‘The Last Englishman to Rule India'
Nehru once described himself thus. He
combined in himself the very best of both the traditions. Writing on the Future
of Freedom, Fareed Zakaria, the editor of Newsweek International, reviews the
practice of democracy with an accent on the post-war period all over the world.
He sees them as liberal democracies and illiberal democracies. India receives
great attention from the writer.
The Congress party and the British
constitutional institutions were the bulwark of the democratic tradition during
the Nehru years. Indian Parliament, even the ‘Question Hour', the cast of
committee life of the Congress party, the independence of the judiciary, the
personal integrity of the leadership, and a host of other things were exactly
modelled on the British experience. The Englishman was the model down to the
right pronunciation of his language. Prime Minister Lloyd George, speaking next
to Rt. Hon. V S Srinivasa Sastri, said he was shy to speak his own mother tongue
after listening to Sastri's chaste delivery. Nehru's father was fully
Anglicised. Sri Aurobindo's father never wanted his children to hear Bengali
spoken and put them into English schools at the early age of seven. The
Europeans, especially Englishmen, are men of character, integrity, self-respect,
individuality, and independence. They practise the work ethic of Protestantism
and work tirelessly. Modern science, the several empires, post-war development,
and conquest of disease are the direct result of these VALUES, all of which are
spiritual in origin and content. Nehru was an embodiment of these values on the
foundation of what is sacred in the Indian Spirit, the quest for Truth, or the
seeking of Brahman. Young men who desire to be practical will do well to be
practical idealists, which is the Idealism of the Spirit in
Life.