September 1, 2022 • 23 mins
Hear how India’s first Prime Minister sought to unite the post-colonial world into a democratic, socialist world federation, or ‘One World’, to bring about peace, equality and justice.
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(00:10):
In this video we are going to look at the life and thought of a major world federalist thinker,
India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.
Nehru came to the conclusion that the world should beorganised as a world federation from a very particular perspective,
that of an anti-imperialist activist,struggling for India’s independence.
(00:31):
Nehru was born in Allahabad, in British colonial Indiaon 14 November 1889, to wealthy bourgeois parents.
His father was a prominent lawyer and stateman,
and the young Nehru grew up in a luxurious and sheltered environment.
He was educated at home by private governesses until the age of 16
(00:53):
and then he was sent to Britain, where he attended the elite Harrow public school,
before reading Natural Sciences at Trinity College, Cambridge.
After that he trained to be a barrister at the Inner Temple Inn in London,
and finally returned to India in 1912.
Young Nehru was a shy and sensitive soul,very much an idealist, and naturally supporting the under-dog.
(01:16):
From his teenage years he was against British colonial rule in India.
He was just shocked by the injustice and humiliationof being ruled by a foreign colonial power.
It seemed to him to be just so obviously wrong.
He passionately believed that India should become free and independent.
After he returned to India he started a career as a barrister.
(01:39):
But soon his desire for Indian independence drew him into politics
and he got involved in the Indian National Congress,where he quickly rose to prominence.
The Congress, at this point, was mainly a conservative and bourgeois party, full of the Indian elite.
They called for increased autonomy and local rule,
but stopped far, far short from callingfor full independence from the British Empire.
(02:03):
Nehru brought a more radical energy to it, and beganto push it towards becoming more of an independence party.
At this time Nehru was essentially a bourgeois nationalist.
His sole and main focus was extricating India from the British Empire and gaining independence.
But a few events in the 1920s influenced him stronglyand pushed him to broaden his views
(02:26):
and to consider both what kind ofindependent India he wanted to create,
and where this independent India would sit in the world.
In 1920 Nehru happened to spendtwo weeks at home with his sick mother in Allahabad.
And by coincidence, during this time some 200 peasantshad marched 50 miles from the interior to the city,
(02:49):
in order to raise awareness among the urban eliteabout their appalling living and working conditions.
Nehru, always supporting the under-dog but never having really met any before,
went out to meet them and talk with them.
And he later accompanied them back to their villages
and for the first time in his life, he sawwith his own eyes the grinding poverty of rural India.
(03:14):
While he had known about poverty in theory, this was the first time that he saw it close up,
and the experience shocked him deeply.
He later wrote in his autobiography:
“Looking at them and their misery… I was filled with shame,
shame at my easy-going and comfortable life and our petty politics of the city
which ignored this vast multitude of semi-naked sons and daughters of India,
(03:40):
sorrow at the degradation and overwhelming poverty of India.
A new picture of India seemed to rise before me,
naked, starving, crushed and utterly miserable.
And their faith in us, casual visitors from the distant city,
embarrassed me and filled me with a new responsibility that frightened me.”
(04:04):
Following that, Nehru began to think about social change as a core part of the struggle for independence.
Could there be ways to create more equal societies?, he began to wonder.
But the real turning point in his thinking came in February 1927,
when he attended the Brussels Congress against Colonial Oppression and Imperialism.
(04:25):
At this Congress, chaired by George Lansbury of the British Labour Party,
representatives of working class andsubject colonial peoples came together for the first time.
Over 170 delegates attended,including those from 37 colonial territories.
Delegates discussed their oppression under both colonialism and capitalism
(04:47):
and shared their thoughts and stories.
Nehru listened to speeches of delegates from other countries,
such as Algeria, Palestine, China, Mexico, Cuba, Venezuela, and Colombia,
and heard how similar in many ways their situations and struggles were.
He also broadened his thinking about imperialism
(05:08):
as the heard the Latin Americans talk about the ‘American dollar empire’
and described how America acts like an imperial power
even if it was not one directly, in the same way as the European empires.
Nehru began to see the struggle for independence from British imperialism
as part of a multinational effort by the various colonies and dominions of Empire.
(05:30):
He began to look at things from a more global perspective
and came to the realisation that there wasessentially a world level struggle going on,
between the imperial powers on the one hand,and the anti-imperialists on the other.
And seen this way, he reasoned that theanti-imperialists should work together and support each other.
(05:51):
It was here that he was also introduced more seriouslyto socialist thinking, and in particular, to Leninist ideas.
According to Lenin, imperialism was a key part of capitalism,
and imperialism could only be properly ended if capitalism was also ended
and the world took on a socialist form of organisation
that would foster equality instead of competition and exploitation.
(06:14):
Whilst Nehru was not in favour of what was happening in Communist Russia by this time,
and was very much a supporter of democracy,
he still found much of interest in these ideas.
He reflected on the appalling conditions that he had seen in India’s rural villages
and began to move away from hisbourgeois beliefs and take on more socialist ideas.
(06:36):
By the end of the conference Nehru’s worldview had changed considerably.
He now saw the struggle for Indian independence
as part of a broader struggle to change society, both in India and globally.
Empire needed to be ended,and then replaced with free and equal states,
who could then join together in a world federationto bring about what he called ‘World Union’ or ‘One World’.
(07:04):
And this world union should be basedon principles of democracy and equality
that he believed would be manifestedthrough socialist government and policies.
The Brussels Congress decided to form an organisationto facilitate continued discussion and cooperation.
They called it the League against Imperialism,a name carefully chosen to mock the League of Nations.
(07:27):
Nehru was elected to the Executive Committeeand continued to be actively involved in the organisation until 1930.
After the Brussels Congress,Nehru returned to India energised and excited,
and he started giving talks to students and activistsaround the country, spreading his new ideas.
In 1928, for example, he gave a speechto students in Calcutta, in which he said:
(07:51):
“You have probably often condemnedBritish imperialism because you suffer under it.
But have you thought it is but a manifestation,
certainly the most objectionable and aggressive manifestation,
of a world phenomenon?
And that this world imperialism is the direct outcome of a system of society
which prevails in the greater part of the world today
(08:12):
and is called capitalism.
Your immediate problem and mine is to gain political freedom for our country,
but this is only part of the problem facing us.
So long as imperialism is not rooted out,mankind will be exploited and oppressed by a few.
It may be that some of us may join the ranks of the exploiters,
(08:33):
but that will not bring freedom to the many.
We must aim, therefore, at the destruction of all imperialism
and the reconstruction of society on another basis.
That basis must be one of cooperation, and that is another name for socialism.
Our national ideal must, therefore, be the establishment of a cooperative socialist commonwealth,
(08:57):
and our international ideal,a world federation of socialist states.”
He also channeled his energy more and more into the Congress party
and sought to push it to callmore strongly for full independence.
The Congress started to actively ask Britain to give India dominion status,
and Britain’s point blank refusal only further enflamed the growing sentiment for independence.
(09:22):
Nehru began to be seen as the natural successor to Gandhi
and in 1929 he became President of the Congress.
He and Gandhi led the growing independence movement, and in the 1930s
they initiated a program of civil disobedience against British rule.
The British saw their power being challenged,and quickly arrested Nehru,
(09:42):
and he spent from 1930 to 1935 in prison.
But as many political activists have found,
being in prison is the perfect opportunityfor reading, writing and developing your ideas.
And Nehru used his time well,writing his first book Glimpses of World History.
This book is a kind of world history from an Indian perspective,
(10:04):
and it became extremely influential amonga generation of Indian scholars and students.
It shows a globalist outlook,seeing at the world as an inter-connected whole.
At one part he writes:
“Our incursions into history have shown us how the world has grown more and more compact,
how different parts have come together and become interdependent.
(10:27):
The world has indeed become one single inseparable whole,
each part influencing, and being influenced by, the other.
It is quite impossible now to have a separate history of nations.
We have outgrown that stage,
and only a single world history,connecting the different threads from all the nations,
and seeking to find the real forces that move them,
(10:49):
can now be written with any useful purpose.“
And in his conclusion, he concludes that the progressive forces of the world,
by which he means the anti-capitalists and the anti-imperialists,
must unite together to bring about a future of peace and cooperation
in the form of a socialist world federation.
Once he was out of prison, Nehru travelled again to Europe
(11:11):
and met up again with many of his former colleaguesfrom the League Against Imperialism.
He delved more deeply into Marxist thought
and also developed closer contacts withanti-imperialistmovements in Africa and elsewhere.
As the dark clouds of the Second World War began to loomhe turned his thinking to how to deal with the fascism that was rising in Europe,
(11:33):
and also to wondering what a sensible post-war world order should look like.
In 1942, while Britain was preoccupied and weakened by the war effort,
he and Gandhi put forward the Quit India resolution,again calling for Indian independence,
and setting that independence in the contextof a future socialist world federation.
(11:55):
I'll quote quite a large section of it because it is really fundamental:
“The All-India Congress Committee … repeats with all emphasisthe demand for the withdrawal of the British power from India.
On the declaration of India’s independence,a provisional government will be formed …
[which] will evolve a scheme for a constituent assembly
(12:16):
which will prepare a constitution for the government of India
acceptable to all sections of the people.
The constitution, according to the Congress view, should be a federal one.
With the largest measure of autonomy for the federating units,
and with the residuary powers vesting in these units….
The freedom of India must be the symbol of and prelude to
(12:37):
the freedom of all other Asiatic nations under foreign domination.
Burma, Malaya, Indo-China, the Dutch Indies, Iran and Iraq
must also attain their complete freedom. …
The Committee is of the opinion that thefuture peace, security and ordered progress of the world
demand a world federation of free nations,
(12:59):
and on no other basis can the problems of the modem world be solved.
Such a world federation would ensure the freedom of its constituent nations,
the prevention of aggression and exploitation by one nation over another,
the protection of national minorities,
the advancement of all backward areas and peoples,
and the pooling of the world's resources for the common good of all.
(13:23):
On the establishment of such a world federation,
disarmament would be practicable in all countries,
national armies, navies and air forces would no longer be necessary,
and a world federal defence force would keep the world peace
and prevent aggression.
An independent India would gladly join such a world federation
and cooperate on an equal basis with other countries
(13:46):
in the solution of international problems.“
In response to the resolution,and the protests and demonstrations that accompanied it,
the British put Nehru back in prison, where he stayed until 1945.
Again he used this time to read and think.
The early 1940s was a time when many thinkers were wondering how to build a sane global order
(14:08):
that would stop the seemingly incessant warsand instead bring about peace.
And many of them were thinkingabout some form of world federation,
but there were important differences in details and in design.
Nehru read these writings with interestand was quick to critique those that he found insufficient.
He had much praise for Wendall Wilkie’s “One World" for example,
(14:32):
and also agreed with W. B. Curry’s “The Case for Federal Union,”
which argued for a world federation of all statesin which all would lose the right to have an army,
and thus defence budgets could be spent ondevelopment and improving conditions across the world.
But he was deeply critical of Clarence Streit’s “Union Now”,
which seemed to propose a federation of the white, western states,
(14:54):
with their colonies remaining as colonies.
While for many in the US and Europe this seemed like quite a reasonable idea,
for Nehru, for whom the key driver towards a world federation
was the creation of an equal and just system for all,
this idea was simply an abomination.
Whilst in prison, he also pondered on the possible outcomes of the war.
(15:17):
If Germany won, he thought, they wouldcreate a German-dominated European federation,
with all the European coloniesexisting as colonies of this new federal state.
If the allies won, on the other hand,then he considered, and I quote:
“the only possible future is one oflarge federations of nations, or of a world federation,
(15:38):
based on a different economy and on strictworld control of production, transport and distribution.
The present-day capitalist system goes. The British Empire ends.
Small States cannot exist as independent units.”
And regarding Indian independence, again he wrote:
“the independence that we seek has never been looked as isolation
(16:00):
or the mere addition of a new national state to a crowd of others.
We have always realised and looked forwardto the world gathering closer together,
and functioning through federation or union,
which we would gladly join.”
As we know, the allies won the war,but did not create a world federation.
Instead the present inter-state system emerged, with the United Nations at the centre.
(16:25):
Nonetheless, Nehru continued supporting the idea of a world federation.
In 1947, when India was on the verge of independence
and the drafting of the Indian constitution was taking place,
Nehru addressed the Constituent Assembly of Indiaand again expressed the need
for all nations to work towards building a world structure,which he called ‘One World’
(16:48):
in order for there to be peace among nations.
A few months later, on the 15th August 1947,India finally gained independence
and Nehru became its first Prime Minister.
Whilst Indian independence was of course a huge success and joy for Nehru,
he also looked at the emerging international order with disappointment.
(17:11):
He realised that without some kind of unifying federation,
states would continue to compete with each other and go to war,
and that extreme inequality wouldcharacterise the world for a long, long time.
Ever the optimist, he still believed that it was possible to move from it towards a world federation.
And he saw the newly formed UN as central to this process.
(17:34):
While he was critical of the form that the UN had taken,
he still saw it as a possible nucleus of a future world federation.
And in a speech to the Constituent Assembly of India that same year,
discussing India’s role in the UN, he said, and I quote:
“The only possible real objective that we, in common with other nations, can have
(17:56):
is in the objective of co-operating in building up some kind of world structure,
call it “One World,” call it what you like.
The beginnings of this world structure
have been laid down in the United Nations Organization.
It is feeble yet; it has many defects;
nevertheless, it is the beginning of the world structure.
And India has pledged herself to cooperate in that work.”
(18:19):
And indeed, India under Nehru did try to strengthenthe UN system so that it would have some real power.
In the very first meeting of the General Assembly
India raised the issue of the human rights of Indians in South Africa,
where the South African government had recently passedthe Asiatic Land Tenure and Indian Representation Act,
(18:39):
which essentially segregated the Indian populationand denied them certain basic rights.
Appealing to the UN Charter, which South Africa had signed,
India succeeded in getting a Resolution passed which said, and again I quote,
“the treatment of Indians in the Unionshould be in conformity with the international obligations
(18:59):
under the agreements concluded between the two governments,
and the relevant provisions of the Charter”.
As we all know, this approach did not work
and South Africa went to create even worseand more draconian apartheid rules in the coming years.
But it is interesting, nonetheless, that at the very start of the UN’s history,
India and indeed several other states,believed that it was precisely the role of the UN
(19:24):
to ensure that states treat all their citizens fairly and equally, according to the UN Charter.
Nehru was genuinely concerned about the many Indians who lived abroad,
not just in South Africa, but in many other countries around the world.
Who would guarantee their rights?
India? Or their host state?
(19:45):
He believed that it should be the UN who would guarantee their rights.
And then people could move and live where they pleased,knowing their rights would be guaranteed by the UN.
This thinking was behind India’s active involvementin the early meetings of the UN’s Human Rights Commission,
where they pushed to make human rights real and enforceable,
(20:05):
with a strong treaty and a world court to enforce it.
But sadly, they were not successful in their attempt.
But even after these setbacks, Nehru remained committed to a strengthened United Nations
as the centre-piece of a future federal world government.
Arounnd this time he wrote:
“World government is the only remedy for the sickness of the world….
(20:28):
[it could be]...an extension of the federal principle,
a growth of the idea underlying the United Nations,
giving each national unit freedom to fashion its destiny according to its genius,
but subject always to the basic covenant of the World Government”
As the emerging political reality took a different directionand the Cold War began to dominate international politics,
(20:51):
Nehru turned to thinking about the situationof the various newly emerging post-colonial states in Africa and Asia.
He knew that they would struggle in the competitive international system unless they found some way to work together.
As the Cold War developed and the world split into two big power blocs,
Nehru developed the ideas of neutrality and non-alignment,
(21:12):
and sought to create a third bloc of non-aligned countries
who would not take sides in the new global power politics
and who would instead support each other.
He affirmed five principles for good international conduct,
known as Panchasheel,from the Sanskrit for ‘five virtues’, and these were:
mutual respect for other countries’ territorial integrity and sovereignty,
(21:36):
non-interference in another country’s internal affairs,
mutual non-aggression,
equality and mutual benefit,
and peaceful coexistence and economic cooperation.
These ideas were further elaborated at the Bandung Conference in 1955,
attended by many newly independent countries from Africa and Asia,
(21:56):
and came to be the core of the Non-Aligned Movementwhich was formed in the 1960s.
But Nehru remained committed to world federalism until his death in 1964.
He had witnessed huge change in the worldand he knew that further change was possible.
So we can see that Nehru came to world federalism
(22:16):
from a different perspective than many European or American thinkers.
His vision of world federalism wasinspired by a radical anti-imperialism
and a desire for peace and cooperationbetween free and equal states, of everyone.
It was a particularly socialist vision of world federalism,
also calling for a new and just world economy
(22:37):
which would reduce inequalities
and balance out the world economy in a more fair and equitable manner.
Spending his formative years as a colonial subject,Nehru saw world federalism as more than a way to end wars.
For him, it was fundamentally a wayto bring about a just and inclusive global society.
(22:58):
It is a vision that can still inspire us today.
In this video we are going to look at the life and thought of a major world federalist thinker,
India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.
Nehru came to the conclusion that the world should beorganised as a world federation from a very particular perspective,
that of an anti-imperialist activist,struggling for India’s independence.
(00:31):
Nehru was born in Allahabad, in British colonial Indiaon 14 November 1889, to wealthy bourgeois parents.
His father was a prominent lawyer and stateman,
and the young Nehru grew up in a luxurious and sheltered environment.
He was educated at home by private governesses until the age of 16
(00:53):
and then he was sent to Britain, where he attended the elite Harrow public school,
before reading Natural Sciences at Trinity College, Cambridge.
After that he trained to be a barrister at the Inner Temple Inn in London,
and finally returned to India in 1912.
Young Nehru was a shy and sensitive soul,very much an idealist, and naturally supporting the under-dog.
(01:16):
From his teenage years he was against British colonial rule in India.
He was just shocked by the injustice and humiliationof being ruled by a foreign colonial power.
It seemed to him to be just so obviously wrong.
He passionately believed that India should become free and independent.
After he returned to India he started a career as a barrister.
(01:39):
But soon his desire for Indian independence drew him into politics
and he got involved in the Indian National Congress,where he quickly rose to prominence.
The Congress, at this point, was mainly a conservative and bourgeois party, full of the Indian elite.
They called for increased autonomy and local rule,
but stopped far, far short from callingfor full independence from the British Empire.
(02:03):
Nehru brought a more radical energy to it, and beganto push it towards becoming more of an independence party.
At this time Nehru was essentially a bourgeois nationalist.
His sole and main focus was extricating India from the British Empire and gaining independence.
But a few events in the 1920s influenced him stronglyand pushed him to broaden his views
(02:26):
and to consider both what kind ofindependent India he wanted to create,
and where this independent India would sit in the world.
In 1920 Nehru happened to spendtwo weeks at home with his sick mother in Allahabad.
And by coincidence, during this time some 200 peasantshad marched 50 miles from the interior to the city,
(02:49):
in order to raise awareness among the urban eliteabout their appalling living and working conditions.
Nehru, always supporting the under-dog but never having really met any before,
went out to meet them and talk with them.
And he later accompanied them back to their villages
and for the first time in his life, he sawwith his own eyes the grinding poverty of rural India.
(03:14):
While he had known about poverty in theory, this was the first time that he saw it close up,
and the experience shocked him deeply.
He later wrote in his autobiography:
“Looking at them and their misery… I was filled with shame,
shame at my easy-going and comfortable life and our petty politics of the city
which ignored this vast multitude of semi-naked sons and daughters of India,
(03:40):
sorrow at the degradation and overwhelming poverty of India.
A new picture of India seemed to rise before me,
naked, starving, crushed and utterly miserable.
And their faith in us, casual visitors from the distant city,
embarrassed me and filled me with a new responsibility that frightened me.”
(04:04):
Following that, Nehru began to think about social change as a core part of the struggle for independence.
Could there be ways to create more equal societies?, he began to wonder.
But the real turning point in his thinking came in February 1927,
when he attended the Brussels Congress against Colonial Oppression and Imperialism.
(04:25):
At this Congress, chaired by George Lansbury of the British Labour Party,
representatives of working class andsubject colonial peoples came together for the first time.
Over 170 delegates attended,including those from 37 colonial territories.
Delegates discussed their oppression under both colonialism and capitalism
(04:47):
and shared their thoughts and stories.
Nehru listened to speeches of delegates from other countries,
such as Algeria, Palestine, China, Mexico, Cuba, Venezuela, and Colombia,
and heard how similar in many ways their situations and struggles were.
He also broadened his thinking about imperialism
(05:08):
as the heard the Latin Americans talk about the ‘American dollar empire’
and described how America acts like an imperial power
even if it was not one directly, in the same way as the European empires.
Nehru began to see the struggle for independence from British imperialism
as part of a multinational effort by the various colonies and dominions of Empire.
(05:30):
He began to look at things from a more global perspective
and came to the realisation that there wasessentially a world level struggle going on,
between the imperial powers on the one hand,and the anti-imperialists on the other.
And seen this way, he reasoned that theanti-imperialists should work together and support each other.
(05:51):
It was here that he was also introduced more seriouslyto socialist thinking, and in particular, to Leninist ideas.
According to Lenin, imperialism was a key part of capitalism,
and imperialism could only be properly ended if capitalism was also ended
and the world took on a socialist form of organisation
that would foster equality instead of competition and exploitation.
(06:14):
Whilst Nehru was not in favour of what was happening in Communist Russia by this time,
and was very much a supporter of democracy,
he still found much of interest in these ideas.
He reflected on the appalling conditions that he had seen in India’s rural villages
and began to move away from hisbourgeois beliefs and take on more socialist ideas.
(06:36):
By the end of the conference Nehru’s worldview had changed considerably.
He now saw the struggle for Indian independence
as part of a broader struggle to change society, both in India and globally.
Empire needed to be ended,and then replaced with free and equal states,
who could then join together in a world federationto bring about what he called ‘World Union’ or ‘One World’.
(07:04):
And this world union should be basedon principles of democracy and equality
that he believed would be manifestedthrough socialist government and policies.
The Brussels Congress decided to form an organisationto facilitate continued discussion and cooperation.
They called it the League against Imperialism,a name carefully chosen to mock the League of Nations.
(07:27):
Nehru was elected to the Executive Committeeand continued to be actively involved in the organisation until 1930.
After the Brussels Congress,Nehru returned to India energised and excited,
and he started giving talks to students and activistsaround the country, spreading his new ideas.
In 1928, for example, he gave a speechto students in Calcutta, in which he said:
(07:51):
“You have probably often condemnedBritish imperialism because you suffer under it.
But have you thought it is but a manifestation,
certainly the most objectionable and aggressive manifestation,
of a world phenomenon?
And that this world imperialism is the direct outcome of a system of society
which prevails in the greater part of the world today
(08:12):
and is called capitalism.
Your immediate problem and mine is to gain political freedom for our country,
but this is only part of the problem facing us.
So long as imperialism is not rooted out,mankind will be exploited and oppressed by a few.
It may be that some of us may join the ranks of the exploiters,
(08:33):
but that will not bring freedom to the many.
We must aim, therefore, at the destruction of all imperialism
and the reconstruction of society on another basis.
That basis must be one of cooperation, and that is another name for socialism.
Our national ideal must, therefore, be the establishment of a cooperative socialist commonwealth,
(08:57):
and our international ideal,a world federation of socialist states.”
He also channeled his energy more and more into the Congress party
and sought to push it to callmore strongly for full independence.
The Congress started to actively ask Britain to give India dominion status,
and Britain’s point blank refusal only further enflamed the growing sentiment for independence.
(09:22):
Nehru began to be seen as the natural successor to Gandhi
and in 1929 he became President of the Congress.
He and Gandhi led the growing independence movement, and in the 1930s
they initiated a program of civil disobedience against British rule.
The British saw their power being challenged,and quickly arrested Nehru,
(09:42):
and he spent from 1930 to 1935 in prison.
But as many political activists have found,
being in prison is the perfect opportunityfor reading, writing and developing your ideas.
And Nehru used his time well,writing his first book Glimpses of World History.
This book is a kind of world history from an Indian perspective,
(10:04):
and it became extremely influential amonga generation of Indian scholars and students.
It shows a globalist outlook,seeing at the world as an inter-connected whole.
At one part he writes:
“Our incursions into history have shown us how the world has grown more and more compact,
how different parts have come together and become interdependent.
(10:27):
The world has indeed become one single inseparable whole,
each part influencing, and being influenced by, the other.
It is quite impossible now to have a separate history of nations.
We have outgrown that stage,
and only a single world history,connecting the different threads from all the nations,
and seeking to find the real forces that move them,
(10:49):
can now be written with any useful purpose.“
And in his conclusion, he concludes that the progressive forces of the world,
by which he means the anti-capitalists and the anti-imperialists,
must unite together to bring about a future of peace and cooperation
in the form of a socialist world federation.
Once he was out of prison, Nehru travelled again to Europe
(11:11):
and met up again with many of his former colleaguesfrom the League Against Imperialism.
He delved more deeply into Marxist thought
and also developed closer contacts withanti-imperialistmovements in Africa and elsewhere.
As the dark clouds of the Second World War began to loomhe turned his thinking to how to deal with the fascism that was rising in Europe,
(11:33):
and also to wondering what a sensible post-war world order should look like.
In 1942, while Britain was preoccupied and weakened by the war effort,
he and Gandhi put forward the Quit India resolution,again calling for Indian independence,
and setting that independence in the contextof a future socialist world federation.
(11:55):
I'll quote quite a large section of it because it is really fundamental:
“The All-India Congress Committee … repeats with all emphasisthe demand for the withdrawal of the British power from India.
On the declaration of India’s independence,a provisional government will be formed …
[which] will evolve a scheme for a constituent assembly
(12:16):
which will prepare a constitution for the government of India
acceptable to all sections of the people.
The constitution, according to the Congress view, should be a federal one.
With the largest measure of autonomy for the federating units,
and with the residuary powers vesting in these units….
The freedom of India must be the symbol of and prelude to
(12:37):
the freedom of all other Asiatic nations under foreign domination.
Burma, Malaya, Indo-China, the Dutch Indies, Iran and Iraq
must also attain their complete freedom. …
The Committee is of the opinion that thefuture peace, security and ordered progress of the world
demand a world federation of free nations,
(12:59):
and on no other basis can the problems of the modem world be solved.
Such a world federation would ensure the freedom of its constituent nations,
the prevention of aggression and exploitation by one nation over another,
the protection of national minorities,
the advancement of all backward areas and peoples,
and the pooling of the world's resources for the common good of all.
(13:23):
On the establishment of such a world federation,
disarmament would be practicable in all countries,
national armies, navies and air forces would no longer be necessary,
and a world federal defence force would keep the world peace
and prevent aggression.
An independent India would gladly join such a world federation
and cooperate on an equal basis with other countries
(13:46):
in the solution of international problems.“
In response to the resolution,and the protests and demonstrations that accompanied it,
the British put Nehru back in prison, where he stayed until 1945.
Again he used this time to read and think.
The early 1940s was a time when many thinkers were wondering how to build a sane global order
(14:08):
that would stop the seemingly incessant warsand instead bring about peace.
And many of them were thinkingabout some form of world federation,
but there were important differences in details and in design.
Nehru read these writings with interestand was quick to critique those that he found insufficient.
He had much praise for Wendall Wilkie’s “One World" for example,
(14:32):
and also agreed with W. B. Curry’s “The Case for Federal Union,”
which argued for a world federation of all statesin which all would lose the right to have an army,
and thus defence budgets could be spent ondevelopment and improving conditions across the world.
But he was deeply critical of Clarence Streit’s “Union Now”,
which seemed to propose a federation of the white, western states,
(14:54):
with their colonies remaining as colonies.
While for many in the US and Europe this seemed like quite a reasonable idea,
for Nehru, for whom the key driver towards a world federation
was the creation of an equal and just system for all,
this idea was simply an abomination.
Whilst in prison, he also pondered on the possible outcomes of the war.
(15:17):
If Germany won, he thought, they wouldcreate a German-dominated European federation,
with all the European coloniesexisting as colonies of this new federal state.
If the allies won, on the other hand,then he considered, and I quote:
“the only possible future is one oflarge federations of nations, or of a world federation,
(15:38):
based on a different economy and on strictworld control of production, transport and distribution.
The present-day capitalist system goes. The British Empire ends.
Small States cannot exist as independent units.”
And regarding Indian independence, again he wrote:
“the independence that we seek has never been looked as isolation
(16:00):
or the mere addition of a new national state to a crowd of others.
We have always realised and looked forwardto the world gathering closer together,
and functioning through federation or union,
which we would gladly join.”
As we know, the allies won the war,but did not create a world federation.
Instead the present inter-state system emerged, with the United Nations at the centre.
(16:25):
Nonetheless, Nehru continued supporting the idea of a world federation.
In 1947, when India was on the verge of independence
and the drafting of the Indian constitution was taking place,
Nehru addressed the Constituent Assembly of Indiaand again expressed the need
for all nations to work towards building a world structure,which he called ‘One World’
(16:48):
in order for there to be peace among nations.
A few months later, on the 15th August 1947,India finally gained independence
and Nehru became its first Prime Minister.
Whilst Indian independence was of course a huge success and joy for Nehru,
he also looked at the emerging international order with disappointment.
(17:11):
He realised that without some kind of unifying federation,
states would continue to compete with each other and go to war,
and that extreme inequality wouldcharacterise the world for a long, long time.
Ever the optimist, he still believed that it was possible to move from it towards a world federation.
And he saw the newly formed UN as central to this process.
(17:34):
While he was critical of the form that the UN had taken,
he still saw it as a possible nucleus of a future world federation.
And in a speech to the Constituent Assembly of India that same year,
discussing India’s role in the UN, he said, and I quote:
“The only possible real objective that we, in common with other nations, can have
(17:56):
is in the objective of co-operating in building up some kind of world structure,
call it “One World,” call it what you like.
The beginnings of this world structure
have been laid down in the United Nations Organization.
It is feeble yet; it has many defects;
nevertheless, it is the beginning of the world structure.
And India has pledged herself to cooperate in that work.”
(18:19):
And indeed, India under Nehru did try to strengthenthe UN system so that it would have some real power.
In the very first meeting of the General Assembly
India raised the issue of the human rights of Indians in South Africa,
where the South African government had recently passedthe Asiatic Land Tenure and Indian Representation Act,
(18:39):
which essentially segregated the Indian populationand denied them certain basic rights.
Appealing to the UN Charter, which South Africa had signed,
India succeeded in getting a Resolution passed which said, and again I quote,
“the treatment of Indians in the Unionshould be in conformity with the international obligations
(18:59):
under the agreements concluded between the two governments,
and the relevant provisions of the Charter”.
As we all know, this approach did not work
and South Africa went to create even worseand more draconian apartheid rules in the coming years.
But it is interesting, nonetheless, that at the very start of the UN’s history,
India and indeed several other states,believed that it was precisely the role of the UN
(19:24):
to ensure that states treat all their citizens fairly and equally, according to the UN Charter.
Nehru was genuinely concerned about the many Indians who lived abroad,
not just in South Africa, but in many other countries around the world.
Who would guarantee their rights?
India? Or their host state?
(19:45):
He believed that it should be the UN who would guarantee their rights.
And then people could move and live where they pleased,knowing their rights would be guaranteed by the UN.
This thinking was behind India’s active involvementin the early meetings of the UN’s Human Rights Commission,
where they pushed to make human rights real and enforceable,
(20:05):
with a strong treaty and a world court to enforce it.
But sadly, they were not successful in their attempt.
But even after these setbacks, Nehru remained committed to a strengthened United Nations
as the centre-piece of a future federal world government.
Arounnd this time he wrote:
“World government is the only remedy for the sickness of the world….
(20:28):
[it could be]...an extension of the federal principle,
a growth of the idea underlying the United Nations,
giving each national unit freedom to fashion its destiny according to its genius,
but subject always to the basic covenant of the World Government”
As the emerging political reality took a different directionand the Cold War began to dominate international politics,
(20:51):
Nehru turned to thinking about the situationof the various newly emerging post-colonial states in Africa and Asia.
He knew that they would struggle in the competitive international system unless they found some way to work together.
As the Cold War developed and the world split into two big power blocs,
Nehru developed the ideas of neutrality and non-alignment,
(21:12):
and sought to create a third bloc of non-aligned countries
who would not take sides in the new global power politics
and who would instead support each other.
He affirmed five principles for good international conduct,
known as Panchasheel,from the Sanskrit for ‘five virtues’, and these were:
mutual respect for other countries’ territorial integrity and sovereignty,
(21:36):
non-interference in another country’s internal affairs,
mutual non-aggression,
equality and mutual benefit,
and peaceful coexistence and economic cooperation.
These ideas were further elaborated at the Bandung Conference in 1955,
attended by many newly independent countries from Africa and Asia,
(21:56):
and came to be the core of the Non-Aligned Movementwhich was formed in the 1960s.
But Nehru remained committed to world federalism until his death in 1964.
He had witnessed huge change in the worldand he knew that further change was possible.
So we can see that Nehru came to world federalism
(22:16):
from a different perspective than many European or American thinkers.
His vision of world federalism wasinspired by a radical anti-imperialism
and a desire for peace and cooperationbetween free and equal states, of everyone.
It was a particularly socialist vision of world federalism,
also calling for a new and just world economy
(22:37):
which would reduce inequalities
and balance out the world economy in a more fair and equitable manner.
Spending his formative years as a colonial subject,Nehru saw world federalism as more than a way to end wars.
For him, it was fundamentally a wayto bring about a just and inclusive global society.
(22:58):
It is a vision that can still inspire us today.
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