4
Nehru's insight into the spirit of India
Nehru was not just the architect of modern India. He was a writer of eminence and master of the art of living. He was sensitive to beauty, elegance and harmony. Even in the din and bustle of politics, he retained this delicate sensitivity. His love for children was unbounded.
Nehru's approach to art was simple, natural and deeply perceptive. He wrote in his Discovery of India:
"I know nothing about art, eastern or western, and am not competent to say anything about it. I react to it as any untutored layman might do. Some painting or sculpture or building fills me with delight, or moves me and makes me feel a strange emotion, or it just pleases me a little; or it does not affect me at all and I pass it by almost unnoticed; or it repels me. I cannot explain these reactions or speak learnedly about the merits or demerits of works of art".
And yet look at his insight into Indian art. He says:
"Beauty is conceived as subjective, not objective; it is a thing of the spirit, though it may also take a lovely shape in the form of matter. The Greeks loved beauty for its own sake and found not only joy, but truth in it; the ancient Indians loved beauty also, but always they sought to put some deeper significance in their work, some vision of the inner truth as they saw it".
He believed in the tremendous vitality of India's culture and civilization that had influenced minds in distant lands and that had enabled India to retain her identity and develop enough strength, to use Gandhi's words, "not to allow any wind from anywhere to sweep us, off our feet".
It was this deep insight into the spirit of India and the determination not to be "swept off our feet" which certainly were the primary factors that shaped the foreign policy which Nehru fashioned with the touch of an artist.
A corner-stone of India's foreign policy, fashioned by Nehru, is the ideal of peaceful
co-existence and friendship with all. In building up the edifice of friendship between nations, politicians and diplomatists certainly have a role but an equally important and perhaps more enduring role is played by writers, artists and people at large. Indeed, writers and artists have made a significant contribution to the promotion of understanding and consolidation of friendship between India and the Soviet Union.