Jawaharlal Nehru, first prime minister of independent India (1947–64), died May 27, 1964.

Srila Prabhupada:

Intelligent policy to kill India’s spiritual status. Because there was one Britisher politician, Lord Macaulay. He studied the whole Indian situation. They were very expert politicians. So he reported that “If you keep Indians as Indians, you’ll never be able to rule over them. They must be trained up in such a way that they would think their own culture as useless; this Western culture is very good. That impression must be there. Otherwise, you cannot rule over them.” So the education and everything was going on very silently on this principle.

That is their administration. And that was going on for the last two hundred years. So India lost. Educated persons, they lost. And the mass of people, they were not educated. They have not lost, but they don’t find any good example by the leaders.

No encouragement. They are simply staying somehow or other in their original culture, but there is no encouragement by the leaders. But the leaders have lost. This is the position. Just like Jawaharlal Nehru, he was a complete rascal about Indian culture. He did not think that Indian culture has any value. Therefore he wrote the book, Discovery of India. It is little
popular. Discovery of India. So long India was not discovered by opiate or something like, as the Russians say. Now it is now discovered. And that its leaders have to become Anglicized or Europeanized; industry, the Western way of living, eating, and everything. Pollution. Everything.

Otherwise, we have seen in our childhood how happy people were there. Simple. If one has five rupees’ income per month, he’s happy. I’ve seen it. Husband, wife, a small family, if he has got five rupees’ income, they can maintain very nicely, happily. Why not? Suppose he has got five rupees’ income. The rice was selling at four rupees. So two person, say one-fourth kg., one-fourth sera each. A gentleman cannot eat more than that. So means half a sera. And the whole month, fifteen sera. It is about one rupee eight annas. And further, one rupees eight annas add for vegetables and other things. With three rupees they can maintain, the husband and wife. And two rupees still there, he can spend for other purposes. I have seen it.

Fresh vegetables, rice, this and… Just like with banana leaf. The pots were of earthen, the wife is cooking, and she’s utilizing dry foliage as fuel, a little temperature, everything is cooked. The husband takes one banana leaf and spreads, and the wife gives sufficient rice, vegetables. And things were so cheap, I have seen it. And fresh.

(Srila Prabhupada, September 16, 1976, Vrndavana)