Members of the Nehru-Gandhi family being kept out of the official committee to observe the 125th anniversary of the birth of India’s visionary first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru is no big deal. However, that is exactly what’s being sought to be made out by some elements on the grounds that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s antecedents are anti-Nehru, and he has made no bones about it.
As far as historical role goes, the idea of Jawaharlal cannot be erased, whatever the personal predilections of a PM, his party or his government. Official observances are, however, another matter.
The memory of Jawaharlal Nehru was not sought to be buried by another BJP PM, Atal Behari Vajpayee. Mr Modi would have looked churlish if he had gone that way, no matter what his own estimation of the first PM, who was not only Mahatma Gandhi’s chosen heir, in a manner of speaking, but also the foundational figure, both politically and philosophically, for the establishment of a secular India after Gandhiji was gone.
There is no particular reason why Jawaharlal Nehru’s descendants should be accommodated in an official committee to commemorate him even if they are leading lights of Indian politics, although suffering a decline at present. The government, after all, has not ignored the Congress party in the national committee to commemorate Panditji’s birth anniversary, being chaired by the Prime Minister. The BJP, or any leader of that party, including the present PM, cannot appropriate Jawaharlal Nehru, as some think is happening. They wouldn’t be the BJP if they did.
