It is not only the son of Nehru that people seldom discuss, there are many other matters concerning the Nehrus that have escaped the attention of our people. Such lack of attention is not necessarily a phenomenon that affects the foreigners; it is only the Indians, primarily the Hindus of India, who suffer from such lack of perception. It is our own people who do not know in depth their leaders. That is a shame! We saw how the British got rid of then Prince of Wales, Edward VIII, for reasons of an unacceptable marriage with the twice divorced Wallis woman!

A very common question about the Nehrus, if asked, inevitably draws a wrong answer or at best, no answer at all, from even the knowledgable literati of the Indian media, teachers and professors, politicians and ministers, etc.

The question is: “Who was the (paternal) grandfather of Rajiv Roberto Gandhi, son of Indira, daughter of Jawahar Lal Nehru?” And you will not be surprised to hear that most people, including even the Ph.D.s of Indian Universities reply right away that it was Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru. People forget that Jawahar was only the maternal grandfather and NOT the paternal grandfather! No one seems to know that Rajiv Roberto’s father was Firoz Khan (who had changed his name by an affidavit to avoid arousing attention of the people of India, primarily Hindus) and therefore, the (paternal) grandfather of Rajiv was the father of Firoz. His name was Nawab Khan, a Sunni Moslem who used to supply liquor to the Nehru family.

Having said that let us look a little closer at the marital life of Jawahar. His wife was Kamala Nehru (née Kaul) and she was maltreated by Jawahar’s sister Nan (later named Vijay Lakshmi); the other sister, Krishna, was much younger and therefore less aggressive toward Kamala. Kamala had a miserable existence in the Nehru family. She was a vegetarian and never touched alcohol in any form. Her kitchen was quite separate from the Mohammedan cook’s quarters of Jawahar’s part of the Anand Bhavan. Partition had already started in the house (once called Ishrat Manzil) built by Mobarak Ali, the renowned lawyer of the City of Allah or Allahabad, Moti Lal’s employer.

Kamala eventually died in Switzerland of tuberculosis after a long bout with the disease. Daughter Indira, who had a totally un-Hindu upbringing was left to herself. The senior aunt, Nan (later Vijaya Lakshmi) was herself running after unhealthy company terminating in an elopement with a Moslem man called Syud Husain. Some say Syud was an illegitimate son of Moti Lal and that was the primary reason for Moti Lal’s refusal to agree to the marriage with Syud, for then it would be a marriage between half siblings. There could be no other reason for an agnostic like Moti Lal, whose most intimate friends were all Mohammedans, to have refused his blessing to Nan’s wedding with Syud!

Be that as it may, as soon as Kamala Nehru (wife of Jawahar) died, whatever restrictions, real or imaginary there had been, in the way of keeping a check on Jawahar’s conduct vis à vis other women, disappeared. The prime minister of India, a widower, started conducting himself absolutely shamelessly. He started running after skirts and saris, gave up all important work connected with the wellbeing of the state of India and her people. Other than looking after the members of his own immediate family, such as promoting Vijay Lakshmi in the UNO, clearing the path of his own daughter to the post of the future prime minister of India, etc. he had no other interests. Huge territories of India were taken over by communist China, once Nehru’s good friend; Kashmir was attacked by Islamic Pakistan but he would not care. Weren’t there more interesting items to pay attention to? There was Edwina of course but then there were also many more to attend to!

Here we will take our reader to the pages written by M.O. Mathai, a South Indian Catholic from Kerala, who served Nehru for many years as his Personal Assistant. Mathai writes in his Reminiscences of the Nehru Age in the chapter Nehru and Women (pg. 206-207):

“In the autumn of 1948 a young woman from Benares arrived in New Delhi as a sanyasini named Shradha Mata. She was a Sanskrit scholar and well versed in ancient Indian scriptures and mythology. People, including MPs, thronged to her to hear her discourses. One day, S.D. Upadhyaya, Nehru’s old employee, brought a letter in Hindi from Shradha Mata about whom he spoke very highly. Nehru gave her an interview in the PM’s house. As she departed, I noticed that she was young, shapely and beautiful. Meetings with her became rather frequent, mostly after Nehru finished his work at night. During one of Nehru’s visits to Lucknow, Shradha Mata turned up there, and Upadhyaya brought a letter from her as usual. Nehru sent her the reply; and she visited Nehru at midnight. Padmaja was hysterical…

“Suddenly Shradha Mata disappeared. In November 1949 a convent in Bangalore sent a decent-looking person to Delhi with a bundle of letters. He said that a young woman from northern India arrived at the convent a few months ago and gave birth to a baby boy. She refused to divulge her name or give any particulars about herself. She left the convent as soon as she was well enough to move out but left the child behind. She however forgot to take with her a small cloth bundle in which, among other things, several letters in Hindi were found.

“The Mother Superior, who was a foreigner, had the letters examined and was told they were from the Prime Minister. The person who brought the letters surrendered them. But he declined to give his name, or the name of the Mother Superior, or the name and address of the convent. Nehru was told of the facts. He tore off the letters without any emotion reflected in his face. He showed no interest in the child then or later…

Says Mathai:”I made discreet enquiries repeatedly about the boy but failed to get a clue about his whereabouts. Convents in such matters are extremely tightlipped and secretive. Had I succeeded in locating the boy, I would have adopted him. He must have grown up as a Catholic Christian blissfully ignorant of who his father was.”

It is quite possible that if the bastard son of Nehru could be located, he and not Indira would have ruled India. Elsewhere, in the same book, Mathai writes:”Some of the great men in the past have been ‘bastards’. Confucius and Leonardo da Vinci are classic examples. In modern times we have had Ramsay MacDonald and now Willy Brandt.”

However, for those readers who are disappointed in not having Nehru’s bastard son as India’s ruler, there is nothing to lose. Writes Mathai elsewhere in the same book (pg. 94):”For some inexplicable reason, Nehru allowed the marriage (between Indira and Feroze) to be performed according to Vedic rites in 1942. An inter-religious and intercaste marriage under Vedic rites at that time was not valid in law. To be legal, it had to be a civil marriage. So, strictly under the law, Indira was only a ‘concubine’ and her children are ‘bastards’.” So, Rajiv, a ‘bastard’ by this definition replaced the other ‘bastard’, the unknown son of Jawahar. However, this incident of secret delivery of Jawahar’s bastard son at the convent drastically limited Nehru’s personal and prime ministerial freedom. He became overly subservient to the Catholic lobby and the GoI became absolutely powerless in matters concerning the missionary fathers and their vile practices to convert India’s poor. However, Nehru had to pay the price too. He died of syphilis.