It is not clear whether Ms. Lekhi believes that the celebration of Nehru’s birthday as Children’s Day is not politics. But if she or anyone else genuinely does, it is time we disabused ourselves of such innocent presumptions. The Congress Raj, inaugurated by Jawaharlal Nehru and perpetuated by his progeny, made it mandatory for the public to worship its icons, whose pictures and statues were prominently displayed in government buildings and public places. For over six decades, Congress propaganda was shoved down people’s throats remorselessly as the country lurched from a one-party regime through the complete suspension of democracy during the Emergency to the quarter century of multi-party coalition governments. Court historians such as P. Sitaramayya, S. Gopal, and Bipan Chandra enjoyed extraordinary access to the Congress Raj and its archives in exchange for an unwholesome partisanship in their writings. During this period, Children’s Day was a key aspect of the Congress’ propaganda, targeting the country’s boys and girls before they came of age. Yet, despite its profession of “socialism,” the Congress Raj’s record of educating India’s youth remained abysmal, whether in comparison with the four Asian Tigers or even Sri Lanka. An illiterate, ignorant population was well-suited to the making of the Nehru and Indira cults until, of course, the genie of economic liberalization came to be unleashed in 1991. If this wasn’t politics, what is?