PICTURES OF NEHRU
Jack, Homer A.
Pictures of Nehru Jawaharlal Nehru, by Frank Moraes. Macmillan. 511 pp. $6.75. Nehru: Conversations on India and World Affairs, by Tibor Men-de. George Braziller. 144 pp. $3. Reviewed by Homer A....
...This is a sympathetic biography, but not a handout...
...He affirmed that in India "at the moment economic progress is more important than even family planning...
...He confessed that he was "not interested in providing every person in India with a motor car, with a washing machine, or with a refrigerator...
...If Nehru's mind is "now virtually a closed book" about Kashmir, Moraes asserts that "the fault is not entirely his...
...What other statesman wall ing the world stage today would be so knowledgeable on such a wide variety of subjectsl Mende stayed away from topical issues like Goa and Kashmir—but touched the vital issues, often the controversial ones...
...It is a tribute to Nehru that these tape-recorded interviews were neither revised by him nor edited by Mende...
...He admitted: "I am not quite sure which creates more trouble, the good crusaders who believe in their way of life and wish to impose it on others, or the evil persons...
...Mende asked Nehru a good deal about Indo-American relations...
...The editor of The Times of India tells the absorbing story of Asia's greatest statesman with interest and clarity...
...Moraes draws a picture of Nehru today and of the men and women around him...
...It appears that the cease-fire will become, with minor adjustments, the final disposition of this tragedy...
...Speaking again undoubtedly of America, Nehru felt that danger in the world comes not only from the anti-social elements of nations (such as Russia) but from the "good crusading elements...
...Nehru: Conversations on India and World Affairs is what the title implies: four leisurely conversations between Jawaharlal Nehru and Tibor Mende, an Hungarian Frenchman with a good knowledge of Asia and India...
...Reviewed by Homer A. Jack JAWAHARLAL NEHRU has written so much about himself that the ordinary biographer has been fearful that he couldn't add much to Nehru's own writings...
...Mistakes were made all around, by Nehru and India, yes, and also by Pakistan, the Western powers, and the United Nations...
...In twenty-eight chapters Moraes unfolds the story...
...Tibor Mende has made an interesting addition to the Nehru literature, These conversations give a picture of the Prime Minister which is quite different from that given by most oF the American press...
...If they did, they might be critical at moments, but in balance they would certainly be more understanding of the man who is leading India so wisely and humanely...
...Nehru admitted, as he has done repeatedly, that Gandhi was the "only one major change in my life...
...American politicians and journalists who are eager to criticize Nehru will probably not take time to read this volume...
...Nehru's deep concern for Kashmir is not solely because it is, somewhat removed, his ancestral home...
...There are long discussions on India's economic planning and whether she can make sufficient progress by democratic methods...
...The Indian Prime Minister must still be viewed in depth through American eyes—not Indian or European...
...There are portraits of Indira, his only daughter, and of the "didactic and controversial" V. K. Krishna Menon...
...Nehru knows well his mind on the big issues and even reveals a "meticulous eye" for detail...
...Moraes can be critical when he feels he should be...
...Moraes feels that the Kashmir state, with a Moslem majority and Hindu minority, "embodies in Nehru's eyes the secular spirit which he cherishes...
...As for that American lady in every audience who demands that Nehru and the Indian people practice birth control, Nehru gave this answer: "The enthusiasts for family planning think that you can ignore everything else and just go out and meet this menace of the rising population...
...He denied that he or Indians generally dislike Americans, but he affirmed that "there are many things in Ameri-ca which we do not like...
...Nehru confessed the problems of political office: how one "tones down" in a position of responsibility...
...He is, to this reviewer, occasionally critical when he need not be...
...Thus no full-length biography of Nehru had been published until Frank Moraes entered where most biographers had feared to tread...
...In a chapter on Kashmir, Moraes shows that Nehru's position on that ill-fated land is not simply his "Achilles' Heel" as American commentators so simply conclude...
...While Nehru admitted that if China makes progress it is an incentive for India to do more, he denied that there is a question of competing for economic progress with China or any other country...
...Moraes' biography is not the last word on Nehru...
...In lieu of Nehru's three basic works, the three collections of his speeches, his published press conferences, and the growing literature about him, Moraes' biography is indispensable fare for anybody who would try to understand modern Asia and India...
...Nehru's frank analysis is one every American policy-maker ought to read...
...Moraes, however, is always honest, and the book presents a picture of Nehru which even Nehru, for all his style and rhetoric, cannot give of himself...
...As for Nehru himself, Moraes feels that the "view of Nehru as a popular Hamlet seized with doubts and often incapable of making up his mind is far from the real picture...
...Only in the last chapters does he depart from the chronological motif, and these are among the most revealing: Kashmir, the welfare state, Asian relations, Russian and Chinese communism...
Vol. 20 • December 1956 • No. 12
