This day 58 years ago on 27 May 1964 India was cast into a dark pall of gloom and shock when All India Radio (as #Doordarshan then was) announced the death of the first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. "The light is out" said The Times of India 
In the 16 years or so as Prime Minister of a country that was born amidst the cauldron of a bloody #Partition, he succeeded in weaving a diverse nation of many languages, religions, groupings, political views and opinions into a functioning modern State
He was the ultimate modernist, technophile, scientifically-minded, internationalist leader any post-colonial country could have hoped for. Did he have flaws? Hell, yes! He was a human after all not a God, and thank goodness for that.
Nehru was a prolific writer and chronicler of his life and times. India's leaders today, pygmies by comparison, have probably not READ a fraction of the voluminous material that he WROTE and contributed to the literature.
He earned the respect and admiration of World leaders. See for example his visit to America when John Kennedy was President.
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Today his legacy is being rewritten by a Hindutva Regime determined to erase his memory not because they disagree with his record, but because only by rubbishing his record and downplaying his achievements can they polish their own image.
Unlike truly great men who have the humility to ascribe their achievements to "standing on the shoulders of great men", intellectually small-minded men can pretend to stand tall only by falsifying the record of past greats. It's not reflected glory so much as refracted glory.
The attempts to revise even recent documented history and erase from the history books of men like Nehru who built the modern Indian State is, like the rest of the #Hindutva project based on #Lies, #spin, #propaganda and #hate.
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