Opinion Ram Madhav writes: Gandhi was driven by a desire to keep India united, Nehru wanted power, no matter the price
It is undeniable that Gandhi tried until the end to prevent Partition. But Nehru’s obsession during those testing months was to grab political power by whatever means
Nehru with Gandhi, August 1942. (Wikimedia Commons) The rejoinder to my column last week by a Congress spokesperson (‘Sanitising Godse is assault on truth & moral memory’, IE, February 3) was a futile attempt to twist my arguments. I not only called Nathuram Godse’s act of killing Gandhi wrong but also argued that the reasons he gave for that criminal act were erroneous. The rejoinder smacked of a desperation over my article exposing the fact that their icons, like Jawaharlal Nehru, were more responsible for India’s Partition in 1947 than Gandhi, as Godse alleged.
It is undeniable that Gandhi tried until the end to prevent Partition. But Nehru’s obsession during those testing months was to grab political power by whatever means.
Subhas Chandra Bose was the first to call Nehru’s bluff. In a frank letter in March 1939, Bose criticised Nehru for political misconduct, policy ambiguities and hypocrisy. In his reply, Nehru admitted to failings but insisted that he did what he did to avoid a split with Gandhi.
That loyalty to Gandhi was not based on ideological conviction. It was necessitated by Nehru’s belief that Gandhi’s political patronage was crucial to his rise in the Congress hierarchy. Gandhi declared at the AICC meeting in Wardha in 1942 that “Jawaharlal will be my successor… When I am gone, he will do what I am doing now. Then he will speak my language too.” But soon Gandhi, too, realised that Nehru wanted his patronage but never shared his thought process. A telling exchange took place between the two in 1945.
In a letter, Gandhi suggested that if the difference in outlook between the two was “fundamental”, the “public should also be made aware of it”. In his response, Nehru called Gandhi’s ideas expressed in Hind Swaraj “unreal” and bluntly told him that Congress “never considered that picture, much less adopted it”. He pleaded for the matter to be left to the independent nation. His agenda was clear. He wanted people to believe that he was the political heir of Gandhi while hiding the fact that he was not the ideological heir.
In early 1946, elections to the post of Congress president were proposed. Whoever became president would naturally have been the claimant to the prime ministership of the interim government to be formed later that year. Twelve out of the 15 PCCs proposed Sardar Patel for the post, while none proposed Nehru. Yet he threw his hat in the ring. “No PCC has put forward your name,” Gandhi told Nehru, hinting that he may stand down. Nehru refused, forcing J B Kripalani and Patel to withdraw.
Then came the Partition challenge. Gandhi was determined to avoid it, but not necessarily Nehru and others. There were opportunities like the Cabinet Mission Plan in 1946. The plan envisaged arranging provinces into three groups: Hindu-majority provinces in Group A, Muslim-majority provinces of the northwest in Group B, and Bengal and Assam in Group C. The central government would be limited to dealing with defence, foreign affairs and communications. Gandhi opposed it because it was a communal division, but the Congress Working Committee accepted it as it would have prevented Partition.
However, Nehru unilaterally called a press conference, where he insisted it was not to Congress’s liking that “we had a weak Centre”, and claimed that “the big probability is that, from any approach to the question, there will be no grouping”. This gave M A Jinnah, who was unhappy with the plan from the beginning, an excuse to wriggle out.
Then came the June 3 plan of Partition, which was hastily supported by Nehru and others. The plan created massive unrest in Congress, forcing Gandhi to personally intervene and pacify the agitated cadres.
That was what my column explained last week. While Gandhi was driven by the desire to keep the country one, Nehru was driven by the desire for power, even if it came at the cost of Partition.
The writer, president, India Foundation, is with the BJP
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