Was Nehru a British stooge?

October 14, 2024

PM Nehru was a great socialist. He killed entrepreneurship of Indians by nationalising the industry and big businesses. Tata’s Air India was nationalised in 1953, Biju Patnaik’s Kalinga Airlines was nationalised in 1953 and merged with domestic carrier Indian Airlines, Walchand Hirachand’s HAL (Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd) was nationalised in 1948 etc. There are many more examples like that. But Kolar Gold Mines which was owned by a British firm was nationalised only 1956. Clearly, Nehru government gave much more autonomy to a foreign company who was taking out India’s gold to UK, than to Indian businessmen. Nehru considered Indian business houses are ‘dirty profit minded’ and must be nationalised but lacked courage to touch British business houses.

The Kolar gold mines were owned by John Taylor and Co, a British mining company till 1958 which had leased the land from the Maharaja of Mysore (now Mysuru) and started mining operations in 1880. Kolar is the first city in the country where electricity was first supplied. In 1889, the British started the production of electricity by installing hydropower plants so that there would be no problem with gold mining. It was a strange situation after the independence. India is now independent for many years, and yet, in the heart of free India there was this Kolar town where the money-spinning gold mines were still owned by a British company. The shining metal was brought out from the depths of the earth by mostly Indian and Anglo-Indian miners and the bricks made of this rich gold were immediately shipped out of the country to vaults in the UK. The gold bars were flown to England from Bangalore (now Bengaluru) HAL airport.

By the time the mines were nationalized in 1956, all the high-quality gold had gone. In 1901, about two decades or so after mining activity started in KGF, gold production was peaking. Between 1901 and 1910, the grade quality of the ore averaged at nearly 30 GPT (grams per tonne). In some years, it peaked at 40 GPT. In those 10 years, over 170,000 kg of gold was extracted, all of which went directly to England. By 1956, the grade quality of the ore had dropped to 10 GPT which slowly made the gold mining unprofitable as mining depth reached more than 3 km. UK treated South Africa as a colony till 1980s because of the massive Maponing gold mine. Clearly British government know the value of gold but not Nehru.