'The Cabinet Mission had asked for the final decision of the Congress and the League on their proposals to be conveyed to them by 2 o'clock. At noon someone from the Viceroy's house rang up Pandit Nehru to say that the Working Committee's reply should be sent at once. Pandit Nehru rang up the Sardar who replied that he saw no reason for hurry and asked Sudhir to contact Mr Blaker of the Cabinet Mission staff and say that such impatient insistence would needlessly spoil matters. Bapu on being informed of it drafted a short interim reply to be sent straightaway and suggested that the Cabinet Delegation should be informed that a detailed letter would follow. This was done. Afterwards it was learnt that the overzealous official, who had sent the telephone message, presumably to help the Muslim League, who were waiting for the Congress decision, had acted without authority and was pulled up for it.
'In the afternoon meeting of the Working Committee Bapu asked me to read out a note which he had written for the Working Committee. In it he pointed out that the Constituent Assembly had no de jure authority, as it did not bear the imprimatur of the Parliament. It was based only on a recommendation of the Cabinet Mission. "Their recommendation will remain in their mouth or on the printed paper. We shall have no authority even to order a constable if there is a row in the Constituent Assembly. This is a dangerous situation. There must be the imprimatur of the Parliament and real power in the Central Government before we can make anything of the Constituent Assembly. The imprimatur of the Parliament would clear the way for the Chairman of the Constituent Assembly (by making the issue adjudicable) in case he wants to refer a point of major importance to the Federal Court for decision".
'In the course of the discussion that followed, the Sardar pressed with great vigour his view that the explanation given by the Cabinet Mission in regards to the Reforms Office was quite adequate and the Congress could not postpone giving its decision forthwith without damaging its prestige. Bapu scribbled: "My mind is in a fog.... It centres round the insertion of reference to para 19 ... and the meaning of 'scrapping the whole plan' (of the Interim Government)." The Sardar lost patience. Bapu asked Sarat Bose and Rajendra Babu to give their legal opinion as to whether the declaration that had been issued to the Speakers of the Assemblies left the members, who might go into the Constituent Assembly after signing it, freedom of action in regard to para 19 of the 16th May plan. The opinion of Sarat Bose was that reference to para 19 in the instructions did not take away from the members' liberty of action since their acceptance of the State Paper was subject to the legal interpretation of the Clauses in dispute. Rajendra Babu's opinion was that para 19 did not make grouping compulsory. It only gave Provinces freedom to form groups as was clear from the language of the document itself. In regard to having the imprimatur of the Parliament on the State Paper, Pandit Nehru felt that it would be a "limiting process" and restrict the scope of interpretation.
'For once fear has proved a liar. The Cabinet Mission issued an elucidation in the evening that the form which the members of the Constituent Assembly were required to sign did not bind them down to frame a constitution in terms of para 19. The pledge they had to sign required them only to cooperate in framing a constitution for India.
'At 8 pm when Bapu's silence ended, he and Sardar met the Viceroy and the members of the Cabinet Mission at the Viceroy's House. On returning from there the Sardar again asked Bapu: "Were you satisfied?" Bapu replied: "On the contrary my suspicions have deepened. I suggest that hereafter you should guide the Working Committee." The Sardar replied: "Nothing of the sort. I am not going to say a word. You yourself tell them whatever you want."
'At 10 pm Bapu wrote a letter to Cripps: "I would rather not write this note.... In spite of the readiness ... of the Working Committee to go in for the Constituent Assembly I would not be able to advice the leap in the dark.... There is nothing but a vacuum after you throw all the commitments on the scrap heap, if you really do intend to do so.... The instructions to the Governors (issued by the Reforms Office), innocuous as they have proved to be, have opened up a dreadful vista. I, therefore, propose to advise the Working Committee not to accept the long term proposition without its being connected with the Interim Government. I must not act against my instinct...."
New Delhi, 23rd June, 1946
'At 8 a.m. Bapu went to attend the Working Committee meeting. He asked me to read out the note which he had written to Cripps last night. He then addressed them very briefly: "I admit defeat. You are not bound to act upon my unsupported suspicion. You should follow my intuition only if it appeals to your reason. Otherwise you should take an independent course. I shall now leave with your permission. You should follow the dictates of your reason."
'A hush fell over the gathering. Nobody spoke for some time. The Maulana Saheb with his unfailing alertness at once took in the situation "What do you desire? Is there any need to detain Bapu any further?" he asked. Everybody was silent. Everybody understood. In that hour of decision they had no use of Bapu. They decided to drop the pilot. Bapu returned to his residence.
'The Working Committee again met at noon and addressed a letter to the Cabinet Mission, rejecting the proposal for the formation of the Interim Government at the Centre and accepting the long term plan with its own interpretation of the disputed clauses. In spite of it they made Bapu attend the afternoon session of the Working Committee. At noon the Cabinet Mission invited the members of the Working Committee to meet them. Bapu not being a member was not sent for and did not go. On their return nobody told Bapu a word about what had transpired at the meeting!
The final phase of negotiations with the Cabinet Mission also saw a phase when the growing distance between Gandhi and the CWC, and between him and some of the Congress stalwarts became very apparent. Gandhi had very rigid views on various aspects of the transfer of power, the ongoing negotiations with the British, as well as the electoral practices of the Congress. There were many issues on which he did not see eye to eye with the Congress leaders. More often than not, the Congress as a party and its leaders were abandoning Gandhi and turning a deaf ear to his advice on vital matters. Yet they needed him to endorse their decisions to make them acceptable to the people of India; the masses in the country's fields and villages would accept anything that their Bapu had blessed. And so, after disagreeing with him, after ignoring his advice, after sidelining him, they would finally cajole him into endorsing their acts.
They did not agree with him when he insisted that the differences between the Muslim League and the Congress be resolved only after the British left. 'Independence first,' he insisted; 'power soonest and at any cost,' was their refrain. Gandhi wanted the British Army out of India, he preferred anarchy to discipline enforced with the use of British arms and muscle power. He wanted to deal with the Muslim League and their demand for separation as a negotiated settlement between two parties of an independent sovereign state devoid of the vitiating influence of the British colonialists.
On the political front he objected to the pampering of the Indian National Army soldiers by the Congress with money and other incentives. He was opposed to the Congress' use of money in the elections. Gandhi warned of dire consequences both for the pampering of the ex-soldiers and the use of funds in elections, but his warnings fell on deaf ears. These were political necessities what would an impractical idealist know about these things? he was told. But the pampering of the ex-INA men became a problem very soon: their demands kept growing and some of them even threatened to resort to violence. Some of them who were supported or nominated by the Congress to fight the elections lost and promptly switched over to the Muslim League. One who came back to haunt the Congress was Mian Ghulam Sarwar, the butcher of Noakhali.
Referring to an incident in the Working Committee on the last day at Delhi, Gandhi wrote to Patel from Poona on 1 July 1946 saying, 'I did not like our conversation today. It is nobody's fault. The fault, if at all, is of the circumstances. What can you or I do for it? You go by your experience, I by mine. You know I have been
at a loss to understand a number of things which you have done.... You speak in the Committee with much heat. I do not like it. On top of it today came the question of the Constituent Assembly.... All this is not by way of a complaint. But I see, we are drifting in different directions.'
Patel replied: 'What can I say after your letter? I must be at fault. Only I cannot yet see it and that makes me feel unhappy. I do not want to take a different path.... My own instinct was to the contrary but if I had not done what I did, the Congress would have been held to blame afterwards.... I do betray some heat when I speak in the Committee.... That is a temperamental defect ... but there is nothing in it.'
The Working Committee's decision conveyed to the Cabinet Mission on 25 June did not solve the matter. The Cabinet Mission adhered to its own interpretation of the disputed clauses; they decided to shelve any effort to solve them for the time being. The Cabinet Mission decided that the responses of both the Congress and the Muslim League were in accordance with their 16 May plan and so both the parties were qualified to be invited to form the interim government. They called a short recess in the negotiations, and on 29 June the three-member Cabinet Commission left Delhi for London.
The doubts in Gandhi's mind persisted. But he had come to terms with the decision of the Working Committee. He had realised that fissures in the Congress leadership already existed and this was not the time to rip them open and expose the Congress' weak underbelly. If he had reservations he would try to find ways to deal with them, but he would not launch an agitation when he himself was not sure about the veracity of the doubts that troubled him. He blamed himself for this weakness that assailed him.
Speaking to his biographer, Louis Fischer, he said that after informing the Working Committee about the doubts that troubled him and admitting to them he could not substantiate his doubts, he was 'groping in the dark', and had instructed the Working Committee to 'Follow your reason since my own reason does not support my instinct, I myself have not followed my instinct unless my reason backed it. My reason failed my instinct on the long term proposal.'
Gandhi's instinct was alerted to the hidden pitfalls due to various reasons. He was suspicious of the mechanisations of the British Administrative machinery. He did not mistrust the intentions of the Cabinet Mission or the viceroy as yet, but he was suspicious of the way things had proceeded thus far. Very significant to Gandhi was the hesitation displayed by Lord Pethick-Lawrence during the interview on the morning of 24 June. He had realised that there was disagreement over many matters between the members of the Cabinet Mission and also between them and the viceroy and the British colonial administration. Finally he was worried about the way the viceroy's Reforms Office was functioning. He had time and again expressed his conviction that India would come into its own only when it broke the 'Indian Steel Frame'. Srinivas Sastry's words spoken after the Second Round Table Conference in London, came back to his mind: 'Many good intentions emanating from Whitehall have been assassinated in the dark corridors of the Delhi Secretariat'. Would history repeat itself?
On 27 May he wrote to Sir Cripps: 'Trust put on is worse than useless, trust felt is the thing that counts.... Trustworthy action on the part of the Cabinet Commission will dispel all mistrust or distrust, as the sun dispels the morning mist'.
On 29 June Gandhi left Bombay to go to Poona. As the special train carrying him sped through the night on its ascent of the Deccan plateau it suddenly came to a screeching halt—boulders had deliberately been placed on the tracks to derail the train. The engine driver, Periera, had pulled the emergency brakes in time but not before the undercarriage of the engine and the first carriage were mangled by the boulders. Another attempt on Gandhi's life had failed.
The All India Congress Committee met in Bombay on 7 July 1946 to ratify the decisions taken by the Working Committee. The Socialist element in the Congress were opposed to the CWC's acceptance of the long-term proposals of the Cabinet Mission. A large part of the speech Gandhi delivered endorsed the Working Committee's decision:
'You know my relations with the members of the Working Committee.... I could have asked them to turn down the proposal about the Constituent Assembly ... but I could not adduce any reason for it.... Their decision which ... unanimous is before you.... The members of the Working Committee are your faithful and tried servants; you should not lightly reject their resolution.
'I am willing to admit that the proposed Constituent Assembly is not the Parliament of the people. It has many defects. But you are all seasoned and veteran fighters. A soldier is never afraid of danger. He revels in it. If there are shortcomings in the proposed Constituent Assembly, it is for you to get them removed. It should be a challenge to combat, not a ground for rejection. I am surprised that Shri Jayprakash Narayan said yesterday that it would be dangerous to participate in the proposed Constituent Assembly and they should, therefore, reject the Working Committee's resolution. I was not prepared to hear such defeatist language from the lips of a tried fighter like Jayprakash.... A Satyagrahi knows no defeat.
'Nor would I expect a Satyagrahi to say that whatever Englishmen do must be bad. The English are not necessarily bad. There are good men and bad men among the English people as among any other people. The English could not have risen to their present strength if they had not some good in them. We ourselves are not free from defects.... Some people say that Satyagraha is of no avail against a person who has no moral sense. I join issue with that. The stoniest of heart must melt if we are true and have enough patience. A Satyagrahi lays down his life, but never gives up. That is the meaning of "Do or Die"....
'This is no time for dalliance or ease.... The Constituent Assembly is going to be no bed of roses for you but a bed of thorns. You may not shirk it....
'If you asked me whether in the event of your rejecting the proposed Constituent Assembly or the Constituent Assembly failing to materialise I would advise the people to launch civil disobedience, individual or mass, or undertake a fast myself, my reply would be "No". I believe in walking alone. I came alone in this world, I have walked alone in the valley of the shadow of death and I shall quit alone, when the time comes. I know I am quite capable of launching Satyagraha even if I am alone. I have done so before. But this is no occasion for a fast or civil disobedience. I regard the Constituent Assembly as the substitute of Satyagraha. It is constructive Satyagraha.
'The alternative is constructive work to which you have never done justice.... But a Satyagrahi cannot delay action till perfect conditions are obtained. He will act with whatever material is at hand, purge it of dross and convert it into pure gold....
'Let us not be cowardly in our approach but face our task with confidence and courage. Let not fear of being deceived dismay us. No one can deceive a Satyagrahi. Never mind the darkness that fills my mind. God will turn it into light.'
The decision of the Congress Working Committee with regards to the Cabinet Mission's proposal was ratified by the All India Congress Committee with 204 votes for and 51 votes against.
Gandhi left for Panchgani to rest and recuperate. For the past few years after his release from imprisonment, he had spent two months in the cool mountain habitat of Panchgani near Poona every summer. Although his purpose was to rest, he was a deeply worried man: the rains were delayed and the paddy crop was under threat; in these days of food scarcity a failed paddy crop would ruin the economy of many villages. Fortunately the rain gods relented and he breathed a sigh of relief.
But the anxiety about the direction in which his beloved country was heading and his inability to understand the doubts that kept needling him made his stay in Panchgani uneasy. Finally, he decided to cut short his stay and head for Sevagram. He spent a few days at the Nature Cure Centre at Urli Kanchan. However, instead of resting there his schedule became very hectic with a lot of people meeting him. Weary and fatigued he commented: 'It is to be seen what Sevagram can do for me, it is not, however, the burden that matters, but absence of detachment. I have not yet lea
rnt sufficiently to leave things to God. But that must not become an additional cause for worry if one has a living faith in God.'
The CWC met again in Delhi in the last week of June. The discussions centred around the Congress' acceptance of the long-term plan of the Cabinet Mission while rejecting their short-term plans. In another part of the city, the Working Committee of the Muslim League was continuously in session, impatiently awaiting the Congress' decision. Jinnah and the League usually followed the tactic of holding back their hand till the Congress' cards were on the table. The League had already accepted the Cabinet Mission's proposal of 16 May. Their interpretation of the grouping clause had been endorsed by the Cabinet Mission and Jinnah had secured further assurances from Viceroy Lord Wavell. He assumed that the Congress would never accept such a lopsided plan and thus the League would be invited to form the interim government.
On the evening of 25 June, having received the Congress' reply, to his surprise the Cabinet Mission sent for Jinnah and informed him that they were satisfied by the replies of both parties, and both had qualified to be part of the interim government. The Congress had expressed its inability to be part of this government in accordance with paragraph 8 of the 16 June proposal which said that, if either of the two parties was unwilling to join the formation of the coalition government on the lines set up in that statement, the viceroy would proceed with the formation of an interim government which would be as representative as possible of those willing to accept the statement of 16 May.
Jinnah was furious. He asked the Cabinet Mission to give him in writing what they proposed to do, and then rushed to the Working Committee of the League, where he had them pass a resolution accepting the 16 June proposal for the formation of the interim government. He felt that, after the Congress' stand, the viceroy was honourbound to invite the Muslim League to form the interim government. But the Cabinet Mission maintained that, according to them, 'If either the Congress or the Muslim League would not consent to come into the Coalition Government, then the scheme for Coalition Government went and we would have to find some other Interim Government of those who accepted the scheme of 16th May'. Accepting the 16 May statement entitled the Congress to be invited to that coalition government as the biggest political group of the country. Accordingly, on 26 June, the Cabinet Mission issued a statement to the effect that further efforts for the formation of the interim government would be resumed after a short break, while the elections for the Constituent Assembly were taking place.
Lets Kill Gandhi Page 28