#A2Z
Moti Lal Nehru, having made a name for himself in legal practice in Cawnpore, now Kanpur, under the aegis of Pandit Pritinath, had decided to move to Allahabad, the seat of the provincial High Court within 3 years of his practice. So he did in 1886. The family was back on track to reestablish itself, to reclaim its lost status of Zamindars and officials under the Mughal Rule. It was also a sort of reunion, of the old tradition of Hindu joint families living together restarted. Yet, the cosmos was not done with its games with the family despite having sent them to success to Delhi from a small village in Kashmir and then stealing it all. Just as the family was reunited and rejoicing, it stuck another deathblow to them, literally.
Nand Lal died within an year of Moti Lal having come to Allahabad in April 1887. Moti Lal, merely 25, suddenly found himself as the head, and sole breadwinner of a family of 10 counting him out. They were his own wife Swarup Rani, son Jawaharlal, and now his brothers wife Nand Rani (what a beauty turned irony- Nand Lal’s wife Nand Rani was now his widow in the thinking of that ear), two daughters and five sons, Bihari Lal, Mohan Lal, Shamlal, Kishenlal and Brijlal.
Wait, that reminds me that I forgot to tell you that Jawaharlal, the real hero of India and villain for its enemies ruling the country today, was already born. So let me get back to that. Moti Lal too was married as a child as was the custom then among almost all Indians (if one could claim that there indeed was an India in the lands ruled by 562 princely states and rest by the British on the Indian side alone!)
Time for a trivia: There are differences on the exact number of princely states in undivided India during the “Raj” thanks to the states like Khetri (which Nand Lal himself served as a Diwan) with anomalous status of being vassals of bigger princely states but dealt with the British on their own. Yet, most historians agree on the number being 584. That is confusing as adding the number of principally states that acceded to Pakistan is 14, making the total number 586. There were no princely states in both Bengals- now Indian West Bengal and Bangladesh.
Coming back to Moti Lal, he was married in childhood and had a son before even reaching 18 but lost both soon after. Again, as was customary then, the family found him a new wife, Swarup Rani Thussu, a very pretty Kashmiri Brahmin girl recently arrived from Lahore! Before Bhakts find some real connection of Nehrus to Pakistan, they would better remember that we are talking about late 19th century and Lahore was part of India then. Also that their discarded to dustbin patriarch Lal Krishna Advani too came from Karachi and became the first Indian leader to visit Jinnah’s tomb- considered blasphemy for Indian leaders as it is one of the biggest symbols of the partition.
Swarup was petite and very beautiful, with a Dresden China perfection as Nanda referred to her. However, Moti Lal Nehru’s marital life was to play out exactly life his life- oscillating between bliss and blues. Swarup soon gave birth to a child who did not survive. She bore him another on 14 November 1889, who would not only survive and change the destiny of the family and the country, in fact even the world if we look at his role in Korea and Vietnam Wars, his support to Nepal’s democratic movement while also maintaining cordial relationship with the king.
He was to live forever to haunt the fanatics and threaten them- telling them how fragile their victory was and how it won't last long. In this, he was to essentially react his aversion to Nazism, just like he did in his lifetime. It is just that he was to do this even in death.
He was to be the second specter in real history. First was pointed out by Marx: the specter of communism that haunted Europe, the opening line of the Communist Manifesto which changed the history of the world.
Second was to be Nehru: Nehru is dead. Long live Nehru.
Trivia: Nazism survived in power for mere 12 years and became an abuse for everafter.
I am in awe of how well you connect all your threads here
ReplyDelete