“Rajaji vs. Nehru: The Untold Story of the Scholar-Statesman Who Defied the Congress Establishment”, The Dharma Dispatch, March 08, 2026
“CHAKRAVARTHY RAJAGOPALACHARI belongs to that extinct breed of scholar-statesmen who was somewhat of a rarity in the political climate of his own time. Sharp, shrewd, perceptive, quick-witted and magnanimous, Rajaji’s felicity for straddling multiple realms simultaneously was not only legendary but remains an understudied area of his prolific legacy. He was a leading light of the freedom struggle; he could draft the Constitution and write a scholarly speech on Vedanta for Maharaja Jayachamarajendra Wodeyar. His idea of taking a respite from hardscrabble politics was to write the abridged Mahabharata in English in less than a year. Around the same period, he also contributed regular columns to the acclaimed Bangalore-based journal, Public Affairs on a wide range of topics including the current political happenings, law, Hindu society, economics, free enterprise and the “growing menace of black money in politics.”
Needless, Rajaji’s Trivikramaesque stature unnerved Nehru who, after Sardar Patel’s death, began sidelining or ousting threats to his personal power and prestige. The list of Nehru’s victims is as long and as stark as the methods that he used to crush them. Acharya Kriplani, Ambedkar, John Mathai, Ramnath Goenka, Rajagopalachari… Apart from the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, it was Rajaji who till the end of his illustrious life, mounted a spirited fight against Nehru and everything that he represented. In his own lifetime, Nehru won the day but Rajaji exacted his sweet revenge in a history-altering manner. It became the festering wound that Nehru took to his grave — this was Rajaji’s public promise that the Congress would never again return to power in Tamil Nadu.
In balance, the good that Rajaji bequeathed to Indian public life greatly outweighs his negatives such as they were. And so, when PM Modi announced the Rajaji Utsav, it was a mixed bag. One, it was a welcome gesture of a long-overdue recognition. Two, it was a loathsome reminder of the countless sins that the Nehruvian establishment has inflicted upon India. The Congress seems to be the only party that punished patriots and nationalists for being patriots and nationalists even if they hailed from its own fold. Small wonder that its sprawling ecosystem spasmed with fury at Rajaji Utsav — actually, Narendra Modi did nothing spectacular; he simply showed the mirror to the Congress…….”
Read full article at dharmadispatch.in
