Some Sort of King

The U.S. loved to goggle at the late Fiorello La Guardia, a squat fire hydrant of a man who gushed forth sympathy, abuse and ideas on everything under the neon lights. India, without the help of the kind of press that spread the Hat's fame, is learning to pay the same kind of attention to Premier Nehru. He is the nurse and guardian of modern India, orphaned at birth by the death of its father, Gandhi, and the banishment of its mother, the British Raj.

Nurselike, Nehru flitters up & down India, watching, scolding, praising, teaching. His Western-trained mind knows how much India has to learn--and how quickly. The civil service, the press, the schools are in no shape to do the job. Nehru is the thin link between the 300,000,000 people and their government. Recently, Nehru took a trip to Madras province which typified the work of a unique statesman in shaping a new nation. He traveled 3,500 miles by plane, made twelve ex tempore speeches and 18 public appearances, showed himself to 1,000,000 people. He displayed wild impatience, touching humility, arrogance, humor, vast learning and vast interests. His remarks touched on public morals, and public manners, stone masonry, weaving, women, Communism and military history. At one point he said: "I am sorry to admit I have never been a Boy Scout." He makes up for that lack by trying to do a good deed a minute.

On the Madras trip, TIME Correspondent Robert Lubar reported that in following Nehru around for four days he had "learned more about how India is run than would have been possible in six months of work in New Delhi." Lubar cabled:

Airline Hostess. Nehru has no private plane. On the seven-hour regular flight from New Delhi to Madras he dozed a little and read snatches from a novel. But most of the time he walked the airplane's aisle, performing the duties of an airline hostess--adjusting ventilating valves, checking on safety belts, arranging women's wraps and generally making the passengers more comfortable.

At Madras City, Premier Ramaswami Reddiar gave him a garland of roses that almost smothered him. Half a million enthusiasts turned out to greet him. As their idol passed, standing in an open grey Buick touring car (hired from a local millionaire), Madrasis clapped wildly and yelled: "Jawaharlal Nehru ki jai!"--Victory to Jawaharlal Nehru. In response Nehru closed palms in front of his chest. This traditional Hindu namasthe (greeting) is as much a part of his public manner as was the V sign for Churchill.

With good-natured ferocity, the crowd delayed the Prime Minister half an hour. But when mounted police charged in and foot policemen began swinging their lathis, Nehru winced, perhaps recalling the days when British-led police broke the knees of revolutionary demonstrators. But no one was hurt; Nehru's police had learned how to miss.

High Prophet. Those who greeted him included men in loincloths, women with bare breasts, pious Hindus with shaven heads, Moslems boldly wearing red fezzes. One aged grandmother had come six miles from her village to see Nehru. After glimpsing him, she said patronizingly in her vernacular: "He's a nice enough looking fellow." She confided she had expected to see some sort of a king.

At the Victorian city hall, city fathers kissed Nehru's hands, garlanded him again, gave him a silver casket. Orated plump Mayor Krishna Rau: "Now that the potent voice of the Father of our nation has been silenced, the mantle of his high prophetic role has fallen on your shoulders." In answer, Nehru, talking like a cross between a college professor and a preacher, administered a rebuke to Madrasis, who lead all India in the grimness of their Hinduism and the fierceness of their local pride. He said chidingly: "We have declared war on communalism . . . We tolerate provincialism but we oppose it."

Next stop was a mammoth tea given by the provincial government. While several hundred Madrasi big shots drank coffee (Madras is on the verge of total prohibition) and gorged themselves on sickly sweets, Nehru threaded his way around the huge hall exchanging namasthe with everyone. Hardly pausing to moisten his own palate and grab a cigarette, Nehru rushed off to a nearby public hall to address a gathering of women welfare workers.

There a local Helen Hokinson type gushed a welcome: "By your faith in womanhood, you have restored our confidence in ourselves." Lectured Nehru in his reply: "The world has no place for the superior lady. She can stay in the boudoir for all we care." In the gallery a young girl sketched her hero's picture on a drawing pad. At the end, a trio of teenagers sang India's monotonic national anthem, Jana Gana Mana--Rulers of the People's Hearts. As he dashed off to Government House for a bath and dinner, a delicate pink rose petal lay in Nehru's snow-white cap.

Back in Madras' Government House, Nehru chatted a while with the exhausted staff, read a little and, after midnight, used yoga to put himself into a deep slumber which he says gives him twice as much rest as ordinary sleep.

Cornerstone Layer. At 5:30 Sunday morning he was up to catch a plane for Karaikudi, a small town 250 miles southward. In special trains and oxcarts Madrasis and outlying villagers had been converging on Karaikudi to watch the Prime Minister lay the cornerstone of India's first Electro-Chemical Research Institute. A crowd of 100,000 was standing in the cruel morning sun when Nehru arrived. Certainly most of them did not know what an electro-chemical institute was.

Nehru showed a practiced hand in cornerstone laying, but was handicapped by a niggardly mortar supply. "There seems," he cracked, "to be some cement scarcity here." That brought reinforcements in a hurry. After the dedication, Nehru was presented with an ivory jar, another silver casket, and a small telescope fashioned by a local manufacturer. While the crowd cheered, he stood up and peered through the glass like a schoolboy with a new toy.

Back in Madras, Nehru reviewed a platoon of National Congress Labor Volunteers at the airport, lunched, met briefly with the Madras cabinet, hurried off to a meeting of another women's welfare organization. Half hour later he was inspecting the Ashok Vihar, the city's health and recreation center, the first of its kind in India. Nehru walked through the center's model playrooms and clinics, peered at newborn babies, patted tots in sandboxes, watched boys performing the remarkable feat of singing Jana Gana Mana while they played volleyball.

Outside, Nehru asked breathlessly: "Where do we go from here?" and was bundled off to the trip's climax, a huge public meeting. On the rugby field of the Madras Gymkhana Club, a large canopied speaker's platform was erected. Here, on mattresses, pillows and rugs, slouched Madras public officials and honored guests. On the meadow surrounding the platform was a half-mile wide ocean of 600,000 faces.

Orator & Usher. With his arm around a pillar and his eyes liquid, Nehru stood for five minutes silently gazing at the crowd. When he spoke, he was no longer the lecturer. He harangued and warmed up to a savage, shouting climax. His concentration and crowd-infatuation were so deep that when an assistant offered him a glass of water for his parched throat, he snarled into the microphone: "Can't you sit down!" When he detected a few listeners leaving early, he yelled: "Sit down. Stop moving around."

Yet he told the crowd: "It is a dangerous thing to put a few people in authority and to idolize them as you sometimes idolize me."

Next morning after five hours sleep he was off on the last rapid-fire round of engagements. At the municipal stadium, jammed with 50,000 workers and students, he denounced Communism. In one wing of the stadium a loudspeaker failed and frustrated listeners began shouting. Nehru turned toward them and snapped: "What is this thunder?" Then he leaped off the five-foot speaker's platform and sprinted a hundred yards to the offending grandstand. There, while assistants tried to soothe him and police to cow the crowd, he waved his fists and shouted: "Can't you be quiet while I am trying to speak?"

Weaver, Politician & Sweeper. Composed again, he rode away to dedicate the new building of the Hindustani Prachar Sabha, a school for the propagation of Hindustani in Tamil-speaking Madras. In honor of the occasion he addressed the crowd of 10,000 in Hindustani.

At the Andhra Mahila Sabha, a school for young ladies, he inspected classrooms where girls learned spinning and weaving. To a young girl who was struggling over a hand loom, he remarked: "It's much faster using the foot kind. I know because I've done it." The girls presented Nehru with another silver casket and more garlands.

At the Venankanada College, Nehru dedicated a portrait of Gandhi, then sped across town to the offices of the Hindu, south India's best paper. Like any high-school journalism student he was awed by the ultramodern press machines. In the city room, reporters leaped from their desks and presented him with a huge garland.

The schedule left just 40 minutes for a talk with Congress Party bosses and ward heelers. The party presented him with a framed plaque which he dropped on the way out. Carefully he stooped to pick up the fragments lest anyone cut his feet.

Last stop was for tea at military headquarters where he surprised a gathering of officers by relating that he was a student of military tactics and strategy. He proved it with an obscure allusion: that Attila, the Hun, had revolutionized cavalry by inventing the stirrup.

But Not Yet an Admiral. Next morning Nehru emplaned for Delhi, and Madras went back to sleepy normal. The only disappointed ones were crewmen of the Indian Navy sloop Sutlej who had brought their ship around from Cochin to see the Premier. Through a slip-up in arrangements, Nehru had been unable to fit a ship inspection into his schedule.

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