Differences between Nehru and Gandhi

Nehru regarded Gandhi as the great leader of Indian masses but did not agree with his ideas of Gram Swaraj and Sarvodaya. To Nehru (1972, 407), Gandhi made a significant contribution to national awakening. “The British had created a new caste or class in India, the English educated class, which lived in a world of its own, cut off from the mass of the population, and looked always, even when protesting, towards its rulers. Gandhi bridged that gap to some extent and forced it to turn its head and look towards its own people.” Yet, for him, Gandhi’s campaign for home-made cloth was merely a fad which could not solve the problem of poverty or raise the standard of living of Indian masses. Nehru rejected Gandhi’s idea of Gram Swaraj for implementation in the post-independence India. As early as 1934 Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) urged the then government to go for planned economy. In 1938 Congress set up the National Planning Committee to suggest the schemes of national planning to eradicate poverty and unemployment, and take to economic regeneration (Zachariah, 2005, 216). In 1944, several prominent businessmen, developed the “Bombay Plan” which favored economic unity of India. It attempted to define minimum standard of living, and set targets for per capita income. It delved into all major planning issues as role of state, finances, income tax, terms of trade, inflation, investment in social sector, role of public and private sectors, and social insurance. It also defined basic industries, argued for paying attention to modernity, childbirth, education and literacy, with the ultimate objective of reducing India’s economic dependence on foreign countries.