As Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister of the world's other great democracy, arrives at Washington D.C., Barack Obama may feel the lingering shadow of Jawharlal Nehru, India's first Prime Minister, and a towering figure whose singular status and ambition closely resembled Barack Obama's and whose career offers ground for both hope and caution for Obama. Much of modern India is a legacy, direct or indirect, of Nehru who took advantage of a unique historical opportunity to remake India in his own image while describing himself as one of 'little men serving great causes, but because the cause is great, some of that greatness falls upon us also'. Obama has similarly never shied away from his desire to 'change history's course', frequently decried 'poverty of ambition' and repeatedly asked Americans to 'hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself'. Nehru's life is probably more instructive to him than anybody else's.
When Jawaharlal Nehru became the first Prime Minister of independent India, he sparked the same euphoria that Obama's election triggered. 'It was Times Square on New Year's eve', wrote an American journalist, 'More than any one else, the crowds wanted Nehru'. Much like Obama, Nehru was a wonderfully talented writer, a gifted orator, loved and adored by throngs of crowds everywhere, and educated at elite schools. As a young man, he flirted with what was still proudly called socialism in the 30s much as Obama was drawn by community organizing and (and perhaps briefly) the ideas of Fannon. His election as Prime Minister gave hope and voice to millions, the vast majority of whom had scarcely dared to dream that such a day would come; he was at once a symbol and a beacon, a 'moral force' -- suddenly amplifying the aspirations of millions of people and simultaneously demonstrating that the impossible was no longer so. Obama bestrides our collective consciousness much the same way -- to many people he is both the ideal and the idol. And some would say the idle, but more on that later.
Superficial similarities aside, Obama seems to be following the Nehruvian template in 3 distinct ways -- one, an abiding faith in the role of the government as a force of good; two, a distinct preference for the 'leavening hands of wise policy' and policy wonks over practitioners that sometimes seems tinged with an intellectual disdain for business; and three, an idealistic view of the world and foreign policy that seems driven as much by nobility of thought as it is by pragmatism and the harsh reality on the ground. Let's consider them in more detail.
Obama has undoubtedly been characterized rather harshly by his opponents as a proponent of unlimited government. What is undeniable however is his faith that people 'want their government back'. The push for greater regulation, the government ownership of high profile firms, and the expansion of health care are all steps that will visibly bolster the role of the government. Nehru charted a similar course after he became Prime Minister. The government assumed control over the 'commanding heights' of the economy, a planning commission was established, and Nehru was immensely proud that the work of the commission had made the whole nation 'planning conscious'. Many parts of the compliant private sector and the academic community were of course happy to concur that only the state could 'help diminish the inequalities of income'. Obama is playing out a similar scene today -- betting that the government can do what the private sector cannot.
The expansion of the government role was led by highly trained technocrats hand-picked by Nehru, most of whom had cut their teeth in think tanks and academic institutions rather than in industry. These were the policy wonks and the czars of their day -- much like Obama's czars who often don't have extensive experience in the industries they have set out to change (a la Steve Rattner), but bring other skills to their tasks. Skills that appeal to Obama but not necessarily to people within the industries concerned. Nehru made similar picks and appointed them in key positions. Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis, a trained physicist and an 'awesome polyglot, the kind of man for whom Nehru was guaranteed to fall' rose to key government positions writing policy notes on the economy that caught Nehru's attention. Krishna Menon was another minister whose chief credential was an intellectual sophistication that Nehru admired. A trait that many of Nehru's closest policy associates shared was a belief in modernization and science and technology as levers of positive change. To Nehru this translated as a fetish for 'industrialization' in much the same way as 'green technologies' seem to infatuate Obama. Nehru may have been mostly right. Perhaps Obama too will be.
Foreign policy was an obvious arena for the cosmopolitan Nehru to play out his ambitions and serve as the 'bond between India and the world'. Here he was 'always fascinated by world trends and movements' with an opportunity to define a new world order in which 'we lead ourselves' and 'avoid entanglement in power politics and not...join any group of powers as against any other group'. This was the policy of non-alignment, one of Nehru's finest achievements -- at least in theory. Obama seeks similar new rules that 'give hope to those left behind in the globalized world'. He chafes that 'never has the US possessed so much power, and never has the US had so little influence to lead'. Like Nehru, he believes that idealism must have a place in foreign policy and that good intentions can go very far indeed.
So how did it play out for Nehru, and what is the prognosis for Obama? For Nehru many answers lie in the state of India today -- a vibrant democracy that prizes its diversity and secularism and where minorities and the historically powerless have an outsize influence on the polity (numerous caveats included). This was a legacy that Nehru crafted against immense adversity and the highest praise may have come from the gadfly Nirad C. Chaudhuri when he wrote that Nehru had 'prevented actual conflicts, cultural, economic, and political. Not even Mahatmaji's leadership, had it continued, would have been quite equal to them'. The report card on foreign policy and the economy is decidedly more mixed. Nehru may have been partially responsible for perpetuating the rancor that characterizes India's relationship with Pakistan and his China policy, blinkered as it was by romantic naivety, was an unmitigated disaster. The economic results are difficult to judge -- Nehru helped lay the foundation for a self-sufficient economy driven by a highly skilled labor force; this was however achieved through a centralized bureaucracy that stifled creativity and enterprise and an educational and health system in which self-described centers of excellence obscured the reality that shoddiness accompanied every aspect of life in India.
Nehru died unhappy for a man of his immense accomplishments. He might have foreseen the impending decline of India as the policies he had initiated were pushed beyond their logical limit by intellectually limited successors (including his daughter) who were truer to Nehruvian principles than Nehru's educated skepticism ever allowed him to be. And that might be the greatest lesson for Obama -- an outsize personality may constrain the long-term ability of acolytes, and an expansionist government may be the answer in the short-term but it can be a Faustian bargain. It took India almost 30 years and Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh, two painfully uncharismatic politicians, to pull it back from the morass of pseudo Nehruvianism. Nehru may have unwittingly created a world view destined to collapse in the hands of lesser mortals. Obama needs to start thinking 'after Obama what?' right away. His most earnest followers know not what they will do.
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