by Kuldip Nayar
Sardar Patel withdrew his resignation on Nehru’s insistence. Post Gandhi’s death the differences between Patel and Nehru had become more apparent. On Nehru’s part, he compromised with Patel on the creation of an Indian Administrative Service (IAS). The two had a different outlook on civil servants. Nehru did not want the Indian Civil Service (ICS) to continue as it was a relic of the past, of British imperialism. He had been hurt by the behaviour of the ICS during the freedom struggle. He felt they lacked patriotism. Patel changed the nomenclature, ICS, into Indian Administrative Service (IAS), but did not agree to disband it. He considered the service a steel frame, essential for governance. Many years later when I was the home ministry’s information officer, Bhola Nath Jha, home secretary, told me that the service should have been disbanded. His view was that the chief ministers in the states would be so powerful one day that they would use the IAS for their purpose, belittling the service. They would prefer obedient provincial cadres to the embarrassment and helplessness of a centrally administered All India Service like the IAS.
Nehru was, however, impressed by a few members of ICS working under him in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. To K.P.S. Menon, a senior ICS officer, he wrote, ‘their efficiency appeals to me’. He surprised everyone when he appointed Girja Shankar Bajpai, an ICS officer, secretary-general in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and came to depend upon him because he was highly impressed by his opinion and advice.
However, the gulf between Nehru and Patel was never bridged. Before China began encroaching on Indian soil, Patel warned Nehru that one day China would stab India in the back.
The constituent assembly was not my beat but I followed its proceedings with great diligence. It met for the first time on 9 December 1946. It was an open secret that Nehru and Patel between them decided on the principal issues and got them approved at the Congress meeting held virtually every evening. Although they had studied many constitutions and the law advisor, B.N. Rao, travelled around the world to garner all the information he could for the benefit of the constituent assembly, the eventual choice was the British parliamentary system with various modifications. Even our national movement had felt at home with the British parliament. The difference was that, as in the case of the US, ours was a written constitution unlike its British counterpart based on precedents and tradition. Our precedence and traditions dated only to the days when the British ruled us. The result was a strange mis-match that did not adequately translate the aspirations of people for a secure livelihood: Gandhi had promised everyone food, clothing, and shelter.
True, Dr B.R. Ambedkar, the dalit leader representing the poor, piloted the Constitution Bill but he differed very little from Nehru and Patel. Ambedkar’s strongest objection was to reservation for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes considering them to be ‘crutches’. It was with greatest difficulty that he was persuaded to agree to reservations for a period of ten years.
However, a committee, headed by Patel, offered reservations to Muslims in the constitution. But Muslim leaders rejected the offer and reportedly remarked that they did not want anything that would convey a sense of something separate or special being granted to them. They said they had suffered sufficiently for following a separatist agenda.
Nehru proposed Hindustani as India’s official language at a meeting of the Congress party held on the eve of constitutional assembly vote on Hindi. His apprehension was that Hindi might give rise to communal feelings because it had come to be associated with Hindus adding that Mahatma Gandhi favoured Hindustani.
Though Nehru’s proposal was defeated by just one vote, that of Gurmukh Singh Musafir from Punjab, Pant gave me a different version. He said that the division was on whether the numerals should be in Roman or Devnagri. Musafir voted for the Roman script and that was incorporated in the constitution. There was an overwhelming majority in favour of Hindi, said Pant. In the constituent assembly, the resolution to have Hindi as the national language was adopted without much opposition because Congressmen, in a majority in the constituent assembly, went by what their party had decided earlier.
Nehru was very particular about spelling out fundamental rights for the people and a provision that any citizen could approach the highest court for protection. This was an undertaking given by his father, Moti Lal Nehru, as far back as December 1927 when he was asked by the Congress session at Madras ‘to draft a constitution for India on the basis of the Declaration of Rights’.
I was present at one of the last sittings of the constituent assembly. Dr Rajendra Prasad, who was in the chair, said that theirs was the best constitution in the world and the finest minds would interpret it, by which he meant the judges. He went on to say that the best of men, meaning advocates, would argue on the different provisions but it was a pity that those who would frame the laws (members of parliament and state legislatures) were not required to have any educational qualifications.
Prime Minister Nehru said in reply that he agreed with Rajan Babu on the distinctiveness of the constitution which the best of minds would analyze and interpret. His problem, he said, was that when India was fighting for Independence, the best minds were the toadies of the British. The illiterate, the poor, and the backward were on our side, sacrificing all for the country. Should he prefer the toadies to them after India’s Independence?
Humayun Kabir and I would blame Jinnah for dividing the country on the basis of religion. The discussion sometime meandered to Nehru. Kabir would say that the fact that Nehru and Jinnah did not like each other personally was largely responsible for the Partition. He would criticize Nehru for not being ‘practical’ and for grafting his Western ideas on to the entirely different conditions in India. This mismatch, he said, was costing the nation heavily.
Kabir believed that Azad had come to realize after seeing Nehru’s functioning that Patel should have been India’s prime minister and Nehru the president of India. Coming as it did from an inveterate opponent of Patel, it was a revelation. Apparently, Azad, a great admirer of Nehru, had learnt after serving in his government that Patel, though conservative in his outlook, was pragmatic and down to earth. Nehru was too much of an idealist. A year earlier, Rajagopalachari had said the same thing: Nehru should be appointed governor general and Patel prime minister.
Patel was not the same after Gandhi’s death. His health was deteriorating rapidly. However, when Nehru created a ministry of states to deal with princely rulers, Patel asked for the charge as if he wanted to do something that would go down in history. Indeed, the country will always remember him for merging the princely states in India. When the British left, there were 564 princely states spread across India administering their own affairs under the supervision of British agents.
Rajas, maharajas, and nawabs, as they were addressed, ruled the states. The British had nurtured them to milk from them as much wealth they could. Later, when the British were about to quit India, they offered the Indian states three alternatives: one, to accede to India; two, to Pakistan; or to remain independent. London underlined the composition of the population and geographical proximity as being important when making their choice. The alternative given of remaining independent was the parting kick of the British who sought India’s balkanization after their departure.
Rulers vainly tried to group themselves into unions. Gandhi did not favour the idea, although Nehru was equivocal. Even before the British withdrawal, the Nawab of Bhopal, representing the chamber of princes, had made it clear (2 April 1946) that the Indian states wished to continue their existence with the maximum sovereignty possible. Many wanted to govern themselves. It was a combination of impudence and confusion.
Patel and V.P. Menon, once in Mountbatten entourage, began ‘disciplining’ them. Through pressure, persuasion, and allure, the two were able to get nearly all the princely rulers to join India. In reality, it was a show of strength. Menon, so to speak, had a pistol in one hand and the instrument of accession in the other. Rulers were permitted to have control over all
subjects, except defence, foreign affairs, and communications. Even this leeway was, however, only on paper as they were to subsequently discover. They were given a privy purse on integration with India and the title of Rajpramukh. How could such a title remain permanent in a democratic republic? I could see some resentment over the purse and the title, even though there was a widespread sense of relief that a coherent India had emerged. Both, the privy purse and the titles were abolished after some years. Justice M.C. Chagla, who served as a union minister, characterized the abolition as a ‘betrayal of contractual obligation’.
Indeed, the integration of states was a stupendous task, which Patel, with the active participation of Menon, largely brought about through finesse but partly through threat of force. Menon described the process thus: There was ‘aviary which possessed a rare collection of birds’. They were ‘captured’ one by one, apparently ‘on the principle of ahimsa’. Whatever Menon’s observation, the approach could best be described as accession at the point of a gun.
Menon had a long story to tell about Junagarh. Nawab Mohab Khan Rasul Khan Ji and Diwan Abdul Kadir Mohammad Hashim declared the state’s accession to Pakistan on 15 August 1947 itself. India was greatly perturbed because Junagarh was in the heart of Kathiawar, a preponderantly Hindu belt. Junagarh itself was a Hindu majority state. According to Menon, he had letters to prove that Jinnah had advised the Junagarh ruler in early 1947 to stay ‘firm’ and not to accede to India. However, when Patel sought military action, Nehru stopped him. Mountbatten wanted the matter to be referred to the UN. To stay ‘firm’, the nawab had appointed in early 1947, Shah Nawaz Bhutto, father of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, as the dewan. Under pressure from the Kathiawar rulers and New Delhi, the nawab flew to Pakistan, emptying the entire treasury but was soon disillusioned and wanted to return to Junagarh. He approached India’s high commissioner to Pakistan, Sri Prakash, to convey that he acceded to Patel’s wishes but New Delhi never responded. On 20 February 1948, a referendum was held in the state in the presence of foreign journalists. Only 91 votes were cast in favour of Pakistan against over two lakhs in favour of India.
Soon after the announcement on the transfer of power, the Nizam sent a message to Jinnah to find out if he would side with Hyderabad against India. Jinnah’s reply was that he would not endanger Pakistan for ‘a handful of efféte nobility’. A few weeks later, Jinnah said the same thing to Mountbatten: ‘The Hyderabad question is for the Nizam and his own government to decide.’ However, the regal manner in which Pakistan treated Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen, representatives of an organization of diehards from Hyderabad, evoked doubts about the Muslim League’s intentions. In fact, after one meeting with Jinnah at Karachi, the delegates remarked that they were going back to Hyderabad ‘fully satisfied’.
Patel reportedly offered Kashmir to Pakistan in exchange for Hyderabad’s accession to New Delhi. Liaquat Ali was inclined to accept, not knowing when the elusive Kashmir would be Pakistan’s. Patel and Liaquat Ali were on the same wavelength. The former was not interested in Kashmir and the latter disinterested in Hyderabad.
Jinnah declined Patel’s suggestion because he believed Kashmir would eventually come to Pakistan but the defiant Hyderabad would remain a thorn in India’s flesh. Lest his prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan or anyone else should compromise over Kashmir, Jinnah wrote in his notebook on 30 November 1947, as published in a book (Jinnah-Liaquat Correspondence, Ed. Muhammed Reza Kazimi): ‘Kashmir no commitment … should be made … without my approval of settlement. Mr Liaquat has agreed and promised to abide by the understanding.’
Sensing New Delhi’s determination to merge Hyderabad with India, the Nizam played with the idea of an autonomous state, relinquishing external affairs (minus foreign trade), defence, and communications to New Delhi. However, he could not go beyond the negotiating table because he was unable to stand up to threats by Qasim Razvi, chief of the Razakars (an irregular body of men in the Nizam’s police force). Razvi was leading the extremists who claimed to maintain ‘the supremacy of the Muslim power in the Deccan’.
The impression was growing that Hyderabad was being converted into a ‘Mini Pakistan’. People felt helpless and they looked to Patel because he was considered pragmatic in comparison to Nehru, who tended to get lost in diplomatic niceties.
So strained was the atmosphere that even Nehru had to say at a Congress party meeting (24 April 1948): ‘There are two courses now open to Hyderabad – war or accession.’ He later contradicted the report because the situation in the state had begun attracting world attention. Mountbatten assured New Delhi that he would have the Nizam issue a firman to hold a plebiscite.
I have studied the Partition documents published by the US State Department. They reveal that Hyderabad attempted ‘to establish direct relations with the British Crown, presumably to maintain a status completely separate from that of the rest of India’. There may be some truth in this, because a few London firms did enter into industrial agreements with businessmen from Hyderabad.
The activities of the Razakars irritated New Delhi. When they attacked Hindus travelling by train at Gangapur station in Hyderabad (22 May), they incensed people throughout India who were already criticizing the government for being ‘soft’ towards the Nizam. New Delhi asked the Nizam to allow entry of Indian troops at Secunderabad, Hyderabad’s twin city, to restore law and order but he, instead, appealed to the UN Security Council for intervention.
Reports circulating at the time said that even then Nehru was not in favour of marching troops into Hyderabad lest the matter be taken up by the UN. One story was that Nehru heard about the ‘police action’ only after troops had entered Hyderabad. When he tried to contact Patel, he was not ‘available’ and was told this was not possible because he was ill. Maniben, Patel’s devoted daughter, writes in her diary that Nehru tried his best to delay the operation.
It is true that Patel chafed at the ‘do-nothing attitude of the Indian government’ but it is inconceivable that a decision to send in troops could have been kept back from the prime minister. Nehru had an eye on international opinion to whose notice he wished to bring the Nizam’s intransigence.
Rumours were many. One was that India decided on its ‘police action’ on 13 September 1948, a day after Jinnah’s death, so as to obviate the possibility of Pakistan’s intervention (a Daily Telegraph correspondent told India’s high commissioner at Karachi at that time that but for Jinnah’s untimely death Pakistan would have intervened). K.M. Munshi, then New Delhi’s representative at Hyderabad, says in his book that the date was ‘set on 9 September, because the army authorities wanted three days’ notice in order to move troop’s right to their final position’.
The entire action, called ‘Operation Polo’, lasted five days. In his ‘Report of the Governor-General’ Mountbatten said that the operation plans were worked out during his visit to Burma from 8 to 16 March 1948. General Francis Robert Bucher, then India’s commander-in-chief, was opposed to the operation and asked Patel to postpone the action as there was a possibility of Pakistani air attacks on Ahmedabad and Bombay.
The quick end of the operation defused any possibility of the Security Council or, for that matter, any foreign power discussing the problem. As Nehru wrote to Patel in a letter (27 October) from Paris: ‘It was very fortunate that we could dispose of it rapidly. Otherwise reactions would have been very much adverse to us as it is very difficult to explain everything and the simple fact of a large country attacking a small one impressed people.’
Pakistan tried to initiate a debate on Hyderabad in the Security Council thrice on 6 October, 21 November, and 6 December 1948, but members showed little interest, particularly when the Nizam had himself withdrawn the complaint.
Many months later, when Laik Ali, once the Nizam’s prime minister, who had fled to Pakistan by then, was present at a party, Ghulam Mohammad, then Pakistan’s governor general, introduced him to India’s high commissioner saying: ‘He was your prisoner,’ to which the high commis
sioner retorted: ‘He is your prisoner now.’
Goa remained under the Portuguese for thirteen years after Independence. I think all pimples of colonialism should have been wiped clean soon after winning freedom. The French behaved better, first giving New Delhi de facto charge of Pondicherry and its other territories, and then transferring their de jure control. A plebiscite was held only in Chandannagar and the people chose India. (In May 1950, the French allowed the Indian government to assume de facto control over Chandannagar.)
I visited Pondicherry (now Puducherry) many years after its merger. The famous Ashram was the centre of attention and the Mother headed it still. I stood in a queue to receive a flower from her; one that was of a different colour than is usually the case. This meant the Mother was ‘pleased’ with me. How? I had never met her before. There was a serene tranquillity about her, although her neck was shaking because of Parkinson’s disease. Pondicherry still retained something of a French ambience. Apart from the buildings, the Ashram had an air of spiritualism. I felt at peace there. This has happened to me rarely – when something within had tugged me to sit in a lonely place and pray.
The French had left behind goodwill. This was in contrast to Lisbon’s behaviour. Portugal, under Antonio Salazar, a dictator, refused to vacate Goa. Nehru expected Lisbon to withdraw before long. When that did not happen, many in India felt Nehru was afraid of annoying the West, which they suspected was ganging up against India on Goa.
In one way this was correct. I felt the US was exerting pressure on Nehru. He was himself against a forcible takeover lest it should mar his image as a conciliator in settlement of international disputes. To allay angry public opinion in India, he would say that solving a problem by hitting an adversary with a club was not the right way. When his opponents raised a crescendo of criticism against him, he said he did not wish to resort to arms.