Nehru and Ghandi

Today has been one of the best days so far. I learned so much, not only in our two sessions of class but in the Nehru Memorial Museum as well. Instead of having two class sessions in the morning and a field trip in the afternoon, we had our trip in the morning today.  We also had class at the museum instead of at JNU. 

At the museum we learned so much about Nehru, the first prime minster of India, and Ghandi, who most people know for his famous lead in nonviolent disobedience against the British. In the morning we learned mostly about Nehru.  The entire museum was dedicated to him and was located in the house he occupied when he was prime minister.

When we were in the museum there were also many children there, probably on a field trip.  There were a few children who asked to take pictures with me.  All of them seemed interested in us because we were foreign or different.  It seems like wherever we go we are taking pictures of people and they are taking pictures of us. 

Our first class took place after tea (by the way, I am really starting to love the tea breaks here! This one consisted of tea and a few typical Indian snacks, which were, of course, delicious).  The lecture on India's development strategy since independence by one of the history professors/director of JNU, Aditya Mukherjee.  He talked about how you have to know history to be aware of context, other wise you will not be able to effectively analyze what has happened or be able to answer the questions you want to ask.  Aditya talked about the Indian National Independence and how it was a prolonged movement involving mass amounts of Indians who were interested in sovereignty, democracy and a multicultural state.  He emphasized that movements create states and that when a state is born it keeps elements of the movements that made them. India was unique in that it was the first nation in history to want to move forward as a democracy during their period of industrialization.  With this there was no civil war after the revolution, as there had been in other countries.  Democracy was able to survive because no one was suppressed. There was consensus on a mixed economy (private and public) with import substitution and a welfare capitalist model.  This period saw remarkable growth. Aditya continued to talk about reforms in 1991 and the opening up of India and globalization. It was a very interesting lecture.

Our second lecture was on building a democratic and secular society in a post colonial society, looking at India as a case study, and was given by Aditya's wife, Mridula.  Mridula is also a history professor at JNU in addition to being the director of the museum and library.  In her lecture she talked a lot about democracy and Ghandi.  She talked about how there was a new intelligencia, and they started the process towards independence.  There was also a lot of information about other nations emerging from independence and other modern ideas rising in India.  From this Ghandi and nonviolent revolution emerged.  Indian nationalism was formally rooted in the economy, and colonialism was compromising economic and social interests. Ghandi and others showed the people of India through example what democracy was.  They formed their own groups, voted for leadership, and made decisions.  The press and public was used as a platform which evolved into rallies and mass meetings and eventually the strategy of civil disobedience. Over 70 years the ideas spread to all areas of the country and all levels of society. They became valued and internalized.  Ghandi also not only tolerated but encouraged dissent because a democracy consisted of views from both sides. He also knew that the nonviolence movement could only succeed of the masses participated.  He believed that civil liberties had to be absolute and both him and Nehru believed in democracy as an absolute value.  The means are as important as the ends - you can't have a democracy with achieving it through non-democratic means.

After class we got to see the library, which was impressive.  It is the largest library in Asia. We were able to see all the books as well as archives and microfilms.  When we visited the microfilm section we looked up the day after India gained its independence to see the news article. We also met a woman who wrote about the subject and she told us to read her article.

When we went to see transcripts we got to see the original manuscript of Discovering India, Ghandi's handwriting, and a letter on behalf of Kennedy to Nehru. We were not allowed to take pictures of the documents but were allowed to take pictures of the room.

After we saw the transcripts we saw pictures of Nehru on his US tour.  We saw him with pictures of various presidents - Nixon, Eisenhower, and more.  It was amazing.  We actually got to touch the pictures and albums of the pictures from those times. A lot of these things we wouldn't even be able to see if this was a museum in the US!

The last thing we did in the museum was see a movie about Ghandi.  It was on his nonviolent revolution.  It talked about how he gathered the people to defy the salt tax and told everyone to disobey the laws set forth by the British.  If they did this the British could not govern them.  The movie went through the progession of the revolution through the independence of India and death of Ghandi.  It stated that Ghandi was the first Indian to meet with the British Prime Minister as an equal.  It later went on to discuss how Ghandi's beliefs were again used in Tennessee in desegregation.

We concluded by going to the souvenir shop.  This was a sight to see because they sold books, very interesting to a class of graduate students!  I don't know if the museum has ever sold so many books to one group of people.

On the bus ride home we talked a little more about policy issues.  In one of the lecture it was mentioned that when a survey was done the poor said they were in poverty because they were illiterate.  Their view had to do more with the lack of education than the lack of material goods.  Dr. Goswami talked about how electricity is not a need because you can live your day by sunlight and sleep in the dark.  What is needed is clean drinking water, primary education and basic health.  There has been improvement in this but there are still too many people still deprived of these basic needs.  Parents are uneducated and cannot educate their children so the cycle continues.  There are people who tell families they will take their girls and find them jobs in cities (8 or 9 year old girls) so they can send money back to the family and then sell the girls into prostitution. This happens more often than is should and we need to be thinking of policy options to correct this.