Revisiting ‘Nehruvian consensus’, its impact

On last week’s Grand Tamasha podcast – a co-production of HT and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace – historian and author Taylor C. Sherman revisits this consensus and finds that all is not what it seems.

Nonalignment, secularism, socialism, democracy, high modernism – these are all ideas that many Indians have long associated with India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru. These elements have been so embedded in the Indian psyche that we regularly speak of a “Nehruvian consensus” without thinking twice.

Sherman told podcast host Milan Vaishnav that the idea of a “Nehruvian consensus” was not so much about policies or programs, but a way of doing politics. (HT)

On last week’s Grand Tamasha podcast – a co-production of HT and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace – historian and author Taylor C. Sherman revisits this consensus and finds that all is not what it seems. Sherman, a professor of history at the London School of Economics and Political Science, is author of Nehru’s India: A History in Seven Myths. On the podcast, she argues that many of these high-minded notions that we’ve long associated with Nehru are – at their core – myths. And like all good myths, there’s a kernel of truth somewhere in there but the reality is far more nuanced.

Sherman told podcast host Milan Vaishnav that the idea of a “Nehruvian consensus” was not so much about policies or programs, but a way of doing politics. Even after Nehru’s death, “there was no consensus about how or whether he transformed India,” explained Sherman. “The idea of consensus comes largely from one man – Rajni Kothari – who was an eminent political scientist. Shortly after Nehru’s death, he wrote about the ‘Nehruvian consensus.’ And what he meant was there was a consensus about how to go about politics – a kind of modus vivendi between the opposition parties and the ruling Congress party which involved keeping the temperature low, respecting institutions, and having respect for one’s opponent.” In short, she said, “It was a way of doing politics”.

On the question of secularism, Sherman explained, Nehru did not codify his views in any specific doctrine. His approach was ad hoc and on the fly. That pragmatism may have paid off in the short term, but it left many pressing questions about the intertwining of religion and the state fundamentally unresolved. However, Sherman does credit Nehru and the Indian state under his leadership of doing a reasonably good job promoting Hindu-Muslim harmony.

One of the lasting lessons from her research, Sherman revealed, is that it is perhaps time to put to rest this idea of India’s “founding moment”, as if it decisively shaped everything which came after it.

“It was expected, and the Constitution set up various mechanisms (for this), for India to change,” said Sherman. She gives the example of a number of constitutional provisions that were supposed to be temporary – reservations for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, reliance on English as India’s main language, Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir – which ended up becoming established practices. “Those who wrote the Constitution expected India to be set on a path by that Constitution in the direction they wanted it to head,” said Sherman. “And all those temporary measures, apart from Article 370, have not changed in the way the founders expected them to change. India did not move in the direction it was expected to move.”