The Gentle Colossus: Inside Jawaharlal Nehru’s Final Years and Legacy

It was a quiet morning in 1958 when Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, then 69, made a chillingly precise remark to his private secretary M.O. Mathai over breakfast — he would not live beyond the age of 74. When Mathai questioned the sudden prophecy, Nehru clarified it wasn’t mysticism or astrology; it was simple arithmetic. The average age of men in his family, he said, was exactly 74 years, six months, and 13 days.

On May 27, 1964, that premonition came true.

This was Nehru — logical, deeply introspective, and at times, eerily prescient. Known affectionately as “the gentle colossus”, a term coined by CPI leader Hiren Mukherjee, Nehru had become more than just India’s first Prime Minister — he was the soul of a newly awakened nation.

The Reluctant Resignation That Never Was

In April 1958, Nehru shocked his party by expressing his desire to resign. At a Congress Parliamentary Party meeting, he cited fatigue and a longing to rediscover his individual self. "Forty years of public service has been exhilarating," he said, "but I need time for quiet reflection." The party, however, refused to let him go. His resignation was unanimously rejected, prompting relief and admiration from leaders across the globe, including Dwight D. Eisenhower and Nikita Khrushchev — a testament to how India’s non-alignment policy had earned international respect.

From British Jails to Global Stages

Nehru’s political journey began in 1919 with Mahatma Gandhi’s satyagraha movement. Thirteen of his formative years were spent in British prisons, yet his anger was never directed at the British people — a trait reflected in his enduring friendship with Lord and Lady Mountbatten.

When independence came, Nehru got to work — placing Gandhi’s statue and Lincoln’s hand on his desk as daily inspiration. By the early 1950s, after the deaths of Sardar Patel and Maulana Azad, Nehru stood virtually alone but resolute.

Building Modern India from the Ground Up

Through the 1950s, Nehru laid the foundation of India’s domestic and foreign policy. He calmed communal tensions, established planned economic development, and pushed for industrialisation through large public sector undertakings like Bhilai and Durgapur. When India’s private sector wasn’t ready to shoulder the weight of such projects, the state stepped in.

It was also under Nehru that IITs were established — seeds that would later transform India into a global IT and engineering powerhouse.

A Voice of Peace in a Divided World

At the 1956 Bandung Conference, even as China’s Chou En-Lai impressed delegates, it was Nehru they believed in. His efforts post-Suez Crisis earned him poetic praise from a Pakistani poet, Rais Amrohvi, who wrote in Jung:
"Jap raha hai aaj mala ek Hindu ki Arab… Mar mitey Islam jis par kafiri aisi to ho."

A devout believer in peace and equality, Nehru was the architect of the Non-Aligned Movement, a visionary who imagined a world order beyond Cold War binaries.

The Himalayan Misstep

But even colossi can falter. Nehru’s trust in China proved costly. The 1962 war was a devastating blow — to India's military confidence and Nehru’s own spirit. His health declined rapidly thereafter, culminating in a stroke at the Bhubaneswar AICC in 1963. He passed away just months later, fulfilling the exact prediction he had once casually made.

Of Laws, Legacy and an Irony of Succession

Six months before the China war, Nehru told journalist Taya Zinkin that his greatest achievement wasn’t India’s independence — it was the Hindu Code Bill, a law that finally gave Hindu women rights to inheritance and abolished polygamy. When asked why he hadn’t passed similar reforms for Muslim women, Nehru replied, "The time is not right." Over six decades later, that political climate remains largely unchanged.

In 1961, when Norman Cousins asked him about succession, Nehru replied:

“This business of picking an individual successor is something I find quite alien. I am not trying to start a dynasty.”

History, however, had other plans.

An Unlikely Epitaph from Across the Border

Perhaps the most endearing anecdote comes from his tailor, Mohammad Umar, who had lost everything in the Partition riots. Nehru helped him rebuild his shop, and Umar proudly put up a signboard: “Tailor to the Prime Minister.” In Karachi, his son — now a Pakistani — put up the same sign. When asked if it helped business there, Umar replied:

“Sahib, Panditji is a bestseller anywhere.”

The Man Who Dreamt for a Billion

Nehru was a man of deep contradictions — idealist yet pragmatic, emotional yet rational, a statesman with a dream and a democrat with a spine. He may not have been perfect, but his impact is undeniable. India’s democracy, its Constitution, its scientific temper, and its institutions all bear the indelible imprint of Jawaharlal Nehru — the man who not only saw the future but tried to build it with dignity, depth, and determination.

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