Nehru's Words on Disasters and the Modi Govt's Lack of Accountability After the Ahmedabad Plane Crash

India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's articulations on disasters resonate in the context of the one of the worst ever crash, in aviation history, of Air India's Boeing 787 Dreamliner flying from Ahmedabad to London on June 12, 2025 with 242 people on board.The fatal crash occurred shortly after that flight took off from Ahmedabad airport and a huge ball of fire engulfed the air craft after it hit a building housing the hostel mess of a medical college near the airport. It killed all but one passenger and several students and others present there.The intense grief caused by that catastrophic crash gripped the entire nation and indeed the whole world. Condolence messages poured from all corners. There was expression of unity and solidarity with India in face of that horrendous tragedy the magnitude and scale of which is unprecedented in independent India.It is against this havoc of terrible proportions one recalls the utterances of Nehru who in his historic tryst with destiny speech delivered in the mid night of 14th August 1947, marking the independence of India from British rule, said, 'Peace is said to be indivisible, so is freedom, so is prosperity now, and also is disaster in this one world that can no longer be split into isolated fragments.'Those words uttered seventy eight years back sounds so contemporary in the context of the plane crash in Ahmedabad which has shaken the whole world with shock and disbelief. Callous remarks of Amit ShahAlready two days have passed and very distressingly there is no release of official figures by Modi regime showing the number of people killed and injured. Union Home Minister Amit Shah during his visit to the crash site remarked that 'nobody can stop accidents,'.This statement smacks of callousness and insensitivity and very appropriately Congress's media and publicity department head Pawan Khera described that remark of Shah as 'insensitive', and said the least he could offer is a promise of accountability, not a 'shrug and a lecture on fate.' 'Nobody can stop accidents' is an abdication. 'If nothing can be prevented, why do we have ministries at all,' Khera asked in a post on X.He emphatically stated, 'Aviation accidents are not acts of God – they are preventable. That's why we have aviation regulators, safety protocols, and crisis response systems. By the Home Minister's logic, should we stop investing in safety infrastructure, regulation, or crisis preparedness altogether? Just leave it to fate and call it a day?'When a plane crashes and people die, the least a Home Minister can offer is a promise of accountability, not a shrug and a lecture on fate.'Nobody can stop accidents' is an abdication. If nothing can be prevented, why do we have ministries at all?Aviation accidents are not… https://t.co/y819gwdg47— Pawan Khera 🇮🇳 (@Pawankhera) June 13, 2025It is instructive to note that Nehru's aforementioned thoughtful words 'Peace is said to be indivisible, so is freedom, so is prosperity now, and also is disaster in this one world that can no longer be split into isolated fragments' was prefaced by him with a statement that 'And so we have to labour and to work, and to work hard, to give reality to our dreams'. Those expressions of Nehru get reflected in Khera's remarks that 'Aviation accidents are not acts of God – they are preventable. That's why we have aviation regulators, safety protocols, and crisis response systems.'Nehru's remarksUnlike Amit Shah and Prime Minister Modi who in face of recurrent disasters avoid remaining accountable, Nehru candidly confessed that quite often his regime had no understanding of the scale of the disasters causing trauma and misery to the millions.Slightly over three years after he stated that disaster in this one world became indivisible, he wrote a letter to Chief Ministers on 1st September 1950 and reflected on the series of calamities faced by India in the formative stage of nation building. Acknowledging that '… India has set up some kind of a new record, not a record to be proud of' he wrote with anguish, 'It is a record of disaster and calamity, one following another in quick succession, bringing sorrow and misery to vast numbers of human beings ….'. Then he proceeded to add with anguish, '…we do not yet know the full extent of this disaster in which millions of people are involved.'He as the head of the Union Government was reaching out to Chief Ministers to understand and grapple with the catastrophe visiting the people, society and nation and causing adverse consequences on the country.Denial mode by the Modi regimeSuch frank admissions on the part of Nehru, the Prime Minister, stand in sharp contrast to the present day ruling leadership of India, represented by Modi who often does not reach out to people caught in disasters including the recurrent cycle of violence in Manipur for more than two years. He along with Amit Shah remain in denial mode regarding disasters.It was best represented by them when they never answered questions on failure of intelligence leading to occurrence of disasters like the massacre of tourists in Pahalgam by terrorists in cold blood. They fail to hold any higher authority including the Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw for repeated train accidents including one horrific one in Odisha in 2023 when more than 250 people were killed and over 1000 got injured.That catastrophic train accident caused deaths which might be more than the casualties caused by the fatal plane crash in Ahmedabad. None was held to account for scores of deaths in the Kumbh Mela stampede and now BBC has come out with a report that the number of fatalities was more than what was officially stated by Yogi regime in UP.Even earlier in 2019 40 CRPF jawans were killed by a huge blast in Pulwama in Kashmir. Nobody has been held accountable till today and no information is in public domain how there was intelligence failure leading to that disaster.Nehru described disasters as challenge to nationhoodHow Nehru dealt with such crises offers valuable lessons for the present day leadership of India in 2025. He famously wrote to the Chief Ministers in the aforementioned letter, 'And now, after we have battled with man's folly and fear and greed, we have to meet nature, red in tooth and claw.' He described the prospect of meeting the challenge as 'overwhelming' and instructively noted that '… it does no good to feel overwhelmed.' 'And the only way to look upon it', he wrote, 'is to consider it as a challenge to our nationhood, and our courage and capacity to work.'Such a bold stand by Prime Minister Nehru in face of the challenge of disaster to our nationhood brought out his statesmanship.So many disasters including the fiery plane crash in Ahmedabad and repeated rail accidents constitute, in the words of Nehru, 'a challenge, to our nationhood' and '… it does no good to feel overwhelmed.'Can Modi Shah meet the challenge to our nationhood? The empathy and effectiveness they would display in dealing with the tragedies facing India will constitute an answer.S.N. Sahu served as Officer on Special Duty to President of India K R Narayanan.

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