Congress leader Manish Tewari on Wednesday asked whether PM Modi read Jawaharlal Nehru’s greatest works like The Discovery of India or Glimpses of World History or his Letters from a Father to His Daughter — as PM Modi in his statement in the Rajya Sabha cited Nehru’s letter to chief ministers to claim that Nehru was anti-reservation. “PM Modi ji is the biggest fan of India’s first PM Jawaharlal Nehru. I don’t know whether PM Modi has read The Discovery of India which Nehru ji wrote in jail without taking help or references….had PM ji read all these, he would have understood that Pt Nehru was a very open-minded person and used to believe in discussion with chief ministers and other ministers. Views expressed during this consultation process was not a decision,” Manish Tewari said.

In his reply to the motion of thanks to the President’s address, PM Modi referred to the Congress’s demand for a caste census and explained where it has been coming from. “Nowadays I think of Nehru quite a bit,” PM Modi said as he cited a letter written by Nehru to the chief ministers. “I dislike any kind of reservation, particularly in jobs and services. I am strongly against anything which leads to inefficiency and second-rate standards,” PM Modi quoted Nehru’s letter and said the Congress has always been against tribals, Dalits. “This is why they are raising the demands today because they stopped it then. Nehru ji thought if SC/ST/OBC got government jobs through the reservation, the standard would fall. They stopped recruitment,” PM Modi said adding that Nehru’s words are ‘meel ke pathhar‘ for the Congress.

“If you extrapolate something taking out of context, it can mean anything. Had he fully read whatever Jawaharlal Nehru wrote in his lifetime, he would have definitely understood Nehru’s personality,” Manish Tewari said. “Sometimes those views were expressed only to start a debate,” the Congress MP said.

What Nehru’s letter to CMs said

The letter as found in a compilation of Nehru’s letters to CMs (Letters for a Nation: From Jawaharlal Nehru to His Chief Ministers 1947-1963) edited by Madhav Khosla said:

“I dislike any kind of reservation, more particularly in services. I react strongly against any thing which leads to inefficiency and second rate standards. I want my country to be a first-class country in everything. The moment we encourage the second-rate, we are lost.

The only real way to help the Backward group is to give opportunities of good education… But if we go in for reservations on communal and caste basis, we swamp the bright and able people and remain second-rate or third-rate. I am grieved to learn of how far this business of reservation has gone based on communal considerations. It has amazed me to learn that even promotions are based sometimes on communal and caste considerations. This way lays not only folly, but disaster. Let us help the backward groups by all means but never at the cost of efficiency,” Nehru wrote.