagements were decisive. But it has not ended the hostilities or solved the problem. If anything, the problem has become more serious. This is the result of inept political intervention in military strategy. May be India had to yield to some arm twisting by foreign powers. But basically, it was due to unthinking application of an inappropriate principle. It was the bankruptcy of political leadership.

However, in internal matters, Indian govts did not hesitate to use force at the slightest provocation. Whether it was the agitation for linguistic states, the anti-Hindi imposition agitation of Tamil Nadu, even the recent anti-corruption agitation by peaceful means the govts have been rather free with the use of force. Power blinds people, and blocks all sources of thinking. 

Our opposition parties are  full of the spirit of violence,  and incite passions in talking. This is how Shiv Sena grew in the 60s, opposing South Indians. This is how DMK grew, vilifying the Brahmins. They forget that we are a free country and the we cannot be irresponsible in our demands.The central or state govt did nothing , as local sentiments were invoked and the congress party, a national party, then in power wanted to be goody goody.

 But the government also does not listen to grievances,
 unless there is a show of force, if not violence. See how the peaceful agitation by Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev was dealt with by the central govt. One wonders whether Man Mohan Singh as PM had any sense, or say in the government.

Anna Hazare on fast, 2nd day.
By Pankaj Jangid (Flickr) CC BY-SA 2.0  creative commons via Wikimedia commons.
Gandhian methods are not respected  or cared about in free India.

Violence as State policy

Perhaps no one epitomises the use of force as state policy as Hitler in recent history. His attempt to exterminate the Jews as a race is violent madness at its worst. That such a policy was supported by the people of Germany, educated and civilized, passes comprehension.

 But people are not aware that Stalin and Mao Zedong were bigger mass murderers of their own innocent people. 

It is estimated that Hitler caused the deaths of about 46 million people by his war policies. This includes the death of 12 million Jews  and others in the Holocaust, all civilians, besides many other civilians.

Stalin is responsible for the deaths of between 56 and 62 million people.

The number killed by Mao Zedong in his regime is estimated at 70 million.

Violence in subtle form:
India's language policy

Murder of people is the most visible form of violence. But modern States are capable of violence in endless subtle ways. It is surely violence when some one is deprived of his life. But what if someone is asked or forced to give up his language?

This is what is happening in various states in India. The central government has forced Hindi on every one as the national language. This example is followed in the states. Take Bihar for example. The following table gives the various languages spoken  there and what happened to them.

Languages included in Bihari group[edit]

Language[7]	ISO 639-3	Scripts	No. of Speakers[6]	Geographical Distribution
Angika	anp	Previously Anga Lipi; Devanagari	743,600[8]	North Bihar and Eastern Bihar, North-easternJharkhand, West Bengal, Nepal
Bajjika	—	Devanagari	87,38,000[citation needed]	North-Central Bihar Eastern Terai
Bhojpuri	bho	Previously Kaithi; Devanagari	3,85,46,000	Western Bihar, Eastern Uttar Pradesh and CentralTerai, Southern Nepal
Fiji Hindi[9]	hif	Latin and Devanagari	460,000	Fiji Islands
Kudmali	kyw	Devanagari, Chis (also suggested as its possible script)	37,000	Eastern Jharkhand, West Bengal
Magahi	mag	Previously Kaithi; Devanagari	2,03,62,000	South-Western Bihar
Maithili	mai	Maithili variant of Eastern Nagari script,Devanagari	3,38,90,000	Northern Bihar, Official Status in Madhesh,Nepal
Majhi	mjz	N.A	21,841	Eastern Bihar, Nepal
Musasa	smm	N.A	50,000	Eastern Bihar, Nepal
Panchpargania	tdb	Devanagari, sometimes Bengali & Kaithi	274,000	West Bengal Jharkhand Assam
Sadri	sck	Devanagari	165,683	Jharkhand Bihar and Bangladesh
Khortha	sdr	Eastern Nagari script, Devanagari	19,65,000	Northern Jharkhand
Sarnami Hindustani[10]	hns	Latin, Devanagari	150,000	Suriname
Surjapuri	sjp	Devanagari	273,000	North-eastern Bihar

The figures are taken from Wikipedia. 

What is important to remember is that the language of the State is stated to be Hindi, and none of these languages were granted constitutional status. It was only in 2003 that Maithili was granted recognition. Others were ignored. Bhojpuri, language spoken by nearly four crore people, and Magadhi spoken by over two crore people are ignored in the name of official Hindi. But does number really matter? Do people lose their right to their language if they cannot muster numbers?

Does this not amount to violence?

Govt of India and all the so called national parties are really Hitlerite or Stalinist - absolutely brutal and idiotic in the matter of language. They want to proclaim one language as the national language. When a nation has many rich and ancient native languages, how can any one be proclaimed as the national language?

For this purpose, the misguided  Hindi fanatics are grouping various languages under Hindi, to create the illusion that it is spoken by a majority of Indians. No doubt under the compulsion of the Official language acts, people who speak different languages in Bihar have to declare their language as Hindi. Many people in other states are also indirectly compelled to learn govt-enforced Hindi, in the interest of inter-state mobility. But our parties are interested in petty communal politics and do not care for deeper cultural freedoms. As the children enrol in schools and are taught the official version of the language, they will have no means of knowing that they do indeed have a different language. It will slowly die. 

Minority languages in states

If this is what the Centre is doing, the states are not far behind. After the formation of linguistic states,  those speaking minority languages do not get official recognition for official business.Urdu alone got recognition in UP and Bihar because of vote bank politics. One has to compulsorily follow the state language. There is thus effective discrimination on the basis of language, whatever the constitution may say.

Take Tulu for example. Though over 5 million people speak it as their mother tongue all over the world, it has no official status in Karnataka where the Tulu speaking people mainly live in India. What kind of linguistic reorganization  have we created if such languages can be bulldozed? Does it not amount to violence? Should the people then indulge in violence to get their voice heard?

Old Tulu book Kaveri.( This publication dated 1986)

This was written in 1391 A.D. Used here for educational purposes.

There are not less than four dialects or strands of Tulu- the language is so rich!

Tulu script compared with Kannada and Malayalam scripts. Tulu can reassert itself only if it revives its own script. If they use Kannada script, they will be swallowed by Kannada.


Ancient Tamils recognised Tulu speakers as a distinct community and the area they lived was called Tuluva naadu.

Konkani has luckily survived because it is identified with Goa, though Konkani speakers live in widespread areas.  They also write Konkani in five scripts, as shown below:

By Ainalhafila (Own Work) CC BY-SA 4.0 creative commons via Wikimedia commons.

We should not confuse a language with a script. Tulu may be written in Kannada script, but it had other scripts also. Seeing how native languages are suppressed in spite of the formation of linguistic states, we must find other methods of restoring the full linguistic rights and freedom of all people, irrespective of the number of speakers, irrespective of where they live in India.  

We must learn to respect and honour all languages.

If we adopt the policy of 'mother tongue plus English' all language difficulties and prejudices will disappear and all Indians will be equal. But it will cut at the very root of Hindi imperialism, which has succeeded British imperialism. It will also disturb the regional linguistic sultanates  in the states.

Today, non-Hindi speaking people are second-class citizens in India. This is the greatest violence done by the State to peaceful people. 

And those who do not speak the state language are second class citizens in the states. Such discrimination based on language never historically existed in India.

Hindi advocates are ardent hypocrites. They merrily learn English and their mother tongue and want every one else to learn more than two languages. 

This is something for all sober people to reflect upon seriously.



NOTE:

Tamil Nadu is one of the worst states in the treatment of linguistic minorities.

Tamil may be the mother tongue of a majority of the  population. But the number of people who  speak Telugu, Malayalam. Urdu, Kannada, Hindi, Saurashtram, Tanjore Marathi,and about 20 other languages is not insignificant. Whatever their number they too have got their right to their language. But the state govt does not recognise this position. In the recent state level educational reform, they have fixed only two languages - Tamil and English- as compulsory for all students in the school system.at the X Standard. Minorities have no rights!

As a report in The Hindu noted:

The State government's move to make Tamil compulsory from 2006 in all schools was another stumbling block for minority language schools as Tamil took precedence over minority languages. The Linguistic Minorities Forum of Tamilnadu, which has been making many representations to the government, wants Tamil Nadu to implement the three-language formula as followed in most States, including Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, West Bengal and Karnataka.

Tamil Nadu follows the two-language formula, where Tamil is the first language and English the second. Under the Act of 2006, the mother tongue can be taught as an elective subject, but there is no public examination so far, say language teachers.

“The minority language school students study three languages (Tamil, English and mother-tongue), whereas local students read only two languages (Tamil and English),” says C.M.K. Reddy, Chairman, Linguistic Minorities Forum of Tamilnadu.

A majority of the parents would not want to burden their child with an additional language, thus the strength of these schools is decreasing leading to their gradual closure.

From: The Hindu, Chennai, November 29, 2010.

Recently, Tamil Nadu has decided to implement compulsory Tamil for the students. As a result, the students of Minority Languages were unable to choose their Mother Tongue in educational institutions in the state.

As per the sources, Pawan Kalyan decided to fight against the Government of Tamil Nadu Government for the recognition of Telugu language in the state. He is going to stage a dharna in Hosur in the last week of September.

- Report in Telugu Mirchi, 16 September, 2015.

In effect this arrangement is so unequal, so unfair. It means that a minority student has to learn 4 languages: English, Tamil, Mother tongue, and Hindi- so called national language. A Tamilian will quietly learn just two: Tamil, his mother tongue, and English! Anyone who speaks for the minority rights will be condemned as "Tamil traitor". 

What will happen to India if every state adopts this policy?

Such developments show how absurd is the linguistic reorganization of states. 

65. LEADERS AND LEADERSHIP

65. LEADERS AND LEADERSHIP

ALL societies value and celebrate their leaders and heroes, though some may over do it.  While the popular idea of leadership seems to be associated  mainly with politics and public affairs, people are recognised as leaders in every walk of life. Societies differ in their perception of what constitutes leadership, but leadership as a concept and phenomenon holds sway in all.

Who is a leader? What is leadership?

It is difficult to spell out clearly what constitutes leadership. But it is clear that those recognised as leaders do display some marked traits. Academic authorities give out their theories. In the US, leadership is taken primarily as the ability to enlist the cooperation of others in accomplishing a common task. This is like a business school idea. But who decides what is a common task? Who articulates the needs?  

There are more elaborate theories which list the characters commonly found in leaders:

• superior physical ability
• superior mental ability
• superior ability to conceive of the larger picture
• greater skill in achieving specific/specialised tasks
• ability to accomplish the given task efficiently
• ability to manage a crisis
• set of values and traits such as wisdom.

Leadership: East and West

In the West, leadership is mainly associated with external accomplishment.[ Alexander, Napoleon , Churchill, Henry Ford, Kennedy, Lenin, Bill Gates] In the East, it is associated with great personal traits such as nobility of personal conduct, spiritual attitude and wisdom, etc. [Buddha, Confucius, Lao Tzu, Gandhi, Dalai Lama.]

3 ELEMENTS OF LEADERSHIP

Ultimately, I would say only three elements constitute leadership:

• vision/purpose
• ability to inspire
• ability to solve problems/achieve results.

All three elements must be present in a leader.

A statesman may do it in respect of public affairs; a general may do it regarding military affairs; an entrepreneur may do it in respect of business matters.

I personally believe that such leaders are born so. Education or circumstances do not create a leader: they merely provide the circumstance for the innate leadership qualities to manifest. There have been great leaders without formal education and who flourished in all situations.

It appears that it is more difficult for someone to be accepted as a leader in the West than in the East. The cult of the personality runs deep in the East. But once accepted anywhere,, the status is hardly questioned or critically examined. Critical review may reinforce the status as a leader or undermine it!

Winston Churchill : Self educated

Winston Churchill was a born aristocrat but was dull at/ disinterested in studies. He did not even take a university degree.But he was proficient in language, and keen on a military career. He made terrible blunder as Chancellor of the Exchequer, when in 1925 he restored Gold Standard at pre-war parity. He himself admitted, as great men do, that this was the greatest blunder of his life.. He was a die-hard imperialist. He joined the Army and was stationed at Bangalore for training. In the afternoons, while all the others rested and slept, he spent 5 hours daily, studying two books: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon, and History of England by Macaulay. Subsequently, he covered the Boer War as a reporter in South Africa , was imprisoned and escaped miraculously. ( Churchill was accosted by a Boer soldier with his drawn rifle who could have pulled the trigger- but he didn't! He was Botha who became a General and PM of  South Africa later! ] In the 30s, he was constantly talking about the danger of rearming Germany. He was considered a war-monger. But when England was forced to enter the Second World War, it was Churchill who was elected Prime Minister and it was he who inspired a sagging nation to great endurance, sacrifice, and victory. 

To defend all that the British empire stood for!
Well, he defended England, but lost the empire!


Man of Destiny

But the same people who celebrated him as a leader during the War discarded him when  they found that his imperialistic ideas did not accord well with the times! Towards the close of the  War, he warned that Stalin could not be trusted, but Franklin Roosevelt disregarded his views. The world suffered the Cold War for four decades after that! Churchill was thus a leader for a limited purpose, for a limited but crucial time. Those who study his life cannot fail to notice that he was a man of destiny. It seems all his life was a prelude to this moment, preparation for this role. In nearly everything else, he was wrong! Great as he was in his own way, Indians have no reason to like him.

The big three at the Yalta conference- February,1945

John Kennedy
PT 109

So much has been written about John Kennedy- as leader, president, etc. Two incidents stand out- one before he became even a Senator, and one after he became President. In the Navy during the Second World War, he was captaining a boat PT 109. It was hit by a Japanese destroyer. The destroyer is a big ship, and slow moving, compared to PT 109 which is both small and much faster! That it got hit throws doubts about the captain's abilities! However, after the hit, Kennedy showed extraordinary qualities as a leader, spoke to the unit and led them to safety on an island,a few miles away, towing an injured sailor by clutching a strap from the sailor's life jacket in his teeth!

Lt.John Kennedy in PT 109, 1943

Cuban Missile Crisis

Kennedy as President did not do well in his encounter with Khrushchev at the Vienna meeting in 1961.  In fact, he cut a sorry figure against the more seasoned veteran. Then Khrushchev built the Berlin Wall! Kennedy could do nothing! But when Khrushchev tried to station nuclear missiles in Cuba, Kennedy rose to the occasion. Amidst all the conflicting advice he got, he decided to block the Soviet fleet and pressed the US Navy to blockade Cuba and intercept any Soviet Vessel! 

President Kennedy signing Cuba blockade- 23 October,1962

He had also taken diplomatic steps through UN. But like a true statesman, he provided a face-saving device for Khrushchev: he agreed to remove the outdated US missiles kept in Turkey!  Thus a world crisis was averted. Kennedy showed himself to be a leader in crisis, though we may also argue that the crises themselves were brought on by his inadequacies!

American and Russian vessels.
We students of history and international affairs had very tense moments! Today people cannot imagine that situation!

Friend of India?

Kennedy was a great liberal and he favoured India by sending out the great John Kenneth Galbraith as their Ambassador. Like Chester Bowles before him, he was a true friend of India, but could not get past the anti-India State Dept. Galbraith became very popular in India due to his scholarship , simplicity and directness. He was not a career diplomat and so had not to put on a mask!

Gandhi : was he a leader?

In India, Gandhi and Nehru are considered undisputed leaders. This is an uncritically accepted view. Today, nobody really believes in anything Gandhi said or did; ( not many people have read him, anyway,  to know anything about him) but to pay him homage has become an empty annual ceremony.

Charismatic Gandhi

Does Gandhi meet our criterion of leadership?  Not fully. He started his political life in India with a vision statement: this is explained fully in the small booklet he wrote in 1908- Hind Swaraj. But towards the end of the book, he says that he was not working for that goal right then! He had great ability to inspire people; it was an act of simple faith, like religious feeling. His austerity, his simplicity, his directness, absence of show, his real concern for the poor- all touched the common man. But more thoughtful people were sceptical of his methods, even while admiring his character. 

Gandhi's Politics: fiasco

But his record is dismal in respect of achievement. While he inspired people, he could not successfully conclude any of his Satyagraha programs( except Salt Satyagraha) All his political ideas ended in fiasco. Consider these:

• His programmes ended in Partition of the country
• Hindu-Muslim unity was not achieved. His actions generally weakened the Hindus.
• His idea of linguistic states has corroded the ideal of national unity
• His advocacy of Hindi as national language has made non-Hindi speaking people second class citizens
• His ideal of non-violence has been shown to be unsound and unworkable in practice.  He advised Englishmen not to fight Hitler- his own India fought 4 wars with neighbours!
• He was indecisive and incapable of providing effective leadership, especially in the late 30s and 40s.

Gandhi wronged Netaji! Unfair treatment.

Gandhi's Economics: brilliant and ahead of times

On the other hand, he had some remarkable insights into economics. He showed that industrial civilization was harmful. Today, it is accepted by all serious thinkers. He showed that life could be more simply organised. He showed that people could live without depending on government.He showed that life could be decentralised.  All these ideas are today encompassed within modern concepts such as 'sustainability', 'voluntary simplicity', 'small is beautiful', etc. But these ideas are still on the fringes; no country has adopted them as the standard practice.

Gandhi himself created/revived a parallel economy based on village and cottage industries and demonstrated that it could be done. This is no small achievement.
After Gandhi, the movement has sought govt patronage, subject to all the bureaucratic ways.

Woman weaving saree outside Vijayawada. Handloom weaving is perhaps the only truly cottage industry which still survives.

Unsound ideas on numerous matters

Imposed his will on others

Gandhi expressed his ideas on numerous matters. The more we examine them, the more we feel that he was not steady in his thinking. His ideas were unsound on many issues. He wavered at critical times. He suppressed other people and imposed his own will. He did not allow any organization under him to develop independently, nor did he allow any functionary any real freedom. Rajaji alone among his close associates had the courage to differ from him openly on vital issues, including the disastrous Quit India call. Gandhi was a dictator- as much as Stalin, though he appeared to be gentle. Only, Stalin swore by Marx, Gandhi by the still small voice- whose voice we do not know. 

Gandhi was unfair to Patel. He imposed Nehru on the nation.

Indecisive

If you read how he treated Subhas Bose, Sardar Patel you would hate Gandhi.  He had no respect for the earlier freedom fighters like Tilak, Sri Aurobindo, Bhagat Singh. Gandhi is an example of purposeless self-mortification which achieved nothing in the end. People hesitate to critically examine him because of his supposed martyrdom. People do not know that by then, Gandhi had been discarded by his own followers. With him around, the so called Congress leaders then were unable to come to any decision on any issue. Gandhi was the very antithesis of an effective leader.

 He could lead an Ashram, like a Jain muni; but he could not lead a nation. Nation cannot become an ashram. He has already become irrelevant in India- except for postage stamps, and providing picture for rupee notes! Not a single idea of Gandhi is followed  by any  govt after Independence.

Bharat Mata after Gandhi!

Before Gandhi, we had slogans of Vande Mataram, Bharat Mata Ki Jai. Jai Hind, etc. Gandhi came and the slogan became Mahatma Gandhi ki jai. Today, all such slogans are dumped! Gandhi made us forget Bharat Mata, and today Bharat has also largely forgotten Gandhi! And today in post-Nehru India, it is politically incorrect to say "Bharat Mata ki Jai"or even Vande Mataram. 

Nehru: greatness thrust upon him

Nehru is even less of a leader, on our criteria, though so much glamour surrounds him. Vested interests and dynastic rule have perpetuated his name. Yet, if you examine his life, you will find that:

• Nehru had no practical experience in any field- including law ( unlike Sardar Patel, Rajaji, Rajendra Prasad and others)
• He did not directly organise any constructive activity in the Congress (unlike Patel. Rajaji )
• He was circulating like a prince and it was his father Motilal who commanded respect for his personal sacrifice that secured for him a position of eminence by influencing Gandhi.
• His economic and political ideas were acquired when he was a student at Cambridge. He was not open to new ideas, nor was he able to re-examine and evaluate his old ideas in the light of later developments. Thus his mind did not grow and it was infantile.
• He had no faith in any of the beliefs and programmes of Gandhi. He did not implement even a single programme of Gandhi as Prime Minister.On the contrary, he was an admirer of the Soviet system.
• Majority of Pradesh Congress leaders chose Sardar Patel as Prime Minister. It was Gandhi who imposed Nehru. Nehru treated Patel nastily. Nehru became a dictator surrounded by sycophants in his durbar.

Oh! what a fantastic photo! From: Hindustan Times.

Blunder after Blunder

Now coming to Nehru's work as Prime Minister, we see that:

• He created the Kashmir problem, and it still persists.
• He adopted an economic programme that eventually led to a huge crisis in 1991- India became bankrupt on external account and had to pledge its gold to get international assistance
• He retained and expanded the huge bureaucracy created by the British, and he made it almost monstrous in powers, in the name of state control of economic life.
• He retained the administrative, educational and judiciary systems of the colonial masters and continued colonial style rule
• His external policies led to 4 wars with neighbours! India is surrounded by hostile neighbours!
• He created the linguistic states and thus destroyed the emotional unity of India
• His anti-Hindu prejudice gave the anti-Hindu slant to the concept of secularism.
• After the death of Sardar Patel, he became autocratic in nature and demonic in powers. He felt answerable to no one. He felt and behaved almost like a demigod. He discarded and disregarded old leaders and surrounded himself with sycophants and crooks like V.K.Krishna Menon. He was running like an old truck without brakes. It was the Chinese attack that halted him on his tracks. He lost his charishma, invincibility and even credibility.

One of the great defects of Nehru- which he shared with Gandhi- was that he did not have a genuine democratic temperament. He could not tolerate a difference of opinion within the party, and did not allow any other leader to grew and attain an independent stature. It was this which ultimately led to dynastic rule. 

It cannot be denied that Nehru was a darling of the crowds,at least till the Chinese aggression; but public adulation alone does not make a leader! Nor does such adulation wash off the mistakes.

The evil that men do lives after them;

The good is oft interred with their bones.

-Shakespeare.

This is from a speech of Mark Antony from the play Julius Caesar. This seems to be particularly applicable in politics. A bad decision by a popular figure can damage the country for long years- as Kashmir is proving. People who leave such legacies cannot be considered  leaders by any stretch of imagination!