Rajaji

by Rajmohan Gandhi

  In 1965 C.R. and Namagiri moved out of the Bazlulla Road house — now too small to contain C.R., Namagiri, Narasimhan, Thangam and Thangam’s four grown sons — and into a new house on Naoroji Road in Chetput. This two-bedroom dwelling had the advantage of being almost next-door to Kalki Gardens, where Swarajya was produced.

  By the middle of 1966 he had five great-grandchildren. Almost all were named by him. Learning that granddaughter Tara had given birth to a boy, he sent her a message, ‘Welcome to Vinayak.’ The boy was duly named Vinayak. To grandson Ramchandra and his wife Indu, living in Oxford at the time, who were wondering whether the child they were expecting should be born in England or India, he wrote: ‘Why should I not have a great-grandchild born in Oxford?’ Gopal, learning the vina, was told:

  I can’t make out sa from pa any more than I can distinguish a present-day Congressman from a Communist. But keep your voice going along with the vina. If you are shy about the voice, the vina will never enter your bones.

  Now and again C.R. would be his age and reminisce. Replying to Mountbatten who had written praising C.R.’s English, he said:

  I am flattered. I attribute whatever I have done with English to a Globe edition of Goldsmith’s Complete Works and a Spectator volume giving all the essays of Addison, Steele and his colleagues in that journal. I read these two books voraciously at the age of 16 and enjoyed it. (3.12.66).

  He had not abandoned the hyperbole or the sweeping remark. Asked to recall his impressions of Sarojini Naidu, he termed her, quite simply, ‘the sweetest, acutest, kindest, noblest of my dear colleagues.’8 And when a Bengali Brahmin wrote wanting to know whether the children of C.R.’s daughter Lakshmi could be deemed Brahmins, he replied:

  I answer your question according to the old law . . . Ramu, my daughter Lakshmi’s son is not a Brahmana. My daughter’s brahmanhood cannot get down to her son through Devadas Gandhi. But Ramu is better than any Brahmana.9

  Occasionally, his free-flowing pen gave offence but he could make clean amends, as he did to Balraj Puri who had felt hurt by phrases C.R. had used:

  I accept the rebuke administered by you in your letter . . . I tender my apology. Kind regards. (2.3.66).

  A letter written some months earlier could merit a place in any anthology of great apologies. Its recipient was Dr N.B. Khare of Nagpur. Ever since 1938, when the Congress High Command removed him from the Premiership of the Central Provinces, Khare had nursed and poured out great bitterness against Gandhi, C.R. and the Congress movement generally. In June 1965 he sent C.R. a copy of his memoirs in which the ancient grudge was one more spelt out. In acknowledgement, C.R. wrote :

  My dear Doctor Khare, I thank you most sincerely for sending me your autobiography with your autographed inscription. Many years have passed . . . since the historic occasion when you were treated badly by a powerful organization which did not suffer from any lack of arrogance.

  One can now laugh over all the phases of this quarrel and over the various events which display pride, folly, lamentable passion and incompetence. But I can quite understand the proud and honest spirit in you which keeps you still angry, and unforgiving. Most of the people involved are dead . . .

  I have kept no diary or notes and many points are out of my memory . . . I beg of you to pardon me for anything I did in those days which hurt your feelings. You are only four years younger than me. God bless you.

  The previous year, as Kamaraj would later recall, Rajaji had gone unexpectedly to Madras’s Congress headquarters to greet Kamaraj on his 61st birthday. Pronouncing a blessing on his adversary, C.R. said: ‘You should live longer than me.’10

  He continued to make and challenge phrases:

  On the licence raj, Swarajya, 15.1.66: This permit-licence-raj is not a bee in my bonnet but a great big boa-constrictor that has coiled itself around the economy.

  On Nagas and Mizos, Swarajya, 12.3.66: Let us drop phrases and headlines about ‘dealing firmly with rebels’ and such-like, and adopt words encouraging a sense of equality and self- respect . . .

  On fear and freedom, Swarajya, 14.5.66: Fear in citizens is the enemy of freedom from domestic misrule. Dear reader, whatever your age and your profession may be, do not murder the truth that arises from time to time in your heart.

  After a year of Indira Gandhi’s Premiership, fresh elections would be due. Drought, strikes, inflation and riots had damaged Congress’s position. C.R. acknowledged Indira’s withdrawal of Gold Control and the modest deregulation of industry she announced; and he thanked her for instructing the quick clearance of medicine imported for his needs. But, after a visit by Indira to Moscow, he took her to task for ‘allow[ing] the “Imperialists and reactionaries” phrase in the Moscow joint communique’ (28.7.66).

  And he approached the elections with zest, even though defections and deaths had hurt Swatantra. The potent but self- willed Raja of Ramgarh had to be expelled from the party in 1964. In UP, Paliwal, unable to get along with the Raja of Manakpur, had resigned; two years later, the Raja himself died. Others with stature or influence who had died included V.P. Menon, A.D. Shroff and Udham Singh Nagoke.

  But there had been significant accretions, especially in Gujarat and Rajasthan, and in Madras Rajaji had worked out a promising arrangement with the DMK. In these three states, and even more in Orissa, there was a possibility of Swatantra winning a share in power.

  Once more Swatantra ran well behind Congress in the race for funds. ‘When I go to beg for money,’ C.R. complained, ‘I find that the industrial companies have given to the Congress five to ten times the dole I could get . . .’ (Swarajya, 11.2.67).

  In August 1966, with elections six months away, C.R. suffered his worst illness in decades. All strength seemed to leave his body and his mind. For the first time in ten years, Swarajya appeared without his thoughts, and continued to do so for weeks. But C.R. rallied, and on 29 October the two initials were seen again below the Dear Reader column. Slowly, aided by the therapy of a few hundred daily paces inside the Naoroji Road house, he reacquired some of his energy.

  Ever since the 1963 victories of Kripalani, Lohia and Masani, all three of whom were backed by a united opposition, C.R. had striven hard for joint action by Congress’s adversaries. In Orissa, Swatantra and the Jana Congress agreed both on a common programme and on seat-sharing. In Rajasthan, Swatantra and the Jan Sangh agreed only on seats.

  In Madras, C.R. and Annadurai engineered a DMK-led front where Swatantra had a decidedly junior role. The need to find common ground with other parties affected Swatantra’s and even Rajaji’s pronouncements. ‘Good government’ was emphasized more than ‘limited government.’

  When elections were three months away, J.P. said he was hoping for a non-party government. Seizing on the suggestion, C.R. asked J.P. to take the step that could lead to it:

  In order to further this project, it is necessary that an outstanding personality without any party affiliation should be among those returned to Parliament. I appeal therefore most earnestly to Sri Jayaprakash Narayan to offer himself as a candidate (Swarajya, 24.12.66).

  C.R. had seen at once that if J.P. and Nehru’s daughter both went to the polls, the Indian public would be able, for the first time, to choose a Prime Minister out of two attractive candidates. However, J.P., who was not yet ready to take on Indira Gandhi, expressed his regrets.

  All handicaps notwithstanding, C.R. was producing attacking phrases. The use of Defence of India Rules and a spate of amendments had ‘killed the Constitution.’ Congress policies had let to ‘economic sycophancy at America’s door and political satellitism under Soviet Russia.’

  According to a biographer of Mrs Gandhi, C.R. at this stage was ‘ebullient’ and giving ‘the most damning strictures,’ stronger than those of Kripalani or Lohia, though also showing warmth towards Indira as a person.11 Also noting C.R.’s ‘unparalleled zeal to achieve his object of liquidating the Congress,’ The Hindu asked, ‘Is there a Congress leader on the horizon with equal vigour and d
etermination?’

  A month before the polling, illness hit C.R. again, frustrating his wish to be ‘whirling about all over India’ (Swarajya, 4.3.67). But he had done his bit, as had others. The result was a significant setback for Congress. Though it again won a majority in the Lok Sabha (280 seats out of 520), Congress’s strength there was slashed by almost a hundred seats, and it was humbled and dismissed in eight states, including — to Rajaji’s great delight — Madras.

  Swatantra’s Lok Sabha contingent was doubled from 22 to 44, with Gujarat, Madras and Orissa sending more Swatantra MPs than Congress ones. In Gujarat 66 Swatantra MLAs won as against 26 in 1962; in Rajasthan the improvement was from 38 to 49. In Orissa, Swatantra formed the government, with the Jana Congress as junior partner.

  The Congress monopoly was at last over. Sweetest of all, for C.R., were the Orissa and Madras results. Not only was Congress routed in the southern province, Kamaraj lost his seat to a student leader and every central minister contesting from Madras was defeated. ‘A virus is sweeping over Madras,’ declared Bhaktavatsalam, the defeated Chief Minister, but C.R. saw a ‘burst of political health’ (Swarajya, 18.3.67).

  When Annadurai, leading Madras’s new DMK Ministry, asked DMK MLAs to differentiate between party and government and not to pressurize permanent officials, a delighted C.R. said, ‘I ask for nothing more of the DMK’ (Swarajya, 11.3.67).

  His room in West Madras contained no TV (not yet brought to Madras) and no radio (his ears were no good for one). It did not even have a desk: he wrote, reclining, on an easy chair, on a clipboard. He kept no library and a minimum of reference books — a large-type Sanskrit Gita, an old leather-bound Bible, some dictionaries. Books lent by others were devoured and returned, and journals sent gratis told him of what was happening in the world.

  His bed of hard wood had a foam mattress wrapped in khadi. Next to the bed was an easy chair, a strong reading lamp, a bench and a small table. On the last two rested his reading glasses, a torch, two pocket watches, two old pens, one finely- sharpened pencil, a magnifying glass, an engagement diary, a scribbling pad, and the reference books.

  He would rise at 6.30 or so, take his coffee and vitamin pills, glance at the headlines, shave, have his bath and exercise his fingers by washing his hand-towel, exercise his legs with a careful stick-aided walk inside the house or in its small yard, and sit down at 9.00 a.m. or so for his morning meal, call it breakfast or lunch. After a rest, he would write or dictate to Murali (his new secretary) and have him read out any important items in the day’s newspapers. He would lie down again till 2.00 or 2.30 p.m. and then, after a tumbler of coffee, write a bit again and, if feeling up to it, receive visitors.

  The ‘evening’ meal would follow and then a dusk-hour drive to the sea-front, where he might walk a few steps or watch boys improvising a game of cricket. Returning home at 6.30 or 7.00 p.m., he would relax in the living room — to which the front-door led — on another hard-wood khadi-covered bed with a foam mattress, his back resting against a high, hard and round pillow.

  Narasimhan or Lakshmi, who had moved from Delhi to Madras, and perhaps some grandchildren would call at this stage, which would close with a cup of Complan. Lights were switched off at 8.30 p.m. or 9.00. Assisting her father without pause, cooking and washing for him, available to him round the clock, Namagiri slept six short quick steps away in the living- room.

  Of some of his initiatives the Press was totally unaware. Before Congress MPs had re-elected her as Premier, C.R. wrote to Indira Gandhi with a prediction and a suggestion:

  Be assured you will continue . . . You will not be displaced for I still give credit for a moderate modicum of wisdom to your party. But for God’s sake do not put some woolly-headed dreamer or V.K.R.V. Rao or any such raw hand as Finance Minister . . . I strongly advise you to persuade and put pressure on Sri Morarji Desai to accept the Finance Minister’s place and be Deputy PM also. Forgive my intrusion (2.3.67).

  Indira carried out the suggestion regarding Desai but when Rajaji proposed that she should lead a national government — six states were out of Congress’s hands, C.R. pointed out, and two or three others were ‘held by very slender strings’ (13.3.67) — Indira replied that that was not ‘a workable proposition.’ (18.3.67) An undeterred Rajaji offered her fresh advice:

  The problem cannot be solved unlesss (1) you get rid explicitly of the Fourth Plan . . . (2) you get rid of the spanner in your works, my dear friend Asoka Mehta, sending him if you like as our envoy in Yugoslavia to observe practical socialism and (3) get rid of the Planning Commission along with him (23.6.67).

  Despite his warmth towards Zakir Husain, traceable to the Khilafat days of the early twenties, C.R. supported the candidate opposing Husain in the contest for a President to replace Radhakrishnan, whose term was over. This was Subba Rao, who was about to retire as the Chief Justice. Helped above all by Congress’s large Rajya Sabha majority, Husain defeated Subba Rao.

  The new President was approached by C.R. over the detained Sheikh Abdullah. In Swarajya C.R. had written that India could not be called democratic if Abdullah was kept ‘in life-long detention’ (10.6.67). To Husain, C.R. privately proposed that Abdullah be given power again in Kashmir. If the President did not think this ‘quixotic,’ he should ‘share the idea with Mrs Gandhi.’ Four months later he sent the President a reminder and asked if his proposal had gone into the w.p.b.

  All you say, directly or indirectly, is inscribed on my heart. I had soon after getting your first letter discussed it with the people concerned. But as I could not report any progress, I did not write to you . . . I shall continue to follow up your suggestion (30.10.67).

  Two months later, the Sheikh was released. Now C.R. publicly suggested his re-installation at the head of Kashmir’s government. Indira took time — over seven years — to agree. In February 1975 Abdullah would return as Chief Minister.

  As anxious to dethrone Congress as C.R. was Rammanohar Lohia, the brilliant, impassioned Socialist. In May 1967, Lohia called on C.R. and urged him to ‘do some fresh thinking . . . on how to make our people work, whether for bread or for . . . change.’ His own solution for Indian apathy, Lohia said, was a programme of ‘equality through prosperity and prosperity through equality.’

  Replying frankly, C.R. said that the slogan of equality was ‘an unreal carrot’ and would fail. The only way to achieve ‘a mass upsurge of industriousness’ was through ‘just reward for honest labour’ and a package of ‘incentives, positive and negative.’ Lohia recalled an incident of 1934, when Rajaji was a key figure in the Congress high command:

  Rajaji threatened me, of course with a smile and suavity of which he is a peerless master, with a Working Committee resolution which had condemned the Congress Socialist Party and its talk of class struggle. I said that I did not care a tuppence for the resolution . . . I was only 24 at the time. Rajaji answered that he had expected me to swear in Russian currency and he was surprised that I still swore in Brtish currency! (Swarajya, 1.7.67)

  Five months after their talk, Lohia died. He was 57. C.R. wrote (Swarajya, 21.10.67):

  The play is over with Rammanohar Lohia . . . We have lost one of the few honest, dynamic figures in our public life. Lohia detested the passivity of people who desired things but would not work for them. He was angry with people who were not as angry as they should be.

  A key factor in his bid to oust Congress was Annadurai or, as he was increasingly called, Anna, the new Madras Chief Minister. A powerful writer and speaker, Anna had put secessionism and anti-Brahminism behind him and was tolerant and open to discussion. Through Anna, C.R. hoped to influence the DMK ideologically, but E.V.R. and the Communists were also wooing the Chief Minister. Unlike some of Annadurai’s friends. C.R. was also willing to criticize the Madras government:

  Madras is unique . . . Its present leaders spend more time, energy and imagination in changing names and words in general use than in the substantive business of the state . . . Fresh words have tak
en the place of ‘post office,’ ‘police station’ ‘cheque,’ ‘postcard,’ ‘bicycle,’ etc . . . [But the public continues to] say ‘conductor,’ ‘driver,’ ‘self-starter,’ ‘railway station,’ etc (Swarajya, 24.8.67).

  Agreeing on English as the country’s link language, C.R. and Annadurai disagreed over the medium of teaching in the colleges and universities of Madras, C.R. preferring English and Anna Tamil. Another difference was over lotteries, which, along with some other state governments, Madras had decided to operate. To C.R., lotteries were an immoral and possibly unconstitutional ‘means of robbing the poor’ (Swarajya, 31.8.68).

  But when Annadurai declared that he would call that official ‘my best friend who, when he sees me making a mistake, tells me boldly that I am wrong,’ C.R. hailed it as ‘the most important pronouncement by a Madras Chief Minister in recent times.’ (Swarajya, 17.8.68). A month later, Annadurai was afflicted by cancer. He was flown to New York for surgery, which was declared successful. C.R. reassured Annadurai:

  The skill and care of Dr Miller and the prayers of thousands of men and women have served to put you on the way to recovery. But you have to re-arrange your daily routine . . . You should not convert night into day and day into night . . . You have to avoid all forms of tobacco — snuff, smoking and chewing (24.9.68).

  Annadurai to C.R.: I shall ever remember the kind words from you. I am making all efforts to act up to your advice — the snuff habit . . . Though from time to time I feel the anxiety about the political situation in our country, I get confidence from the fact that you are there to guide my colleagues and lead our people . . . The thoughts you have so patiently been sowing have not fallen on barren land . . . (11.10.68).