As the US-Iran conflict uncontrollably simmers through its 11th week; as the first 8 weeks of the conflict the missiles struck on multiple targets in the region; as the theatre of war expanded and exploded into large parts of Middle East and despite the tenuous ceasefire from April 8, 2026 the fear of this misadventure turning into a catastrophe looms large, there is a single most important question the world should be asking “where are the great statesmen like Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru speaking the voice of peace and sanity”.

Where exactly are the world leaders like Nehru who used to rustle up emergency meetings in the United Nations and other international forums, bringing the warring sides on to the table? Where are the non-partisan leaders who have the ability and credibility to stop this wanton mayhem and killing, taking us ever closer to the edge of World War III?

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, for the information of the present generation, was an anti-colonial nationalist leader who was India’s first prime minister (1947–1964). He was and is regarded as one of the most influential statesmen of the mid-20th century. He was a non-partisan internationalist. In international conflicts, Nehru stood out among the tallest of world leaders. This was because his argument was always the moral one. He had only two constants: advocating for the reign of international moral order and indefatigably persuading the warring sides to understand the inevitable need for securing peace.

Nehru’s stature and acceptability can in large measure be attributed to his founding and being the lead protagonist in the ‘Non-Aligned Movement’ (NAM) launched in 1961 at the Belgrade Conference. He, along with leaders like Josip Broz Tito (Yugoslavia) and Gamal Abdel Nasser (Egypt) gave the newly independent nations, through the combined power of the NAM to choose to opt out as participating proxies in the fratricidal Cold War conflicts of the US-led Western bloc or the Soviet bloc. Nehru’s charisma, his intellectual depth, his Panchsheel (five principles of peaceful coexistence) and the intellectual firmament made him both a symbol and a catalyst for world peace and reconciliation in an ideologically conflicted world. His principles did on occasion fail when confronted with real-politic especially the Sino-Indian conflict of 1962. But that did not make him a cynic; it made him even more determined to boldly pursue peace.

He, without fear or favour, activated the United Nations, enthused the Non-aligned movement to push for peace and pursued international mediation between the antagonistic world powers. Historian Arnold Toynbee most aptly put it, “Nehru was a pioneer in taking nothing less than the world itself as the field for his public activity”.

Nehru’s role in mediating the Korean War crisis (1950–1953) is a testimony to the world listening to a most credible leader of the emerging world. North Korea invaded South Korea in 1950. India promptly condemned the aggression and supported UN resolutions against the North Korean incursion and sought immediate withdrawal. To reduce the risk of escalation, Nehru successfully persuaded to soften the wording of the US-proposed resolution from “act of aggression” to “breach of peace”. He wrote to Stalin and US officials like Dean Acheson to de-escalate. Through his eminent diplomat, K.M. Panickar, India’s Ambassador to China, Nehru had relayed warnings to the West that China would intervene militarily if the UN Forces advanced to the Yulu River border, which proved to be correct. Thus, he built trustworthy communication channels between China and the West. His minister, V.K. Krishna Menon, drafted the ‘Indian Resolution on Korea’ in 1952 for the UN General Assembly. It proposed the voluntary repatriation of POWs. Ultimately, under President Eisenhower, a revised Indian proposal paved the way for the Korean Armistice Agreement, which was signed on 27 July 1953. Nehru’s strenuous efforts thus bore fruit in effecting a peaceful settlement involving the USSR, China and the USA. Post-Armistice, India chaired the Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission and deployed peacekeeping forces.

Nehru’s understanding of the role of science and technology, both in peace and in war, was too deep. For it must be remembered that Nehru had opted for Science Tripos in Cambridge and had associations with leading British scientists of the age, like James Jeans, Arthur Eddington and others. He understood very well that the modern war with nuclear weapons could cause “the destruction of humanity.” So he reminded:

“The world today has to choose between the two paths, the path of ever-greater violence, symbolised by the nuclear bombs or the path of peace and compassion, symbolised by the message of the Buddha”.

Nehru had also studied history intensely to understand that the combination of the psychological trajectory of the nation-states and the frailties of human leadership could easily trigger nations to go to war. He said in his epic book ‘The Discovery of India’, “we shall have to put an end to nation states and devise a collectivism which neither degrades nor enslaves”. It is this Nehruvian concept of ‘one world’ which, howsoever idealistic it may seem, was the sheet anchor for the blueprint constructed by the Federation of American Scientists, Albert Einstein included, to safeguard the planet from a nuclear collision. His extensive writings and speeches are a valuable guide to not just his perception of history, but to understand how it has become inevitably necessary for international communities and societies, especially the United Nations, to work towards peace and prosperity. This was articulated in his speech to the United Nations on 30th August 1950.

“On the fate of the United Nations depends the fate of war and peace and the future of the world.”

It goes without saying that it was Nehru’s non-alignment movement which was the guiding light for the newly independent nations to pursue peace and focus on development from their post-colonial poverty and squalor. Obviously, this meant boldly rejecting military alliances, resisting pressure tactics of superpowers and most importantly, taking a persuasive moral stance on conflicts. Had the present-day West Asia nations learnt the Nehruvian lessons of the non-alignment movement, they would not have become the frontline self-annihilating foot soldiers in these current superpower rivalries.

Nehru was clairvoyant as to the need and importance of connecting the nations to secure a cooperative and stable world. This was more than manifest in the direction he took his own country, India, too. He had no hesitation in replicating the United States’ education models, like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and building similar advanced science and technology bureaucracies. As a friend of the United States and an admirer of its democracy, he visited USA in 1949, 1956 and 1961, building diplomatic and economic relations and discussing policies of peace and progress in the Cold War era. Likewise, he borrowed and built on ideas from the USSR, like the 5-year plans, development of huge hydroelectric projects, steel plants, atomic research, space research and had extensive cultural, educational, scientific exchanges and collaborations on infrastructure. Building bridges of cooperation as a means to achieve peace was fundamental.

S. Gopal, the historian and biographer, noted that by the mid-1950s, Nehru’s status abroad was “unchallenged”. Winston Churchill, who had serious political differences with Nehru and was not at ease in praising his rivals, described Nehru as a man who had ‘overcome two of the greatest failings in human nature – he knows neither fear nor hatred’ and went on to call him “the light of Asia”. US President Dwight D. Eisenhower and others recognised him as the most powerful voice for peace and conciliation. Eisenhower, in a 1958 letter, praised Nehru’s role as a representative of the largest neutral nation and his individual efforts toward global peace. John F. Kennedy welcomed Nehru to the US in 1961, hailing him “as a friend, as a great world leader”. UN Secretary-General U Thant paid a memorable tribute to Nehru after his death.

The legion of admirers did not end here. They also included US Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, who admired him for resisting totalitarian ideologies while upholding democratic ideals. Then there were intellectuals and statesmen such as Bertrand Russell, Martin Luther King Jr., Adlai Stevenson, and Clement Attlee, who praised his contributions to peace, humanism, and anti-colonialism. It is therefore not surprising that in this 21st century, when the subject veers around world peace and cooperation, Nehru still remains one of the most quoted statesmen.

The acceptability of the opinion of Nehru was, in large measure, founded on his sincerity to the moral cause. He valued this planet and its diverse peoples dearly. This gave him the distinct and much valued character of impartiality.

Given this history and backdrop of Nehru, we as world citizens are constrained to ask thus:

Would Nehru have allowed the world to remorselessly witness the suffering in Gaza without igniting our conscience to stop it? Would he have remained a mute spectator in this apocalyptic US-Israel-Iran conflict being played out now, destroying life, cities built over centuries, infrastructure created by the hard labours of humankind, and the burning up and exploding of our precious and scarce resources? Would he have allowed us to mindlessly watch wars like the present one as a spectator sport on our television screens? Would he not have shouted from the rooftops of international forums to warn that this war is directly and indirectly threatening our very existence on this planet? Would he not have mocked and derided the omnipresent moronic army of experts pouting puerile verbiage, treating this war as a distant game of chess, inconsequential to the continuation of the life of our species?

It is the forceful arguments of Pandit Nehru and his powers of persuasion to stop wars that are now starkly and traumatically missing in today’s world. A present-day Nehru is the urgent need of the hour, both in the ongoing tragedy in Gaza or the impasse and blockade after the Israeli-US attacks on Iran and Iran’s counter offensive or the second front of ethnic cleansing in southern Lebanon. For it is only a Nehruvian worldview which can come to our aid to bring an immediate cessation of hostilities to achieve lasting peace on this planet, which it so urgently deserves.

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