How Nehru missed India

I listened to the hymn Nasadiya hymn (or it's Hindi translation) as title song of Bharat : Ek Khoj serialization of Discovery of India .

I will admit Bharat : Ek Khoj was a sincere and what is more brilliant production, but I could never appreciate the serial. The reason was ofcourse my prejudice. My mind which idolized MahaBharatha and Ramayana, was scandalized at the intrigues and petty jealousies.
Nuance and abstraction not being part of my vocabulary at that time, I felt disappointed that even the Gods I worshipped had feet of clay.
Since I could not reject my Gods, I rejected the narrative.
Later as I grew up , I understood that Ramayana and MahaBharata were great precisely because of realism and honesty of Rishi Valmiki and Vyasya. This was also initial indication to me that morality is not a constant. All in all it was a good effort.

However it was still flawed, for the reason that Nehru was seriously mistaken about identity of India. I am sure countless fault can be found in him, but let me point two of them, which were grave enough in my view.

1) His implicit yet erroneous assumption that the land which has been called at various times Aryaavrut , Bharat , Hindustan and India was essentially a receptacle to alien invaders and civilizations and Hinduism was in essence a spiritual contraption contrived to accommodate and reconcile diverse and often conflicting worldviews, in essence a mongrel.
Now let me clarify on this, it is not my case that there has been no exchange of ideas between ancient civilizations , nor I am saying that credit for every advance that world has made goes to my ancestors.

What I am saying is this, the essence of what is called Indian civilization has developed here in the land of Sapta Sindhu. Hinduism is not a mongrel religion nor a metaphysical Boa constrictor, it was sown in India and here it flourished. It has assimilated numerous views but not at random and not for sake of reconciling. What we see today is organic and not contrived. It possess beauty of life not just cold touch of logic. Seeking this essence of what is India in genetically markers, skin colour or linguistic hair splitting is a travesty of this. What is more, insinuating that that Aryans (i.e North Indians/ Upper Caste) vanquished Dravidians (i.e. South Indians/Lower Caste) is not only scientific dishonesty every time it is repeated as a self evident truth it directly injures India.

2) He sought to understand dynamism of India solely in terms of material motives, materialism as the explanation of any social , political and religious system is the most enduring fashion of 20th century.
It is often amusing to see devotees of Ayn Rand going in rapture on net.
(I often wonder why is Nietzsche such a persona non grata, may be his views are not politically correct).

This meant History of India was sought to be explained in terms of kingdoms fighting over territory and Hinduism solely deconstructed with analysis of the possible motive rituals.
This is a superficial view at best, as Swami Vivekananda put India is a religious country, the reason for this is sages seeking Gyan and ascetics seeking Nirvana are who founded this civilization. No Prophet and No King defined India, it was the ancient wanderers who did it.
It is about Ideas (I am getting obsessed the concept of ideas , I will try to post about it later)

Nehru ofcourse did not understand it, for one he was an anglophile and WOG, second most of his work was based on previous authors who were more or less eurocentric themselves.
Not being a trained historian or particularly connected to India, he accepted AIT in Toto, as AIT was in accordance with world view of Colonial world view.

He was hardly the exception among educated classes, he was however the most enduring symbol, using his popularity as "smokes and mirror", our educated class is perpetuating the same scandal.

Considering how idolatrous we have become, what we need most may be a iconoclast , another Parashurama .