Independence to Pandit Nehru did not mean nearly political freedom. It meant to him also freedom of soul. Poverty and slavery are the chains put on it and they must be torn asunder to create an opportunity for its development was his mission. Like Tagore he knew soul’s expression is joy-but slavery was the greatest hindrance in this respect. To put an end to it he embarked on a bold voyage of freeing India from the British yoke. Little he knew Politics was not his field. His field was poetry. Politics is associated with meanness and hypocrisy. Fear hears is more important than love.
‘Oh for a life of sensation rather than of thought’ round which his whole personality revolved and equipped him very little for politics. He is a poet in and out. He lived in poetry, spoke in poetry, and slept in poetry yet he was called by destiny to bear the great burden of politics.
Strange it sounds. But God fulfills Himself in many ways. Inscrutable are his ways. No amount of skill in science has yet been able to unlock this mystery; otherwise all the materials of a romantic poet were in abundance in him. If he could marshal them properly he could shine like Shakespeare and Tagore in the firmament of literature. If the definition of a poet is one ‘who has realized in himself and in whom humanity has gained realization and when this is expressed in fine musical language with grace and refinement he becomes a poet’ – then Nehru is certainly a poet of a very high order. Humanity gained realization in him in the year Nineteen Twenty. In this year he has served with an externment order from the hill station of Mussouri. He subsequently made an excursion in to the villages of U.P. Ever since then he writes “my mental picture of India always contains the naked hungry man”.
Son of a rich man, born with a silver spoon in his mouth he realized in himself under the spell of a deep sorrow that he must devote his energy for the down trodden masses. Spirits of grief transformed him, and with pity in look melancholy in eyes, sigh in breath, he prodded Congress to accept Socialism as its ideal. Poetry here finds expression in action rather than in though. It is this poetry in him which started transcending Indian politics. He emphatically asserted “India must see her struggle in the larger context of world development and upheavals”. The international awareness for which he was often scoffed at is certainly the greatest contribution of the poet Nehru, in the field of Indian politics.
As a poet he had great love for beauty and truth. Like Wordsworth he severely castigated man’s obsession with materialism. He boldly laid bare the soul of it in the glowing words – “Materialism is becoming more the Centre of interest than the man himself and the Crisis of spirit is bound to emerge. Creative mind for beauty alone can solve the human crisis”.
Beauty is truth and truth is beauty – That is all ye know on earth and ye need to know” – was realized by him and he lived beautifully and simply like flowers and children. With a red rose buttoned on his chest he embodied in him perpetual youth to fight out the effete ideals.
His love for children breathed a University. It gave him that blessed mood in which he could see into the life of things. It gave him that serene philosophic temper in which he could contemplate the spectacle of life with proper emotion. Sree Y.B. Chavan once remarked “A child always sat upon his face”.
He loved Children and in return they gave him the gift of “Chacha Nehru Zindabad”. It haunted him like a passion. He could see Children playing in divine shore, turn to them, talk to them in their language and shake off all worries of mind.
The celestial light, the glory the freshness never left him. Tagore once likened him to the spirit of the spring. Frank Moraes his friendly biographer writes “There is in him ebullience of spirit and speech a school boy Charm that contrasts strongly with his ascetic and reflective mien.”
Like a poet he had glimpses of vision and was loaded with immense delight when he would see a rising sun or “majestic roof fritted with golden fire.”
The milk of human kindness that nourished all his work flowed from poetry in him. His love for man and individual grandeur emanated from it. His adventure on the bold voyage of soul in unknown and unchartered land breaths more of poetry than of politics.
His language both in speeches and books reflect a rhythm of spiritual experience with a magic known only to Poets who come in contact with universal soul and hold-Love is more beautiful than hatred.
Emotion was natural to him and it is this which could not end of him as a man and place him in the category of pure politician. It is this poetry in him which allowed his reputation to cross all frontiers and make currency universal.
In future he may not be remembered as a great politician but he will be remembered certainly a tragic figure of imperishable renown in the realm of poetry.
As a politician he walked with the meanest of she means but his soul like a star always dwelt apart majestic and free.
Oh! If he could live at this hour and glitter like a brook in the open sunshine probably the predominance of spirit over matter would have been established gradually. But destiny snatched him in our critical hours leaving nothing but fondly to dream:
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