Religion
Nehru rejected religion. He observed the effects of superstition on the lives of the Indian people and wrote of religion that “…it shuts its eyes to reality.” Nehru thought that religion was at the root of the stagnation and lack of progress in India. The basis of Indian society at that time was unthinking obedience to the authority of sacred books, old customs, and outdated habits. Nehru observed that these attitudes and religious taboos were preventing India from going forward and adapting to modern conditions: “No country or people who are slaves to dogma and dogmatic mentality can progress, and unhappily our country and people have become extraordinarily dogmatic and little-minded.” Therefore, he concurred, that religions and all that went with them must be severely limited before they ruined the country and its people. He was deeply concerned that so many Indian people could not read or write and wanted mass education to release Indian society from the limitations that ignorance and religious traditions imposed.
| “ | The spectacle of what is called religion, or at any rate organised religion, in India and elsewhere, has filled me with horror and I have frequently condemned it and wished to make a clean sweep of it. Almost always it seemed to stand for blind belief and reaction, dogma and bigotry, superstition, exploitation and the preservation of vested interests. | ” |
Nehru considered that his afterlife was not in some mystical heaven or reincarnation but in the practical achievements of a life lived fully with and for his fellow human beings: “…Nor am I greatly interested in life after death. I find the problems of this life sufficiently absorbing to fill my mind,” he wrote. In his Last Will and Testament he wrote:
| “ | I wish to declare with all earnestness that I do not want any religious ceremonies performed for me after my death. I do not believe in such ceremonies, and to submit to them, even as a matter of form, would be hypocrisy and an attempt to delude ourselves and others. | ” |
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