Nehru’s other historic blunders, like setting up the IITs and the IIMs, may be hard to fix, but undoing a 300-year-old change to the family name is at least a kosher first step
By the time we achieve Akhand Bharat in the not-too-distant future, everyone will know that the first Prime Minister of India (or divided Bharat) was Shri Jawaharlal Kaul, son of Motilal Kaul. Not Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, as people knew him before April 14, 2022.
On April 14, the day Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated Pradhanmantri Sangrahalaya, or the museum of PMs, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru became Shri Jawaharlal Nehru in the gallery of PMs’ photos in that museum. But even with the honorific gone, he still remained a Nehru, when clearly his ancestors were the Kauls of Kashmir. Shouldn’t that be fixed too?
Early in the 18th Century, an ancestor of Nehru — or Shri Kaul, to be precise — came down to the plains from Kashmir to seek fame and fortune. As Nehru writes in his autobiography: “Those were the days of the decline of the Moghal (sic) Empire after the death of Aurangzeb, and Farrukhsiar was the emperor. Raj Kaul was the name of that ancestor of ours and he had gained eminence as a Sanskrit and Persian scholar in Kashmir. He attracted the notice of Farrukhsiar during the latter’s visit to Kashmir, and probably at the Emperor’s instance, the family migrated to Delhi, the imperial capital, about the year 1716.”
On April 14, the day Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated Pradhanmantri Sangrahalaya, or the museum of PMs, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru became Shri Jawaharlal Nehru in the gallery of PMs’ photos in that museum. But even with the honorific gone, he still remained a Nehru, when clearly his ancestors were the Kauls of Kashmir. Shouldn’t that be fixed too?
Early in the 18th Century, an ancestor of Nehru — or Shri Kaul, to be precise — came down to the plains from Kashmir to seek fame and fortune. As Nehru writes in his autobiography: “Those were the days of the decline of the Moghal (sic) Empire after the death of Aurangzeb, and Farrukhsiar was the emperor. Raj Kaul was the name of that ancestor of ours and he had gained eminence as a Sanskrit and Persian scholar in Kashmir. He attracted the notice of Farrukhsiar during the latter’s visit to Kashmir, and probably at the Emperor’s instance, the family migrated to Delhi, the imperial capital, about the year 1716.”