becoming a one-party democracy. There are par-
allels with Italy here. This had its effect on the
Congress Party itself. It lacked any common ide-
ology or policies; it was just the ‘winning party’,
split into factions, with supporters of the right
and supporters of socialism. Various interests
believed themselves best protected by being on
the government side. This was hardly a healthy
basis for the development of a parliamentary
democracy.
Power corrupts, or it nearly always does so.
Nehru’s claim to statesmanship and greatness is
that power did not corrupt him. He had the means
to become authoritarian and follow the example
of other charismatic Third World leaders who,
once elected, became dictators, but he set himself
the task of making a success of the democratic
experiment in this huge country where the major-
ity were poor or destitute and unable to read.
He toured the country, educating the people to
use their precious right to exercise the vote. He
was prepared to listen, to discuss and debate with
his ministerial colleagues and with the leaders of
the Congress Party. Some were opposed to one
or other of his policies, such as his insistence on a
secular state, his pragmatic socialism, his opposi-
tion to caste discrimination and his relations
with the states of the Union. In his dealings with
those who opposed him, he was humorous,
patient and tolerant. He distrusted theory, rigid
thinking and doctrinaire solutions. Consequently,
clear-cut and consistent policies were not a mark
of his years in office.
Nehru could irritate the West by preaching
peace; it accused him of hypocrisy, of underrat-
ing the menace of communism, and pointed to
inconsistencies in his tolerance and pacifism, espe-
cially in his denial of self-determination to the
people of Kashmir and his readiness to use force
to defeat secessionist movements in the 1950s
and 1960s. He was also ready to use force against
foreign nations. Portuguese Goa represented the
last vestige of European colonialism in India.
After long and fruitless negotiations Nehru
marched Indian troops into Goa in December
1961 and the Portuguese surrendered.
Nehru set himself a number of clear objectives
for the future of India. With these he would not
compromise. The first was to preserve the terri-
torial unity of the state. The second was to ensure
the rights of all India’s inhabitants, whatever their
religion or ethnic cultural background. This
meant that India must be a secular democratic
country. The third was to raise standards of living,
to develop India into a great modern state. The
fourth objective was to ensure Indian security.
This involved freeing India from economic
dependence on other countries. It would also
need a powerful army, but that army would be
subject to civilian control. Nehru’s aims help to
explain his apparent inconsistencies. His handling
of Kashmir was one of these. To allow religion to
decide allegiance could plunge India into chaos.
For similar reasons he also sent the Indian army
to suppress the independence movements of the
tribal peoples in the extreme north-east of India.
With the hundreds of princes and their states,
Nehru had less trouble, apart from Kashmir and
Jammu. He left it to his able lieutenant, Sardar
Patel, to negotiate the abandonment of their
rights and the integration of their states in return
for pensions. The princes, large and small, were
in a hopeless position confronted with the Indian
army. The Muslim Nizam of Hyderabad never-
theless postponed a decision: his people were
Hindu and his large territory was entirely sur-
rounded by India, but he was not left a free
choice whether to accede to Pakistan or to India- in fact, he dreamt of independence. An Indian
army police action in September 1948 put an end
to his prevarication and the integration process
was completed in 1950, the year in which Patel,
India’s most able political leader after Nehru,
died. There was no room for the princes in
modern India.
Nehru showed more forbearance when con-
fronted by another problem that threatened to
fragment India. This was the vexed question of
the ‘official’ language to be spoken by all Indians.
English was the only common language, but it
was confined to a tiny percentage of the educated.
Of the more than thirty major languages, the lan-
guage of northern India, Hindi, was spoken by
the largest single group but not by a majority of
all Indians; large minorities of between 20 and 45
million (in 1971) spoke Urdu, Telugu, Bengali,