Question: Do you know what is the saddest of all things?

Answer: The silence about cruelty from the top.

Question: Who said this?

Answer: The same person who choked up for Jawaharlal Nehru, the target of newfangled spite in contemporary India.

Question: Do Indians still feel so deeply about Nehru?

Answer: Yes, at least one Indian does. And probably the Himalayas, too.

Historian Rajmohan Gandhi was choked with emotion at a literature festival on Friday while speaking about the vitriol and fake news about Jawaharlal Nehru that have now found acceptance among large sections of Indian society.

Rajmohan, a Research Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the US and Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson, was discussing his latest book, India After 1947: Reflections and Recollections, with Trinamul Congress MP Mahua Moitra at the Khushwant Singh Literary Festival in Kasauli, Himachal Pradesh.

Questioned about Nehru, he said: “Just as in the US a great many white Americans now believe that Barack Obama was not born in America, similarly crores of Indians in the whole country, these days, believe that Motilal Nehru (Jawaharlal’s father) was a Muslim…. This lie has been spread for years and years and years.

Jawaharlal Nehru’s initials Sourced by The Telegraph

“Now, if Motilal Nehru or one of his forebears was Muslim — which is not the case — that would not have been a crime. You can’t kill or punish or accuse a person of something because your ancestor was this or that.”

The 87-year-old academic added: “Fourteen years in prison, and then his (Jawaharlal’s) wife dies shortly after he is released. And then all these false stories about a good man, great man, brilliant man. You can criticise his policies but what right have you to spread this utter falsehood?”

Choking with emotion, Rajmohan struggled to speak for a while. Then he pointed at the audience, which included former Congress minister Mani Shankar Aiyar, and said: “No, I feel deeply about it. And I feel more deeply about it when I witness the Himalayas. Jawaharlal Nehru loved the Himalayas. The Himalayas will protest, the earth will protest. You feel free to criticise his policies as strongly as you want but don’t stoop so low as to tell filthy lies about a noble and good man.”

On Mahatma Gandhi, Rajmohan said: “The amazing thing about Gandhi and many people in India is (that) we blamed him for not solving all the problems of his time, we also blame him for not solving all the problems of our time. This is an excess. I mean, after all, he was a human being. Some problems were left for us to resolve….

“Let’s assume that he made 1,000 mistakes, and 10,000 (mistakes); Gandhi, Nehru and Patel… let us assume they made millions of mistakes, but what about the ideals that they believed in?”

He added: “Abuse Gandhi. He is safe. Nothing will happen to him. But if you harm equality, friendship, mutual respect, reverence or dignity, then I am your enemy.”

Regretting the change in Indians’ values since Independence, the academic said: “A great many Indians decide that whatever the horrors of Partition, India will be a nation for everyone.... Today, you know what is happening. Many sad things are happening; terrible things are happening. And do you know the saddest of all things? The silence about cruelty from the top.”

He added: “Silence is a wonderful virtue…. But if you are a leader of a nation or a person with any influential platform and people listen to you, and respect you, and they take their line, their thinking from you, should you not say something when something cruel happens, when something callous happens?”

On the possibility of Opposition unity, he said: “The policy (of Indian Opposition parties today) is, forget your enemies, finish your allies. We have to find a solution to this.

“This requires large-heartedness, this requires patience, this requires (that) some people will make contact with all sides and bring them together, this perhaps requires the spouse of one of the principal players telling the spouse strongly: ‘Stop this nonsense! Get on with something constructive’.”

Rajmohan had unsuccessfully contested the 1989 general election as a Janata Dal candidate from Amethi against Rajiv Gandhi, and the 2014 Lok Sabha polls from East Delhi as an Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidate.

He has not been active in the party since but endorsed the candidature of Atishi, whom the party fielded from the seat in 2019. Himachal goes to the polls soon, with the AAP keen to win its maiden Assembly seat there.