Calcutta DiaryAuthor(s): A. M.Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 23, No. 48 (Nov. 26, 1988), pp. 2509-2510Published by: Economic and Political WeeklyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4394037 .

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Calcutta Diary A M

Speculation over what could have happened had Maulana Azad continued as president of the Indian National Congress for a few more months in 1946 and had statements on behalf of the party emanated from him and not from Jawaharlal Nehru would be altogether idle. And yet, what is idle is not necessarily pointless.

HAVING said it, he has to deny having said it. For-dushman connot much more than a run-of-the mill enemy; it is the enemy who is also evil personified. This prime minister that we have does not suffer from any ambivalence in thought: those daring to oppose him and his party, he genuinely, believes, are not ordinary enemies, they are the nation's enemies as well, enemies who are evil personified.

But that sets a problem. You are sup- posed to put to sword the nation's enemies. Besides, those who happen to be citizens of the country and yet turn out to be its enemies would be ipso facto guilty of treason. By the prime minister's reasoning, members of parliament belong- ing to the opposition are a treasonous lot, so too the chief ministers and ministers belonging to the eight or nine state governments run by opposition parties. It would therefore be the prime minister's primal duty to ask the president to dismiss these state governments, and explore legal processes whereby members of the opposi- tion, who according to his judgment are guilty of treasonous conduct, are put out of harm's way. He could not have it both ways; he could not publicly assert that some citizens were up and about trying to play Judas to the nation, and yet do nothing about it. Once he had said what he had said, should he fail to take ap- propriate measures against those whom he regards as the nation's enemies, he is unfit for office, and should step down.

This is the bind he has got himself into. Neither has he the political strength to get the opposition-run state governments dismissed nor can he think of himself quitting. Not that he does not mean what he states, but he cannot afford to have the courage of his convictions. He therefore has to deny that he had said those offen- ding words. This is a free country, one can be a sneak and a coward at the same time.

Of course the prime minister was indul- ging in rhetoric, and rhetoric often rolls into hyperbole. But because he is the prime minister, responsibility of a special kind devolves on him; even in moments

of stress, he has to choose his words carefully. Some of those whom he blundered into describing as the nation's enemies he has put in the National Integration Council. He is supposed to counsel with them and seek their advice on the crucial issues affecting the nation's security and integrity. Since consorting with the enemy is itself a treasonous conduct, where does that leave the prime minister? That apart, as deep calls to the deep, hyperbole too calls to counter- hyperbole. Should political exchanges be reduced to such levels, no fixed co- ordinates would be left for the nation: any allegation or accusation''would then be legal tender, and intolerance would be king.

What adds a touch of irony to the episode is that the occasion the prime minister made use of to give vent to his bile was the one his party had set aside to espouse the cause of national integra- tion. The opposition parties have reacted predictably to his now-retracted statement. Irrespective of whether we have the Lok Sabha poll during the current cool season or during the next one, it is going to be a surcharged climate henceforth. A few cynically-minded ones will of course pro- ceed further: they will doubt whether elections will at all be held any more, and adduce the evidence of the prime minister's not-kept-in-the-record state- ment in support of their doubt. It runs in the household, they will sa,, this streak of authoritarianism, and the Indian people will have to reap as they sowed. They were a worried lot; the diversities which perforate the nation were th-reaten- ing to assume ominous proportions. This they were determined to prevent, by whatever means. A totem, they thought, could do the trick, providing a symbol around which the nation's diverse sections could' gather together. The household was accordingly installed as the dynasty. It will be a matter of dispute whether what now obtains can pass for national unity, but the dynasty cannot be faulted on that score. It has filled the role it was expected

to fill. A sizeable number from within the nation wanted to place the household on the pedestal. The household has not failed them. It has stuck like a leech to the pedestal. Whoever wants to dislodge it from that position is an enemy of the nation. Pearls are a nuisance, remarked Raymond Chandler in a given context. It is elections which are a nuisance will be the judgment of the dynasty in India; The prime minister's withdrawn-from-the- record comments perhaps merely reflect his state of peevishness: if the grammar is to be observed, he has to face elections in about twelve months' time; this goes against the grain.

Nonetheless, this prin-me minister has a certain advarLiage. Since he is not burdcfi-e with an excessive knowledge of history, he can, with perfect honesty, re- count history in his own manner, and without being encumbered by facts. For ritual's sake, Mahatma Gandhi's name is still mentioned, either as a footnote or as an afterthought, otherwise the prime minister can with all sincerity proceed with the assumption that India is what his grandfather and his mother had made it: the dynasty created India; the dynasty created the party; the interests of the dynasty, the party and the nation are one and the same; therefore whoever opposes either the dynasty or the party is the nation's enemy. It is a simple enough

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Economic and Political Weekly November 26, 1988 2509

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syllogism, and, within its own confines, a powerful one. And whether others agree with the point of view is rendered into an irrelevance once all dissent is considered to be treasonous.

The thirty pages of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad's memoirs, held back from the public for thirty years, are a bit of a spanner in the works. That these thirty pages were locked up for thirty years is itself a curiosum, or perhaps not at all so. Azad's autobiography, India Wins Freedom, was posthumously published. That these pages were excluded from the volume when it first got published was not in accordance with his decision. The excision was decided upon by the person who, having taken notes orally dictated by Azad, dressed them up in English and prepared the text for the press. This par- ticular person was then a secretary to the government, of which Jawaharlal Nehru was the prime minister. The publication of the thirty pages would have been em- barrassing to Nehru, and therefore to the secretary to his government. The latter chose to hold back the pages, and had the sagacity to consult his prime minister, who approved of this act of censorship. Sagacity pays. In due course, the secretary became a minister.

Truth will be out, even if with an en- forced lag of thirty years. Not that the Maulana's observations on Jawaharlal Nehru's role during the pre-independence negotiations quite qualify as a revelation. The facts were already known, and lesser beings had already reached their private judgment: a few leaders, Nehru to the fore amongst them, were in a scampering hurry to take over in New Delhi, egged on by the imperial masters from whom they were to take over, they did not mind offering a slice of the country to Mohammed Ali Jinnah if that would ad- vance the date of transfer of power; their only condition was that they must exer- cise untramelled power over the bit of India left with them. At the mid-point of 1946, Jinnah and his Muslim League had reneged from the demand for Pakistan and were committed to accept the pro- posal of the Cabinet Mission to have a federation of India made up of three con- stituent quasi-autonomous groups. That it were one or two intemperate statements by Jawaharlal Nehru which provided the opportunity to Jinnah to go back on his commitment is also fairly well docu- mented in history. The problem with history has however always been that you can skip the pages which do not suit you. The lifting of the veil over the hitherto censored part of Azad's autobiography

will make the selective reading of history somewhat more awkward. The starry-eyed admirers of the dynasty will continue to pretend that it created India. Given the weight of Azad's authority,, it will now be difficult to shrug off the fact that the dynasty's misdoings actually largely con- tributed to the creation of Pakistan. Somewhat of an unfortunate coincidence, the reinterring of the Maulana's pages has overlapped with the beginning of the celebrations to mark the dynasty's centenary. The Maulana too can be retroactively described as an enemy of the nation, or as a crank suffering from frustration because he was not made prime minister, but that would mean too many excisions of the pages of history; besides, the harm has already been done.

Speculation over what could have hap- pened had Azad continued as president of the Indian National Congress for a few more months in 1946 and statements on behalf of the party emanated from him and not from Jawaharlal Nehru would be altogether idle. And yet, what is idle is not necessarily pointless. Perhaps the British would then have been held to their words and forced to transfer power to the federa- tion with its three quasi-autonomous con- stituent groups. Perhaps the three groups

would have flowri at one anotherls throat, Or perhaps they would not have. Perhaps they would have behaved with the federa- tion. Or perhaps they would not have. Since Mohammed Ali Jinnah, already suffering from wasting tuberculosis, disappeared frorn the scene by the autumn of 1948, it could have been, who knows, a different kind of ball game had the original proposal of the Cabinet Mission been given a chance. Bangladesh as it now is, Sind, Baluchistan, the North-West Frontier Province and, finally,,the whole of Punjab would and then have remained as part of the Indian federation. New Delhi too would have continued as the seat of the federal administration. But since each of three groups would have a persona of its own as behoves the consti- tuent of a true federation, the federal government would be shorn of its imperial halo. Who knows, the dynasty would then either not have been there, or would have shared power humbly, in the best tradi- tions of democratic non-centralism, with others. And none would have dared to describe the parties in the opposition as the nation's enemies.

Perhaps the dynasty took the long view. Such a non-imperial, non-colonial India would not have been to its liking. It chose.

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2510 Economic and Political Weekly November 26, 1988

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