Nehru, Gandhi and a dream state

And yet he was surely right. Nehru was acutely aware that India's delicate frame could crack if he pushed too hard. He valued stability above progress; that was why he accepted language-based states in the south and muted his campaign for land reform. And the stability that Nehru achieved during his 18 years as prime minister is itself an extraordinary achievement of statesmanship. Perhaps it might have lasted longer if his heirs, including his daughter, had not played with communal fire for political gain. But even with all its fissiparous tendencies, India is neither a patchwork state, like Indonesia, nor an anarchic dictatorship, like Pakistan. India is very much a functioning democracy, and surely much of the credit must go to Nehru's unwillingness to use undemocratic means to achieve even the most desirable ends.

There is, it turns out, no uniquely Indian way to conduct foreign or domestic policy. India looks increasingly like a "normal" country, using familiar means to attain familiar goals. Even its ugly messes are the result of normal political self-seeking, though Nehru would have been sickened by the vulgarity of the spectacle. And the trend lines for this all-too-conventional India are broadly positive: Economic growth is up around 8%, and the Hindu nationalist prime minister is offering tentative peace feelers to Pakistan. These two biographies, the one careful and comprehensive, the other swift and sharp, offer a measuring stick not only for Nehru but also for India's unfolding experiment. One wonders how the chronicles will read a generation from now. *