However, stressing the democratic and republican ideals, Jefferson refused, even though there was no legal bar then, and people would have loved him to continue.
Blunder–97 :
Not Appointing a Successor, Deliberately
Nehru did not appoint a senior cabinet minister or a deputy prime minister (after Patel) to function in his absence when he went abroad. A responsible prime minister would have done so, and would have scotched all speculations on “After Nehru, who?” But he deliberately did not do so both to show to the world how indispensable and irreplaceable he was, and to make way for his daughter. Nehru thus sacrificed national interests for personal dynastic interests.
Nehru's mentor, Gandhi, took care to appoint him as PM, and never promoted his own progeny. Nehru, despite having ruled too long, did not think it fit to pass the baton to anyone, even though it was not as if the country was doing great during his time, and his not being there would have adversely affected the nation. On the contrary, with him not there, things might have improved!
Writes Perry Anderson, Professor of History and Sociology at UCLA: “For the rest of the union, the lasting affliction of Nehru’s rule has been the dynastic system he left it. He claimed to reject any dynastic principle, and his capacity for self-deception was perhaps great enough for him to believe he was doing so. But his refusal to indicate any colleague as a successor, and complaisance in the elevation of his daughter—with no qualifications other than her birth for the post—to the presidency of Congress, where Gandhi had once placed him for his own trampoline to power, speak for themselves.”
Wrote Walter Crocker in ‘Nehru: A Contemporary’s Estimate’: “It is no less strange that Nehru clung to office for so long. It would have been of help to the cause of parliamentary democracy in India if he had stood down...This is what Kemal Ataturk did...For one thing his long domination sapped the opposition; the opposition is an essential part of parliamentary democracy...”
Even More Blunders
Blunder-A.1 :
Nehru, Gandhi & Others in British Jails
The conditions of Indian prisoners in jails was terrible: their uniforms were not washed for several days; rats and cockroaches roamed their kitchen area; reading and writing materials were not provided to them. That was in sharp contrast to the British prisoners, and the top Gandhians, who were treated very well in jails. Additionally, being political prisoners, they expected to be treated like one, rather than as common criminals. They demanded equality with the jailed Europeans in food standards, clothing, toiletries, and other hygienic necessities, as well as access to books and a daily newspapers. They also protested against their subjection to forced manual labour. To force the issue, Bhagat Singh and colleagues, including Jatin Das, began hunger strike. The strike gained wide popularity across the nation, with the media popularising it.
The condition of the revolutionary Jatindra Nath Das (Jatin Das), who was arrested on 14 June 1929 under the Supplementary Second Lahore Conspiracy Case deteriorated and became critical. Jail authorities recommended unconditional release, but the government refused. He was martyred on 13 September 1929 in Lahore jail after a 63-day hunger strike.
Durga Bhabhi (Durgawati Devi, a revolutionary, and wife of another revolutionary Bhagwati Charan Vohra) led his funeral procession from Lahore to Calcutta by train, with thousands thronging the railway stations on the way to pay homage to Jatin. His funeral procession in Kolkata was about two-mile long.
While everyone paid rich tributes to Jatin Das for his exemplary sacrifice for a common cause through his hunger-strike, conspicuously, the serial hunger-striker Gandhi, who one would have thought would surely write glowingly about it, chose to keep silent; and in subtle ways, tried to look down upon his noble act, as would be clear from his following letters:
Gandhi's letter of 22 September 1929 to Mahadev Desai: “…As yet I cannot write anything about Jatin. I am not surprised that what may be called our own circle fails to understand me. Personally, I have not the least doubt regarding the correctness of my view. I see no good in this agitation. I have been obliged to keep silent because what I would say might be misused…”
Gandhi's letter of 9 October 1929 to Raihana Tyabji: “…Now about Jatin Das. I have been deliberately silent because I have not approved of the fast. But I have refrained from saying anything as my opinion would have been distorted by the officials and grossly misused…”
Gandhi's letter of 18 October 1929 to Rajaji: “…I am wholly against hunger-strikes for matters such as Wizia and Jatin died for. Any expression of such opinion would be distorted and misused by the Government. I therefore feel that my silence is more serviceable than my criticism. Do you not agree with my judgment of the hunger-strikes and with my consequent silence?...”
Did Gandhi feel jealous? 63 days of fast by Jatin! In comparison, Gandhi longest fast was for only 21 days—one-third that of Jatin’s. Also, anyone other than Gandhi running away with credit for a hunger-strike for a good cause, that Gandhi felt was his patent and copyright, deserved to be faulted on manufactured pretexts like “not moral”, or “not the right cause”! Morally right, or the right causes were like Gandhi coercing Dr Ambedkar into the Poona Pact through his fast unto death!!
Talking of suffering and sacrifices, many were tortured and whipped in British jails—but, never the top Gandhian Congress leaders. Nehru himself describes in his book of severe whipping of other imprisoned freedom-fighters in jails. For most Gandhiites, especially the top ones, the jails were, relatively speaking, comfortable.
While ruthlessly persecuting the other freedom fighters, the British kid gloved Gandhi & Co, and incarcerated them under comfortable conditions. When arrested in 1930, the British took due care to provide all provisions for the health and comfort of Gandhi.
On the other hand, like Tilak, even Bose was incarcerated at Mandalay jail. Both had developed serious health complications in jail. Revolutionaries (like Veer Savarkar, Sanyal, and many others) were inhumanly treated in jails like the Cellular in Andaman, where several lost their sanity, or committed suicide. People like Bose and Lala Lajpat Rai received lathi blows, specifically targeted at them, and were manhandled in jails, but not the top Gandhian leaders.
That their (top Gandhians) life in jail was not all that terrible can be inferred from an episode in Ahmednagar prison described by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad in his autobiography ‘India Wins Freedom’. The episode was something like this: Upon their remonstration with the jailor for serving them food on iron plates, the jailer had apologised and had the plates replaced by China plates and dinner set. As the cook in the jail could not prepare food to their taste, a better cook was soon appointed.
Writes Rajmohan Gandhi in ‘Patel: A Life’: “On the day of their arrival [in jail], Kripalani recalls Azad showing ‘towering rage’: he threw out the Jailor who had brought ready-to-drink tea for them in an aluminium kettle along with loaves of bread on an aluminium plate and glasses for the tea. The Congress President ‘ordered’ the jailor to bring tea in a pot, milk in a jug and sugar in a bowl, plus cups, saucers and spoons. The jailor, an Indian, complied. According to Pattabhi, he was ‘bravely performing his duties with visible regard for his new guests and with unshakeable loyalty to his old masters’.”
All the rooms in Ahmednagar Fort jail where Patel, Nehru, Azad, and others top Congress leaders were lodged had fans and furniture, and were provided with mosquito nets. Dining room, kitchen, baths and toilets were on a side row. They also had a doctor on call.
The routine of the leaders in Ahmednagar jail used to be generally: breakfast at 7am, lunch at 1pm, bridge from 1pm to 3pm, rest from 3pm to 5pm followed by tea (alternately, writing or reading work between lunch and tea), games from 6pm to 7pm, dinner from 7pm to 8.30pm followed by coffee, then retire.
Gandhi was “imprisoned” between 1942 and 1944 in the grand Aga Khan Palace in Pune.
This is not to say that jail was fun place. It must have been a very dull and tedious
and an oppressive place, where you are cut off from the world. And to be in jail for such long periods must have got on to their nerves. However, at least, they were relatively better placed compared to non-Gandhiite freedom-fighters, and lower-level Gandhiites, who were ill-fed, and ill-treated.
Nehru had access to newspapers, magazines and books in Naini and other jails. He also had ample supply of reading and writing materials. He wrote Glimpses of World History in Naini jail between 1930 and 1933; An Autobiography during 1934-35 in Bareilly and Dehra Dun jails; Discovery of India between 1942 and 1945 in Ahmednagar Jail.
It is said that Sir Harcourt Butler, the then Governor of UP, had even sent quality food and a champagne bottle to Motilal Nehru in his prison, out of consideration for their association. They did not show similar indulgence to others. Even Subhas Chandra Bose, who was a non-Gandhiite, was ill-treated in prison, which severely affected his health.
Writes Nehru in his autobiography: “Personally, I have been very fortunate, and almost invariably, I have received courtesy from my own countrymen and English. Even my gaolers and the policemen, who have arrested me or escorted me as a prisoner from place to place, have been kind to me, and much of the bitterness of conflict and the sting of gaol life has been toned down because of this human touch...Even for Englishmen I was an individual and not merely one of the mass, and, I imagine, the fact that I had received my education in England, and especially my having been to an English public school, brought me nearer to them. Because of this, they could not help considering me as more or less civilized after their own pattern...”
Contrast this with the fate of thousands of freedom fighters and revolutionaries who really suffered.
But what did the real freedom fighters and revolutionaries get for all their suffering in jails, and for all the genuine sacrifices they made. Post-independence, Nehru mostly ignored them. INA soldiers were denied any recognition, nor were they inducted in the army. Netaji Subhas was forgotten, nor were any efforts made to trace him. But, the top Gandhians, who otherwise had a good time in jails, savoured all the fruits of independence.
Sadly, the top Gandhian leaders like Gandhi, Nehru did nothing to ensure revolutionaries and other freedom fighters got just treatment equivalent to them as freedom fighters. No non-cooperation, no andolan, no civil disobedience, no fast to support them or get them justice. In sharp contrast, Lokmanya Tilak had done all he could to support other freedom fighters, including revolutionaries. This when the revolutionaries had whole-heartedly supported Gandhi’s Non-Cooperation Movement of 1920-22.
Blunder-A.2 :
Nehru’s NWFP Blunder 1946
Congress had won the elections in NWFP, and Dr Khan Sahib (Khan Abdul Jabbar Khan), brother of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, was heading the ministry.
It is worth keeping in mind that in their strategic interests the British had already decided that the North-West India comprising Punjab, Sind, Baluchistan and NWFP (please see Group-B above), along with Kashmir (that bordered either the oil-rich regions to the west, or the communist USSR) must make Pakistan, for which they were working in cahoots with Jinnah, something Jinnah knew well, but a critical factor apparently the “internationalist and foreign-affairs expert” Nehru and other Congress leaders like Gandhi were innocent about!
NWFP was another province the Muslim League was targeting along with Bengal, Assam, Punjab, and Sind. Although the provincial government of NWFP was in the hands of the Congress, the British Governor Olaf Caroe, and the local British civil servants, were rabidly anti-Congress, and pro-Muslim League. Why? They must have been instructed by the HMG to back the Muslim League and ensure NWFP became part of Pakistan. Incidentally, Sir Olaf Caroe was the person who authored “Wells of Power: The Oilfields of South Western Asia, a Regional and Global Study”, and persuasively wrote an article on Pakistan’s potential role in the Middle East, and hence Pakistan’s strategic importance for the British. The British were favouring Jinnah in their own interest.
Like elsewhere, the Muslim League, backed by the British, had been looking for and exploiting all opportunities to discredit local Muslim leaders not aligned to the Muslim League, defame them as pro-Hindu and anti-Muslim, and rouse the local Muslim population against the Hindus.
Negligently, the Congress was doing little to counter the Muslim League propaganda, or give a befitting reply to their violence. If the Congress was not doing either of the two, the least it could have done was not to give ready excuses to the Muslim League to indulge in its game. It was in this context that the NWFP Chief Minister, Sardar Patel, and others advised Nehru NOT to go on a visit to NWFP, which he was planning to do as the head of the Interim Government. Ignoring wise counsel, Nehru went. Nehru had the delusion he was very popular—even among Muslims! The results were predictable. The situation went worse for the local Congress Provincial Government, and the Muslim League gained an upper hand, through communal rumour-mongering, and false, skilful propaganda, backed by the British Governor, and the British officers. The height (or, rather, the low) of the British Governor Olaf Caroe’s partisan role was reached when he tried to buy over NWFP Chief Minister Dr Khan Sahib by assuring him that he would help him and his cabinet colleagues continue as ministers in Pakistan if they severed their connection with the “Hindu Congress”!
Nehru was indeed, as someone has remarked, a “Nabob of Cluelessness”. His blunder after blunder lead one to conclude he had no clue on what should or should not be done in given circumstances. He not only had a deficit and defective grasp on critical matters, he had a faulty world-view on many aspects of vital importance, and lacked the analytical skill and wisdom to reach the right conclusion. Jinnah gleefully looked upon Nehru’s visit as godsent, and managed to paint Nehru and the Congress as unpopular among the Muslims of NWFP.
Blunder-A.3 :
Giving Away 55 Crores to Pakistan
India and Pakistan had agreed in November 1947 that Rupees 55 crores remained to be transferred to Pakistan, as its share of the assets of undivided India.
However, at the insistence of Patel, India informed Pakistan, within two hours of the agreement, that the actual implementation of the agreement would hinge on a settlement on Kashmir. Said Patel: “In the division of assets we treated Pakistan generously. But we cannot tolerate even a pie being spent for making bullets to be shot at us. The settlement of assets is like a consent decree. The decree will be executed when all the outstanding points are satisfactorily settled.”
Pakistan had been pressing India for rupees 55 crores. In the Cabinet meeting in January 1948 Patel stated that the money if given would surely be used by Pakistan to arm itself for use in Kashmir, hence the payment should be delayed. Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee, NV Gadgil and Dr BR Ambedkar backed Patel. Nehru too expressed his total agreement. The Cabinet therefore decided to withhold the money. Patel told in a Press Conference on 12 January 1948 that the issue of 55 crores could not be dissociated from the other related issues.
Gandhi conveyed to Patel the next day (13 January 1948) that withholding 55 crores from Pakistan was what Mountbatten had opined to him as “a dishonourable act… unstatesman-like and unwise”, and what he [Gandhi] thought was immoral. Gandhi was apparently innocent of the fact that Mountbatten and the British were bent upon favouring Pakistan—even on Kashmir, despite their aggression. How could a top leader be so blind to the realities?
Patel was furious and asked of Mountbatten: “How can you as a constitutional Governor-General do this behind my back? Do you know the facts?...”
Unfortunately, Nehru, rather than supporting Patel, and sticking to what he had himself fully agreed to, and had got passed in the Cabinet, went back on his commitment, and commented to Gandhi: “Yes, it was passed but we don’t have a case. It is legal quibbling.”
Sissies like Gandhi and Nehru, rather than being prudent about what was in the best interest of the nation, went by what the British colonial representative Mountbatten, having his own axe to grind, had to say, and the Cabi
net decision was reversed to let Pakistan have the money, and trouble India further in J&K! Going by the net results, effectively, it appears that for Gandhi maintaining “Brand Mahatma”, and its associated “morality”, was more important than the national interests.
Why didn’t Gandhi and Mountbatten consider the immorality of Pakistan in attacking Kashmir which had already acceded to India? If Pakistan had agreed to desist from its illegal action in Kashmir, it would have got the money anyway. Further, Gandhi wanted to look good in the eyes of the Muslims in Pakistan and India. Sell national interest for the sake of appeasement, and your own image. And for Nehru, kowtowing to Mountbatten and Gandhi was a priority, rather than standing up for the Cabinet decision, of which he was a part. People like Sardar Patel were out of place in such a scenario.
Gandhi went on a fast to force the issue in his favour. This time the fast was not against the British, it was against Patel (who was doing his duty in the national interest), and effectively against the interest of India. It drove a wedge between Gandhi and Patel; and also between Patel and Nehru, because Nehru had backed out from a joint cabinet decision.
Nehru wimpishly back-tracked on the cabinet decision, Patel was forced to yield, Gandhi won, and India lost.
Blunder-A.4 :
Did Nehru Covertly Intend Letting J&K Go?
Nehru can be squarely and unhesitatingly blamed for the creation of the J&K problem, and the creation of the PoK. However, those problems did not arise on account of just one or two unfortunate decisions of Nehru. There was enough scope to correct or reverse those initial one, two, or three wrong decisions.
Nehru's 97 Major Blunders Page 23