Word: nehru
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Opium of the Masses. Jawaharlal Nehru, however, is far more than just a political boss. In the Indian mystique he is a national symbol, almost the embodiment of India, and he receives from his countrymen probably more unbounded and unabashed hero worship than any other national leader in the world...
Ostensibly this disgusts Nehru. He knocks away people who try to kiss his feet, swings his ivory-tipped, teakwood swagger stick at crowds which come too close. Yet, like Antaeus touching earth, he seeks out crowds, often giving as many as ten speeches a week when he is in New Delhi, and many more when he is traveling...
...performance is almost always the same. As Nehru steps out of his black Cadillac and climbs onto the speaker's platform, he is approached by women bearing wreaths. He allows one wreath to be placed around his neck, but a second later abruptly jerks it off and throws it on a table. With patent impatience he fiddles with the microphones before him, readjusting their height and position. Finally the speech begins. It is made without notes and sounds less like a political address than a passage from a stream-of-consciousness novel. Almost invariably, it will include sharp attacks...
None of this, nor the fact that many do not even know the language he addresses them in, bothers his audience. They have come not to hear Nehru but for darshan, the spiritual impact of being in the presence of a great personality. When the speech is over, the crowd cheers, and amidst the applause Nehru bounds down from the platform, smiling at everyone, his irritability gone. "Nehru," says one American familiar with these spectacles, "is the opium of the Indian masses-and they...
...English Heritage. Yet a great gulf separates Nehru from the Indian masses -a gulf inherent in Nehru's origin and widened by his English education. Nehru's father, Motilal Nehru, was a wealthy lawyer. Determined to give his only son an English gentleman's education, Motilal put him in the hands of an Irish tutor, Ferdinand Brooks. Under Brooks's guidance, Jawaharlal ranged widely through English literature, one of his favorite authors being that apostle of the white man's burden, Rudyard Kipling...