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Wryly Nehru has admitted a basic factor in Indian life: the national symbol is the cow. To the Indians the cow is sacred because it stands for the giver of plenty, the tie of human nature to the animal and the soil, the quiet, contemplative qualities which the Eastern mind respects.
A Sanatani Hindu, Gandhi accepts Varna (color), while disavowing the caste system, but stands by the concept of caste in marriage and the profession as the law of heredity. The principle of Swadeshi (home manufacture, i.e., spinning) is akin to the ancient Greek spirit of the hearth and Chinese ancestor worship. Satyagraha was coined by Gandhi from the words Saty (truth and love) and agraha (firmness) as the Hindu interpretation of soul force. Closely akin to this is Christ's admonition to "turn the other cheek."
As an agnostic, Nehru has not accepted all these ancient beliefs; but, as an Indian, he has appreciated that soul force is a strange power. He himself has experienced the feeling of elation and victory over his adversary when being beaten down by an ironbound club. To Gandhi, the Hindu philosophy translated into terms of democracy means "complete identification with the poorest of mankind, longing to live no better than they." To Nehru, poverty is an evil to be uprooted and corrected, not a burden to lie down with.
Nehru & Nehru. In years behind bars, Nehru has looked deeply into his own soul, has found the rationalization of loyalty for his compromises with Gandhi and the Congress party. He has found himself vain at times (his Gandhi cap habitually covers his-baldness). He has found himself loving the adoration of the crowds. He has also yearned for the mountains of Kashmir, for security and the love of his family. But these he denies himself. Last week, at the age of 52, he was still so handsome that at least six women in India were reported sending away suitors in the hope he would propose to them. And last week he was in jail again, while India seethed with hatred and turmoil. The answer to the questions, "When do the British go? When do the Japs come?" was no more settled than before police arrested Nehru in Bombay.
A good guess was that Nehru was at Ahmadnagar Fort, about 200 miles from Bombay. Here the Duke of Wellington once lunched on a grassy bank outside the fort's huge stone walls. Here the British once kept prisoners of the Boer war. Here, more recently, they have interned Italians captured in North Africa. Here Nehru, who worked for Loyalist Spain, who cried out against Munich, who was shocked by Hitler's Brown Shirts and twice snubbed invitations for an interview with Mussolini, could look out bitterly on monsoon skies. Nehru alone knew what thoughts were in his mind. But once before in prison he remembered T. S. Eliot's lines:
"This is the way the world ends, Not with a bang but a whimper."