The Unforgettable Nehru

This book presents vignettes regarding glimpses of Nehru’s dauntless courage generosity, irritability, his personal joys and sufferings, and the warmth of his heart. It has been written by someone who knew Jawaharlal Nehru quite well and had watched him at close quarters for years together.

P.D. Tandon was a minister in the Uttar Pradesh government, and advisor to the state’s Chief Minister in 1989 He was also the president of the state’s Working Journalist’s Federation. During the 1942 revolt against the British Raj, Shri Tandon was imprisoned in Naini Central Jail, Allahabad.

Shri Tandon has written about forty books in five different languages, which include Flames from the Ashes (his autobiography); Indira Gandhi—Lingering Echoes; Echoes from the Past (letters of Gandhi, Nehru, Bernard Shaw, Lord Mountbatten, Indira Gandhi, and several others). He has also written various articles for many newspapers, magazines arid periodicals.

Nehru was such a large-hearted person that few could be compared with him in the grandeur of human spirit. Earl Attlee, after the death of Nehru, had observed. “There are few, if any, parallels in history to the magnitude of Nehru’s achievements and, whatever storms in future may blow up, India will he eternally grateful to the man who piloted the ship of the State on her maiden voyage, with few errors of navigation. He will rightly go down in history as one of the world’s great men, who lived up to the high ideals.

He despised pettiness and it stood snubbed in his presence. He was rather a short-tempered man, but his anger always blew itself out in a few minutes. There was no trace of malice or bitterness in it. Anything below the normal standards of things, he could not endure and they easily infuriated him.

He was a kind and outstanding person. He fully understood the human urges of man; that was why he was so tremendously popular. He helped people and forgot about it. When he gave something to anybody, he always felt that he had not given enough and felt shy while giving it.

When Nehru died, many people felt the death of a part of themselves and in India he is still loved and remembered. It is so difficult to forget him.

I must not fail to thank Rohit Tandon, my grandson, for his ungrudging and loving help in the preparation of this book, and also Haseen Ahmad for his most sincere cooperation.

I think Ms Manju Gupta editor NBT for her encouragement photographs have reproduced form Jawaharlal Nehru for which I am thankful.