C.R.’s worst fears came true. There was no demand for the 14- carat-jewellery that Desai sought to popularize. Tens of thousands of goldsmiths found they had no work — some committed suicide.
C.R. was not alone in asking for the scrapping of Gold Control and for Morarji’s resignation. The latter came, in a curious fashion, in August 1963. Gold Control went three years later.
In May 1963 Congress lost two crucial Lok Sabha by-elections, both fought in Nehru’s home state, UP — and lost them to two of Jawaharlal’s sharpest critics, Acharya Kripalani and Ram Manohar Lohia. C.R. was jubilant:
The spell is broken. The tide has turned. The head of the government is no longer a god but a replaceable representative of the people (Swarajya, 1.6.63).
Feeling new blood in his veins, he travelled to Rajkot, where, in a third by-election, Masani was battling in a Congress stronghold. Though C.R. experienced ‘the heat of a bakery oven’ — it was June — he helped Masani win.
As the Opposition’s morale rose, that of Congressmen sank. Aware that Congress was declining in Madras as well, Kamaraj came up with the idea that he would resign as Chief Minister and devote himself to party work.
Nehru not only allowed Kamaraj to switch; he applied the Kamaraj Plan, as it was soon called, to many others. All Chief Ministers and Ministers at the centre were asked to ‘renounce’ office and give their resignations to Nehru, who would accept some and return others.
In the event, Nehru accepted the ‘resignations’ of four of his ministerial colleagues — Desai, Lai Bahadur Shastri, Jagjivan Ram and S.K. Patil — and two Chief Ministers besides Kamaraj — Kairon of Punjab and Patnaik of Orissa. In the phrase of the day, these men were ‘Kamaraj-ed.’
To the masses the exercise was presented as evidence of self- denial in Congress, but C.R. underlined the foot-dragging of some of the Kamaraj-ed and rubbed in the fact that Nehru himself did not go near the sacrificial pyre. Rather the contrary.
The stunt has proved a farce . . . Sri Nehru was unanimously asked to remain as PM and given discretion and power to order people to the funeral pyre . . . Murder, so to say, has taken the place of the proposed sati (Swarajya, 31.8.63).
With guns going silent at the borders, C.R. had felt free to sharpen his criticisms of Nehru. The P.M. was ‘playing down corruption.’ In his ‘permit-licence-quota system, money, unlike water, was flowing upwards,’ aggravating disparities in wealth. ‘One of the most enlightened and finest national figures in Asia’ had been ‘sadly transformed into a partyman.’ He had ‘personal lustre’ but was ‘not made or brought up’ for the tasks of administration. And he was a ‘narcissist.’ Wrote C.R.: ‘Jawaharlal Nehru fell early in life in deep love with his own image, and that passion has not worn off, but has grown with age.’3
In January 1964, Nehru had a heart attack. Replying, on her father’s behalf, to a wire C.R. had sent, Indira Gandhi said: ‘The gesture and the wording are so typical of you. It cheered us both. My father is already much better but will have to rest for some time and pay far more heed to the doctors.’4
During his illness Nehru took one major decision: he released Sheikh Abdullah, who had been in detention for eleven years. His people gave the Sheikh a hero’s welcome. Then, inviting Abdullah to Delhi and putting him up at the PM’s residence, Nehru discussed with him the possibility of a solution to which India, Pakistan and the people of Kashmir might agree.
Predictably, Rajaji welcomed the development and talked for three hours with Abdullah, who had travelled to Madras to meet C.R. The talks seemed promising:
Sheikh Abdullah and Kashmir have come into the scene so that a fresh beginning can be made without loss of face or grace.
We should demonstrate to Pakistan, unmistakably, that the people of Kashmir desire to be affiliated to India. That alone will stop its mouth. To shirk this process, because it may turn out that they want to be unattached either to Pakistan or to India and remain nonaligned but friendly is not quite fair (Swarajya, 16.5.64).
Was Nehru prepared, as Rajaji seemed to be, to reopen, even if only partially, the question of Kashmir’s accession to India? It looks as if he was, for, fully knowing the Sheikh’s mind, he sent him to Pakistan for talks with Ayub. Some Congress leaders voiced indirect but obvious disapproval. Shiva Rao wrote to C.R.
There is a clear attempt both from within the Cabinet and in Parliament to prevent the Prime Minister from coming to terms with Sheikh Abdullah if it should mean the reopening of the issue of accession. Many of these Ministers have made public statements . . . It is a sign of the diminishing prestige of the P.M. . . . (11.5.64).
C.R. to Shiva Rao: I am afraid PM is not now and will not be in the near future strong enough to think and act in defiance of the unfortunate chauvinism choking Delhi (12.5.64).
All the same, Abdullah went to Pakistan, talked with Ayub and phoned Nehru claiming progress. ‘Will Ayub come to Delhi?’ Nehru asked. Apparently Pakistan’s President was willing. Within a week, on 27 May, Jawaharlal died in Delhi of a stroke! Aghast, C.R. knew at once that rapprochement was dead too. Only Nehru could have reconciled India to any change over Kashmir.
So Nehru was dead. How close he and C.R. had been — as comrades in the struggle for liberty, as leaders of Congress’s pro- Allies wing in 1940-1, as partners in government from 1946 to 1954, and finally, just before Nehru’s death, over Kashmir. And how they had differed — over office acceptance in 1937, over the Pakistan demand in the early forties, and over socialism throughout. For a while they had been rivals or alternatives too. Why else would the Mahatma have said in 1942, ‘Not Rajaji but Jawaharlal will be my successor’? And since the mid-fifties they had fought as political enemies.
Newsmen were impatient for C.R.’s reaction. He wrote it out (27.5.64):
Eleven years younger than me, eleven times more important for the nation, and eleven hundred times more beloved of the nation, Sri Nehru has suddenly departed from our midst and I remain alive to hear the sad news from Delhi — and bear the shock . . . I am unable yet to gather my wits. I have been fighting Sri Nehru all these ten years for what I consider faults in public policies. But I knew all along that he alone could get them corrected . . . A beloved friend is gone, the most civilized person among us all. God save our people.5
He had thought of going to the funeral in Delhi. On his word Namagiri had packed his things. Then, picturing the crush of converging multitudes, he changed his mind. Not going would at least save him from any association, alleged or actual, with the intrigues of succession.
Gulzari Lal Nanda, the Home Minister whom the President had named acting Premier, was willing to succeed Nehru. So was Jagjivan Ram. So were Desai and Shastri. Barring Nanda, all had ‘renounced’ power under the Kamaraj scheme the previous year.
The real contest was between Desai and Shastri. C.R.’s clear preference was for Shastri. In a private letter, he told Lal Bahadur so and added that he would be chosen. The prediction was not difficult to make — Congress’s regional bosses had indicated their distaste for Morarji. Kamaraj, who had become party president in the reshuffle his plan had caused, took a private poll of party MPs and announced that Shastri was their choice.
A year before Nehru’s death, another occupant of the old guard room had departed: Rajendra Prasad, whose Presidential terms had ended in 1962. Rajaji’s Swatantra bid had earned Prasad’s admiration. In his tribute Rajaji called Prasad ‘a trusty friend, a good soul and an angel on earth,’ and added: ‘We stood together from the beginning of our adventure for national freedom. Our comradeship and our mutual affection were never disturbed by any misunderstanding whatsoever’ (Swarajya, 9.3.63).
‘We five’ was a phrase Nehru had used in 1949 for Patel, Prasad, Azad, Rajaji and himself — the Mahatma’s senior team. All except C.R. were now dead. But at 85 C.R. did not seem close to his own departure — he was still capable of climbing unaided to the top berth of a train compartment.
World trends continued to interest or trouble him
. Thus ‘the calm matter-of-fact way’ in which American journals referred to ‘pornographic stuff . . . without any nineteenth-century hesitation or revulsion’ was ‘most alarming’ (Swarajya, 16.11.63).
Among his visitors was old Dame Flora MacLeod—petite, charming and an engaging conversationalist —, the first woman chief of her ancient Scottish clan. Rajaji had read of her home, Dunvegan Castle, the abode of the MacLeod chiefs, in Boswell’s account of his journey with Dr Johnson to the Hebrides. ‘How old are you?’ he asked Dame Flora. ‘Eighty-five.’ ‘In what month were you born?’ She told him. ‘Then I can’t marry you,’ Rajaji volunteered. ‘A Hindu is not supposed to marry a woman older than him.’
Periodically, through an advance copy of a Swarajya article, C.R. would offer advice to Lal Bahadur Shastri. Occasionally, Lal Bahadur would act on it. When he did not, which was oftener, his apologies were courteously couched.
But he took care not to be isolated. Shortly after he assumed office, Jayaprakash Narayan, as ardent a votary of Indo-Pak amity as C.R., led a goodwill mission to Pakistan and returned with a Kashmir formula that Ayub was evidently willing to consider. Shastri told J.P. that he liked the solution but could not put it across. India’s political caste would oppose it, he said.
Valuing J.P.’s efforts, C.R. sent him, via Shiva Rao, his ‘respect, hope and affection.’ In being true to themselves, Rajaji and J.P. had alienated many Indians. Though Masani’s views tallied with Rajaji’s, other leading members of Swatantra invoked Principle 21 to voice their disapproval of Rajaji’s position on Pakistan and Kashmir. Because of it, Dahyabhai Patel complained, ‘our party has become unpopular.’ Munshi said that Abdullah’s release was a mistake.
C.R. to Dahyabhai: Sri Munshi is wholly wrong about Abdullah. Sri Jayaprakash is right. Keep together and be brave . . . It is a pity I often seem to be a drag on the party. But if you all wish to throw me away and be free to sail with the others, I shall welcome it (23.4.64).
C.R. to Masani: I feel you and I should go on as we have been doing, not shape our views in order to line up with the public view (April 1964).
C.R.’s stand on Hindi was an additional dilemma for his supporters in the North. The Constitution had directed that on 26 January 1965 Hindi should replace English as the official language. However, Shastri declared that English would continue for as long as the South desired. On the other hand, Desai and some other Congress leaders advocated a firm deadline for a switch to Hindi. Crying wolf, Rajaji asked for a suspension of the constitutional directive. The DMK did likewise, in sharper language.
Critics accused C.R. of lacking in patriotism. Warning that imposition of Hindi could rekindle secessionism in the DMK, C.R. wrote (Swarajya, 27.2.65):
English for unity, say I, over and over again. I shall plead for it as long as my breath lasts, for the love I bear for my country.
In May 1965 Pakistan crossed the border in the Rann of Kutch, and Abdullah was rearrested. C.R. termed the latter step ‘neither moral nor statesmanlike,’ and Abdullah ‘a friend of India, not an enemy’ (Swarajya, 15 & 22.5.65). J.P. spoke similarly, but the two were in a hopeless minority.
China, meanwhile, to C.R.’s great concern, was drawing Pakistan to her side. In a letter (3.6.65), he warned President Radhakrishnan that ‘a China-Pak combination’ was ‘afoot’ and added: ‘We must divorce Pakistan from China or make the combine a publicly acknowledged arrangement.’ For this purpose, he proposed — to Radhakrishnan and also to Chester Bowles, the American Ambassador, and John Freeman, the U.K. High Commissioner — a conference of ‘high-grade representatives of America, Britain, Pakistan and India’ at which ‘the question must be bluntly raised and settled, whether Pakistan intends to collaborate with China.’
Putting Pakistan on the spot was acceptable to the Indian government, but not involving the West in the exercise. C.R.’s proposal was turned down.
Three months later, India and Pakistan were at war. Indian soldiers and airmen gave an excellent account of themselves during three hard-fought weeks and recaptured some of the prestige lost in 1962. The Pakistanis also fought determinedly, but their Patton tanks and quicker planes were worsted by skill on the ground and the Gnat in the air. Prodded by both America and the Soviet Union, the UN obtained a cease-fire.
C.R.’s support to the defence effort was instant and wholehearted. Convinced that China had egged Pakistan on and would long remain a menace, he proposed, at a public meeting in Madras, the recruitment of an army of two million soldiers. It would be an ‘anti-Chinese wall,’ he said.
However, recalling that ‘every day has its separate duties, and so indeed every hour,’ he swiftly returned, as did J.P., to the advantages of an Indo-Pak settlement and the shortsightedness of Indian rigidity over Kashmir. When ‘firmly accepted truths in the physical sciences’ were being modified, ‘dogmatism about the liquid truths of political life’ bore no sense (Swarajya, 9.10.65).
There were demonstrations near C.R.’s house. His arrest was demanded. He replied in Swarajya (30.10.65):
There may be any amount of pressure. I am conscientiously unable to give up my faith in the principle of self-determination. Out of it was born Indian freedom . . .
Our military answer to Pakistan’s challenge was as right as it was successful. Let us never bend our necks to brute force . . . But let us ever be loyal to fundamental moral principles.
The Madras Chief Minister, Bhaktavatsalam, thought that action was called for. The Defence of India Rules were invoked, C.R.’s articles cited as being ‘likely to lead the public to question the territorial integrity of India,’ and prosecutions launched against Sadasivam, Swarajya’s publisher — whose wife, M.S. Subbulakshmi, was raising money for the jawans through her voice — and Pothan Joseph, the editor. C.R. shot off a letter to Radhakrishnan:
Action should be taken against me . . . The truth of the matter, viz., that I am to be gagged cannot be hidden from the world by such stratagems (1.12.65).
He sent similar letters to Shastri, Home Minister Nanda, and Bhaktavatsalam. Understanding better than Madras the implications of silencing Rajaji, the Centre asked Bhaktavatsalam to withdraw the prosecutions. ‘I take it as a victory for freedom of dissent,’ said C.R. (Swarajya, 8.1.66).
Shastri, in fact, had become bolder regarding a settlement with Pakistan. In a letter to Rajaji (15.10.65), he had described as ‘specially important’ C.R.’s line about ‘the liquid truths in political life’ — one of the lines that made the Madras government nervous!
Soon after this, Shastri accepted an invitation from Premier Kosygin of the Soviet Union for an Indo-Pak summit with Ayub Khan at Tashkent, in Kosygin’s presence. Behind the Soviet initiative lay concern about China’s influence over Pakistan. To Peking’s chagrin, Ayub also accepted Kosygin’s invitation.
In a letter C.R. conveyed his blessings to Lal Bahadur. In Swarajya he wrote (25.12.65): ‘May God bless this enterprise and not allow it to go as one more addition to the limbo of the might-have-beens, like my formula for satisfying Jinnah’s demands.’ And he advised that Shastri should propose an Indo- Pak zone ‘without tariffs or duties or customs of any kind’ (Swarajya, 1.1.66).
Opening on 4 January 1966, the summit was close to breaking down five days later when an almost desperate intervention by Kosygin turned the tide. Agreement was reached on the vexed question of the return of bits of territory India and Pakistan had gained or lost in the recent conflict, and on rejecting war as a means of solving disputes.
After signing the agreement, Shastri dictated a few letters, including one to Rajaji: ‘I am sure you will agree with what we have done in Tashkent and it would get your full support. Trust you are keeping well.’6 But Shastri was not destined to sign the letter. Within hours he suffered a fatal heart attack.
A stunned C.R. wrote that Shastri’s going had ‘set a sacred seal on the pledges given at Tashkent’ (Swarajya, 15.1.66).
Kamaraj and the other Congress chieftains identified Indira Gandhi as Lal Ba
hadur’s most suitable successor. As Nehru’s daughter, and as a woman, she would appeal to the masses — with elections only a year away, this was a key consideration. Secondly, as one lacking a political base of her own, she would be dependent on the chieftains. Asking what crime he had committed, Morarji Desai threw his hat in the ring and demanded a vote of Congress MPs. Indira secured 355 preferences, Desai 186.
As alive as the Congress bosses to Indira’s vote-getting potential, C.R. was enraged: ‘The nation wanted a Prime Minister but the party wanted a mascot and has secured it . . . The Nehru family has come in handy’ (Swarajya, 29.1.66). He spoke, too, of ‘marionettes pulled by wire-pullers,’ and a Swarajya cartoon sketched Indira as a girl in skirts surrounded by fierce- looking tree-trunks bearing the faces of Kamaraj, Jagjivan Ram and Atulya Ghosh, who was West Bengal’s Congress chief. It was captioned, ‘Babe in the Woods.’
If he did not fall sick or break his bones, it was in part because of the precautions C.R. took. R.K. Narayan has given us a picture of these, based on a night-stop by Rajaji, 86 at the time, at Narayan’s home in Yadavagiri in what was then called Mysore state:
He arrived (from Tellichery) nearly at midnight, went to his room, inspected the bed, measured how many steps he would have to lake from the bed to the bathroom, asked if the floor was polished, and if the door of the bathroom opened out or in, mentioned the time at which he needed hot water in the morning, and how much — exactly a bucketful, neither more nor less. At six I knocked at his door and found him ready for the day, after a bath and change of dress, busy writing . . . At seven he came to the dining table and breakfasted on one idli and a few spoons of uppumav, finishing it with a small measure of coffee, and left at 7.30 by car for Bangalore.7
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