Marginalising Nehru

Downplaying the legacy of India's first PM is unfair

The 14th of November, the birth anniversary of India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, is celebrated as Children’s Day. This association between Nehru and young people may be difficult to dislodge from public consciousness, even though the Union ministry of youth affairs is reportedly preparing a Cabinet note on deleting his name from the government’s network of Nehru Yuva Kendras. This is part of a broader, concerted effort to erase, or at least diminish, the memory of Nehru from India’s public life. The Nehru Memorial Museum and Library in New Delhi’s Teen Murti Bhavan, for example, is now dedicated to