Swami, commenting on this post asks a typical question, one which I’ve always found irritatingly ambiguous.

Ravikiran Ji,
a) If Nehru was alive in 1991 as a retired politician, would he have supported the economic liberalization initiated by Manmohan Singh and co.?
b) If Nehru was alive today, would he agree with the economic path that India is taking today?

Why do I find such questions ambiguous? And irritating?

If Nehru were alive in 1991, he would be 102 years old and probably too senile to hold any coherent views. But I suppose that is not what Swami was asking about. He probably meant to ask:

On reading Nehru’s actual recorded views, what conclusions would a reasonable person have drawn about the path we should have followed in 1991? What conclusions would he draw about the path we are following now?

Well Swami, you tell me.
Did Nehru ever claim that socialism was suitable only for a short period? Did he write down that the country would have to change course after his death?

Did he ever set a failure condition for his policies? I mean, did he ever say, “If x condition occurs, then my countrymen should accept that my policies have failed and they should change course. The course they should follow in such a contingency is…”?

Did he set up checks and balances that would ensure that the system would detect early that things are going wrong and corrective measures need to be taken? It seems to me that the answer is a self-evident “No”. We failed to change course till disaster stared us in the face.

There is nothing about Nehru’s views or actions that would tell a person following them what policies he should have adopted in 1991.

Then again, the question shouldn’t be what he should have done in 1991. Any idiot would have known in 1991 what had to be done. The real test of a system is to realise in advance that things were going wrong and to take corrective action. In that respect, Nehru’s policies can only be judged as an abject failure, unless you think of Nehru as some kind of Hari Seldon.

Or perhaps I interpreted Swami’s question wrongly. Did he mean to ask:

If Nehru had seen the results of his policies, would he have accepted that he was wrong, changed course, and supported the reforms of 1991?

To that my answer is I don’t care.

The question relates to Nehru’s character, not his ideas.

Newton is a great man because of his theories, not because of his attitude. Suppose that it turned out that Newton was a bad loser, i.e. he would have thrown a tantrum on learning that his principles weren’t valid at high speeds. Would it make any difference to our evaluation of his theories? Or if it turned out that Newton was completely wrong about everything, but was the type of man to graciously accept his faults, would we have the same regard for his theories?

What type of man Nehru was would be of interest to me if I were his biographer. But I am concerned with what impact his ideas had on the country and what relevance they have for the future, and not with his character.

And even if I did care, Swami would lose the argument.
This was a man who ignored every warning that the Chinese were planning to attack. He did not have the courage to change direction even when faced with certain defeat and humiliation.

He did not have an open mind. There are well-documented instances of industrialists pleading with him, pointing out that his policies were destroying industry. He poured scorn on them, saying that the interest of the country took priority over petty profits. I think it is more likely that he would have blamed the situation of 1991 on the CIA’s attempts to undermine his precious socialism.