Tuesday, 28 February 2017

SIDELIGHTS : : It is an observation no less just than common, that there is no stronger test of a man’s real character than power and authority, exciting as they do every passion, and discovering every latent vice.—PLUTARCH.

SWATANTRA—AUGUST 9, 1947


THE removal of C.R. from the Union Cabinet apparently for elevating him to the Governorship of West Bengal, actually places him in cold storage for the time being. It does not seem to be a sound practice to impose leaders of one province as Governors in others. For one thing, it violates the spirit of the constitution which has provided for Governors to be elected directly by the people on adult suffrage. Are the people of any province ever likely to choose their Governors from the candidates of another? Interim appointments should conform as near as possible to the pattern of government and administrative personnel that may reasonably be expected to take shape when the new constitution comes into full operation. Supposing the High Command had selected as Governors persons likely to be confirmed in the same office even under the impending suffrage, and supposing in due course they actually get so confirmed, what a feather it would be in the cap of the selectors. They would have shown themselves capable, then, of voluntary adjustments to the authentic realities of public opinion and established their mettle as democrats and won honour as such.

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Perhaps the repugnance of the High Command to the whole lot of Andhra leaders as such has landed them in the present morass of having to pick Governors from anywhere except the actual territory to be governed by them. Tamil leaders stand no higher in the regard of the central Congress dictatorship, but it has been given to C.R. alone to break the North India monopoly of control over all-India affairs and establish himself squarely and firmly in the highest Congress conclave on equal terms with its other members and on a footing other than patronage. He stands as a symbol to demonstrate that, in the matter of contribution to federal leadership, Madras is not completely wiped out, of the Congress map.

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If Governorships were to go by election now and C.R. were to stand, he will be confronted in Tamil Nadu with the communal forces that are being violently egged on under Omandurian inspiration. None will vote for him in Andhra. The whole of Andhra is a boiling cauldron of rage over the dethronement of  Prakasam for the establishment of a Premier like Omandur. Had the present Ministry acquitted itself creditably and improved conditions of life for the people, it might have hoped in course of time to quieten the public resentment with which its advent was greeted. But even its most energetic protagonist has come on record condemning it as in no way better than its predecessor. It has brought the food position to a desperate muddle.  Corruption is on the increase. The strain of sheer existence is being made unbearable for millions, while the Ministry is digging itself deeper daily into the mire of a hatred cult of communal colour, hoping thereby to divert attention from its own incompetence and futility. But the mounting distress of the multitude can neither be fed on manufactured communal rancour nor put off with tactics.

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The feuds of recent months have not led to any good. While ministerial energies are being utilized to the full in a strenuous struggle just to survive, there is no chance of any surplus being left over for constructive effort over measures of tangible benefit to people. All this strain would be at once removed if peace could be re-established between the anti-Prakasamites and the ex-Premier. There seems no way out of the tangled mess of present-day politics in the province until the enormous goodwill and popular backing that belongs to Sri Prakasam is converted into an asset of Government instead of being allowed to confront it resentfully as now. The most natural way of effecting such a conversion would have been to make him Governor. He is anyhow marked for the Governorship of Andhra after the formation of the province, should he choose to stand for it, since under adult suffrage no one would have the ghost of a chance for competing against him successfully in that area. He certainly deserves as well at the hands of the Congress High Command as Pakwasa or Jairam das Dowlatram. Rarely have I ever come across such a fury of anger as is now burning in the heart of the common man of Andhra over the Congress High Command’s studied neglect and insult of leaders held in honour by him, and especially Sri Prakasam. One of them, a loyal Congressman of repute who went to jail everytime the mandate came, burst out the other day, thus: “For seventeen years I have been paying four annas to the Congress regularly. But now I am disgusted with the ways of the High Command. For the first time in seventeen years I have withheld my subscription to the Congress this year.”


The old empire that the Congress had over the allegiance of the masses is being lost to it; and great as Sardar Vallabyhbhai Patel’s services were to the Congress in time past, his handling of affairs over the past two years has done much harm to the credit and influence of the Congress with common people in general. C.R.’s relegation to West Bengal is an ugly move in a threatened process of power-consolidation at the Centre, with the Sardar holding all the strings. Sir R.K. Shanmukham Chetti’s talents are undeniable and deserve to be made accessible in some consultative form; but not, as a Minister of State. Ministerships should come as nobody’s gift. With C.R. got rid of, all that is needed for the Central Executive to be brought into the hollow of the Sardar’s hand is that Nehru should be made President and Rajendra Prasad sent to Behar. These moves too were not left unattempted, according to report. It is comforting to be informed that the Mahatma stepped in before too late to counter them.—(August 9, 1947) S A K A.

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