Equally patriotic and equally clever Indians – Indians, such as Sapru, thought not.” “Nehru’s record for intransigence has to be stressed because there is grave question whether his way of getting independence for India was the only way, or indeed a good way. Now for a gem of political wisdom, one of the many, he drops on the wayside, with a calculated prodigality: Crocker would do, in his ingenious excursion into political affairs.

It is hardly possible to belittle the role of Gandhi and Nehru as the twin apostles of Indian freedom and yet try to understand them as patriots and political leaders. He does justice to his own powers of description in presenting a vivid close-up of the Indian Prime Minister proud and chivalrous, sensitive and artistic, noble and generous, impatient and irritable.

Crocker was in India for over six years between 19 as head of the Australian mission (and later as High Commissioner) and had ample opportunities to watch his subject at close quarters and study it in every detail. But does this balance always imply that the writer should neatly cancel out every achievement with a black mark for something else, momentous or trivial? Academically, it is just possible that he can retain a certain balance. At best, it is a semblance, at worst a pretension. Not that in this case he is actually uncommitted. He can afford to be rather dispassionate, for he may remain comparatively uncommitted.

Crocker starts with a distinct advantage. In his approach to Nehru, an observer like Mr. He professes to have been an ardent admirer of Nehru the man, though, when the reader is not yet half through the book, the ardour cools off perceptibly. Walter Crocker, the Australian diplomat, in his Contemporary’s Estimate, runs the risk of falling into the second category. ‘dispassionate’ analysis, in which they claim to find Nehru wanting in many substantial respects. On the other hand, some of his erstwhile admirers feel slightly superior and derive a curious satisfaction from the new-found habit of Once that intriguing question ‘After Nehru, who or what?’ has, in fact, been answered, quite a few political writers seem to divert themselves with the other question “Nehru’s India–whither or what?” It might be something of an irony of fate that some of his old critics have since found it a profitable hobby to find fault with his successors for not continuing his well-known policies. Both published by the National Book Club, 12, Meena Bagh, New Delhi-1.

Published by George Allen and Unwin, London. Nehru: A Contemporary’s Estimate by Walter Crocker.

Nehru by Walter Crocker