Hubris
Nehru regarded himself as a great academic and intellectual; a highly knowledgeable individual; an internationalist and an expert in international affairs; a liberal modernist rational of ‘scientific’ temperament and thinking; and someone who knew what was best for the Indian economy, and indeed for all aspects of the Indian polity...
On how Nehru usurped the positions that should rightfully have gone to Sardar Patel, please check Blunder#1 and Blunder#6 above. Despite those crafty usurpations that cost India dear, Nehru’s machinations against Sardar Patel continued after independence. Jayaprakash Narayan(JP), a socialist, used to be in Nehru’s camp. After independence the socialists had...
General Thimayya was a highly accomplished army-man. Here is one of his many accomplishments: As a Major-General in the J&K war of the late 1940s, Thimayya had taken his tanks to a height of about 12000 feet on the snow-capped Zojila Pass—something unique in history, as nobody had taken tanks...
Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee (1901–1953) was the son of Sir Ashutosh Mukherjee (1864–1924), renowned as ‘Banglar Bagh’ or the ‘Tiger of Bengal’. Ashutosh Mukherjee was a great educationist who had helped found many educational institutions like the Bengal Technical Institute, College of Science, University College of Law, and the Calcutta...
Servitude debases men to the point where they end up liking it. —Luc de Clapiers Nehru’s hubris was such that he thought he was the wisest person around who knew best. He, therefore, looked for “Yes-men”. Those who would toe his line, do his bidding, and even anticipate his likes and dislikes,...
The other day a TV commentator stated that a foreigner visiting a Government office with him asked, “Are there three sexes in your country?” Baffled, the commentator looked at him wondering what to make of it. The foreigner helpfully added, “I notice three toilets: Men, Women and VIPs!” In a...
“Deep inside his heart, Nehru always was a dictator and first rate politician and manipulator. He feared only Gandhi and Patel—Gandhi because of his moral authority and complete grip on the masses, and Patel because of his firmness, unwillingness to be emotionally blackmailed and the writ in the party.” —Historian Makkhan...
Among the leaders of pre-independence times, none could come near Dr BR Ambedkar in academics, and in the quality and wisdom of his writings. If he was at number one, the rest started from number eleven. Ambedkar was BA–Economics & Political Science from Bombay University; MA– Economics from Columbia University,...
The “great democrat” Nehru, who had most undemocratically become the first PM (Blunder#6), manoeuvred for a complete domination over the party in 1950, just before Patel’s demise, by having a Congress President of his choice elected. Nehru unilaterally declared the socialist JB Kripalani as the presidential candidate, even though he...
Maniben Patel, the only daughter of Sardar Patel, switched to khadi at a tender age of 16, and started working regularly at the Gandhi Ashram in Ahmedabad. Most of the garments that Sardar Patel wore after 1921 were woven out of the yarn made by Maniben. When just 17, she...
