In the first floor room overlooking the garden is a single bed, the famous study table, and two book shelves crammed with books on the either side of the room. English and Russian classics and socialist literature occupy much of the space. A copy of the Gita, that provided Jawaharlal Nehru spiritual solace, lies by the bedside. Agrees, S.K. Mall, in charge of the Anand Bhawan museum, “There was a time when he put on only wooden slippers ( Kharau) and always carried a small copy of the Gita in his pocket.”
Nehru spent little time in Anand Bhavan, where the family shifted after Motilal Nehru handed over the more palatial Swaraj Bhavan to the Congress. He was mostly in jail, points out Mall. But Anand Bhavan continues to draw visitors, some 1,000 everyday. While the confluence of the rivers Ganga and Yamuna in Allahabad draws hordes of pilgrims, for Tarulata(49), a teacher, Anand Bhavan is ‘no less a temple’. “ I can sense Nehru’s presence even now and relive the intensity of India’s struggle for independence here,” she says in Hindi.
The Victorian furniture is crafted out of Burma teak. Motilal lived a life of an aristocrat, a rich barrister who bought the first car in Allahabad in 1906. When Motilal joined Congress, he started to wear khadi clothes. But his wife, Swarup Rani, a devout Hindu, lead a religious life of simplicity. Her room has a bed and a low table where she would sit and read scriptures. Indira Gandhi wrote about her grand mother whom she addressed as 'Doll Amma,' "I loved her mostly for the reason she was very different from my parents and grand father."
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On the dusty pavements outside, vendors sell posters of deities as well as those of Gandhi, Ambedkar, Tagore, Shastri and Azad. They are treated as demi-gods, their stories are told and retold like folklore. The recent addition is the poster of Narendra Modi. Both tourists and local residents are hopeful about the new prime minister. One of them says, “ Kaam Karega” ( he will deliver) as others nod in agreement.
A Rajasthani woman in her late 20s, a mother of three, is part of a 30-member group from Bhilwara. She identifies Gandhi as ‘Bapu’ and Nehru as ‘Chacha’ but cannot recall their full names. Her five-year-old son excitedly calls out ‘Narendra Modi’ pointing to a poster of the PM but his mother confesses she does not recognize Sardar Patel. Conspicuous by their absence are posters of Sonia or Rahul Gandhi.
But for the former Law minister in Morarji Desai’s government, Shanti Bhushan (89), Nehru and Allahabad are synonymous. “He is the city’s most famous son,” he says. Allahabad, also home of Lal Bahadur Shashtri, Indira Gandhi, V.P. Singh and Chandrashekhar, most of them alumni of the Allahabad University, was considered as the Oxford of the East.
The hands of Mrityunjay Pratap Singh, a retired police officer now confined to bed, shake as he holds up an old photograph. But there is a sparkle in his eyes when he narrates how Pandit Nehru cancelled all his engagements and came to see his father Shivmurty Singh—a local MLA and head of the district Congress for ten years—when he learned the latter was unwell. He remembers the occasion when Nehru and Patel came to Allahabad to immerse Gandhi’s ashes at Sangam. Nehru did all the talking, addressing the large and grief-stricken assembly, narrating how Godse had touched Gandhi’s feet before shooting him. Patel was stoic and said nothing. But within days, the home minister, the original Iron man of India, had banned the RSS.
Nehru would often have his meals at the residence of the local party leaders when he visited Allahabad. People fondly recall his temper tantrums and laugh while claiming that Nehru once hurled a pillow at the electrician when the microphone developed snag while he was making an important point at a public meeting. Others remember how the first Prime Minister rushed to Rae Bareli, where a farmer had committed suicide by jumping into a river due to indebtedness.
A senior BJP leader from the city speaking on condition of anonymity recalls , “There was great admiration for Nehru even among those who opposed him politically…people those days did not join politics to make money…There was no insulating layer of security between him and the people, he was never afraid to speak his mind, and he didn't need public relations advisers (hinting at his great grand son Rahul Gandhi)". He admits that Nehru was his inspiration during his university years.
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Kashmiri Pandit families that settled in Allahabad—Saprus, Katjus and Kauls to name a few, besides the Nehrus, had uncanny similarities—luminaries of law, well off and English speaking and made substantial contribution to India's struggle for freedom. Mall shows a picture of Nehru hand in hand with Kailash Nath Katju and Tej Bhadur Sapru in Mumbai, where they were part of a team of defence lawyers representing prisoners of war of Subhash Chandra Bose's Indian National Army or INA who fought against the British in the World War II. Later, in 1945, the British colonial government tried them for waging war against the state and on charges of murder.
But while Allahabad was at the forefront of the freedom struggle and the intellectual churning taking place a hundred years ago, the city today is a shadow of its former self. It boasted then of Prem Chand who provided graphic descriptions of colonial subjugation in his famous tales around rural India. Writer-poet, Harivansh Rai Bachchan close to the Nehru family, was the first Indian scholar to obtain a Phd in English literature from Cambridge. He along with Firaq Gorakhpuri or Raghupati Sahay, noted Urdu poet, taught English in the Allahabad University. Mahadevi Verma, Hindi poet and woman's activist, was Vice-Chancellor of Prayag Mahila Vidyapeeth, and was part of popular intellectual discourse of the city for five decades.
But their houses have either been destroyed to allow construction of multi-storey residential buildings or are poorly maintained by cash starved trusts formed in their name. In some cases, their descendants lead a quiet life.
A nostalgic Shanti Bhushan remembers the passage of the old order. "We left the doors of our house open at night; there was no fear of theft or burglary…" A lot has changed since then. The city is losing its old laid back charm and with it the vote garnering capabilities of the Nehru-Gandhi clan. The bungalows like the one of Kailash Nath Katju, with extended green compounds, are now being replaced by residential complexes or shopping Malls. The city, dusty, noisy and crowded, is fast becoming a victim of haphazard development. Identity politics of caste and religion have overtaken the university campus. "It is not even a patch of what it used to be," as Shanti Bhushan puts it.
Allahabad will be one of the three cities that the US will help develop into 'smart' cities, the plan announced during Narendra Modi's recent visit to USA and after his meeting with Barack Obama. The local administration welcomed the move, as the district magistrate P Guru Prasad said, "The city has the potential to feature among foremost cities of the world".
Many don't agree. A senior bureaucrat close to chief minister Akhilesh Yadav adds, "Modi wants to tell the world that Allahabad, the city of Nehru and Indira Gandhi, is not smart enough; and that Americans will make Allahabad a smart city. He, obviously, doesn't know history."
But many more seem to believe that Modi can rewrite history.
By Mihir Srivastava in Allahabad
