"As I walked around the site, I thought that these days the biggest temple and mosques and gurudwara is the place where man works for the good of mankind". In these lines Jawaharlal Nehru is talking about:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → Bhakra Nangal Dam
Option (3) Bhakra Nangal Dam — Correct. Nehru visualised a modern and prosperous India built on giant steel plants or gigantic dams and power stations. These lines are from his remarks on the Bhakra Nangal dam, where, as he says, thousands and lakhs of men had worked and shed their blood and sweat.
Note: Nehru’s remarks on the Bhakra Nangal dam, with the line on the modern India he visualised (giant steel plants, gigantic dams and power stations), in the section ‘Industrialisation in Independent India’ of the chapter ‘Structural Change’, were there in the pre-rationalised NCERT, which NTA followed in 2023. This portion has been deleted from the NCERT book (2025-26), though the chapter and its account of the nationalists’ faith in rapid industrialisation are still there.
NCERT (2025-26): “Industrialisation in Independent India … For Indian nationalists the issue of economic exploitation under colonial rule was a central issue. Images of pre-colonial fabled riches of India contrasted with the poverty of British India. The Swadeshi movement strengthened the loyalty to the national economy. Modern ideas made people realise that poverty was preventable. Indian nationalists saw rapid industrialisation of the economy as the path towards both growth and social equity. Development of heavy and machine-making industries, expansion of the public sector and holding of a large cooperative sector were considered very important.” NCERT (Pre-rationalised): “…A modern and prosperous India, as visualised by Jawaharlal Nehru, was to be built on an edifice of giant steel plants or gigantic dams and power stations. Read Nehru’s remarks on the Bhakra Nangal dam: Our engineers tell us that probably nowhere else in the world is there a dam as high as this. The work bristles with difficulties and complications. As I walked around the site I thought that these days the biggest temple and mosques and gurdwara is the place where man works for the good of mankind. Which place can be greater than this, this Bhakra Nangal, where thousands and lakhs of men have worked, have shed their blood and sweat and laid down their lives as well? (Nehru 1980: 214)” |