Those attempting to rewrite history would do well to note that the magnanimous Iron Man acknowledged Nehru’s pre-eminent place. He said: “Mahatma Gandhi named Pandit Nehru as his heir and successor. Since Gandhiji’s death we have realised that our leader’s judgement was correct”.When the American journalist and author, John Gunther was visiting India in 1938, the one political question asked of him everywhere he went was: “Have you seen Jawaharlal?” Gunther, then sent to Asia magazine an article published under this title in February 1939.No other national leader commanded as much respect abroad as Nehru did. He was well known across major capitals of Europe, several of which he visited in 1935 to garner support for India’s Independence during his European tour. Returning by plane via Rome, he very diplomatically avoided the importunities of the Fascists, who tried for their own purposes to get him to meet Benito Mussolini, which he refused lest they use it for fascist propaganda.His relationship with eminent British scholars, notably Bertrand Russell, Harold Laski and other members of the India League, as also prominent Labour and Liberal politicians, including Sir Stafford Cripps and Clement Attlee, later Prime Minister, was of a very special kind, which helped in influencing British opinion in favour of granting early independence to India.“The esteem with which Nehru and his programme are held by liberal Englishmen is shown by the proposal soon after the war began in Europe, that he be made a Premier of India ‘in fact if not in name’, as it was put in the New Statesman of London,” writes Richard J. Walsh in the foreword to the American edition of Nehru’s autobiography, Toward Freedom.
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