Of Calamities and Misinformation

If I were asked to name the two biggest natural disasters ever to hit Indian shores, I would have no hesitation in naming the horrendously overhyped and much lied about duo of J Nehru and MK Gandhi. Whether evaluated from an economic, foreign-relations or human perspective, these two did all in their power to cripple the country and leave it in a total shambles by the time they were through.

Let’s just look a bit objectively at the oh-so-great Mr. N then for starters. Power hungry as he was, his first act was to ensure, with able assistance and ultimate guidance from Mr. G that the Congress’ decision of appointing Patel as PM was shot down and he was to lead the nation. This decision of course, led to Jinnah asking for Pakistan, since his only condition was that Nehru not be made PM. A secular Jinnah, when rebuffed by Gandhi on this demand immediately turned to hardline religiosity and ultimately this led to the infamous rioting that left thousands dead and the populations of two nations scarred.

This however was just the precursor to what Nehru truly aimed to accomplish. Jinnah was perhaps the wisest man of that time and I base this opinion purely on the fact that hindsight shows how right he was to demand that Nehru not be made PM. Just after Independence, with Pakistan mounting an attack on Kashmir, the then-ruler of the independent State rushed to Delhi and signed an accession treaty with India. As part of the country, perhaps I am not being too demanding when I state that India’s duty was now to retaliate to uphold sovereignty – a suggestion that Patel (Home Minster) made.

Yet Nehru in his infinite wisdom chose to rush to the UN with this issue rather than use force. The result? A total fiasco with India rejecting the UN’s decision, an International Border that is non-existent and much-debated, a ‘Line-of-Control’ that is farcical and ill-defined at best and of course, the wonderful gift of terrorism that shows no signs of ceasing.

But Nehru was an all-rounder, to be sure. India was a newly freed nation and this of course afforded him with ample elbow-room to wreak all the havoc that his mind dreamed up. Economically, he imposed on the country a model more incompetent and ridiculous than any could have imagined. A similar model was tried and immediately rejected by China, but Nehru of course knew better.

So, we had regulations that ensured that there was no private sector at all, we had a monolithic public sector that apart from boosting the employment figures provided little productivity and ensured that incompetence, corruption and red tape became inextricable parts of our industry and culture. The growth rates under Nehru was not just laughable, but contemptible and the economy hurtled quickly towards the crisis that would envelop it in the 1970s.

Foreign affairs though, was the field for which Nehru reserved his best. He started this little baby called the Non-Alignment Movement. Fantastic as it may sound, this joke not just survived its ill-conceived inception, but lasts to date!!! This despite the Cold War itself having been over for well over a decade. Oh well, since we can’t blame the last bit on Nehru, I will just leave that as a pointer to how ridiculous the concept was in itself.

NAM of course meant that the member nations of this organisation aligned with neither the United States nor the USSR. It’s perhaps the easiest fact to point out that none of the NAM countries achieved anything significant in terms of growth during the Cold War era. India of course, was to play an even bigger clown under the expert guidance of the highly esteemed Mr. Nehru.

While a leading light of NAM and one of the founder nations, India was quite obviously cosying up to the USSR. This of course was hardly invisible to the USA who quite nicely formed an alliance with Pakistan. (It took massive efforts to shrug off the effects of this phase and Indian relations with the USA did not improve till ABV's reign... Even now of course, the astoundingly stupid Left and their cronies are creating a ruckus, but then again, they'd do that anyway.) Yet India was never really assured of overt Russian support anyway, since we were, ostensibly at least, a part of NAM and therefore could hardly afford to support one of the Big Two on any public forum!

Yet Nehru’s biggest showpiece, his grandest moment and the culmination of all his efforts on these different fronts was the confrontation with China. Much is made in history texts in Indian schools of the fact that the Chinese were the aggressors in this conflict. This of course, is a vicious campaign of misinformation used by the Congress to sweep under the carpet all the horrendous mistakes that Nehru made in the lead-up to the conflict.

The great statesman that he was, he deliberately redrew the maps and asked the Indian forces to proceed further and further, assuming that the Chinese troops that would inevitably be returning to their outposts would not care to fight and take back what was theirs, as the land in that region was hardly fertile (Wonder why he wanted it then, but then I’m not as smart or as much a visionary as he was).

Nehru then repeatedly ignored Chinese pleas to withdraw and the result of course was the war itself. This is where Nehru’s other achievements came into play. Where the maps and the records showed bridges and roads that the exchequer had paid millions for, there were in reality none present! And Nehru being the tactical genius and the geography master that he was, asked the Indian soldiers to march into combat in the Himalayas, wearing no more than a sleeveless sweater. Perhaps his assumption was that the firing would keep them warm. Who knows? Perhaps he was right. We’ll never know the soldiers’ perspective of course as they were all massacred on the battlefield…

As an illustration of the truth of all this, consider that China, having marched well into the disputed territory and being in a fantastic position, unchallenged and facing pressure from nobody, unilaterally declared a ceasefire as well as a withdrawal of troops and returned vast portions of the disputed territory to India. This is after the fact that their initial offer for a ceasefire in September (all they asked in return was that India agree to negotiate on the issues that Nehru had so far ignored), was rejected by Nehru even before he read it!!! This of course sparked off the combat in October and November that claimed over a thousand soldiers.

Nehru showed his tremendous respect for the fallen men with his stunning statement regarding how ‘not a blade of grass grows there’, to illustrate that the loss was not anything he considered major. And this man is considered our greatest leader? The maestro of foreign relations? The only foreign relationship he was good at was the philandering with Lady M.

In true Nehruvian style of course, there was a report written on the War and the reasons for the loss. There was also a Committee instituted later that was asked to see if the report could be released to the Indian public. That of course, has not happened and possibly never will… To do so, would destroy in one blow all the myths that the Congress has worked so hard at spreading, about the most vile person ever to occupy any nation’s top office.

To those that may contest the facts I present regarding the China War, please visit this link. It may enlighten you…and trust me, it makes for a depressing read, particularly if you are a Congress-loving person who believes in that web of lies and deception about Nehru…

Someday I’ll write on Gandhi’s other failings, but perhaps the biggest of them all, was that he shoved this man down our throats… It’s enough to make a grown man cry to hear people praise those two bastards.