Nehru and Modernism: Emergence of Modern India

India was in at the cross roads in 1947. Colonial exploitation, communal violence, partition, extreme poverty, the rigid caste system, high illiteracy and large population left India in shambles after independence. The plurality of religions, languages, cultures and societies fragmented India and nullified any hope of unity. Moreover, India lacked the scientific, technological, financial and infrastructural expertise to build a new nation. But the situation was not hopeless. Nehru’s education in Cambridge University and exposure to industrial Britain’s socio-political atmosphere enabled him to be broad minded and accepting of new purposes, ideas, imaginations and innovations. He was able to cross-examine India’s backwardness and propose ideas to build a modern nation state free from the strictures of colonialism. According to Ravi Kalia, Nehru’s blend of western education and Indian identity contributed to “his Indian duality, the famous double consciousness (the competing identities of being Indian and Western-educated) as a lens through which to observe and interrogate the nation’s history” (123). Nehru was a local bird with a foreign walk, and he urged the nation to try his toddle. Luckily for Nehru, he was not without help. Le Corbusier, the Swiss born French architect arrived to assist him. Corbusier’s vision matched Nehru’s progressive ideal. An architect, Corbusier came to design cities with modernism’s maxims. To solve India’s advance the nation, he forged a vision for a modern India by experimenting with modernist ideas on a culturally airtight India.  

It is not that Nehru was clueless about engineering a modern state; indeed, his vision for a modern India contained secularism and urbanism that modern nations embraced. Modernism appealed to Nehru firstly because it “was free of the encumbrances of imperialism and was therefore acceptable for adaptation to an invented national identity” (Kalia 129). Modernism changed the way people thought, and Nehru’ recognized its potential to change society. Modernism had the potential to permeate the lives of people and establish new ambitions goals. Thus with evolving needs, India as a whole would be able to take a new road to economic prosperity and tolerance. Corbusier tore apart India’s ancient prejudices and colonial heritage by reinterpreting the purpose of the landscape for office buildings, factories, universities instead of temples and mosques. Modernist ideas helped shape Nehru’s vision for India by enabling him to build a national identity. Nehru reexamined the constraints of Indian society, “eliminating the unnecessary, while keeping what delighted the eye” (Kalia 128). While extensive repudiation of colonial and pre-colonial specters are impossible and unnecessary, Nehru tailored his vision for India by keeping intact what was necessary such and disposing of old obstacles. Kalia captures Nehru’s intent and states, “modernism, with its social and technological imperatives, appeared to be the natural answer and one that would facilitate a reconciliation of both modern technology and indigenous methods” (129).