'Nehru was against America...': Jaishankar says India needs to let go of 1946 romanticism

External affairs minister S Jaishankar on Wednesday said India needs to let go of the 'cult worship that everything from 1946 were great years".

The minister was speaking at Network 18's Rising Bharat Summit, where he was comparing the state of governance under former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Narendra Modi.

He said the Indian government of the 1950s alienated Americans on behalf of China. 

"In the earlier years, it was a Nehruvian ideological bubble where Nehru said we must be against the US and a friend of China so everyone followed, the vestiges of those continue," he said. 

Jaishankar questioned certain decisions taken by the former prime minister then during his address, saying it was not being about 'hind-sighted'. 

"We were alienating the Americans on behalf of China back in the 1950s. We were taking up China's cause. In 1950, we spoilt our relationship with America because we were arguing on behalf of China."

The minister said everybody went against America since 'Nehru was against America'.

“Modi ki guarantee works as much abroad as it works in the country,” Jaishankar said lauding the prime minister’s efforts to catapult India on the global stage.

The minister had earlier stressed that India should engage with China with mutual respect, sensitivity, and interest, and the approach should be grounded on realism and not on the romanticism of the Nehruvian era.