Rajaji as a Political Thinker

Like many other great men the world over, C. Rajagopalachari (or Rajaji, as he was popularly known and fondly addressed), was a mixture of opposites, if not exactly a bundle of contradictions. He was reputed to be a conservative of conservatives, but, he initiated many reforms, social and political, which could have been hailed as radical and feared as revolutionary, had they come from other hands. A confirmed no-changer in Congress politics, he played the premier role of a pro-changer on more occasions than one. One of the earliest satyagrahisin the struggle for freedom, believed to be the conscience-keeper of the Mahatma, he often took positions at the opposite pole, braving, widespread opposition, unpopularity, even political ostracisation, in the process.

In the forefront of the fight against British imperialism, since 1919 or even earlier, spending many years in British jails, he took care to see that many of the values that he had imbibed from the British political system and the Western Intellectual tradition, including the European enlightenment, were preserved, and promoted in Indian politics and society, whenever he had the power to do so.

Rajaji, as a politician, was essentially pragmatic, not rigidly sticking to a dogma, to the detriment of practical results and in the face of the hard realities of life and politics. He certainly stood for certain basic principles, like political freedom, individual liberty, private initiative, social progress, not to speak of the spiritual foundations of material welfare. But he was ready to compromise, where compromise was called for, on inessentials and marginal issue.

Though he did not belong to the Indian Liberal Federation (in fact, he was ranged against the great Liberals. like Sivaswami Aiyer and Srinivasa Sastri, Sapru and Jayakar and others), he seemed to have imbibed the quintessence of classical liberalism, represented by Mill ‘On Liberty’ and Morely ‘On Compromise’. He knew the art of where to compromise and where not, separating the chaff from the grain, standing for principle and letting the subsidiaries go, sticking to the substance, leaving the shadows to take care of themselves.

To take the points in their chronological order, it was at the Gaya Congress in 1922, under the presidentship of Desha­bandhu C. R. Das, that the problem of Council entry took an urgent and serious turn vis-a-visnon-cooperation and the con­structive programme. It was the stand taken by Das and his followers, that Congressmen, at least some of them, could be allowed to stand for elections and enter the Councils, to prove their mettle and the parliamentary democratic credentials, of the Indian National Congress, and ultimately to wreck the Constitution, if not to work it. There was a strong body of opinion in favour of this, supported by Motilal Nehru, N. C. Kelkar, Vithalbhai Patel, and others in the North and Srinivasa Iyengar, Satyamurti, Prakasam and others in the South. These were known as the ‘Pro-changers’.The other side, sticking to the principle of total non-cooperation with the Government and the constructive programme, without any change of policy under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, were known as the ‘No-Changers’. They included seasoned Gandhites like Sardar Palel, Babu Rajendra Prasad, Dr. Pattabhi Sitaramayya and C. Rajagopalachari.

The main resolution, on behalf of the no-changers, was either moved, or seconded by Rajaji, but it was carried, though with a narrow majority, thanks to the intellectual resourcefulness and persuasive eloquence of Rajaji. It marked the parting of ways between the two groups, which, of course, came together later, after the death of Das in 1925. But Rajaji was known as the high-priest, if not the prophet (who was Gandhiji) of the no-changers.

Surprisingly enough, in 1937. after the elections under pro­vincial autonomy, when the Congress, after long deliberation and some dithering, decided in favour of office acceptance, it was Rajaji, the high-priest of the no-changers, preoccupied with propagation of Khadi, prohibition and rural reconstruction pro­gramme at the Gandhi Ashram at Tiruchengode, who was favoured for the leadership of the Congress party and the formation of the Ministry. This is not the place to discuss the merits and demerits of the aspirants to the position or the justice and injustice of the ultimate choice made. In the event, it turned out extremely well, earning a lot of prestige for the Congress Ministry of Madras.

It was proved that Indians, when entrusted with the high responsibility of administration, could prove as good as, or even better than, their British counterparts. Rajaji’s flair for admini­stration, with emphasis on order, discipline and good government, was seen to advantage during the years 1937-39.

Critics were not wanting, who found fault with Rajaji for the apparent contradictions in his attitude, suggesting a possible falling off from the original principle and an obvious compromise with contrary forces, in the interest of expediency. For instance, the eminent journalist, Khasa Subba Rau (who came to be an ardent admirer of Rajaji later) pulled no punches in attacking him in 1939 or 1940).

He wrote in Men in the Limelight:

“...but C. R. functions in diverse capacities in significant styles that seem somehow to cast subtle challenges at the essential spirit of the roles in which he appears. Thus he is a nationalist by profession, with an administrative record filled largely with bolsterings of communalism. He is a Congressman with a rather diluted regard for other brothers of the faith, and all his considerateness seems to be reserved for Justicites, Liberals, Europeans and the Services. One feels that a word of an I. C. S. Civilian weighs far more with C. R. than the combined judgement of colleagues of his own party. He has taken asceticism as the staff of life, but other ascetics get very little of his attention, which is rarely denied by him to millionaires. He is a Satyagrahi with truth and non-violence for mottoes, but he is a veritable Chanakya in politics with a genius for intrigue, unequalled in our times.”

We should realise that by the year 1937, the old polarisation between the no-changers and the pro-changers, arising in a different context, no longer hold good. It lost its relevance, because of the changed political situation; Rajaji did not see any lasting wisdom in adopting inflexible attitudes, like non-co-operation and co-operation, Swadeshi, Videshi, nationalism, cosmopolitanism, etc. Same is the case with issues like the teaching of Hindi. Rajaji like other Congress leaders, was a staunch advocate of the propagation of Hindi as a “national language” in 1937. But by the early ‘Sixties, 1960-62, he became one of the spearheads of informed and intelligent opposition to the rising tide of Hindi domination as an official language. Before Independence, he was opposed to the domination of English, under the British administration, to the neglect of the Indian languages. When he realised the new dangers, after coming face to face with the realities of the new situation, he did not hesitate to take a stand that would throw him out of favour with the ruling party and the establishment at the Centre.

An ardent Congressman for about 35 to 40 years, Rajaji felt that when the Congress leadership tended to become dictatorial, because of the continuous, unchallenged, monopoly of power in free India it was high time that a strong opposition was organised. As a deep student of British politics, he learnt to believe in the value of a party-system for an effective, viable parliamentary democracy.

Writing on Our Democracy he said in Swarajya:

“A strong opposition is essential for the health of democratic Government. In a democracy, based on universal suffrage, Government of the majority without an effective opposition is like driving a donkey on whose you put the whole load in one bundle. The two-party system steadies movement by putting a fairly equal load into each pannier. In the human body also, the two eyes and two ears, aid a person to place the objects seen and heard. A single-party democracy soon loses its sense of proportion. It sees, but cannot place things in perspective or apprehend all sides of a question. This is the position in India today.”

It is the same position today, 30 years or so, after these words were written. Though the forms of democracy seem to have survived, the true spirit that should inform it, had obviously vanished, if it ever had been absorbed here.

On the parting of ways and growing conflict of views between Rajaji and Nehru, Monica Felton (the author of I Meet Rajaji wrote (Page 185):

“One day I said to him, ‘I have been thinking that if I were the mother of you and the P. M., I would bang your two heads together and tell you to stop arguing and to settle down and run things together. Each of you has qualities that the other has not, and which this country badly needs. You would make a superb combination’.”

To which, he smiled faintly and answered:

“But it is too late. Our P. M. has arrived at a point at which it is impossible for him to change his views. He has got into a settled habit of thinking that everything must be done in a hurry. And I have reached a detachment, which makes it out of the question that I should ever again return to public affairs.”

And yet, he did return to public affairs, when he founded the Swatantra Party in 1959, which he described as the Conservative Party of India at the inaugural meeting at the auditorium of the Vivekananda College, with intellectuals like Minoo Masani and others present there.

Rajaji is often described as a “Conservative”, by public reputation, as also on his own admission, which has to be under­stood in the proper perspective. He was indeed a conservative, in the sense that he wanted to conserve what is worth conserving in native tradition, while borrowing the systems from abroad and adapting them to our requirements. In his attitude to political ideas, he was neither affected by xenolatry (worship of all things foreign), which as the fashion in certain quarters, nor by xenophobia, which seems to be the bane of certain indigenous regional parties, self-complacent in their own native glory of wallowing in revivalist attitudes, and revelling in socio-cultural, literary-historical, myths in pursuit of their populist policies, as a psychological substitute for concrete, progressive programmes.

Rajaji was a liberal (with an ‘l’ in the lower case), without ever belonging to a Liberal Party so called. This fact becomes all the more relevant, when we remember that the distinction between “enlightened conservatism” and “pragmatic liberalism” has almost disappeared now, even in Britain and other parlia­mentary democracies, of the advanced countries of the West.

Rajaji’s approach to issues could be described as pragmatic, not partisan; dynamic, not dogmatic. On the issue of a ban on Nuclear proliferation, he found himself in the company of the Indian Communists, whom he had earlier called his “Enemy Number One”, in a different context.

On the Cripps offer (in 1942), he was for giving it a “try”; in this he was in the very select and distinguished company of Sri Aurobindo, who sent his personal emissary, S. Duraiswami Aiyer, to Simla to plead with the Congress leaders to accept it.

On the separatist demand of the Muslim League under the leadership of Jinnah, Rajaji was for conceding autonomy, if possible, and partition, if inevitable, as the only way out of the political impasse – the only key to the deadlock. With his robust commonsense, he said it was better for two brothers to partition their patrimony than to stay on together in tension, always flying at each other’s throats.

Rajaji would have quite approved of the utilitarian ideal of the greatest good of the largest number, whatever the label of a political party might be. He was aware, earlier than others, that the real conflict was between “democracy” in whatever form on the one side and “totalitarianism” and other forms of “authoritarianism” on the other.

We shall do well to recognise that Rajaji was “conservative” without being “reactionary”, “orthodox” without being “obscurantist”, “radical” without being “revolutionary”, “progressive” (or forward-looking) without being “Marxist” or “communist”, and “democratic” without being “populist”.