7.Critics,Collegues & Nehru The Years of Power

8/9/2019 7.Critics,Collegues & Nehru The Years of Power

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VII Critics, Colleaguesj friends


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OF THE ORIGINAL Indian cabinet as it took office in 1947,only two men remain Nehru himself and the Minister of Rail-roads, Mr. Jagjivan, who is an untouchable. Numerous reorgan-izations and individual changes have been made through theyears with the result that the main constant factor appears to bethe Prime Minister that and the fact that all these cabinets be-long to the Congress Party and are based on its large majority inthe country and in parliament.Many changes were the result of critical outbursts in parlia-ment and in the country. Nehru is not immune from the stormswhich occasionally assail all democratic leaders, and he mustyield to them. Such a storm was that which unseated his FinanceMinister, T. T. Krishnamachari, in 1958, on the ground thathe had not been vigilant enough about the investments of thenew All-India Insurance Trust, controlled by his ministry."T.T.K.," as he was called, was not held personally responsiblefor any wrongdoing but had to go just the same, and was suc-ceeded by Mr. Morarji Desai.Such a storm is remarkable for the freedom with which allpoliticians speak at its height: they seem to have neither fear norcaution. They are many in number and take comfort from thatfact. Between storms they are not anxious, individually, to putforward any very trenchant critique of Nehru. All of themmore or less belong to his party and his parliamentary majority.


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232 NEHRU: THE YEARS OF POWERWhatever they may say in private, they are always aware ofthis fact in public and perhaps of the party discipline to whichthey might be subjected.There are a few general remarks to be made about all thecritics, first and most important being that none of them seemsto want Nehru to quit his office. Their object has been to influ-ence his thinking or to deflect his course, but not to displacehim. Another notable generality is that most of the criticismwhich has any force, body or penetration is made in private.Hardly anybody except a Communist would care to get up inpublic and make a fundamental attack on Nehru. Other men inpublic life feel, with reason, that his popularity is unassailable;an attack on him would rebound upon the attacker. A thirdgenerality is that no Indian critic to whom I have listened in allthese years questions Nehru's good will or intentions; they di-rect their attacks upon what they call his mistakes, the thingswhich they themselves would have done differently. They per-ceive deficiencies in his intellect or character; they say he doesnot understand this or that; but they never imply or suggest thathe is not expending his best effort for the country.There are some broad categories of these critics: the Com-munists are at one extreme and the Hindu traditionalists at theother. Aside from Hindu traditionalists there are a good manymodern Hindus who dislike Nehru's patience with Pakistan andhis benevolence toward the Muslims at large. Many distrusthis friendliness toward England and the United States; manymore are afraid of his friendliness toward Russia and China. Iknow of one high-minded and well-intentioned person hecomes to see me every time I go to Delhi who honestly be-lieves that Nehru's course has encouraged the Communists andmade possible their recent successes at the polls. When I lookback upon the years I have known him, it seems to me that Mr.Nehru has been about as lavishly criticized by his own people asany democratic leader of whom I have knowledge. The factthat most of these adverse observations are made in private talkdoes not alter the fact that they are extremely numerous. Hedoes not take a single decisive action without arousing a groundswell of opposition.

Public opposition is another matter. Rajaji may speak ad-


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Critics, Colleagues, Friends 233

versely on certain subjects language and military expenditure,for two but he does not oppose the Prime Minister or suggestthat he depart; he only attacks definite strands of policy. MostCongress Party members do not wish, or do not dare, to say somuch. So far as loyal opposition is concerned, the main voice isthat of Jayaprakash Narayan, the leader of the Socialist Party.He speaks up without the slightest hesitation and, oddly enough,his voice is heard. Perhaps because there are so few in his posi-tion undoubted loyalty to India combined with unceasing op-position to the government everything Jayaprakash says iswidely reported in the press and arouses comment.

Jayaprakash has had a career of considerable interest and it isfar from finished. He was educated in America (at three Mid-western universities in succession) and on his return to India be-came a member, and then a leader, of the Socialists inside theCongress Party. At independence he took his group out of theCongress and has been in opposition ever since, although hisactual part in politics is rather nebulous. He more or less re-nounced political life for some years to follow Vinoba Bhave,the saintly Gandhian who roams India asking landlords to givepart of their land to the poor peasants. This, Vinobaji's ownland reform, is known as the Bhoodan movement, and the word"Bhoodan" means literally gift land. Millions of acres (up tonow, I think, about seven) have been collected in this mannerbut it has been seen that a great deal of organization would beneeded to make use of it. Such things as fertilizer, tools, irriga-tion and houses are not part of the gift, and often the land itselfis not choice. It was hoped that Jayaprakash, in his devotion tothe movement, might provide the necessary organization tomake these gifts economically significant. He has of late, how-ever, returned to public life, and his voice is heard on critical is-sues. In the spring of 1959 he has spoken boldly on Tibet andother questions; he feels that Nehru's government is too cau-tious in its responses to the Tibetan situation.One could never guess at Jayaprakash Narayan's future. In1948 I thought he was destined to be the next prime minister ofIndia. The dwindling of the Socialist Party and his own fre-quent withdrawals from politics make this seem unlikely now,but it would be a rash man who hazarded a firm prediction.


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Critics, Colleagues, Friends 235

and spent our days at the Buddhist shrine down there, thegreat stupa where the relics of the disciples now lie. Even then(1950) Ambedkar knew a great deal about Buddhism and lec-tured me upon it at inexhaustible length; in the end he himselfbecame a Buddhist.A big, brusque fellow with a most belligerent manner, he de-lighted me by his utter difference from any other Hindu of myacquaintance. It is a form of genius to be so individual, and it isnot much use explaining it by untouchability I have known afair number of other untouchables, but nobody at all like Am-bedkar. He enjoyed attacking me for what he considered myundue affection for India.

"If you like our Brahmin government so much, Sheean, whydon't you pack it up and carry it off to America? We don'tneed it and maybe you do.""We have Brahmins of our own, sir," I would tell him."Ah, but not like ours . . . !"And off he would go on one of his hour-long diatribes aboutBrahminism and the caste system and all the evils therein in-

volved. He was perfectly capable of talking for three hours at astretch on this and related subjects. He was highly irreverentabout Mahatma Gandhi, to whom I believe he was (underneaththis irreverence) genuinely attached. He was so obsessed by thecaste system, and untouchability in particular, that he could notpossibly be fair to the government of India, of which he formeda part. His diatribes were a healthy corrective, just the same,and there was always something in what he said no matter howmuch he exaggerated. Few cabinet ministers I have ever seencould distribute such tongue lashings to his own associates.Ambedkar put into his biography in Who's Who the startlingphrase, "Untouchable by caste." Indians whose biographies ap-pear in that sturdy volume never mention caste, but Ambedkarwould have no misunderstanding about it. He then mentions hismarriage, in 1948, to Dr. Sharda Kabir of Bombay and says sheis "Brahmin by caste."Dr. Sharda Kabir, a charming woman of great intelligence,had disregarded her own caste rules by becoming a doctor ofmedicine; she cared for Ambedkar through a serious illness andthen married him. It was my impression, especially during that


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236 NEHRU : THE YEARS OF POWERlong journey to Sanchi and back, that she loved and reveredhim inordinately, and I have no doubt she thought him a verygreat man indeed. Nothing else could account for her humorand patience while he went on and on, hour after hour, aboutthe misdeeds of the Brahmins throughout history. When I askedher how she could, she laughed happily. "I don't listen after awhile," she confessed. The whole government turned out fortheir wedding Brahmins included, and headed by the BrahminNehru but nothing ever seemed to soften the edge of Arnbed-kar's resentments.

This extraordinary man claimed to be the one acknowledgedhead of all Indian untouchables a point in great dispute butwhen they gathered along the way stations between Delhi andSanchi, waiting for a glimpse of him, if he happened to be asleepor resting he did not appear. It was his Brahmin wife who stooddutifully on the platform of their private car, bowing withfolded hands before the poor people outside. I saw this happenoften, and at the most inconvenient hours. In his robust wayAmbedkar would probably have called this sentimental, but Igreatly admired her for it.He was prodigiously educated, that man. He had degreesfrom Columbia University and the University of London, hadstudied at the Sorbonne and was a barrister of Grey's Inn. Hisdegrees were M.A., Ph.D., D.Sc. and LL.D. Degrees do notmean so much, perhaps, but in the torrential flood of his talkthere came up great chunks and whirling avatars of learning.He may not have been the greatest of Sanskrit scholars but hecould plaster a text with dozens of references to early Hinduauthorities. His treatise on The Origins of Untouchability wasthus embellished with Sanskrit erudition, but its central themewas a rather daring theory, and one which, I imagine, couldnever be proved. He thought that untouchability arose throughthe breaking up of tribes in the ancient wars; when a tribe no

7.Critics,Collegues & Nehru The Years of Power

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