Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, died 50 years ago (27 May 1964). Tomorrow the country will get to know a new Prime Minister, most probably. How far will we have come from Nehru then? Nelson Mandela, while admitting Mahatma Gandhi’s influence on him, said, “But Nehru was really my hero.” Nehru was a true democrat, explained Mandela in his Rajiv Gandhi Foundation lecture on 25 Jan 1995, who strove to ensure a life with dignity for every citizen. Nehru transcended the narrow boundaries like religion that tended to divide man against man. Arguably, Nehru’s greatest contribution to India was his concept of secularism. Today the word causes frowns on the foreheads of the country’s culture guardians. The Congress that ruled over India after Nehru is to be blamed partially for those frowns. But the lion’s share of the blame should go to the vested interests of certain other political parties and religious organisations that refused to understand Nehru
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