There were two things going for Jawaharlal Nehru in his relatively trouble-free 17 years as prime minister of India. The first is that most Indians, but particularly the middle classes, were in awe of him.

His demeanour, patrician style, easy familiarity with the white man (and woman) and Anglophone cosmopolitanism put him in a separate league from the rest of the political class.

It accorded him the licence to meddle in things that were outside the scope of politics. Secondly, Nehru lived in a pre-media age when every action of the prime minister and his government wasn't subject to exacting scrutiny. This information deficit proved very handy.

Read Swapan Dasgupta's column for the Telegraph.