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Quite interesting to frame this one person's censorship power, deciding what a billion people can or cannot read, as 'a rare example of statesmanship'.
by ricardobeat 4y ago
Quite interesting to frame this one person's censorship power, deciding what a billion people can or cannot read, as 'a rare example of statesmanship'.
- muststopmyths 4y agoThere weren’t a billion people then. Also, he didn’t have censorship power. Rather if you read the article, he convinced the people who wanted to censor it to not do so. We seem to have forgotten what statesmanship is these days. India was and is a very conservative country. For him to not do the easy thing was indeed a reflection of his character. For all his faults, he was a great leader.
- kaesar14 4y agoIndia hasn't seen his equal since then.
- thunkshift1 4y agoLol.. it most certainly has, just that others were relegated to mere footnotes in history
- unmole 4y agoPlease educate me. Who were this mysterious others?
- hegemon8 4y ago(1)PV Narasimha Rao (2)Atal Bihari Vajpayee
- unmole 4y agoFor PV Narasimha Rao, I can still buy the argument that he set off on dismantling the Licence Raj. What exactly did Vajpayee achieve that came anywhere close? Deciding to go nuclear? Nevertheless, I don't see how either of them can be considered to have equalled Nehru. For one he remains the longest serving PM during the most transformative period of modern India. During Nehru's term India went from having to import even cars to building jet fighters.
- kaesar14 4y agoI could accept that there are leaders in the nation's past that have been given a diminished role in comparison to Nehru and Gandhi (Ambedkar comes to mind) but I can hardly believe that anyone so instrumental to building the nation's foundation could be so easily dismissed like Nehru. Navigating the country through independence, the writing of the Constitution, the largest mass migration in human history, modernization of industry, and the beginnings of the Cold War while having the longest tenure of any PM in Indian history amount to one of the greatest resumes of any modern leader.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- webmobdev 4y agoThe article offers a good insight of how indian bureaucracy and democracy functioned in India. Lot of representations, actual debate and discussions among the officials and the elected representative and finally a consensus. Ofcourse, Nehru was the most power man in India after Gandhi passed away. He could easily have been a dictator. But the way he nurtured indian democracy and its strong foundation is genuinely commendable.