Within weeks, however, Nehru sparked off a crisis, remarking publicly that he had consented to the new Working Committee ‘against his better judgement’. Patel’s reaction was that the remark had left the majority in ‘a humiliating position in which I for one would not agree to stay at any cost’. Seven members (Patel, Prasad, C.R., Kripalani, Bajaj, Jairamdas Daulatram and Shankarrao Deo) sent in their resignations.28
Nehru’s response was to offer to resign himself, but Gandhi intervened and all resignations and offers to resign were withdrawn. ‘I look upon the whole affair as a tragicomedy,’ Gandhi said to Jawaharlal, who had complained of intolerance from his colleagues, asking him not to compel the Congress to choose between him and them. Added Gandhi: ‘If they are guilty of intolerance, you have more than your share of it. The country should not be made to suffer for your mutual intolerance.’29
Cooperation and even harmony soon arrived, helped by the elections, due early in 1937, where success was desired by supporters as well as opponents of office-acceptance. But in May came a blow: Dr Ansari died at the age of fifty-six.
In a tribute (16 May) in Harijan, ‘A Great Friend Gone’, Gandhi spoke of Ansari’s unwavering commitment to Hindu-Muslim unity, his skill as a doctor and free treatment of the poor, and of his patients’ faith in him: ‘They had many proofs of the Doctor’s friendship when they thought God had forsaken them.’ (69: 1) On Ansari’s death Patel became the chairman of the CPB and received full cooperation from Nehru.
Patel to Gandhi, 26 Aug. 1936: We have been getting on beautifully this time… It has been more like a gathering of family members. The manifesto was prepared and passed almost unanimously… I cannot speak too highly of Jawaharlal. We found not the slightest difficulty in cooperating with him.30
SEVAGRAM
Because the flow of visitors in Wardha left him with no peace, and also because he wanted to live with poor Harijan villagers, in the summer of 1936 Gandhi moved to the village of Segaon, five miles from Wardha. Bajaj owned three-fourths of Segaon’s land, and Mira had lived there for a few weeks.
Segaon had a population of 639 (most of them ‘untouchables’), no post office, telephone or clinic, and plenty of snakes, malaria and typhoid. The ‘road’ to it from Wardha was often unusable. Still, in March 1936 Gandhi asked Bajaj to build a mud hut in Segaon where he and Kasturba could live, and another hut for his aides Mahadev and Kanti (Harilal’s son). Mira already had a small hut in Segaon for herself. Gandhi told Bajaj that to meet visitors he would travel to Wardha, in transport that Bajaj might provide. Otherwise he would live in and off the Segaon land, and thereby also focus everyone’s attention on India’s villages.
This was the origin of what soon grew into Sevagram (‘Village of Service’) ashram, Gandhi’s new abode. More allies and aides joined Gandhi to live in Sevagram, as Segaon was renamed, and those wanting to meet him often went there. ‘Doctor’ Gandhi spent much time teaching the villagers the use of steam inhalations, mud packs, wet sheets, and enemas, and treating them with iodine, quinine, castor oil and sodium bicarbonate.
But he also contracted malaria, and could not easily shake it off. Though most villagers were indifferent to his suggestions for sanitation, Gandhi was gradually able to introduce spinning, weaving and tanning, and to enlist local help in road-making. He also achieved partial success in breaking down untouchability. Before long the high-caste headman of the village was eating ashram food prepared by local Dalits.
Trains between Bombay and Calcutta on the east-west route, and between Delhi and Madras on the north-south route, stopped at Wardha station. Soon many Indians, and quite a few non-Indians, were travelling to the centre of the country—by train to Wardha and thence on foot or by bullock-cart to Sevagram—to meet a self-styled crank in his late sixties who was ‘developing’ a hot, arid, snake-infested village while also keeping a sharp and steady finger on India’s political pulse.
In one significant detail, the New Delhi picture altered. Willingdon finally retired in 1936 and was succeeded as Viceroy by Victor Alexander John Hope, the Marquess of Linlithgow (1887-1952), a Conservative politician from Scotland. Earlier in the year King George V, whose tea party Gandhi had attended, had died. Gandhi sent a cable of condolence to the queen.
PATEL VS. NEHRU
In November 1936 Jawaharlal indicated a desire to be the Congress president for 1937 as well, and Patel exploded. To Mahadev Desai he wrote: ‘The decked-up groom-prince is ready to marry at one stroke as many girls as he can find.’31 Once more Vallabhbhai urged Gandhi to invite C.R. to the chair.
Gandhi to Rajagopalachari, 21 Nov. 1936: Sardar is desperately anxious for you to wear the thorny crown. I shall be pleased if you will, but I have no heart to press it on you. If you [can] be persuaded into shouldering the burden, you should unhesitatingly say yes and end the agony of the Sardar (70: 105).
But C.R. still felt tired, or unsure that Gandhi really wanted him, or perhaps he was thinking of the premiership of Madras. In any case he declined again. Patel hoped that Govind Ballabh Pant of the UP could be chosen. Suggesting Pant’s name in a letter to Desai, in effect a letter to Gandhi, Patel said he would quit if Nehru was repeated, adding, ‘Jivat (Kripalani) too is very cut up.’32
When Nehru declared that those considering him for another term should ‘bear in mind’ that he was a socialist33, Patel was asked by supporters to stand himself. He was willing, his name was announced, and Gandhi seemed happy with the idea. However, as Kripalani would recount,
Jawaharlal approached Gandhiji and told him that he felt that one term of eight months was not sufficient for him to revitalize the Congress. He would like a second term of office… Gandhiji remained thoughtful for some time. Then he said, ‘I shall see what can be done.’ I was present when the conversation between Gandhiji and Jawaharlal took place.34
Though disappointed by Nehru’s keenness, Gandhi understood his value as a Congress president in the elections that were now in full swing; he also understood the damage a rebuffed Jawaharlal could inflict. And he saw a chance to clinch Nehru’s adherence to team decisions. Asking Vallabhbhai to withdraw, Gandhi also drafted a statement for Patel to make.
To Patel, 24 Nov. 1936: If you do not like the draft, write out another, and if you think it your duty to enter into competition, do so. You may change the draft where you think it necessary. Whatever you do must be done with confidence, because we shall have to cross many deserts.
Vallabhbhai withdrew. He also issued the statement that, as Nehru well realized, Gandhi had written out for him:
After consultations with friends I have come to the conclusion that I must withdraw from the contest… At this critical juncture, a unanimous election is most desirable. My withdrawal should not be taken to mean that I endorse all the views Jawaharlalji stands for. Indeed, Congressmen know that on some vital matters my views are in conflict with those held by Jawaharlalji. For instance, I do not believe in the inevitability of class war.
[Also], I can visualize the occasion when the acceptance of office may be desirable to achieve the common purpose. There may then be a sharp division of opinion between Jawaharlalji and myself. We know Jawaharlalji to be too loyal to the Congress to disregard the decision of the majority.
The Congress President has no dictatorial powers. He is the chairman of a well-knit organization… The Congress does not part with its ample powers by electing any individual no matter who he is.35
Of Gandhi’s relationship with Jawaharlal, Martin Green has aptly said, ‘Without falsifying himself, Gandhi found a dozen ways to charm and attach Nehru.’36 He was—as needed—warm, breezy, thoughtful, admiring or tender. Moreover, he helped in the marriages of Nehru’s sisters. Yet he was also willing to be detached from or by the younger man, and ready to speak frankly to him.
This mix of warmth, helpfulness and candour was however what Gandhi offered (with variations of tone) to a large number: to Patel and Rajagopalachari, to Sarabhai, Bajaj and Birla, to Desai and Pyarelal, t
o Vinoba, Kalelkar and Swami Anand, to Tagore and Malaviya, to Andrews and Kallenbach, to Mira, Amtus Salaam and Amrit Kaur, and a host of others of different types and in different relationships with him.
Accepting Gandhi’s and Patel’s terms, Nehru clarified that ‘it would be absurd for me to treat this presidential election as a vote for socialism or against office-acceptance’.37 While Patel and Nehru entertained hard thoughts about each other in 1936, they fell in with a larger design, playing complementary roles. If Jawaharlal ‘shot through the country like an arrow’38 and sought votes, Patel, as the CPB chairman, helped select candidates and raised funds.
In December 1936 the Congress met for a plenary in a Maharashtra village, Faizpur. This too was the ‘retired’ Gandhi’s idea, part of the exercise to strengthen the Congress’s rural bonds. The artist Nandalal Bose came from Santiniketan to design the village venue, Tilak Nagar as it was called, and Shankarrao Deo supervised the logistics and the sanitation. It was an impressive show.
Finally released but barred from returning to the Frontier, Ghaffar Khan was present at the Faizpur session. Gandhi went there and said (25 Dec.), ‘I have cast all my cares on the broad shoulders of Jawaharlal and the Sardar’ (70: 211-12).
Chapter 12
Dream Under Fire
1937-39
The polls of February 1937 gave the Congress the opportunity to form ministries in eight provinces: on its own in the UP, Madras, Bihar, the Central Provinces, and Orissa, and with allies in Bombay, Assam and the Muslim-majority province of the NWFP, where Dr Khan Sahib, the ‘older brother’, was elected to head the Congress-led alliance.
Save in Bombay’s Maharashtra region, where Ambedkar’s party obtained several seats, India’s ‘untouchables’ voted solidly for the Congress, as did caste Hindus, despite sharp attacks from sanatanists.
Except in the Frontier province, however, the Congress received only a small share of the Muslim vote. Led by Jinnah, who had been elected as the League’s ‘permanent’ president in 1934, the Muslim League scored well in Muslim seats in Hindu-majority provinces, where it was presented as a protector of threatened Muslim interests, but less so in the Punjab, Bengal, Sindh, and the NWFP, where Hindus were in a minority.
Leading the Congress campaign, Nehru had asked Indians to choose ‘between the Congress and the British’. Jinnah replied (January 1937): ‘I refuse to line up. There is a third party—the Muslims. We are not going to be dictated to by anybody.’1
In May 1937, before it was clear that the Congress would accept office but after his spat with Nehru, Jinnah sent Gandhi a private, verbal message via B.G. Kher, a fellow lawyer who was also the leader of the Congress party in the Bombay legislature. In it he said that Gandhi should give a lead in forging Hindu-Muslim unity. More concretely, it seems, Jinnah wished to explore a Congress-League coalition in Bombay.
Gandhi was reluctant. Maybe he was put off by Jinnah’s retort to Nehru. Maybe he felt he could not discuss office-sharing with Jinnah before the Congress had decided on accepting office. In any case he sent Jinnah a written answer in general but discouraging terms:
Mr Kher has given me your message. I wish I could do something, but I am utterly helpless. My faith in unity is as bright as ever; only I see no daylight… (22 May 1937; 71: 277)
Nehru, who was the Congress president, was against taking office. While keeping options open, the Congress had in fact resolved to ‘wreck’ the 1935 Act under which provincial ministries would be formed, for that Act also provided for a federal assembly where unelected princes (or their nominees) could vote. At Nehru’s initiative, the UP Congress Committee passed a resolution opposing office-acceptance.
None in the Congress liked the federal part of the 1935 Act, but Patel was for acceptance of provincial office, as was Rajagopalachari, now the leader of the Congress party in the Madras legislature, to which he had been elected from a university seat. The question went to the ‘retired’ Gandhi, who said he would counsel acceptance of office provided the Viceroy, Lord Linlithgow, gave an assurance that governors would not overrule elected ministers.
Sapru, the constitutional lawyer, thought that Gandhi was asking for a ‘fantastic’ assurance, which, if offered, would contravene the 1935 Act.2 To Sapru’s and others’ surprise, Linlithgow met Gandhi halfway. In a public statement the Viceroy said:
There is no foundation for any suggestion that the Governor is free or entitled or would have the power to interfere with the day-to-day administration of a province outside the limited range of responsibilities specially confided to him.
Treating the statement as ‘a sign from Britain that it would cooperate’, Gandhi advised the Congress to accept office. When the Working Committee met in Wardha in the first week of July, no one, not even Nehru, opposed the advice. Office-acceptance was authorized.
Gandhi was gambling that the duality in the Congress’s relationship with the Raj—participation in government by its foes—would work in the Congress’s favour, even as Linlithgow hoped it would work to the Empire’s advantage. Though hoping that provincial power would help the Congress, Gandhi was also aware, as was the Viceroy, that power could soften the Congress, and that association with the Raj could compromise it in the eyes of the Indian people.
By the middle of July 1937 seven Congressmen were nonetheless installed as premiers: C.R. in Madras, Kher in Bombay, G.B. Pant in the UP, Shrikrishna Sinha in Bihar, N.B. Khare in the CP, Dr Khan Sahib in the NWFP, and Bishwanath Das in Orissa. A year later, in Assam, Gopinath Bardoloi became the Congress’s eighth premier.
Gandhi described the installation of Congress ministries as ‘an unwritten compact between the British Government and the Congress… a gentleman’s agreement, in which both sides are expected to play the game’.3
Bombay & UP, Punjab & Bengal. When it became clear that the Congress would take office, Jinnah sent word to Patel, the CPB chairman, suggesting the inclusion of two League legislators in the Bombay ministry. Patel said they could be taken if all the League MLAs merged with the Congress legislature party, a condition rejected by Jinnah, who wanted partnership in a coalition government and did not wish the Congress to control his MLAs.
A Congress-League coming together seemed more likely in the UP, where, apparently without Jinnah’s consent, provincial League leaders (Khaliquzzaman and Nawab Ismail Khan) negotiated with the Congress. The Congress leaders in these talks included Nehru, Azad (who was asked by the CPB to supervise ministry-formation in the UP), Pant (leader of the Congress legislature party in the UP), Kripalani, the UP-based general secretary of the all-India Congress, and Narendra Deva, a socialist member of the Working Committee.
The Congress negotiators agreed to two League ministers in a cabinet of six, where Rafi Ahmed Kidwai, Nehru’s loyal ally in the UP Congress, would be a third Muslim member. The decision overruled objections from Hindu nationalists who thought that three Muslim ministers were too many, as well as from Leftist Muslims and Congress Muslims, who wanted ministerships for their nominees, not the League’s. However, the deal collapsed because the Congress again sought to absorb the Muslim League MLAs in its legislature party, a demand rejected by the League legislators.4
The smugness of the Congress of 1937, which electoral success had boosted, comes across in letters regarding the UP negotiations exchanged between Nehru, Azad and Prasad.5 On 21 July Nehru wrote to Prasad: ‘We came to the conclusion that we should offer stringent conditions to the UP Muslim League group and if they accepted them in toto then we would agree to two ministers from their group.’ One condition, said Nehru, was ‘the winding up of the Muslim League group in the UP and its absorption in the Congress’.6
And although prescient anxiety can be detected in letters from Wardha that Gandhi sent at the time to Nehru, he seemed in no position, for all his influence, to override the views of the UP Congress and of the Congress negotiators.7
In the Punjab, where the League won only two seats, Sir Sikandar Hyat Khan of the Unionist Party o
f landlords and farmers (Muslim, Sikh and Hindu) became the premier. A stable government proved elusive in the smaller Muslim-majority province of Sindh.
In Bengal, where the Congress emerged as the largest single party (with sixty seats), the premiership went to Fazlul Huq of the Krishak Praja Party (KPP), which championed the cause of East Bengal’s largely Muslim peasantry and won thirty-five Muslim seats. After Jinnah offered Huq the number one position, a coalition of the KPP, the League (which had forty seats), and some smaller groups formed a government.
Pro-landlord elements in the Bengal Congress blocked a possible alliance between the Congress and Huq’s party, which was seen as too radical. In the Punjab, on the other hand, radical sections of the Congress prevented the party’s association with the Unionists, which was seen as pro-landlord and soft towards the British.
Though the Muslim League had not done as well across India as he hoped, Jinnah had found a new mission. Uniting all Muslims against what he increasingly termed the ‘Hindu’ Congress now took precedence over working with other Indians against British rule. Jinnah profited, too, from the rhetoric of Savarkar, who, presiding at the 1937 session of the Hindu Mahasabha, said:
I warn the Hindus that the Mohammedans are likely to prove dangerous to our Hindu nation… India cannot be assumed today to be a unitarian and homogeneous nation, but on the contrary there are two nations in the main: the Hindus and the Moslems in India.8
Men like Savarkar, as well as sanatanists opposed to Gandhi over caste, attacked Gandhi as not being Hindu enough. Yet Jinnah insisted on seeing him and the Congress as exclusively Hindu. Not caring where the Unionists or Huq stood on land reform or vis-à-vis the British, Jinnah promised them the League’s full backing as long as they resisted advances from the ‘Hindu’ Congress.
Mohandas: True Story of a Man, His People Page 54