DID SOVIET UNION FAVOUR NEHRU?
Friday, 14 November 2014 | Kumar Chellappan | CHENNAI
Even as Congress leadership celebrates the 125th birth anniversary of Jawaharlal Nehru in grandiose style, how the former Prime Minister amassed wealth through royalties for his books ‘Discovery of India’ (1946), ‘Glimpses of World History’ (1934), ‘An Autobiography’ (1936) and ‘Letters from a Father To his Daughter’ (1929) remains a mystery. However, MO Mathai, Nehru’s Man Friday and special assistant, had disclosed that the former PM received more royalties from Communist countries than all Western countries put together.
In his book ‘Reminiscences of the Nehru Age’ (1978), Mathai has explained how he brokered the deal with the then Soviet Union to translate books authored by Nehru into Russian language and ensured that Nehru would get 15 per cent as royalty in Indian rupees at a time when the Soviet Union never paid a single paisa as royalty to other authors.
Subramanin Swamy, senior BJP leader is of the view that it was improper on the part of Nehru to sell the rights to translate his works to the Soviet Union while he was the Prime Minister of the country. “I have knowledge of enormous amount of money getting transferred to the Nehru family’s account in Bank of China’s Kolkata branch. An impropriety has been committed,” Swamy told The Pioneer.
Though the books were authored during 1929 to 1946, the Soviet Union felt it necessary to translate the books into Russsian only after Nikita Khrushchev took over as the president of the country.
During the Khrushchev era, Menshikov, the then Soviet Ambassador in India, asked Nehru for permission to publish his books in Russian language. Nehru agreed and asked Mathai to take care of the formalities.
Mathai writes: “The Ambassador came to meet me. I told him that our practice was to charge 15 per cent on the sale price as royalty and repatriate the royalties to India in rupees periodically at our request. The Ambassador agreed to do this as a special gesture to Nehru. Normally the Soviet Union does not allow royalties to be repatriated.
Dr Kalyanaraman, former senior executive of Asian Development Bank and an author of repute has questioned the legality of the move by then Soviet Government.