History, it is stated by the poet, is a stern sculptor—and there are many who mistake the prologue for the epilogue. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, happens to be one such—he finds brilliant flashes in the prologue and dazzled by it, he mistakes it for the epilogue. He and those who admire him and those who pay homage to him in the hope of getting the crumbs, that are thrown from the Table at Delhi, loaded with all the dainties that an infant democracy places before the Supremo, forget that there are chapters yet to be written—or to be more correct there are chapters not yet published.

None doubts, about and in recent times, none has attained, the tall stature that Pandit Nehru is favoured with. To probe into the causes for the same, might form part of a chapter—it is not necessary to disturb the delightful mood of Pandit Nehru just at this juncture. Let us assure him of this—all of us recognize this fact, that the has ascended to a wonderful height—almost dizzy height.
Perhaps, had the Mahatma been alive, he would have thrown words of caution—taken or rejected. Even if Sardar Patel had been spared, he would have administered words of wisdom, with a strength of will, that would have either ended or mended the Pandit's way of thinking and acting.

Pandit Nehru was left in the wilderness as it were—and curiously enough, it was a wilderness with a rosy hue.

Brimful of the first flush of enthusiasm generated by the advent of freedom, the people expressed their over-abundant feelings of implicit faith and confidence in Pandit Nehru; they even forgot, temporarily though, the art of thinking about the problems of the day. "Nehru knows everything! Nehru is there to look after every problem!" the people thought and said with an almost childish glee! The false dictum, 'The king can do no wrong' was transplanted here, with a slight modification—'Nehru can do no wrong'.

We charge Nehru of having exploited the innocence of the people and having betrayed their confidence.

What has been offered as a token of deep affection has been misconstrued as a declaration of abject servitude. And Pandit Nehru, perched on a pinnacle of glory refuses to recognize the basic fact that the source and authority of power is the people.

"The people? Oh! the people!" he seems to exclaim with disdain, "I know how to offer delightful sweets to them. They can't be expected to know their own minds".

It is said that the Czar of Russia used to call his people as his "little children".

It is also said that Louis of France used to thunder forth, "I am the State".

Pandit Nehru has become a curious bundle of these two sentiments!

Dubbed as the darling of the nation, he devotes much of his time moving in their midst, cajoling, promising, scolding, placing tit-bits before them and predicting an era of peace, plenty and prosperity.

The moment the people begin to express their discontent in any form, the Pandit becomes enraged.

Possibly, scenes of those activities in which he was the hero or the prime mover pass before his mind's eye,—scenes of heroism and valour, of devotion and self-sacrifice—scenes of defiance of authority and courting imprisonment and the like—and he begins to get enthused himself, and mutters, "How ungrateful these people are! I have served them so much, and now they begin to doubt my devotion, question my authority and think that they can direct me—me, whose name was enough to floor the mighty Imperialism".

The feeling is understandable—but what is difficult to understand is this—how can such a student of world affairs as the Pandit, forget the fact that all the power, all the authority, all the veneration that he is able to muster are in the name of and for the people.
A Chenghiskhan or a Timur, need not and would not think that way. For they were mighty warriors who led semi-starved savages, for loot and arson and a hundred other wild joys. Pandit Nehru cannot degrade himself to that level. He is the leader chosen by the people, who were not prepared to bear the yoke of an imperialism, even though it gave them some glimpse at least of the modern life.

"The essence of democracy" said an erudite scholar, "is humility".

The greater the influence one is fortunate enough to wield, the more humble he ought to become—that perhaps was best of all he lessons that Mahatma Gandhi gave—and while the world seems to have benefited by this lesson to a great extent, the 'inheritor' as Pandit Nehru is called, failed to catch the very significance of that lesson.

Harsh and harsher are the words that come gusting from him, and he spares none, and brooks no advice, welcomes not any suggestion.

The moment he is possessed of any idea, however ill-baked and ill-digested, he begins to vend and not even in a persuasive tone.
Mahatma launched, we know the 'Quit India' movement, and Pandit Nehru has introduced his own and that seems to be 'Quiet India!'

Be Quiet, whatever the bunglings are—be quiet whatever the troubles and tribulations that face you!—Seems to be the Nehru Movement.

And for how long—and for what purpose? He has no explanations nor time-schedule.

We charge hence Pandit Nehru, of stifling the aspirations of the very people, for whom he is called upon to shoulder a mighty responsibility.

Pandit Nehru is interested in the building up of a might mansion and in his enthusiasm forgets that the bones and blood of the people are used as brick and mortar.

Pandit Nehru frets and foams at the slightest provocation and becomes full-throated when he begins his fulminations.

Pandit Nehru admires his administration himself, though the outcome of it seems to be frustration as far as the people are concerned.

Pandit Nehru sings sweet songs of sobriety, goodwill and the like at the gilded halls of New York or London, but at the chowks and grounds here, he becomes the roaring lion, prepared to use the claw and the teeth, in tearing up, not the arguments of his 'opponents' but their own personal prestige.

If they are grey-haired, they are dubbed, old, and senile! If they are the youths, they are just urchins! If they are his colleagues, they are power-mongers and if they are devoid of the burden of office, they are power-seekers! If the critics happen to be Congressmen, they are dubbed as having lost the spirit that pervades the great national organisation; if they are non-Congressmen, well then, they are a lot of traitors who ought to be driven out of 'Bharath' bag and baggage. If they offer suggestions on methods, they are but 'trinketing' with the problem and if they talk about fundamentals, they just are not empowered to do so. If they are educationists of eminence, well, Pandit Nehru finds them dull-witted, un-imaginative and imprisoned in a maze of parchments, and if they are those that offer unconventional methods they are brushed aside as people who are not imbued with the ancient heritage of 'Bharath!' If they are labourers, they are a rabble of trouble-makers, and if they happen to be industrialists, they need a knowledge about the modern techniques!

When Scientists gather, Pandit Nehru would pounce upon them and scold them for not understanding the 'spiritual dimension' —and when those well versed in spiritualism meet for discussion, he is there to remind them of the sputnik age! Only those who untie his boot-laces are, favoured with his sunny smile.

Having borne for too long a time all the affront, and insult, the people and leaders of thought here and elsewhere, are now coming out in the open, to place their point of view even at the risk of courting the displeasure of Pandit Nehru.

When Pandit Nehru, forgetting all sense of democratic decorum and even conventions in the legal field, attacked Periyar, in a scathing manner, the people were shocked. They never imagined that Pandit Nehru would lose his balance in such a way and indulge in abusive language, unworthy of his position. Here is, what the 'Deccan Herald' has to say on the matter:—
"Unless statesmen delve a little more deeply into the causes of the propaganda which we all deplore, we may find that warnings go like words writ on water.

... "Our leaders could always be branded for treason since it was a movement to deprive the king Emperor of his sovereignty.

"Pandit lashes out at 'divisive' tendencies but is he unaware of certain provocations that perturb sentiment in the South? He makes a fetish of the 5 year plan and the publicity due to it but what can Congressmen do when there is the minimum of allotment to enterprise south of Vindhyas? Are they to boast about Bhakra and Bokaro when food scarcity is acute and even drinking water in the cities is running short.

"The cascade of hard words has its limitations but the Prime Minister of India could not be content with saying that talk of North Indian domination is just bosh".

But, others kept mum because they thought that Pandit Nehru was dealing with a dangerous situation and hence had to be aggressive, uncharitable and insulting.

But even before the chuckling was over, Pandit Nehru, was there to hurl, equally awkward terms of abuse and insult, on the ex-Governor-General, considered to be the mentor of even the Mahatma, Mr. C.Rajagopalachari, Dr. C.P.Ramasami Ayyar, Sir. Mirza Ismail, and Mr. M.Ruthnaswamy, tallest sons of the South, who are unperturbed on various occasions but come out only to offer their words of wisdom, on the most critical problems.

The 'Amrita Bazar Patrika' has written a leaderette, captioned, "A Danger Signal". And we give an extract from the same:-
"When a man of the stature of Mr.Rajagopalachari, a man so deservedly noted for sobriety and wisdom born of ripe experience speaks in terms of a fight between the North and the South even Hindi enthusiasts should take serous note of the misunderstanding which may even break up our national unity, and unloose the flood-gates of chaos in the country".

"The reaction in the South has to be viewed in the light of the actions of the Hindi protagonists in the North. In the first flush of freedom the Hindi protagonists started a campaign to oust English both in the administrative as well as the educational spheres. Jaw-breaking words were being coined in linguistic laboratories and target dates for discarding English in schools, colleges, offices and public utility services were being fixed up with unseemly haste in various states. The people of Madhya Pradesh know only too well the linguistic haste displayed by the Shukla Government and the ridiculous way in which words were being manufactured to order in a linguistic laboratory in Nagpur. The Hindi enthusiasts went about propagating Hindi using the big-stick method.

"The Hindi enthusiasts would do well to remember that Hindi is spoken by not more than 42 percent of the population, that the language is far from developed and that it was chosen as the official language by the Congress party members in the Constituent Assembly in the teeth of opposition. In view of the fact that Hindi has yet to be adopted voluntarily by a 100 million people in the South and by sizeable sections of the population in other non-Hindi speaking states, it would be prudent on the part of government to allow English to continue as the official language for two or three decades if not more"—writes the "Hitavada"

"That a pauper language of conflicting dialects should serve as the medium of official communications in a vast country making forward strides, would mean that only cheap, semi-bazaar affairs constitute the subject of correspondence. The thing just won't work and if there is any loud mocking at the protest and counsel voiced in Madras, short sighted Hindiwallahs of lower calibre in the North might take advantage of the feeling that the Prime Minister is rampageously on their side. It would be playing with fire to let the dormant masses feel that the advice of even sedate elders is summarily spurned"—so writes the "Deccan Herald" and it is titled, "A Slap on the Face".

Pandit Nehru's way of emitting abuses, has caused such an irritation in the minds of millions, that they think that they have failed to safeguard their self-respect for too long a time.

We, the members of the D.M.K., have taken upon ourselves, the task of placing the wounded feelings of the people of the South before Pandit Nehru by staging a peaceful Black Flag demonstration when he visits Madras.

The D.M.K. is fully aware of the huge responsibility involved in such a demonstration, but trained in discipline and decorum, the D.M.K. is sure and certain, with the co-operation and goodwill of the people, to carry out the Black-Flag demonstration, in a peaceful, and dignified manner.

If by any chance, the powers that be, begin to harass the D.M.K., we request with all the ability at our command, to the people and members of the D.M.K. to be calm, peaceful, and dignified.

Whatever the provocation from the authorities, the D.M.K. is to remember its supreme duty towards the people, and should behave in such a way, as to hold aloft the high ideals for which the D.M.K. stands.

It is only during such occasions, that a party's moral strength is tested, and we are sure, that with the active and sympathetic co-operation from all law-abiding people, the D.M.K. would come out with flying colours.

To the powers-that-be, we but desire to remind, that the D.M.K., on taking upon itself this task of vindicating the honour and self-respect of the South, is not at all motivated by any mean and unworthy thought, and hence is prepared to pay the price, demanded.
"No cause can be lost for ever
Whose cost is coined from Freedom's blood"
said the poet.

It is the duty of the South irrespective of party affiliations and petty squabbles, to rally round the cause, which the D.M.K. is determined to uphold—and let the South remind, Pandit Nehru, of the poet's warning, that he is wounding the feelings of the South by his uncharitable abusive, insulting remarks,
"While History, stern sculptor, moulds already
Of you, a most uncomplimentary statue"

(Editorial - 05-01-1958)