that convinces all classes to back the agenda of the national bourgeoisie,
because that agenda is allegedly in the interest of the entire ‘nation’,
Indian nationalism was no different. But the imperatives to mass partici-
pation – and to mass control – were different. The bourgeois nationalists
had to be able to demonstrate mass support, to call upon it in order to
make a show of strength effectively before the colonial government, and
perhaps also British public opinion, and then it had to be able to control
the masses, in effect to put them back in their box until they were needed
again. This was, of course, not always successful: people, once mobilised
for a great cause, could be reluctant simply to be instrumentally used to
achieve others’ agendas.
Where did Nehru fit into this picture? His sympathies lay for the
greater part of his political career with a broadly defined left position;
he himself was responsible for many of the left-wing pronouncements of
the Congress. But as a loyal party man, he could usually be relied upon
to follow a line even when it went against his own beliefs. As mobiliser
he raised expectations, only to himself be instrumentally appropriated
later by forces to the right of him. He was often conscious of this hap-
pening but unable or unwilling to prevent it. When he did make the
attempt, as in his occasional threats to resign as prime minister if his path
was not followed, he was thrown back on staking his personal prestige
against that of his party – which might either be considered undemocratic
from an internal party perspective, or an appeal to direct democracy,
because both Nehru and the Congress knew that Nehru’s reputation was
what the Congress was most dependent on before an electorate. (It might
also be noted in passing that this was more than a little reminiscent of
Gandhian tactics; but where Gandhi’s preferred form of moral blackmail
was the fast, Nehru’s was the threat of resignation.)
Beset by moral and political doubts, many of which did him great
credit as an intellectual, Nehru’s actions were often well short of politically
effective in terms of the goals he proclaimed. He often felt an outsider, at
odds with the political climate he was forced to work in, a somewhat
inauthentic interloper who had had to do much hard work to discoverIndia,
but was nonetheless unsure of having made the right discovery, or if so,
whether his discovery was to his own taste. Nehru is said to have remarked
that he was the last Englishman to rule India – the ambiguity of this
statement describes a long and continuing debate that was very much a
part of anti-colonial nationalist struggles: the authenticity, or lack thereof,
INTRODUCTION 7