GEM OF A
NATION:11
[After a 12-year long
presidential tenure, saint as he had remained throughout his political life, Dr
Rajendra Prasad returned to his old cottage at Sadaqat Ashram in Patna. Of
those 12 years, the last two years of his presidency, in particular, were
filled with an agonizing realization of not having done enough in spite of his
best efforts in the face of political expediency. This realization had further
deepened into a sense of despair after his return to Patna where he spent the
last few months of his life. The despair was darker because both Congress and its post-independence governments had
sadly neglected or even rejected the Gandhian ideals which had sustained the
entire freedom movement. As he reflected in Asmanjas - the last book he wrote which was
published almost two decades after his
death in 1963 - an inherent dichotomy in
the Congress party ( he called it ‘Asmanjas’ or ‘Predicament’) had led to a betrayal of all the Gandhian
ideals spelt out in his ‘constructive programme’ for the attainment of ‘true
freedom’ for the poor and oppressed masses of India. In these extracts from the
concluding part of my biography of Dr Rajendra Prasad, he expresses his deep
anguish over the political developments both in the Congress party and its
governments since independence.]
The Last
Phase
Is there any way out?
- Diary:26 July, 1960
-
Back home from his long and
exhausting Soviet sojourn, Dr Prasad had many existent concerns to reflect
upon; the most compelling of them being his impending retirement from a
twelve-year long span of presidency. The thought had been a persistent one
throughout his second term as President but as the moment of reckoning
approached nearer it brought mixed feelings of stress and relief: stress due to
the ungenerous speculations in some circles about his alleged desire to seek a
further tenure, and relief on his own part for a final deliverance from his
onerous responsibilities. Almost exactly a year before, he had written in his
diary: “I have myself been wondering for some months, if not more than a year,
whether I should not be free now to live a life according to my liking, without
the responsibilities of office.” A little later he reverted to the same theme.
I
have found, in my own experience, that on many occasions I have felt compelled
to accept responsibilities I never wanted to shoulder. These were also
opportunities of honour; I wanted neither the honour nor the responsibility but
I had to take both or, at least, one if not both. This was the case with
Presidentship of the Congress on more occasions than one. Such has been also
the case with the Presidentship which I have accepted with due humility but
without any keen desire for it. And I have had to continue when I was very near
giving it up – and if I were free and not bound by circumstances and
considerations of wider import than my own personal pique or sense of right or
wrong, I should have preferred to be free.
Sarvepalli Gopal, however, had a contrary view of the situation.
His observations in this matter in his Radhakrishnan: A Biography need
to be quoted at some length to mark the various insinuations woven into them.
Nehru
caught on the wrong foot in the election for the presidentship in 1957, was now
more wary and began,even two years ahead, to clear the way for Radhakrishnan’s
succession. In the summer of 1960, when President Prasad went for two weeks on
an official visit to the Soviet Union, the prime minister, citing the possible
need for emergency measures in case of a
general strike as the reason, had Radhakrishnan formally sworn in to discharge
the duties of the president. But Prasad had clearly not given up hopes of a
third term even after twelve years in office; and he was encouraged in this by
conservative members of the Congress party, Relations between the president and
the prime minister took a steep dive, Prasad…raised in public the question of
the president’s powers and wondered whether he was regarded as a constitutional
figurehead. Nehru did not react openly to this; but he obtained the authority
of the cabinet to inform the president that a third term was out of the
question, Then, when a bill was introduced in the Rajya Sabha by a member of
the opposition limiting the tenure of the presidentship to two terms, Nehru
secured its withdrawal by stating that such a limitation was best achieved by a
‘clear and strict’ convention.
The
dubious observations begin with a clear hint of Nehru’s manoueverings to
prevent Dr Praasd’s election to the second presidency, with an embedded
suggestion of Radhakrishnan’s acquiescence in it. They also clearly suggest
that Dr Prasad’s ‘official visit to the Soviet Union’ was planned in such a way
that Nehru could meanwhile get Radhakrishnan constitutionally sworn in as
President to sign an emergency bill forestalling the impending general strike –
an unkind insinuation involving both Nehru and Radhakrishnan, and, perhaps, Dr
Prasad, too. The third totally unsubstantiated aspersion (in view of Dr
Prasad’s honest assertions given above) is that ‘Prasad had clearly not given
up hopes of a third term’. Also, the suggestion that Dr prasad had ‘raised in public
the question of the president’s powers’ presumably to secure a third term is
not corroborated by the text of the speech that Dr Prasad had delivered while
laying the foundation of the Indian Law Institute in Delhi on 28 November,
1960. And lastly, there is also a suggestion that Nehru had first contrived to
get a ‘two-term limitation’ bill introduced in the Rajya Sabha by an opposition
member and then to show a good gesture towards the President had ‘secured its
withdrawal’. All these insinuations are unworthy examples of deliberate
obfuscation and stretching the limits of speculation too far.
Towards the end of his diaries published in the form
of letters by Gyanvati Darbar, we find Dr Prasad brooding on these issues as
reflected in the following excerpts.
22
Nov.’60:
…I never earnestly wanted or waited for or anticipated my election. It came in
due course without any wish on my part, not to speak of any effort....26
Nov.’60: It may be quite an interesting question to ask me – How does it
feel to think of the time when I shall not be the President?.... As I have
never felt anything like attraction for or attachment to the office, it will
not be a wrench in any case…. 4 Dec.’60: [When ‘I am out of office’] I
feel I might enjoy a quiet life free from the pomp and obligation of office and
be free to live as I wish to…. 15 Feb.’61: In the Hindu of 14
February,…there is a note…that contains insinuations and statements about me
regarding the candidature for a third term….[Also] there has been some informal
discussion among members of the Cabinet that the President should be asked not
to stand for a third term and so on…. What I apprehend is that there is some
idea or individual working behind the scene which or who is responsible for
these publications…. My first reaction was one of indignation so much so
that I felt like resigning now and thus save the Cabinet members – whoever they
may be – the trouble of “persuading” me when my term expires some 15 months
hence not to stand. But I have felt that I should not act in a hurry…[ Italics
in text]
Sarvepalli
Gopal’s insinuation of Dr Prasad’s raising ‘in public the question of
president’s powers’ in his Law Institute speech as his last ditch effort to
secure a third term also is preposterously inapposite. As explained earlier in
this narrative, right from the beginning Dr Prasad, himself a great
constitutional authority, had his reservations about the nebulous equation
written into the Indian constitution between a sovereign republic’s head of
state democratically elected on a national mandate and the hereditarily
enthroned British monarch. He had sent a long note on this issue to the Prime
Minister in the very beginning which had
remained unsatisfactorily settled eversince. During his two-term tenure
occasions had arisen when some of the relevant points of this issue had posed
problems and had to be resolved by mutual concurrence between him and the Prime
Minister. One recent instance was the imposition of President’s rule in Kerala
in June, 1959.
Dr
Prasad’s concern on this issue had been an abiding one in view of the
formulation of a healthy equilibrium between the elected executive and the
presidency in keeping with the unique federal character of the Indian
constitution. As he wrote in his diary on 23 July, 1959: “The question has not
arisen in relation to any particular action which I have taken or omitted to
take in which the ministers’ advice has either not been taken or disregarded.
It is being discussed as a purely constitutional question…the interest [in the
issue] is purely theoretical and constitutional and not personal.” When he decided to put this important
constitutional issue for ‘study and investigation’ before the Law Institute
faculty,he said: “I did not think I was doing anything improper or unconstitutional
in making a suggestion for the scientific study of our constitution…I am
unconcerned with the result of the enquiry or investigation, if it is held. My
only interest is in getting the matter studied at the proper level without any
political inhibition and with reference to the constitution as it stands
written out. I doubt if anyone can object to the clarification of what is not
altogether clear to an ordinary citizen.”
The Law Institute speech focuses mainly on two
points : the question of exact parity or anomaly between the statuses of a
sovereign republic’s elected president and the hereditarily enthroned British
monarch, on the one hand, and the healthy evolution of new conventions in the
governance of a newly independent democratic republic with a unique federal
constitution, on the other. The two important points are stated clearly in the
following excerpt:
The
British Constitution is a unitary Constitution in which the Parliament is
supreme having no other authority sharing its power of legislation except such
as may be delegated. Our Constitution is a federal Constitution in which the
powers and functions of the Union Parliament and the State Legislatures are
clearly defined and the one has no power or right to encroach upon the rights and
powers reserved to the other….In this connection a wider question of much
import is how far we are entitled to invoke and incorporate into our written
Constitution by interpretation the conventions of the British Constitution
which is an unwritten Constitution….We have got used to relying on precedents
of England to such an extent that it seems almost sacrilegious to have a
different interpretation even if our conditions and circumstances might seem to
require a different interpretation.
These were important constitutional issues which had
remained unaddressed all along and Dr Prasad wanted them to be settled sooner
than later. Dr Prasad’s deep concern with the ambiguities he was keen to have
disambiguated expectedly led to complictions in later presidencies as seen, for
instance, earlier in the case of President Zail Singh. Even during the first two years of
Radhakrishanan’s presidency, preceding Nehru’s death in 1964, it was clear that
the latter found the former less malleable and more tough than Dr Prasad – one
instance being the issue of dismissal of Krishna Menon as Defence Minister
after the Chinese debacle.
During these last two years of his presidency, Dr
Prasad had other deeper concerns on several issues of national and
international import: the growing all-round corruption in national politics and
public affairs and the general widespread disillusionment with the ruling
Congress governments; the overall slow-down in economic and industrial
development; the problems connected with the reorganization of states on
linguistic basis; the liberation of Goa; the China-Tibet conflict and the
Chinese border issues, the badly tangled Kashmir problem, besides many more,
like the tribal unrest across the country, the question of Hindi as rashtrabhasha,
and so forth. Dr Prasad’s diary entries of the late fifties are full of
reflections on these disturbing concerns. In one of these entries (22 Jan.
1959) he even mentions a book he had been writing ‘Tab or Ab which I
started some time ago, but which I have not been able to continue’ . Unfortunately,
like much of his other writings, this mss also is not traceable. Another book
which he called Asmanjas (‘Predicament’), published much later in 2009,
however, contains essays on ‘Gandhian thought’, ‘Non-violence’, ‘Towards Freedom’, ‘Khadi and Village Industries’, and
so forth. There is some possibility of the former title having been changed in
the later published book where in its Introduction Ganga Sharan Singh, his
close associate and a Praja Socialist Party MP from Bihar, says that the book
was written by Dr Prasad during the last years of his presidency, and as
advised by the former, he gave the mss to Singh only after his retirement and
return from Hyderabad in late 1962. The mss lay with Singh and was finallys
given by him to Dr Prasad’s son, Mrityunjay Prasad, for publication. The essays
in the book, however, are thematically quite similar to his earlier book The
Legacy of Gandhi in English. The title ‘Predicament’ itself is clearly
suggestive of the dilemmas and despair that beclouded his mind during these
last years of his second presidency. He was saddened beyond measure by the
all-round degeneration and disorder in public life which he thought had only
been brought about by the government’s deviation from and near total rejection of the Gandhian
principles……
The Legacy
The Gandhian legacy, however, had been on the decline
eversince Gandhi had been thrown out as the unwanted fly in the ointment of the
Congress preference for power over true freedom. And in hindsight it appears
that Gandhi’s physical disappearance had almost become a historical necessity
even for the power-lusting Congress. The Gandhian legacy as a political ideal
had been fast fading during the last
years of thr Mahatma’s life. And that was the real predicament that a handful
of the true Gandhian loyalists like Dr Rajendra Prasad faced during the
post-independence decades. Almost prophetically, Gandhi had written while still
alive:
Let Gandhism be destroyed if it stands for error…If I
were to know after my death, that what I stood for had degenerated into
sectarianism, I should be deeply pained….Let no one say that he is a follower
of Gandhi. It is enough that I should be my own follower. I know what an
inadequate follower I am of myself, for I cannot live up to the convictions I
stand for.
These words of total despair came from the depth of
Gandhi’s ‘still small voice’ within. Gandhi knew that he had been deserted by
most of his followers as far as his ideals of Truth and Ahimsa were concerned.
“Today I find myself all alone”, he wrote. “[Even the Sardar and Jawaharlal]
think that my reading of the situation [regarding partition] is wrong….They
wonder if I have not deteriorated with age.” He had named Patel and Nehru as opposing his
judgment against partition, but he knew that Rajendra Prasad, Maulana Azad and
a few others in the CWC had never been in favour of that disastrous decision,
even though they could not effectively block
the two main pillars of power in the interim government. And Gandhi by
now had a clear premonition of his impending death.
I do feel that I have come nearer to God and Truth. It
has cost me quite a few of my old friends but I do not regret it. To me it is a
sign of my having come nearer to God. That is why I can write and speak frankly
to everyone. I have successfully practised the eleven vows undertaken by me.
This is the culmination of my striving for the last sixty years.
This basic dichotomy in the ideology of the Congress –
the conflict between a total commitment to the ideals of Truth and Ahimsa not
only as a means to securing independence from imperial subjugation, but also as
a long-term policy of complete social
transformation and economic freedom on the one hand, and using the Gandhian
principles merely as a political strategy to obtain a hurried transfer of power
on the other – this dichotomy had remained a tormenting vexation for Dr Prasad
eversince his dedicated adherence to Gandhi’s ‘constructive programme’ from the
early ’20s. But it became a more intense preoccupation with Dr Prasad during
his long presidential tenure when the Congress governments both at the Centre
and in the states began openly discarding or tactically ignoring Gandhi’s
programmes of social and economic reform. He often expressed his thoughts
of disquiet and perturbation on this
core concern in his diaries and correspondence, but he also kept recording his
ideas on this vital issue in a book which he had been writing in Hindi during
his presidential tenure which he had tentatively called Tab or Ab . As
R.L. Handa, his Press Secretary, writes in his memoir:
Happenings of the last six months of his stay in Rashtrapati Bhawan all but made
Rajendra Prasad an introvert….About the future of the country he could not help
thinking, but most of the thoughts he preferred to keep to himself …..
Inadequate response from Nehru [to his advice given on various occasions] made
him feel that there was nothing he could now do about the national issues
uppermost in his own mind… What pinched him wa s[…] the feeling that there was
not much chance of the downward trend in national affairs being checked. It was
probably in this state of contretemps and helplessness that he decided
to devote his time after retirement to writing his memoirs, to which he gave
the significant title, Years of Agony… [And he] made up his mind to do the proposed memoirs during his stay
[after retirement] in Hyderabad.
Apparently, Dr Prasad had only given a vague idea to
those close to him about the book he had been writing all along in Hindi for
which he had not then decided a suitable title. The book had remained close to his heart and he had probably shown it only
to Ganga Sharan Singh, a Praja Socialist party MP from Bihar and a a close confidante, as his presidential
tenure was coming to its end. The latter, himself an accomplished Hindi writer,
may also have suggested the Hindi title Asmanjas for the book. In any
case, he advised Dr Prasad to publish the book only after relinquishing his
presidential position as the book contained a critique of some of the
government policies which could raise unseemly controversies. Dr Prasad finally
agreed to the suggestion and handed over the typed manuscript of the book,
finally titled Asmanjas (or ‘Predicament’), to Ganga Sharan Singh around October, 1962,
five months after his return to Patna. Due to reasons stated in Singh’s
preface, the book was ultimately published in 1984, almost two decades after
the death of both Dr Prasad and Nehru.
Interestingly, the book has an undated foreword by Nehru
which pays rich tributes to Dr Prasad’s memory, obliterating much of the past
acrimony as befits a post-demise eulogy.
With
Rajendra Babu I have had a forty-five year long association. At least for forty
years we worked together. Our association began during the freedom struggle,
and subsequently he served as President with myself as his Prime Minister. In
course of this long span of time I could see him from close and learn many
things from him. A plethora of scenes pass before my eyes today. Many of our
great leaders have slowly passed away, but fortunately the chain remained unbroken, and Rajendra
Babu proved a great link in its continuation. He reached the top position in
life from a very humble beginning, but his simplicity remained unchanged
throughout. He remained the perfect Indian. His nobility of character always
remained wedded to his simplicity and humility. He set an example that led to
India’s glory and sublimity. Indeed, he became a true icon of the essential
Indian ethos and yet remained open to modernism. Today’s India will forever
remain India without imitating others.
His
twelve-year tenure as President will be deemed as a worthy epoch in India’s
history. Those twelve years will always be seen as his era. All that we did
during this period, we did under his leadership, and did it with a sense of
pride. Wherever we erred, he would show us the right path. All living nations
produce great men when the hour of need arises. Rajendra Babu set his imprint
on this era so that we could hold our heads high. It led to the consolidation
of India’s freedom. While there have been many upheavels in other countries,
particularly in our neighbouring countries, India has all along walked with
strength. And with strength we faced the Chinese aggression without ever
faltering. It was our great Gandhian spirit which gave us not only independence
and unity but a tradition of values that strengthened our roots in their depth.
And Rajendra Babu proved a strong link in that chain of Gandhian values.
We
can never forget that face, those eyes, because truth was always mirrored in
them. His great erudition, the simplicity of his heart, and his love for his
country, have created for him a secure niche in every Indian’s heart.
There
could be no more emotional and magnanimous tribute paid by one great son of
India to another, his elder companion in a four-decade long historic struggle
for freedom. Personally, Nehru always showed great respect towards Dr Prasad
notwithstanding all his prejudices and proclivities. And Dr Prasad also
remained very affectionate and deferential towards Nehru whom everyone
considered to be the brightest among all the top Congress leaders. Their
differences, whenever a collision became unavoidable, were more on policy matters
than due to any personal antagonism, and were always resolved by an amicable
mutual consultation or correspondence.
Coming
towards the end of Dr Prasad’s political career Asmanjas reads like a
summation of his political philosophy or
the exegetical issues related to it. The Hindi word ‘Asmanjas’ only signified a
‘predicament’. It had a clear connotation of disquietude and uneasiness caused
by an insoluble inner conflict. This shadow of a ‘predicament’- a visible
dichotomy - hung over the Congress ideology eversince Gandhi came to define it
in spiritual terms. Ironically enough, Gandhi’s call for a struggle for India’s
freedom guided by these spiritual principles of Truth and Ahimsa had been
understood and acted upon by the Indian masses more devoutly than many of the
leaders in the Congress party. This was, perhaps, only because these moral
principles were based on a firm faith in the innate goodness of man. Gandhi had
chosen to pursue this hitherto uncharted path with the sincerity and dedication
of a scientist experimenting with the application of old spiritual principles
to new political realities in India’s quest for freedom.. His experiments had
shown positive results in South Africa, and the circumstances being near
identical they had proved successful to a large extent even in India.
The
predicament had for long been latent in the Congress ideology during the
freedom struggle under Gandhi’s leadership. A dichotomy had remained ingrained
in the struggle right from the beginning with the introduction by Gandhi of the
spiritual principles of Truth and Ahimsa as the guiding ideology of the freedom
movement. Dr Prasad in Asmanjas tries to analyse and disentangle the
reasons behind this fundamental dichotomy which had afflicted the Congress
party both during the freedom struggle and, perhaps, even more after the coming
of independence. This dichotomy or inner conflict manifested itself in the
policy initiatives both of the Congress party and its governments at the Centre
as well as in the states, particularly during Dr Prasad’s twelve-year long
presidency. Dr Prasad’s disquisition in the book, however, is directed more
towards the inner conflicts that always plagued the Congress party than any
particular policy issue of the government.
Asmanjas attempts to analyse this
fundamental dichotomy in the ideology of the Congress party by looking at its
various aspects. Central to this dichotomy was the divergence over the adoption
of the spiritual principles of Truth and Ahimsa as the quintessential
principles of the Congress ideology not only for the attainment of freedom from
foreign rule but for the transformation of the Indian polity where it could
achieve, what Gandhi called, ‘true freedom’.
Gandhi
had drawn up an itemized ‘Constructive programme’ (CP) as early as the ’20s
which he considered to be the roadmap for attaining full freedom both in the
short and the long run and which he kept on supplementing and modifying as the
freedom struggle advanced through the ’30s and ’40s. As a prerequisite of this
programme based completely on Truth and Ahimsa he had also formulated a set of
‘eleven vows’ to be taken by those who were to serve as workers in the CP.
These were extremely rigorous vows for practising moral virtues like sexual
self-disciplene (Brahmacharya), physical labour (Bread-labour), austere living
(Asangraha, Asteya and Aswad), fearlessness (Bhayavarjana), use of locally made
goods (Swadeshi), equality of all religions (Sarvadharma Sambhava) and removal
of untouchability (Asprishyata), all fully sustained with Truth and Ahimsa.
Only the practitioners of these spiritual vows were eligible to participate in
the CP and all leaders were expected to lead the masses by such exemplary
conduct. As Gandhi had proclaimed: ‘Those who believe in the simple truths I
have laid down can propagate them only by living them’.
The
predicament, however, manifested itself precisely at this point. As Dr Prasad
says in the foreword of his book: “Most followers emphasize only some of these
ideas not following the ‘constructive programme’ in its totality which is firmly
based on the central Gandhian principle of Truth and Ahimsa. Also, different
interpretations have been given of that central principle or the other points
in the ‘constructive programme’ by different followers. Even those considering
themselves close followers of Gandhiji
are going in different directions or even squabbling amongst themselves.
They are not even tolerant towards others in the same group.” [Asm/19-22 & ff] In the remaining twelve
small chapters, Dr Prasad discusses the different aspects of the predicament
pertaining to the several Gandhian principles based on Truth and Ahimsa, his
concept of ‘true freedom’, materialism versus individual freedom, war and peace
vis-à-vis non-violence, an economy based on village industries, a new
indigenous education system and the need for a national language. In each of
these areas he finds the same predicament casting its dark shadow, the same
dichotomy impairing the satisfactory implementation of the CP. The ideas
defining the thematic focus of the book in its first half can best be
summarized in a short translated gist.
We
are in a terrible predicament. We realize the importance of the Gandhian
principles as spelt out in the ‘constructive programme’, but seeing the
difficulty in following them in their totality we either reject them outright
or follow them only half-heartedly. We would generally follow his principles
selectively as it suited our individual preferences and ignore many of them
with disinterest. Had his full programme been accepted by us on a national
level and, indeed, also on an international level, the whole world would have
benefitted from it. India, then, would have presented a new ideal to the whole
world for the creation of a new society and a new kind of politics.
Gandhiji’s ideas were original and
revolutionary.He would test all his ideas on the touchstone of the central
principle of Truth and Ahimsa. But few people in Congress subscribe fully to
his ideas. They are always in a state of indecision. Some in Congress try to
follow some of the principles, some others are rather tolerant, though not
being enthusiastic about them, and some others are quite opposed to them. All
these three kinds are there also in all the state governments that they have
formed. But none of these governments either at the Centre or in the states are
pursuing these principles in full. In fact, we find ourselves caught between
the horns of a dilemma. On the one hand we show full reverence towards the
Gandhian principles while, on the other,we abide by them only to the extent we
prefer. It thus becomes a Janus-headed approach with one face towards Gandhiji
and the other away from him looking towards the West.
Truth
and Ahimsa form the core of Gandhian thought and are descended directly from
our scriptures forming an innate part of our culture and heritage. Besides,
they are inseparable as the two faces of a coin. Ahimsa is only the other face
of Truth. And Truth was for Gandhi the same as God. Both were to be practised
not only in words and action but also in thought. He considered them not only
as religious concepts but equally applicable in the realm of politics. However,
many in the Congress accepted them only as a
means to the political goal of freedom from the British rule, without
imbibing their true spiritual intent. And this internal dichotomy persisted in
Congress all along. It became all the more pronounced when the question arose
of supporting the British during the Second World War with all its catastrophic
violence. It brought to the fore the rift in the Congress over adherence to
Ahimsa as the core principle in the fight for freedom. For most Congressmen
Truth and Ahimsa were merely tactical principles of convenience, rather than an
article of faith. This schism in the Congress policy during the war years
damaged its political credibility and caused a loss of face when the Congress
ministries in the provinces resigned in 1939. For the British government,
however, these reluctant resignations
only exposed the rift in the Congress over its total commitment to Truth
and Ahimsa as an unalterable article of faith.
The
War ended in 1945, but the ideal of non-violence was already in shreds with the
a new phase of virulent communal violence as a bloody prelude to the partition
of the country. And after the independence, the Gandhian ideals of Truth and
Ahimsa have been virtually put on hold as inconsistent with state policy which
was inherited with all its colonial legacies. In fact, the new Congress
government has passed many acts of legislation conforming to the colonial state
policy of violent repression. The beacon light of Ahimsa
shown by Gandhiji to the world has thus lost its flame. We are now in a
dilemma whether or not we should follow the principle of Non-violence. We
always plead for Non-violence as a remedy for the ills of a violence-ravaged
world, but in our own national and international policies we are following the
same policies of violence as the other nations, This is the greatest
predicament we are facing now.
In
the second half of the book, Dr Prasad examines the various aspects of
Gandhiji’s ‘constructive programme’ and the extent to which each of these
aspects – khadi and village industries, the new rural-based education system,
adult education, rural sanitation and hygiene, removal of untouchability and
uplift of the tribal communities, and so forth – suffered in the
post-independence scenario due to the skewed policies of the Congress party and
its governments both at the Centre and in the states. Gandhi’s ideas were
firmly rooted in the millions of people living in the villages and were meant
essentially to address their social and moral uplift. True freedom for Gandhi
meant the effacement of poverty,
illiteracy, disease, social discriminations and communal hostilities that had
plagued Indian polity for ages, and his ‘constructive programme’ was designed
to achieve these objectives also as a prerequisite for creating popular
awareness for freedom from the foreign rule.He wanted a radical transformation
of the entire national polity which would have freedom from the foreign yoke as
a natural consequence. As Dr Prasad has observed, if this path of radical
social transformation had been followed with due commitment, and true faith in
the principles of Truth and Ahimsa, ‘not only we in India but the whole world
would have benefitted’. It would have brought about for the world as a whole
‘the creation of a new society and a new kind of politics’.
Dr
Prasad’s anguish over the indifference and disregard shown towards Gandhiji’s
moral principles by the post-independence Congress party and its governments
forms the central theme of this final statement of his views in this book Asmanjas.
It is a kind of prognosis of the malaise that had developed in the national
polity due to this fundamental dichotomy in the ideology of the Congress party
and the policies of its governments and the general moral regression that it
was likely to cause in future. The phenomenal incidence of corruption and
immorality that have inevitably crept into national politics due to this
Hamletesque dilemma – which course to follow: the one of morality and peace as
shown by the Mahatma or the one that goes against Gandhi’s principles towards
endless conflict and violence – a dilemma that is the gravest predicament that
faces us as well as the whole world today.
(C) Dr BSM Murty : Text & all coloured photos
Coloured photos are of Sadaqat Ashram (1) The Cottage (2)The Chabutara (3)The Bedroom taken by author.
No part of this extract can be used in any way so as to infringe pre-publication rights.
More extracts can be read on this Blog from the
book GEM OF A NATON
2011: May 28 : The
Indigo Story; July 8: The Butcher of Amritsar; July 17: A Planter’s Murder
2014: Sep 14 : The
Seven Martyrs; Dec 3 : Early childhood in Jeeradei
2015: Jun 30: Congress
in disarray; Aug 27: Clash of Convictions; Oct 8: Presidential
Itineraries;
Dec
20: Congress at crossroads
2016: Mar
15: Election for Second Term; May 13: Visit to Soviet Union; Aug 25: Limits of
Presidency
