Work in Progress: 4
GEM OF A NATION
Political Biography of
Dr Rajendra Prasad
By Dr BSM Murty
Extract from Part VI, Chapter 2
Congress in disarray
The Indian
Constitution was very nearly old wine in an old bottle sadly bereft of the
spirit of Gandhi, and Prasad was not unaware of the flaws. It was not for
nothing that he called it a ‘lifeless machine’, an un-Gandhian document adorned
with all the finest legalese and constitutional finesse of western import, but
as remote from the ‘quintessential India’ as it could be. Yet it was not the
only document that would have disillusioned the ‘Father of the Nation’. A
similar botch-up had been done with the constitution of the Congress that had been
in the making over the past few years. The first Congress constitution had been
drafted by Gandhi as early as 1919, and he again redrafted it with radical
modifications in 1946 when the Congress was faced with new political challenges
with independence peeking at the door. [V10:281-83] Sadly, with the political
situation in a deep flux in the post-war scenario, that draft remained
unaddressed and ignored, and even after independence it lay in abeyance for
months. Finally, a note entitled ‘The Future Role of the Congress’ for an
independent India was prepared by Shri Shankar Rao Deo, a CWC member, for
consideration by the PCCs and the rank and file in Congress. The note was based
on Gandhi’s premise of a complete overhaul of the organizational structure of the
Congress redefining its new role in independent India as an a-political
institution of social change on a countrywide scale. The Congress had formed a
Constitution Committee for finalizing a new constitution for its organizational
revamping, and Deo’s draft was to be sieved by it before its final approval at
the Jaipur AICC session. But the apathy and skepticism persisted.
These proposals meant
a clean sweep of the past. Gandhiji’s absence precluded any attempt at further
clarification or modification of the proposals. Unable to contemplate the idea
of dissolving an institution which was the only organizational body which could
run the administration of the country and tackle the manifold problems that
political freedom brought in its wake, the Working Committee with great regret
dissented from Gandhi’s basic approach and made their own recommendations
regarding the fundamental principles that should govern the new constitution.
It accepted as many suggestions of Gandhiji’s as it could conveniently do and
for the rest drew from the original proposals of the Constitution Committee.
[V10/263]
This new Congress
constitution was finally approved in the Jaipur session of the AICC (18-19
December, 1948), presided over by the new Congress president, Pattabhi Sitaramayya.
Prasad, the outgoing president, had been unable to attend the Jaipur session,
or any of the CWC meetings preceding it, due to his ill-health and his
strenuous involvement in the Constituent Assembly sessions. In the new
constitution, rather than dissolving or purifying it on Gandhian lines, the
Congress organization had been made merely an appendage of the government. With
all the democratic procedurality woven into it, the Congress constitution was
restructured only to play ‘second fiddle’ to the Nehru government. As Lelyveld
puts it: ‘Under Nehru, the Congress [was] effectively now the government of
India….He also confessed that he hadn’t bothered to keep track of his master’s
cherished “constructive” programs, didn’t “know much about them in any detail”,
and didn’t understand how Gandhi could have proposed to take the Indian
National Congress out of politics now that it was responsible for running
things. “Congress has now to govern, not to oppose government”, the prime
minister said firmly. “So it will have to function in a new way, staying within
politics”’. [343/347] Obviously, Nehru’s perspective was quite contrary to
Gandhi’s radical vision.
Only a few months
before Prasad finally lay down the uneasy crown of Congress presidentship,
Nehru in a letter had complained to him about Congressmen interfering in the
affairs of the government and Prasad had assured him that necessary
disciplinary directives had been issued to the PCC presidents in this regard.
[V10, L2.8.48] Clearly from now on, the nationalist, patriotic ideals, with the
underpinning of struggle and sacrifice sustaining them, were thrown to the
winds and forgotten, and ‘Congress had become an election-winning and
power-using mechanism.’ [Desai/297] There was also a renewed scramble among
Congressmen to extract as much advantage as they could for their jail-terms and
other sacrifices. They now constituted a new privileged class of
‘freedom-fighters’ who wanted their own piece of the plum cake to savour!
Over the past decades,
Congress had been carefully constructed into a massive nationalist organization
with its roots firmly planted in the rural soil of India. But the inherent
dichotomy had always remained between the Gandhian path of the integral
transformation of the national polity and the expedient shorter route to
political independence in the guise of ‘transfer of power’. Nehru and even
Patel, a little later, had conveniently abandoned the master’s path as they
neared the goal of independence. Prasad, one of the strongest pillars in the
Congress, however, remained steadfast to the Gandhian ideals till the very end.
Even during the presidency period, Prasad’s occasional conflicts with Nehru
arose from these fundamental divergences.
Both Prasad and Patel
were basically grassroot-level leaders, unlike Nehru who had more of a
westernized, elitist, iconic persona of an idealogue, notwithstanding his
unmatchable sacrifices to the organization. They were all three closely
attached to Gandhi, but in their own several ways. If Nehru’s ties with Gandhi
were somewhat silken and sophisticated, Patel’s were always rugged and
pragmatic. Prasad, however, was tied to the master all along, as if, with pure
self-spun khadi yarn. Whereas Nehru represented the liberal, westernized
international face of the Congress, Patel and Prasad looked alike in their
mundane, down to earth, pro-rural convictions. This reflected an abiding
cleavage in the organization right from the top down to the rank and file. With
Nehru chosen by Gandhi to head the new dispensation with his sterling qualities
of statesmanship and his unenviable experience of democratic governance, Patel,
Prasad and all others in the top leadership fell into a subsidiary group in the
power game. This inevitably created two power centres both in the government
and the party.
Differences in
political perspectives had always been there in the Congress but the
trajectories diverged significantly in the post-independence era. There were
frequent unseemly spats between Patel and Nehru, in particular, and Prasad also
was involved willy-nilly on occasions. Prasad always tried his utmost to opt
out of conflicts and controversies, following a path of reconciliation and
least resistance, and his preference of the Constituent Assembly presidentship
to a Cabinet position was only an instance of this. Even his reluctance to
continue as Congress president was due to the increasing factionalism down the
line in the party resulting from the duality of power centres manifest now both
in the party and the government. “There were party factions”, writes Ramchandra
Guha, “at the district level, as well as at the provincial level. However, the
most portentous of the cleavages was between the two biggest stalwarts, Pandit
Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. These two men, prime minister
and deputy prime minister respectively, had major differences in the first
months following independence.” [Guha/127] Guha also quotes a comment by the Time magazine that the Congress after
independence ‘found itself without a unifying purpose…[grown] fat and
lazy…[harboring] many time-serving office-holders [and] not a few black-marketeers’.[Ib]
There were not only frequent power-sharing hassles, but still worse, a general
decline in discipline and morality in the party.
Gandhi was gone -
dusted and shelved - and Prasad had discreetly stepped aside from the real
power centre, devoting himself mainly to the job of Constitution-making which
was then of the highest priority, as also to giving moral support to the
largely sidelined Gandhian ‘constructive programme’ which Nehru hardly
‘bothered to keep track of’. Consolidation and sharing of the newly gained
power at the Centre was of prime importance both for Nehru and Patel. All
others in the power circle, including those at its periphery, either in the
government or the party, were supposed to fall in line with the policies of
these two great pillars of power. Prasad, however, as a staunch Gandhian,
always remained closer to Patel and the other hard-liners in the party, rather
than to Nehru. And as later developments evinced, Prasad had several wrangles
with Nehru over important constitutional issues, including frequent frictions
in the party.
This unfortunate
cleavage had created a near vertical split in the party down to the lowest rung
affecting the morale and cohesion in the entire organization. The consequential
ramifications of this disunity between those, rather lesser in number, still
subscribing to the Gandhian ideals and those others who clung tenaciously to
the nucleus of power became manifest as the years of the Nehruvian era rolled
on. It was, as if, a paradigm shift had occurred in the political discourse in
the post-independence era from an idealistic freedom-driven ideology to a
power-driven political culture. Rather than making independence a means to
bringing freedom to the people’s doorstep, independence for the Congress had
become a means to holding on to power; something of an end in itself. In fact,
long before independence arrived, Gandhi had already surmised that ‘the social
order of our dreams cannot come through the Congress party of today…there is so
much corruption today that it frightens me. Everybody wants to carry so many
votes in his pocket, because votes give power’. Kripalani’s diagnosis of the
malaise was more specific: ‘red-tapism, jobbery, corruption, bribery,
black-marketing and profiteering’. [LF/607]
These were serious
issues in a government still not firm on its feet. And for the party that had
clearly parted company with Gandhian ideals, it was worse; nearly catastrophic.
For Prasad who was rather equidistant, though not unconnected, from both, the
situation was especially agonizing. Almost for three decades since 1917, living
in Bihar, he had played a pivotal role in the Congress. All these years he had
been among the most highly regarded leaders in the party, especially because of
his pure Gandhian propensities and his personal qualities of moral rectitude.
But since moving to Delhi just before independence, debilitated all the more by
his chronic ailment, he had become rather overwrought and distracted. Even a
cursory glance over his voluminous correspondence of these crucial years
(1947-’50) [Note] shows how these worrisome developments both in the government
and the party were sapping his strength.
Often during these years he would move to Pilani or Wardha for respite and
recuperation. But political developments even back home in Bihar during these
transitional years would always keep him perturbed.
Despite all its
assertions of secularism, the Congress government in Bihar had failed miserably
in controlling the pre-partition riots in Bihar in which large numbers of
Muslims had suffered. For efficient management of relief and rehabilitation of
the refugees, both Azad and Prasad had advised Dr S.K. Sinha, the Bihar
Premier, to entrust the work to Dr Syed Mahmud, but the advice had gone totally
unheeded. “Dr Mahmud felt very sore about it and hardly attended the Cabinet
meetings thereafter.” [Hist/607] This had irked both Gandhi and Nehru. Also,
several instances of rank corruption had surfaced both in the government and
the party including the scandals over
‘molasses’ and the shady ‘Bettiah land settlements’. Always concerned
about probity, Prasad was deeply disturbed by such embarrassing developments in
his home province. Expressing utter disgust over such developments after his
Patna visit, even Patel had written to Prasad on 28 January, 1948: “As regards
the Ministry as a whole and the local Congress I am afraid I have returned full
of misgiving and disappointment. The Ministry and the Provincial Congress are
at loggerheads and the Ministry itself is not united. It was a most sickening
thing to enter into those unseemly bickerings…. [and] unless things are dealt
with resolutely and discipline is restored with the least possible delay, it
might be too late to resuscitate the Congress organization in this
province.”[Hist/611]
Election of interim President
In 1948, Prasad was
still Congress President and the squabbles within the party and the government were
a matter of constant worry. The draft constitution was in the process of making
and, as President of the Constituent Assembly, Prasad was constantly monitoring
its progress as many of these letters reveal. Rajagopalachari had substituted
Mountbatten as the interim Governor General of the new dominion which was soon
to become a Republic with an elected President in accordance with the
provisions of the new Constitution. All in all, it was a period of transition
beset with myriad complicated problems both in the party and the government.
One of the contentious issues was the election of the President of the Republic
itself. ‘Nehru thought’, writes Guha, ‘that when the governor generalship
became a presidency, the incumbent C. Rajagopalachari, should retain the job. “Rajaji”
was an urbane scholar with whom the prime minister then got along very well.
Patel, however, preferred Rajendra Prasad, who was close to him but who also
had wider acceptance within the Congress party. Nehru had assured Rajaji that
he would be president, but much to his annoyance, and embarrassment, Patel got
the Congress rank and file to put Prasad’s name forward instead.’ [128]
In June, 1949, a
Bombay weekly had published a story about this controversy in the Congress
party over the election of the President of the new Republic. The story
projected a contest in the popular perception between Rajaji and Prasad. The
weekly had also published several disparaging remarks about Rajaji political
antecedents. Although on Patel’s advice Prasad had issued a press statement
contradicting the existence of any such conflict, he had clarified to Patel
that ‘there is nothing for me to contradict’ as there were ‘no allegations
against me’ in the story. As he explained to Patel: ‘There are three parties
against whom allegations are made. Firstly, the members of Constituent Assembly
who are divided into two groups alleged to be canvassing in favour of the two
contestants, secondly, you and Jawaharlalji who are said to be supporting one,
and lastly one of the so-called contestants who is said to have done so many
improper things. Therefore, although I have issued the statement it is not
really and cannot be a contradiction of what is alleged….That contradiction, if
any has to be made, can only come
from the three parties concerned’.[Mrit 375]
It was indeed an
unfortunate and sordid episode which involved four of the topmost names in the
party and the government. A series of letters exchanged between Prasad, Nehru
and Patel during the latter part of 1949, however, reveal the unseemly contours
of this discomfiting issue. Relevant extracts, in some detail, from some of
these letters would put things in clearer perspective. On 10 September, 1949,
Nehru wrote to Prasad.
I have discussed this
matter with Vallabhbhai and we felt that the safest and best course from a
number of points of view was to allow present arrangements to continue, mutatis
mutandis. That is that Rajaji might continue as President. That would involve
the least change and the state machine would continue functionng as before….Vallabhbhai
and I felt that Rajaji’s name should be put forward for unanimous election. I
hope you agree. [152]
Prasad’s reply came
the very next day, full of perplexity and anguish. Explaining his discontent,
he wrote in that long letter to Nehru.
I have never been a
candidate for any post or honour and when I issued the statement that there
could be no question of any contest between Rajaji and myself, I did so without
any mental reservation. I should have thought that you and Vallabhbhai would
accept that statement as genuine and would not create a contest between Rajaji
and myself and consider it necessary to reject me….As it is, I am required to
accept and act upon a decision which has been taken without even the courtesy
of consultation, although it concerned me intimately as my name had been
dragged into it by you without my knowledge or authority….You say that my
election would involve change and rearrangement and that it would be almost a
condemnation of Rajaji’s work….There is no condemnation involved or implied if
a man is not reappointed to a post….unless he is keen on being reappointed and
is rejected. I have no reason to think that Rajaji has been keen on being
reappointed, but you know better….I feel that on the same reasoning by making
me a candidate and then rejecting me you and Vallabhbhai have condemned me and
all that I have stood for and done during all these years in association with
you. Perhaps it has been stupid of me to think that I have been one of your
colleagues deserving your confidence. [153-54]
Chastened by the
uncharacteristically strong language in the letter, Nehru sent an apologetic
reply to Prasad the same day.
I
have been distressed to read your letter… [Only for reasons of expediency] I
thought Rajaji might as well continue….I never thought of this matter in terms
of Rajaji or you. Partly I think this was so because I had hoped that you would
be free to devote yourself to the vital task of running the Congress
organization, to which I attach the greatest importance. Indeed I could see of
no other person who could do this effectively. Rajaji of course could not, as
he had lost touch with the Congress organization to a large extent some years ago….I
am deeply sorry that I should have hurt you in any way or made you feel that I
have been lacking in respect or consideration for you. [155-56]
Nehru had been rather
disingenuous in the arguments that he made in his letter. Even Patel’s stand on
the issue was rather ambivalent. He was convinced of the majority support to
Prasad in the Constituent Assembly as well as in the party forum where Rajaji
was rather unpopular because of his dereliction of Congress during the August
’42 revolution and his pro-Jinnah stand during the Cabinet Mission
negotiations. But at the same time Patel was also reluctant to upset his
political equations on this issue with Nehru who had his undisguised preference
for Rajaji over Prasad for his own personal reasons.
In his memoirs,
Prasad’s elder son, Mrityunjay Prasad, discusses this issue in great detail and
at one point observes: ‘Nehruji never liked the idea of my father, Dr Rajendra
Prasad’s becoming the President. And every time he would rather try that some
other person of his choice should be President’. [M 167] He also refers in this
context to a revealing incident narrated by Mahavir Tyagi, one of the firebrand
opponents of Nehru. According to
Tyagi, soon after his return from America, Nehru personally went to Prasad and
made an earnest appeal to him to let Rajaji be elected President unopposed and
also secured a written consent from him to that effect.[M 157] Nehru then
convened a meeting of the party members at Patel’s house to contrive a
consensus for Rajaji’s election. But during the heated discussions members
vociferously opposed Rajaji’s nomination for presidentship of the new Republic
as he had never even been elected Congress President. After the meeting, in
private, Patel cautioned Nehru that if he insisted on Rajaji’s unanimous
election (even in view of Prasad’s written consent to withdraw from the
contest), a majority rejection of his proposal might entail his own resignation
in the circumstances as per democratic norms.[M 161] Nehru then had no option
but to agree to the unanimous election of Prasad as the interim President of
the nascent Republic.
The whole question of
Prasad’s involvement in the affairs of the party and the government acquires
special significance in relation to the manner in which he was made to share
responsibilities in various capacities, often against his own preference, and
equally often to suit the interests of Nehru and Patel. He never himself opted
for any position either in the party or in the government. More often than not
he accepted such offered positions to suit others’ convenience or serve the
interest of the party.
The exchange of
letters in September, ’49 between
Patel, Prasad and Nehru reveals the inner story not only of the interim
President issue, but also of the complex interrelationships between the three
of them. Both Nehru and Patel had obliquely suggested to Prasad that he should
rather devote himself to ‘the vital task of running the Congress organization’
and clear the way for Rajaji to continue in the top position. In a letter to
Patel, on 19 September, Prasad had again to express his exasperation over the
developing situation.
I have felt not now
but for a pretty long time that neither you nor Jawaharlalji ever think of
consulting me even in matters of great public importance except formally when
we met in the Working Committee, or when I was a member in the Cabinet….I
complained on more than one occasion that we should This was
be informed of important decisions, at least simultaneously with the
Press, so that we might not be placed in a false position….For some reason or
other the public associates the names of three of us in all matters and looks
upon us as acting in all matters in unison….That strengthens the position of the
party. But it also implies that I should at least be kept informed, if not
consulted…and I should not be left to gather my information from newspapers or
gossip. That has been the position for pretty long time.
This was an
unambiguous remonstrance against the casual manner in which Prasad was often
treated by these two closest colleagues. Meanwhile, not keeping well, Patel had
moved to Bombay in the latter half of September and Nehru, too, was on a visit
to the U.S. Prasad, however, was in Delhi busy as usual presiding over the
final debates on the Draft Constitution as its third and final reading was to
be taken up by mid-November. The consideration of the election of the new
Republic’s President had been temporarily put on hold in Nehru’s absence but
there was a lot of excitement among party members over the issue. Meanwhile, due
to the severity of Delhi’s dry cold winter, Prasad had moved in early December
to Wardha to get some relief from his chronic asthma. And it was there that he
once again received a letter from Nehru dealing primarily with the affairs in
the Congress, but also, indirectly, hinting at the impending issue of the
President’s election. In the first part of that long letter (8.12.1949) sent to
Wardha, Nehru expressed his deep distress ‘at many developments that are taking
place’ in the Congress on the organizational level:
But what distresses me
even more is the cracking up, with great rapidity, of the noble structure that Bapu
built….This Congress is simply
fading away before our eyes. Even a fading might have been tolerated, but
something worse is happening. There is no discipline left, no sense of common
efforts, no cooperation, no attempt at constructive effort (apart from a few),
and our energies are concentrated in disruption and destruction….We have
allowed this drift to continue too long and perhaps it is already too late to
do anything. Still we must do our best. [VC11.186-87]
Clearly, Nehru
insinuated that Prasad alone perhaps could set things right to any extent. But
before he ended his letter, Nehru once more made a veiled suggestion for Prasad
to withdraw from the contest for the Presidency. Such insensitive reiteration
of an untenable request naturally ruffled Prasad’s even temper, and in great
exasperation he replied to Nehru on 12 December, sending its copy also to
Patel. First, he wrote about the malaise in Congress to which Nehru had
referred.
It is really tragic
that we should have to see the great institution which has been built up with
the devoted service and sacrifice of so many of the best men and women of the
country disintegrating before our eyes, and that so soon after the passing away
of Bapu. But this disintegration also shows how skin-deep our attachment to the
principles, which we have mouthed so loudly, and our loyalty to Bapu, whose
name we are never tired of invoking, have been. [Ib.190-91]
He would now mince no
words to assert how Congress had renounced all Gandhian principles in its
hunger for power. And, as he ended his reply, he was very forthright in
expressing his views about the Presidential election. From what he had
gathered, he said, from ‘the considerable opinion among the members of the
Assembly… it appears my not accepting the offer will be looked upon by them as
a “betrayal”’.
They have used that
expression [he continued] and told me that I should not ‘betray’ them or ‘let
them down’. …I am not concerned with the right or wrong of the position. I am
only expressing what has been communicated to me as their feeling….The
inference that I draw from this is that the election of Rajaji will not be smooth even if I
were to withdraw and propose his name…it may still further complicate the
position and accelerate the disintegration which may affect even the centre
which has… so far been comparatively immune….On the other hand I feel that any
action which I take today which is not in consonance with the will of the
Assembly will be regarded by many of its members as having been dictated by you
and Sardar and all my protestations to the contrary will be disregarded, and
this feeling, as I have said above, is likely to further complicate the
position in the centre.
Prasad’s logic was
clear as daylight. It showed where exactly Nehru stood in the midst of all that
controversy mostly of his own creation. Even the crisis in the party had grown
out of Nehru’s misguided separation from the Gandhian legacy, making the
Congress more of a power-generating election-winning machine than the great
institution of struggle and sacrifice it had been in the past. Durga Das quotes
a very tart comment made about Nehru by Rafi Ahmad Kidwai in Allahabad after
Prasad, Patel and Nehru had immersed Gandhi’s ashes at the triveni confluence of Ganga. ‘Jawaharlal has performed the last rites’,
whispered Kidwai to Durga Das, ‘not only of Gandhi but of Gandhism as well”’.
[DD279]
In these letters
exchanged between Nehru and Prasad in December ’49, the tone and tenor had
become sharper. Nehru’s references to Bapu in relation to the ‘disruption and
destruction’ in Congress, in words like ‘the drift’,‘the cracking up of the
noble structure that Bapu built’, the sad disappearance of all ‘constructive effort’, etc sounded hollow and sham in
view of the outright rejection of
Gandhi’s ideas for the ‘future of Congress’. To Prasad, this
‘disintegration’ of the Congress, ‘so soon after the passing away of Bapu’,
only showed ‘how skin-deep our attachment to the principles, which we have
mouthed so loudly, and our loyalty to Bapu, whose name we are never tired of
invoking, have been’. There could have been no harsher disparagement of the betrayal
of Gandhi ‘whose name we are never
tired of invoking’, and of ‘the great institution which [had] been built up
with the devoted service and sacrifice of so many of the best men and women of
the country’. Nehru’s repeated invoking of Gandhi’s name in his memorable
orations at the ‘tryst with destiny’ or at Gandhi’s assassination, or even
during the Constituent Assembly speeches, together with his deep distress over
the rapid ‘disintegration’ of the Congress, seemed all too disingenuous with
the passage of time.
Prasad also felt
particularly exasperated by Nehru’s repeated requests for withdrawal from the
Presidential contest in favour of Rajaji. Although, in reality, the contest
lay, perhaps, only in Nehru’s preference for Rajaji over Prasad and not otherwise.
Prasad had already expressed his disinterest several times to Nehru and felt
rather rattled by the reiteration of the unseemly issue. He had always been a loyal
Gandhian and believed in self-abnegation. But in view of Nehru’s insistence on
Rajaji’s continuation on the top post, and the general disapproval of this idea
among the members in the Assembly who favoured only Prasad for this august
position, he did not have much of an option either way. Also, even if he
withdrew from the supposed contest against the wishes of the majority, Nehru’s
forcing Rajaji’s election was likely to face a showdown, or as Prasad put it, ‘further
complicate the position and accelerate the disintegration’; a situation of
instability for the nascent Centre itself. Again, Prasad’s deliberate flouting
of the wishes of the majority was most likely to be interpreted as his buckling
under pressure from both Nehru and Patel, which again would have worsened
matters beyond redemption. In short, Nehru’s persistent and unwise initiative
would have caused irreparable damage both to the party and the government.
Prasad’s letter to Nehru, thus, was more in the nature of a sound admonition
than a warning to him. When Patel also explained the risks involved more
clearly to Nehru, the latter was left with no option but to beat a reluctant
retreat, reconciled to Prasad’s unanimous election as President of the new
Republic.
© Dr BSM Murty
Photos : Courtesy Google Images
