Sixteen Stormy Days

by Tripurdaman Singh

  * * *

  Meanwhile, outside Parliament, political observers, commentators and ordinary citizens alike continued to fulminate against the government and the prime minister. ‘Mr Nehru’s apologia for the Constitution Amendment Bill as it emerged from the Select Committee fails to convince,’ wrote the Times of India, ‘ . . . the prime minister urged that a Constitution has to be flexible and move with and adapt itself to the curves of life. If Governmental reactions to the Constitution could be traced in a graph, they would be more curvaceous than a scenic railway.’ ‘We might be living in the arid days of the tired thirties,’ it snidely remarked, ‘when foreign bureaucrats spoke thus to the representatives of the people.’101

  Another commentator tartly observed:

  How can we have a straight, stiff, stable constitution, eternally hugging the dead distant slogans of obsolete revolutions—Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, Justice—the crude claptrap with which politicians create imaginary utopias? . . . It is good to be reminded now and then in the midst of canting moral and political platitudes that our life and the Constitution which moulds it are of such insubstantial and delusive stuff.102

  ‘Though in the interests of the Fundamental Rights, the Constitution itself cannot be taken as sacrosanct,’ reasoned an angry citizen in a letter to the newspaper, ‘legislation by a constant clash with the Constitution should not render it chimerical by passing amendments to suit the purposes of the administration. Any attempt to recast the Constitution with the needs of the Government would be a mockery of democracy.’103

  In Lucknow, the socialist leader Jayaprakash Narayan, who had spent much of the year targeting the Government of India for its dictatorial tendencies and holding Nehru personally responsible for them, gave a long statement outlining his views:

  It is a great tragedy that in a single-party Parliament the ruling party should take advantage of its majority to tamper even with Fundamental Rights. The very purpose of defining the Fundamental Rights in the Constitution is to place them beyond the interference of parliamentary majorities. Pandit Nehru’s repeated reference to the security of the State was itself a pointer to a grave danger that has been created for the future of Indian democracy. Except those in power, no one else in the country seems to be aware of any threat to the security of the State and yet these crippling amendments are sought to be made in the name of this danger.104

  Inside Parliament, however, an unruffled Prime Minister Nehru continued to rail against the press, its descent into ‘obscenity and vulgarity applied to politics’ and ‘the whole nature of the development of mechanical civilisation’ due to which the mind of the people was becoming mechanized.105 He was ashamed to see the cartoons that were printed in the newspapers, he denounced their degradation of public life, and fretted about the effects of such ‘freedom of speech’ on the morale of poor villagers and soldiers. He even raged about the low quality of human beings in India. He was thinking neither of the press nor of the upcoming election when he brought this amendment he piously affirmed, and repeatedly asked his colleagues to trust his words.106

  Given his own views as previously expressed both in his private correspondence and in his public statements, many of these pious affirmations were little short of outright lies. Neither Nehru nor his colleagues cared. Such moral edicts had already been consumed in the fiery birth of the post-colonial order.

  On 31 May 1951, at 2 p.m., the Speaker called for a division on the motion for Parliament to take the bill into consideration. With 246 ayes to fourteen noes, the motion was passed. Twenty-nine members abstained. The announcement of the result was greeted with loud cheers.107 ‘Big Majority for Nehru Motion,’ read headlines the next morning.108 The final, decisive phase of the parliamentary battle had begun.

  Parliamentary encounter VI: The guillotine is applied

  Reporting on the terminal debate on the amendment, one prominent newspaper wrote, ‘The Bill will be taken up for detailed consideration for the next two days and the guillotine will be applied at 1 p.m. on Saturday.’109 It was a decidedly apt turn of phrase. For what was happening, as the liberal MP Hriday Nath Kunzru frequently and persistently proclaimed in Parliament, was nothing short of an amputation of some of the most vital fundamental rights provisions in the Constitution, the same ones that Prime Minister Nehru openly derided as ossified, archaic remnants of the ideas that fired the French and American Revolutions. The right to freedom of speech and the right to property were effectively being repealed.

  On the evening of 31 May, Prof. K.K. Bhattacharya, Congress MP from Uttar Pradesh, wrote to Nehru seeking a free vote on the bill. ‘If you do not give me this freedom,’ he informed the prime minister, ‘it will be my painful duty to leave the Congress Party in Parliament so as to be free to vote in accordance with the dictates of my conscience.’110 Nehru refused, and as Parliament convened on Friday, 1 June, Bhattacharya resigned from the Congress party and joined the ranks of the amendment’s opponents. Nonetheless, even with this late defection, Opposition leaders knew that there was little they could do: their loss was already preordained. Nothing they said, nothing they did could alter the unshakeable majority the Congress commanded. Still, they decided to fight to the last man. And the last two days witnessed fearsome verbal combat.

  As each clause of the Constitution (First Amendment) Bill was taken up for discussion over 1 and 2 June, Opposition figures moved dozens of amendments to each clause. In the amendment to Article 15, H.V. Kamath attempted to add a proviso that special provisions for backward classes would not impose unreasonable restrictions upon the right to equality guaranteed to all citizens.111 Congress mutineer Shibban Lal Saksena pressed to include the word ‘economically’ in the description of ‘socially and educationally backward classes’. ‘If the amendment is allowed to pass in its present form,’ he averred, ‘it will mean that any class which has entrenched itself in power may use this clause to advance its own particular class’.112 Congress members such as M.A. Ayyangar from Madras remained unyielding in their claim that after the Scheduled Castes and Tribes, backward classes must be the first charge on the attention of the state.113

  When the amendments to Article 19 were taken up for discussion, Shyama Prasad Mookerji forcefully demanded that if the freedom of speech had to be curtailed, then the amendment should provide for such power to be vested solely in Parliament and not in the state legislatures to achieve uniformity across the country and minimize the chances of misuse.114 On this issue, Mookerji traded lengthy, heated arguments with Home Minister C. Rajagopalachari and Law Minister B.R. Ambedkar. In impassioned, animated exchanges, both sides pointedly accused each other of obstinacy and irresponsibility. Prime Minister Nehru was charged with suppressing news from China that was critical of the communist regime,115 to which he replied that the news of communist atrocities in China and Tibet was grossly exaggerated.116

  On the amendments to Article 31, Naziruddin Ahmed, Syamnandan Sahay and Shibban Lal Saksena again took the lead in criticizing the government. The new Article 31B, creating the Ninth Schedule, was severely criticized, and the government were accused of ‘drifting away from a policy of respect for private property’ and establishing a terrible precedent.117 In an ultimate appeal, H.N. Kunzru again warned of the dangers of the amendment: the revalidation of sedition and revival of censorship.

  Yet, argue as they might, the bill’s opponents were only succeeding in delaying the inevitable. None of their amendments to the bill were accepted. In vote after vote, when the House divided, Opposition amendments were voted down and the government’s version of the bill carried through with large majorities. ‘There was fearful slaughter of over a hundred non-official amendments of varying importance,’ noted press reports and only three changes were accepted: two verbal clarifications to 19(2) and 31A and the addition of the Hyderabad (Abolition of Jagirs) Regulation in the Ninth Schedule.118 Even the most controversial and emotionally charged clause related to freedom of speech and expression was carried by an overwhe
lming majority of 228 votes to nineteen. Most of the journalist members abstained. All Opposition amendments were voted down, just as they were when changes to Article 15 and Article 31 were considered.119

  As the debate neared its conclusion, tempers within the chamber ran high. There were tempestuous exchanges between Shyama Prasad Mookerji and H.V. Kamath on one side and Speaker G.V. Mavalankar and Law Minister B.R. Ambedkar on the other over voting procedures on amendments. The doughty old socialist Shibban Lal Saksena again requested the prime minister to take the House into confidence and explain the grave difficulties that had compelled him to curtail fundamental rights and resurrect sedition as a major crime.120 ‘It is shameful for all of us to resurrect all such obnoxious laws by the back-door,’ he bewailed. ‘I am very sorry that this Bill is being passed by this House. We cannot help it but certainly we can record our protest against the enactment of this measure.’121

  Congress support for the bill remained untempered. Joachim Alva, Tribhuvan Narayan Singh, Renuka Ray, Seth Govind Das and Mohanlal Gautam spoke extensively on the usefulness of the bill as the clock wound down towards 6 p.m. Drawing the curtains on the case for the Opposition, Mookerji castigated Parliament for failing to establish a healthy convention by refusing to elicit public opinion and giving retrospective effect to constitutional changes.122 He described the new amended Article 31 and the Ninth Schedule as a ‘constitutional monstrosity’ and accused the prime minister of deliberately curbing the rights of the citizens without giving adequate reasons.123

  ‘The answer to popular discontent is not by passing repressive measures,’ he pleaded with Nehru.

  I would therefore appeal to the Prime Minister even at this stage—of course you have got your majority; you will carry this Bill through; you carry it through—but in giving effect to it you must not be guided merely by a sense of intoxication of the power that is in your hands because you have 240 supporters inside the House. Outside the House, there are millions who are against you and you will have to remember how to placate them properly . . .124

  Several days of bruising debates and devastating criticism had got to Nehru—recalling the debate, he would say, ‘Listening to constant accusations and denunciations was too much for my patience.’125 ‘I say this opposition is not a true opposition, not a faithful opposition, not a loyal opposition. I say it deliberately,’ an infuriated prime minister responded.126 ‘Yours is not a true Bill,’ came Mookerji’s sharp retort, further stoking Nehru’s temper.127 The prime minister and the leader of Opposition now hurled insults across the floor of the House.

  Nehru, shaking his fists in fury, charged Mookerji with making false statements and scandalous speeches. ‘Because your intolerance is scandalous,’ came Mookerji’s riposte. ‘It has become the fashion in this country for some people to go about in the name of nationalism and in the name of liberty to preach the narrowest doctrines of communalism,’ growled Nehru. ‘You are an arch-communalist, responsible for the partition of this country,’ replied Mookerji.

  Writing in the Times of India the next morning, a reporter described the verbal duel as ‘an intemperate and impassioned slanging match between the prime minister and Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee.’128 Parliamentarians sat glued to their seats as two of India’s finest orators traded barbs across the chamber. Both Nehru and Mookerji declared that the other was going to hear many truths before the debate was finished. Tempers frayed and passions were aroused. ‘For ten minutes,’ an eyewitness observed, ‘the chamber was treated to the furious political oratory of the hustings with its challenges and replies.’129

  ‘We here have had to put up with much from a few Members in this House who have challenged . . .’ seethed Nehru. Even before he could finish, Mookerji cut in, ‘This is dictatorship and not democracy.’130 When an anxious and exasperated Govind Malviya—son of the Congress stalwart and educationist Madan Mohan Malviya—complained about the constant interruptions of the prime minister’s speech, Nehru sneered: ‘I have invited them . . . I only wanted to see how much restraint Dr. Mookerjee has . . .’ ‘What restraint have you shown?’ Mookerji snapped back, ‘what restraint have you shown?’131

  In the heat of the moment, Prime Minister Nehru challenged his opponents to combat, ‘combat everywhere, intellectually or any other kind of combat on this issue and every other issue’.132 ‘It is we who have brought about these major changes,’ he thundered:

  [A]nd not these petty critics of the Government and it is we who are going to bring about major changes in this country. We are not going to allow petty critics and others to stop changes. They advance arguments which might have had some relevance some hundreds of years ago but which have no relevance now.133

  At 6.40 p.m., the guillotine was finally applied and the emotionally charged and bitterly acrimonious debate came to an end—a stormy conclusion to a debate described by a major newspaper as ‘the lowest level of parliamentary dignity witnessed this session’.134 The Speaker rang the bell for the House to divide. Opposition figures S.P. Mookerji, H.N. Kunzru, Naziruddin Ahmed, Acharya Kripalani, Ramnarain Singh, K.T. Shah, Hussain Imam and Sardar Hukam Singh were joined in the noes lobby by conscientious Congress rebels H.V. Kamath, K.K. Bhattacharya, Sarangadhar Das, Shibban Lal Saksena, Damodar Swarup Seth and Sucheta Kripalani. Another prominent face among them was the tribal leader Jaipal Singh, the man who had captained the Indian hockey team to a gold medal in the 1928 Olympics.

  The final count was taken. There were 228 ayes, twenty noes. Close to fifty members had abstained. ‘The motion is adopted by a majority of the total Membership of the House and by a majority of not less than two-thirds of the Members present and voting,’ announced the Deputy Speaker solemnly. ‘The Constitution (First Amendment) Bill, as amended, is passed.’135 Indian democracy, dubbed as top dressing on undemocratic soil even at the moment of its birth, would never be the same again.

  7

  The Aftermath

  I

  The passing of the Constitution (First Amendment) Bill marked the end of the first battle of Indian liberalism. The provisions on fundamental rights in Part III—the heart and soul of the entire Constitution according to Ambedkar—had been vandalized. The judiciary had been publicly emasculated, civil liberties deliberately and extensively curtailed. A new precedent of retrospective constitutional amendments to nullify judicial pronouncements had been set. The true post-colonial Indian state was born. The Nehruvian revolution was under way. None were left oblivious as to what had happened. The Leader, an influential nationalist newspaper published from Allahabad, described the immediate aftermath in its headline: ‘Fundamental Rights Restricted: Parliament Approves Amendments’.1

  ‘We have been accused of curbing and throttling the press and of trying to behave in an autocratic manner in regard to it,’ a relieved Nehru wrote to his chief ministers. ‘The press campaign against these amendments has gone on and some foreign papers have eagerly taken advantage of this to condemn us . . . I can understand a certain apprehension in the minds of the press . . . But I confess that I have been surprised at the vehemence of this opposition.’2 Nevertheless, even the passage of the Bill with a humungous majority failed to completely quell all dissidence. For a short while, firm, principled criticism as well as determined rearguard action continued.

  Speaking in Bombay, Supreme Court Chief Justice Hiralal Kania wrung his hands and appealed to the nation’s honest and independent citizens to ensure that the independence of each of the three limbs of the state was maintained, warning that the weakening of the judicial limb ‘can only result in chaos and the breakdown of society’.3 Few doubted what the chief of the Indian judiciary was hinting at. ‘When the Court decided a matter, it laid down whether a particular action was or was not in accordance with the law,’ Kania averred.

  When a citizen challenged a particular piece of legislation it was the duty of the Supreme Court to state whether the legislation was right or wrong. If the courts did not know what their function was, there w
ould be dictatorship. While law was necessary for the upkeep of society, equally essential were courts to determine whether the legislature passed the law within the written word of the Constitution.4

  ‘The All India Newspaper Editors Conference supported by a large and responsible section of the Indian Press has been carrying on an agitation against the amendments to the Constitution,’ wrote S.A. Sabavala, a senior editor of the Free Press Journal.

  This . . . has been treated with contempt by the Prime Minister and our one-party Parliament . . . I understand that AINEC is meeting in Bombay in the third week of June to consider further action . . . I would like to suggest that the editors now consider something more positive than verbal and written protestations of their faith in the need for unqualified freedom of the press subject to the checks already written into the Constitution . . . The Prime Minister has by his very words and deeds challenged the very existence of a free and democratic press in this country. Faced with this situation, are we to go on passing resolutions?5

  At a press conference on 11 June, Prime Minister Nehru was questioned on how the amendment was going to affect the press. ‘I do not think that, in spite of the heat raised in the recent debates, it affects the Press much’ he replied in his typically offhand manner.

  You will forgive me if I say we talk so much of the freedom of the Press, but more and more I see that that freedom might as well be exercised by anyone who has money enough to buy up a paper. Recently, it is rather an odd experience for me to see a newspaper . . . within a week or ten days completely change its policy, tone and everything except in regard to one matter and that was its rather extreme dislike of the Government and me . . . That is the freedom of the Press!6