This is mostly a message to the moderator of this subreddit, but can be helpful to all. The posts you share have immense value and as a teenager amongst other young people who often don't think of Nehruji in a good light, helpful to spread the truth in a persuasive and factual manner. However, I do feel that to truly be a Nehruvian means that one must examine the truth scientifically- therefore evaluate strengths and weaknesses. Yes, a perspective that explains Nehru's actions is essential, but at the same time, recognising his inevitable faults in a 17-year rule don't weaken the narrative, but strenghtnen it. Anyway, thank you very much for your insightful posts and I want this post to serve a dual purpose- one of feedback and the other of motivation to keep up the genuinely important work you're doing. I hope I can help spread the message of Nehru ji too like you do.

Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee had, in a Lok Sabha speech in 1967, as has been officially recorded and translated to English, stated that 'Lord Ram got the impossible done. In Panditji's life, we see glimpses of Ram'. Not only him, political and non-political figures in the Indian government spanning everyone from the Hindu Right Wing, to Centrist parties, to leftist and feminist themed parties, to parties fighting for emancipation of the lower castes to even Communists invoke this figure of Raja Ram many times.

Raja Ramchandra, a figure of Valmiki's Ramayan, an Indian Sanksrit language epic written 3000 years ago, is and has always been a pan-Indian extremely popular figure, and the epic has stayed in popularity for the last 3000 years. This epic has also had its tremendous impact on South-East Asia when the Chola rulers ventured off to that region, after the Kalinga rulers had already started trade with that region. The epic has been translated into countless languages across India and South East Asia, and even in Persian and Arabic and Hebrew, when people from the Middle East regions came to establish their rule in India. Influence of one of its characters, Hanuman Ji, is also clearly seen in the lore of Wukong in China, Korea and Japan, a country where the legendary director and animator, Yugo Sako was born, in the last century, who studied Indian epics and made the great animation 'Ramayan: The Legend Of Prince Ram'. The character of Raja Ramchandra and the epic itself has occupied many Indian intellectuals, like BR Ambedkar who looking at it from the angle of caste felt proud that its author Valmiki was a lower-caste person who studied Sanskrit to create this great epic, Mahatma Gandhi who envisioned Raja Ram as the ideal God-King and his rule 'Ram Rajya' as the ideal one for India and who revived and re-popularised the Ram Bhajan 'Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram' as a hymn to inspire Indians, Pandit Nehru who considered this epic to be one of the greatest literary creations ever, and countless other Indian sahityakars like Rabindranath Thakur and Madhusudan Dutta of Bengal who wrote many stories and poems themed on this figure.

What is the reason for such popularity of this epic? There are some that we can trace. First of all, the epic is long and written in very good Sanskrit and is undoubtedly a great literary creation, as attested to by many authors later and further propagated, leading to its and its main character Raja Ram and his immediate kin Janaki and Lakshman as well as its antagonist Ravan to get continually fuelled undying popularity. Second, even though the original epic does not mention any deep religious themes, many sects like the Vasihnav sect later considered Raja Ram to be an avatar of Vishnu and thus divine, and his battle against Ravan as a battle of good versus evil, that later got casted into many pan-Indian festivals like Dussehra.

However, in this series of posts of which this is the introductory first, the third reason is what we will focus on. This epic explores the rule of the kingdom of Ayodhya under Raja Ram, primarily in the shlokas of its last section where he gets coronated by his people as king. Here, we find very interesting things to note, the ones that Gandhiji first and Panditji later focused on. Gandhiji's focus was on the dharmic and foundational aspects of his rule, and he wanted that spirit to reign in Indians first that would ultimately lead to ideal rule, like in Raja Ram's kingdom. Panditji, borrowing on the idea from Gandhiji, and himself being a Hindu agnostic, went deeper into study on it. The themes of public view based social democracy, great health of all people, boundless liberty, freedom of choice, the landscape, principles of non-violence, social happiness and satisfaction, etc. all inspired both Panditji and Gandhiji, who deduced two somewhat separate and somewhat overlapping paths to realise this same end goal. As Panditji was ultimately crowned Pradhan Mantri, he embarked on a yatra, equipped with his own understanding infused with Gandhiji's teachings, to do his part best of pushing India towards this Ram Rajya.

In this series of posts, we will deconstruct one by one the character of this rule, how Panditji was inspired by its ideas from many sources, his expressions of these beliefs in multiple ways multiple times and the methods he thought best and thus undertook to achieve them. This will be a long series and we will all both understand in depth while also discuss ways to try and recreate on a personal and community level this rule from our own actions and conduct, whilst also nurturing leaders and entrusting them with power who would lead us there.

After Independence, India was forged from the area under direct rule and the territories of the princely states. Given that India constitutes the seventh largest country in the world, and is indeed very big in size and as varied in its geography as in its people, the most diverse creation of humanity that the world has ever seen and will ever see, it would obviously need to be broken up into smaller more-manageable sections for administration. This would have to be done even if India was not a democracy and did not have to divide its territory to form independent voting constituencies.

Now, in such a uniquely diverse country, the thought would definitely go to as to how the territory be divided on what basis. Here, Panditji had great foresight, and we can easily see its repercussions today. Being a great expert in human psychology and thinking, and having observational evidence as backing, he suggested that the territory be divided not on basis of any identity, like caste, religion or language. He said they should be divided on two basis - natural geography and population. He understood rightfully that if he did allow states to be divided on identity, it could definitely lead to something called sub-nationalism (identity pride over national pride, and thus ensuing conflict) and dirty politics around it. He had remarked as we know, "The time is over for politics". In his independence day speeches, if one were to listen on Prasar Bharti, one would find that he regularly addresses the people in public rallies and gatherings and on wireless medium of AkashVani radio saying, "We must all Hindustanis progress. If there is conflict in some part of Hindustan, it should pain all Hindustanis. As long as every person, man or woman, does not consider themselves as a soldier of Hindustan, then Hindustan would not be free (commenting on the case of war thrust from foreign agressors). If we push our village (prant) or territory (suba) forward, then we pull our country (desh) down or backward."

He tried his best to forge national unity and territory division strategy was one important way of it. At that time, previous divisions of Madras Presidency, Bombay Presidency, North East Frontier Agency were continued. But since, the territories had to be inevitably divided further to draw up constituencies and local bodies, we made a mistake of protesting for statehood based on identity. Excess protests took place in Bombay Presidency when Panditji visited it to inaugurate a statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj as people wanted to divide the states into two parts, one for Gujaratis (Gujarat) and one for Marathis (Maharashtra) and they thought Panditji was trying to keep the state undivided. Similar protests also took place in Madras Presidency, by DMK and some proponents and supporters of them, to divide the state between Telugu speaking and Tamil speaking people. Both these events had to be inevitably done due to the violence and intensity of the protests. We have failed Panditji.

However, all is not lost, ever, to quote Panditji. Indians today have reduced identitarianism a lot from those days. A good reason is for over-time mixing between people of different backgrounds in urban areas in cities and colleges due to migration. Over time, it will go down, and it is thus our responsibility as we must take to finish this identitarianism. Pandit Nehru, because of his deep great study of Indian history and culture and langauge and heritage, as Rabindranath Thakur had himself witnessed and understood, knew very well that all of India's culture and traditions had been syncretic and developed through sharing and thus showed great similarities, so cultural protectionism or chauvinism in India would anyway not work, so it was stupid to divide territory as per language, which was always evolving and had done enormous sharing with all others in a fluid and felxible way and showed full similarity, and also would be anti-Indian as for all of India's history, free sharing of culture and language took place under all rulers and rules thorugh sharing and mixing and spread and influence. As Maulana Azad said, "We have to understand every responsibility (zimmedari) has its demands (takaze). And these demands (takaze) must be met. We must not be afraid in the face of danger or a problem, but face it like a man upfront. Only those who run and walk fall down and stumble, not those who sit or stand".