Books and Authors

In the political history of modern India, it would be difficult to think of two more compelling figures (leaving Mahatma Gandhi and Subhas Bose out of consideration, for the time being) than Jawaharlal Nehru and C. Rajagopalachari. They were as different from each other, as they were significant to the country, before and after freedom. Without making a value judgement on their personalities or total contribution, it may only be fair, even factual, to recognise the greater public significance of the first. There is scarcely any room for speculating on the “ifs” and “buts” and “might-hae-beens” of history in making this kind of comparative biographical assessment.

One was the “Prince Charming” of the Freedom Movement, the builder of new India and the spearhead of her scientific progress and technological advance. The other was the: “conscience-keeper” of the Mahatma, the sage counsellor of the establishment in the early years of Independence, and its political gadfly thereafter, the philosopher of conservatism, who lived long enough to be hailed as a latter-day Socrates. In their make-up, they were poles apart – one was emotionally sensitive, in­variably impulsive, highly imaginative, while the other was cool­headed, calculating, never allowing his emotion to get the better of his intellect.

Both were keenly intelligent, though their approaches to pro­blems and modes of operation were very different. They had some similarities too – both were authoritarian by temperament. While Nehru had second thoughts, in which he regretted his lapses of temper and retracted from earlier positions, Rajaji had the habit of rationalising his prejudices, finding logical points of justifi­cation for all his pet theories. Both had the irresistible tendency to locate themselves at the centre of the stage and a convincing way of feeling uneasy and out of sorts, when they found themselves out of it. Neither of them was a saint of self-abnegation, not even of the J. P. level, let alone the Mahatma’s, the claims of their uncritical hero-worshippers notwithstanding.

Quite a few writers had, in the past, been attracted to the personalities of Nehru and Rajagopalachari, many more to the former than to the latter. Nehru and a charisma and a mass appeal, based on his warmth, which can’t be associated with the chilling figure of Rajaji, the logic-chopper. It is lucky for the two that they have now been the subject of study by two biographers, whose professional credentials are impeccable.* Dr. S. Gopal is a historian of repute, whose involvement with the Nehru canon was obviously deeper than his association with the Nehru personality. As for Rajmohan Gandhi, a journalist (mainly political analyst) of courage and integrity, his personal association with his grand-father, Rajaji, could not have been deeper, though it is not clear if there was enough distance between the two for the author to retain his perspective.

While both the authors are admittedly painstaking and con­scientious, there is an inevitable difference in their style and approach to the subject. Dr Gopal is always the historian in search of authorities for his facts; the political scientist looking for the trends and forces that influence the policies; and the research scholar with the methodology uppermost in his mind, with the footnotes being as important as the text. Not that Mr. Raj­mohan Gandhi is unsure of his facts or unmindful of his notes and references. Both the books are well-documented. Only, Mr. Gandhi has his eye more on a flowing narrative (with the general reader in mind) than on the academic methodology. I hope Dr. Gopal does not ignore the general reader, eager to follow the account of Nehru’s life, but he certainly seems to have his sights set on the academic student out to get his points to prove his case in an examination.

Small wonder then that Dr. Gopal’s is the more massive work, with three volumes in closely printed type, totaling about a thousand pages, to Mr. Gandhi’s two volumes, only slightly less substantial. It will be clear even to a casual reader of these two works that both the authors have achieved a distinct improvement, in presentation as well as perception, in their final volumes. The second and final volume of Mr. Gandhi’s work covers the last 35 years of Rajaji’s life, taking the narrative from the formation of his first ministry in Madras in 1937 to his death in 1972. Dr. Gopal’s third and last volume covers the last eight years of Nehru’s life, that is, from 1956 to his death in 1964. One is not quite sure about the importance of 1956 as a landmark, where Suez and Hungary were already things of the past, abroad, the concept of Socialism was getting consolidated and the Second Five-year Plan was in progress at home. Only the hindi of a rift in the lute of Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai was visible to the prescient. Nehru was certainly at the zenith of his achievement, with no one to challenge his writ at home or question his wisdom abroad. Maybe the beginnings of the downward trend were soon to be felt by those who could look ahead.

In 1957, the picture was good enough, with the Congress party having done well in the General Election almost everywhere except in Kerala, where the Communists came on top. That year saw the centenary of the 1857 uprising, with a lot of worked up national euphoria and Nehru had cause for satisfaction on all the fronts. All the troubles are to come only in the next year–­Tibet, China, Pakistan and the rest. It is, of course, always easy to be wise, after the event, with the help of hindsight. Even Mountbatten couldn’t resist the temptation. To quote Dr. Gopal, “.....Mountbatten stated many years later that, if Nehru had died in 1958, history would have remembered him as the greatest statesman of the twentieth century. Mountbatten saw, that year as marking both the peak and the commencement of a downhill trend because it was from then that India’s relations with China, already uneasy, began rapidly to deteriorate.”

Relations with China do occupy quite a big chunk of space in this volume, spread over several chapters. Behind the smoke­screen of Pancha Shila and Peaceful Co-existence, Sino-Indian relations were gradually deteriorating over the years from 1957, culminating in the invasion across the Himalayas in September 1962. The zigzag path of one-sided friendship and the devious course of negotiations are surveyed with an engineers sense of detail, but it remains unclear why the Chinese were driven to have resort to the extreme course of massive aggression. Were they angered by India’s offer of asylum to the Dalai Lama (which also Nehru did with little promptness and less grace)? Did they feel jealous of India’s economic achievements and demo­cratic example? Was it a case of personality equation between Chou En-lai and Nehru, the former being put out by the latter’s monumental “arrogance?”

Dr. Gopal spares no effort in the by-no-means easy task of finding every possible justification for Nehru’s China policy, or lack of policy, if you will. He refers to the continued stance of patience with China, to be read with firmness towards Pakistan. Realistic critics like Rajaji would have wished it to be the other way round – firmness towards China and patience with Pakistan. Nehru, who was fond of quoting the statement, “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty”, did not seem to realise that it was the price of “friendship” and “peaceful coexistence” as well with powerful neighbours like People’s China and Soviet Russia!

He was also rather less than vigilant in relying on the advice of diplomats with an easy conscience like Sardar Panikkar (who saw no threat from New China) and pathological lieutenants with conditioned reflexes like V. K. Krishna Menon, the Defence Minister, whose machinery of Defence Production was kept busy with hair-clippers, pressure-cookers and mechanical toys at the time of the Chinese invasion! Neither these two nor anyone else could provide a convincing alibi for a responsible Prime Minister, who did share many of the whims and fancies of Menon. There is really no point in deploring the sick mind of the megalomaniac Mao Tse-Tung or the slick cunning of the confidence-­trickster Chou En-lai, or finding other scapegoats in the doctrinaire strategies of Menon, who was a law unto himself. What was a Prime Minister supposed to be doing? Day-dream­ing rover Gautama the Buddha and Confucius, Lao-Tse and Company? He was not even aware, in the thick of the crisis of September 1962, of the relative strengths and weaknesses of the rival armies, which is obvious from his words of misplaced confidence:

“Our troops are good, and better than any in the world...You must realise the clear and firm directive of the Govern­ment to drive the Chinese out of our territory. We will drive them out.” Easier said than done, as it turned out to be!

In the words of Rajaji, quoted by Rajmohan Gandhi, Indian soldiers were “outnumbered, out-weaponed, out-manoeuvred and slaughtered.” It was proved conclusively, on more than one crucial occasion, that Nehru was a poor judge of men and situations. Not only on China but on the Kashmir issue, linguistic provinces and religious minorities. And yet, it was a measure of the people’s confidence in him that they did not want him to quit, after the Chinese disaster. They were content with the heads of scapegoats like Krishna Menon in 1962 and a few others axed under the Kamaraj Plan in 1963.

Rajaji was perhaps the exact opposite of Nehru in many respects. He lacked the breadth of vision, but knew his mind and had the will to get things done, in his own limited sphere. As the Premier of Madras in 1937, he outdid the true-blue British bureaucrats of the day in his flair for quick decision and firm action. For instance, he lost no time in arresting the Bombay socialist, S. S. Batlivala, a stormy petrel of those days, for his inflammatory speeches and incitement to violence, which led to a controversy.

At a meeting of the Congrees Working Committee, Nehru as President, reportedly asked C. R: “Do you mean to say that if I come to Madras and make a similar speech, you would arrest me?” “I would”, C, R. apparently replied, with his wonted non-chalance.

This is but one of the many interesting anecdotes from Mr. Rajmohan Gandhi’s book, which he calls “The Rajaji Story.” A story indeed it is, a delightful and absorbing story. Very different from Dr. Gopal’s strenuous and learned biography of Nehru. There is no dearth of solid material here, but the author has been able to digest it all and present an eminently readable account in this volume (which is very much of an improvement on his first volume, A Warrior from the Smith).

From the first paragraph to the last, there is a sustained attempt on the author’s part to capture the untypical personality of Rajaji – sinister and saturnine to some, mature and, benignant to others, brilliant and baffling to most. While Dr. Gopal discusses Nehru’s character in terms of general trends and basic forces, Mr. Gandhi tries to understand the policies and actions of Rajaj’is administration in terms of his personality and character.

In 16 well-written and closely-knit chapters, with suggestive titles (like ‘Charming the Enemy’, ‘Quenching the Flames’, ‘Successor to Hastings’ and ‘Shaking a Monolith’), Mr. Gandhi covers the Indian political scene, with the personality of Rajaji as the running thread. The freedom-fighter, the formula-maker, the conservative philosopher and the conscience-keeper, are all discussed with rare subtlety and a sense of restraint as also an earnest attempt at objectivity.

But occasionally, the objectivity gives way. While there has been no doubt about Rajaji’s intellectual calibre and integrity of character as an administrator, his subdued ambition, his con­trolled thirst for office at the highest level (though a “no-changer” who argued convincingly against office acceptance) and his refined capacity for intrigue had not been unknown to those in the Composite Madras State. At least two Congress stalwarts–S. Satya­murti and T. Prakasam – had to bear the cup of disappointment and its bitterness could not be sweetened even by the blessings of Mahatma. While he could be generous to Jinnah who always kept him at arm’s length, he could not help being harsh and vindictive to the protagonists of a separate Andhra State.

In analysing the character of Rajaji, Mr. Rajmohan Gandhi highlights four main elements – goodness, kindliness, daring and sparkle. The last were there for all to see. The first two could be experienced only by the near and dear ones like the author. Reference is also made elsewhere to “compassion”, but then Rajaji was by no means all approximation to “the Compassionate Buddha.” A valuable book all the same – sensitive, elegant and absorbing.

As for Nehru, with all his fatal shortcomings as a man of action and as a ruler of men, he was one of the most civilized of human beings. An artist to his fingertips, he could respond to beauty in all shapes and forms A man of intense poetic sensibility, he could capture in words what he saw and experienced. Deeply committed to the scientific temper, he would contemplate on the imponderables of Indian philosophy. An avowed modernist, he exposed himself to India’s ancient heritage. Impulsive and imaginative, contemplative but quick-tempered, he was a charming bundle of contradictions. Little of this contradiction and none of this charm come through in Dr. Gopal’s admirable tour de force of research and analysis. It is more history than biography–­archival, authentic, authoritative.

If it is true that our critics are our best judges, then Nehru and Rajaji of the latter-day are best understood in each other’s words – underlining the megalomania of one entrenched in power and the accumulated frustration of one out of office. In earlier days they shone best when they worked together, because they were well-made opposites, effective complementaries. So are the two books best read together. The erudite analysis of policies and actions in one could be enlivened by the brilliant story of a life in the other. The hero of one could be more convincing, when cut to size in human form, when we see his feet of clay in the other.

* Jawaharlal Nehru: A Biography. Volume Three (1956-1964): By Sarvepalli Gopal, Oxford University Press. Price: Rs. 120.
The Rajaji Story (1937-1972): ByRajmohon Gandhi. Bhara­    tiya Vidya Bhavan, Bombay. Price. Rs. 100.