SWATANTRA—AUGUST 23,
1947
FOUR of the members of the Indian Dominion Cabinet are real
leaders of men in the sense that large masses of people hang on them for
guidance. Three of them have risen to power on the crest of Gandhian influence,
but three more dissimilar beings can rarely be found adorning the effective
leadership of a single political organisation. Jawaharlal of the three
represents a grand contradiction in Congress politics which has continued up to
date under the shelter of national preoccupation with the major activity
connected with the anti-imperialist struggle. But the moment for the resolution
of the contradiction has come, along with independence—a moment foreseen by
Subhash Bose, that can no longer be postponed indefinitely.;
* * *
Subhash said of Nehru, ”He is
looked upon by almost everybody in India as an infallible guide on everything,
even though on his own showing he vacillates at every step. You find the
peasant hails him as his spokesman, labour as their protagonist, the Communist
patronises him, the capitalist dotes on him, the artist hails him as a
pathfinder in belles letters, the mill owner gushes over him ignoring the
disconcerting fact that he is actually spinning away, without conviction, to
prove a worthy heir to Gandhiji and a friend to the Daridranarayana—a word he abhors . . . An artist may afford to be
decorative . . . . He may even hug the charming inconsistencies to cut a
picturesque figure. But for a man of action, a statesman, an administrator and
above all for one who bids fair to grow into the world figure, it were madness
even to dream that one could do without a backbone . . . . I will beg leave to
prophesy: if he really wants to serve India through politics he must first of
all make sure of his foundations. For,
if he does not take care to seek solid ground under his feet, the ground won’t
seek his feet either.” (From The Subhash
I Knew by Dilip Kumar Roy)
* * *
Unlike Nehru, Sardar Patel is all
backbone and no vacillation and the same can be said of Rajendra Prasad also.
But Rajendra Prasad is an individualist immersed in practical work for social
welfare, devoid of personal political ambition and with no taste for intrigues
connected with power consolidation on party lines. He acts on the principle of
“one step enough at a time” and refuses to be drawn into the controversies that
lie beyond. A man with no rancour and incapable of making enemies. Power has
come to him unsought through sheer character, universally recognized by all
warring groups as one of unique purity and straightforward rectitude. His
genius for evading conflicts tends now to concentrate the struggle for primacy
in power between Nehru and Patel, though it is not unlikely that his very
detachment may finally bring him to the top, over the heads of both. For the
time being, all the glamour of titular limelighted premiership belongs to
Nehru, while Patel goes on quietly gathering the strings of effective control
over the party into his own hands, planting dependable lieutenants of his own
in key positions in the administration and in the important offices that
influence and dominate public opinion. The major voice in the determination of
all the big appointments is that of Patel. He has capital at his elbow.
Unlimited access to the wealth and resources of rich traders and owners of
industry who look to him for patronage and protection, control over the most
powerful and influential of the departments of Government at the Centre and
over the whole mechanism of vote-catching, his own single-track will, burdened
by few scruples in the pursuit of power, and the supreme asset of a lifetime’s
close association with the Mahatma to an extent precluding for ever, under any circumstances, any possibility of an
open breach combined to make Sardar Patel the most dreaded and formidable among
the leading figures propelled to supreme office in the new Dominion of India.
* * *
(1) Rajendra
Pasad; (2) Jawaharlal Nehru; (3) Vallabhbhai Patel; (4) Baldev Singh; (5)
Bhabha; (6) Dr. S.P. Mookherjee; (7) Abul Kalam Azad; (8) Rajkumari Amrit Kaur;
(9) Dr. John Mathai; (10) R.K. Shanmukham Chetti; (11) Jagjivan Ram; (12) N.Y.
Gadgil. (13) Rafi Ahmad Kidwai; (14) Dr. Ambedkar.
Dr. Ambedkar is the only
non-Gandhian member of the Central Government entitled to political recognition
on the basis of mass suffrage. Dr. Mukherjee of the Hindu Maha Sabha and Sardar
Baldev Singh represent no doubt very important communities. But they have not
attained that level of unchallengeable representative hold over their
respective communities that belonged to Mr. Jinnah in the case of the Muslim
League and is exercised by Dr. Ambedkar over the scheduled castes. They could
have been ignored, or replaced by others from the same fold, without any
convulsion being caused thereby. But Dr. Ambedkar is the very spearhead of the
hopes and aspirations of millions of India’s suppressed humanity dubbed and
treated as untouchable over the ages. If democracy is a force symbolizing the
enslaved to redemption, and if that force can be said to be incarnated in one
individual more than in others, that individual is Dr. Ambedkar. He is
different from Jagjivan Ram who, according to all accounts has given a very
good account of himself as a member of the Interim Government, but who required
to be carried on the shoulders of Rajendra Prasad for initial recognition of
his status as administrator. But Dr. Ambedkar’s stature needs no stilts to be
brought to the level of the topmost leader of any other party. His ability is
as great as his learning and knowledge, and both are well matched by the vigour
of his resistance to monopoly and privilege and his devotion to the cause of
the downtrodden in the land.
* * *
Nehru, Patel, Rajendra Prasad and
Ambedkar are thus the only ones in the Cabinet whose political importance is
equal to their official position as administrators and who can therefore be
depended upon to exercise their judgment independently without nervous fear
about the consequences of dissenting from the wishes and viewpoints of powerful
patrons. In the case of none of the others can it be said that their position
as members of Government is matched by their influence as leaders of men.
Maulana Azad who shone well so well as Congress President and conducted himself
with such unwearying dignity during the recent most difficult period in
Congress history, makes somehow a far from happy impression as Member for
Education. He has lost his historical position and sunk into comparative
un-importance since he assumed a portfolio. In the case of some of the other
members, lack of political importance as judged from a national scale, is
counter-balanced by admirable individual qualities. Dr. Mathai, for example,
has vast experience in the management of industrial concerns without the
capitalist bent of mind which is the besetting bane of industrial magnates. The
Tatas in whose service he rose to distinction have ever been less concerned
with profit than with national prosperity and the advancement of science—and
they have not monkeyed with the intrigues of power politics. They have to be
differentiated from the Birlas who have taken patriotism in the stride of
business, whose whole outlook is one of acquisitiveness and whose strangle-hold
over the Congress exposes that great institution today to the taint of
capitalist bias and the aversion of millions of socialistically inclined
anti-capitalist people. But Dr. John Mathai is that invaluable rarity, a
Socialist of liberal outlook with managerial experience of capitalist industry.
Rare qualities are credited to Raj Kumari Amrit Kaur too, and to Rafi Ahmad
Kidwal. But in their case as well as of those among the rest not so well
endowed, promotion has come by favour, which means that the ambition of
securing camp-followers has prevailed over other considerations with the
arbiters of our national destiny responsible for the formation of the country’s
Government.
* * *
Shanmukhan Chetti’s appointment as Finance Member is of special
interest for the displacement of C.R. involved in it—a step well in accord with
the power-hunter’s repugnance for tall poppies in his neighbourhood, and
ominously illustrative of dark and unhappy possibilities in the relations
between the South and the Centre in the coming days. Shanmukham Chetti is an
advocate of relaxation in political standards, given to taking such pleasure as
come his way without squeamishness. I reproduce here what I wrote of him six
years ago as it might be of some interest to readers now: “Sir R.K. Shanmukham
has revealed himself to be a progressive constitutionalist. He has shed the
trappings of the patriot, but he has acquired considerable success as an
administrator. He has the true administrator’s gift of discovering dependable
men for fulfilling difficult tasks. He is an economist of vision and insight,
and is very able in the expounding of complicated themes. His sense of logic is
keen and vigilant, and in all administrative matters, he strives to render
justice by keeping an open mind. He is prudent and tactful and is endowed
abundantly with commonsense. He has got entangled into membership of a
reactionary political party, but his Justicite persuasions, based on
expediency, are apparently a result of his frank acceptance of his own limitations
for the hardy functions of Congress membership.”—(August 23, 1947) S A K A.
No comments:
Post a Comment