The topic of Jawaharlal Nehru being chosen over Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel as the president of Congress in 1946, and eventually becoming the first Prime Minister of Independent India, remains one of the most hotly debated aspects of the latter’s life. This controversial sequence of events has been established by Rajmohan Gandhi in his comprehensive and meticulously researched 1991 biography, Patel: A Life, and in the 1993 movie Sardar.
Twelve out of 15 Provincial Congress Committees (PCC) had suggested Patel’s name for the presidency. No PCC had proposed Nehru’s name, and the nomination deadline of 29 April 1946 was fast approaching. JB Kripalani, popularly known as Acharya Kripalani, took the initiative in a Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting in Delhi, (most probably on 25 April) and nominated Nehru, following the due procedure.
Kripalani was probably motivated by MK Gandhi’s 20 April letter to then-Congress president Maulana Azad, who was eager to continue as the president. The letter, reproduced in Patel: A Life, read, “In today’s circumstances, I would, if asked, prefer Jawaharlal. I have many reasons for this. Why go in them?”
Kripalani’s version of the events in his book, Gandhi: His Life and Thought, was: “I sent a paper round, proposing the name of Jawaharlal. The members of the Working Committee signed it and also some local members of AICC… The others thereupon withdrew their names.”
In Rajmohan Gandhi’s account, Kripalani withdrew his own nomination as soon as Nehru’s name was formally proposed—and handed Patel a paper with his withdrawal written on it. Patel showed the sheet to Gandhi, who, despite his preference, gave Nehru a chance to stand down in Patel’s favour.
“No PCC has put forward your name, only the working committee has,” he said. Nehru responded with silence.
Confirming that Nehru wouldn’t take second place, Gandhi asked Patel to sign the statement Kripalani had prepared, which Patel did immediately. While narrating these events in his biography, Rajmohan Gandhi drew from Maniben Patel’s diary entry on 16 September 1948, which was written almost two and a half years after the incident.
Maniben’s account
The original diary entry, written in Gujarati, indicates some important misreadings/omissions in both Rajmohan Gandhi’s biography and Prabha Chopra’s book, Inside Story of Sardar Patel: The Diary of Maniben Patel. Here is the verbatim translation of the entry, with the clarification that Maniben referred to Gandhi as ‘Bapuji’ and Patel as ‘Bapu’:
“…This reminded me of the whole incident that Bapuji [Gandhi] told me after calling me in Simla—that no province has sent his [Nehru’s] name. The name has come only from the WC [Working Committee] yet he [Nehru] said nothing. Bapuji [Gandhi] also said that if the provinces do not wish, ‘I don’t want to make you [Nehru] my prop’ [noted originally in English]. Still, he [Nehru] did not say anything. Kirpalani (sic) withdrew his name and Kirpalani (sic) brought a draft written by him and got the signature of Bapu [Sardar] on it. Got his [Sardar’s] name withdrawn. How [Kripalani] got Jawaharlalji’s name proposed by the WC people in Delhi—All these flashed before my eyes…”
The important conclusions from this somewhat clumsy, unspecific note, Kripalani’s autobiography, and Gandhi’s letter to Azad are as follows:
1. When Gandhi wished Nehru to succeed Azad on 20 April, he did not know that Patel’s name was proposed by the majority of the PCCs.
2. Kripalani was aware of the number of nominations Patel got from PCCs as the general secretary of Congress. Taking a hint from Gandhi’s letter to Azad, he independently proposed Nehru’s name. Later, he wrote in his autobiography, “I felt that as the General Secretary who had knowledge about the nominations, I should not have taken the initiative.”
3. When the nominations of Patel and Nehru remained after Kripalani’s withdrawal, Gandhi made it clear to Nehru that (even though he preferred Nehru as the Congress president) he did not want to make Nehru his prop against the wishes of the PCCs.
4. Neither Kripalani nor Maniben specifically noted that Gandhi made Patel sign the withdrawal paper in the same meeting in which Nehru’s name was proposed. Kripalani did not mention this incident at all.
There is one more reference to these events. Patel’s Gujarati biographer Yashwant Doshi noted, “Sardar’s secretary V. Shankar has written that Gandhiji sent Kripalani as a messenger, and as per his style, sent the withdrawal letter for Sardar with him. Sardar just had to sign it. Albeit Shankar has also written that Gandhiji and Sardar already had a one-to-one meeting before this. Hence, it is safe to assume that Gandhiji must have prepared Sardar for the withdrawal.”
Though Doshi has not mentioned the source of Shankar’s note, it fits well with the above conclusions and stresses that Patel was not made to sign the withdrawal immediately after Nehru’s name was proposed in the meeting—as the popular narrative goes.
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Media coverage of Nehru’s selection
The first major report on the election of the Congress president was Maulana Azad’s statement on 27 April 1946. Azad was the Congress president at the time and publicly threw his weight behind Nehru after Gandhi discouraged him from continuing in the role.
“It is my belief that the person best suited to carry out these duties in the changed circumstances is Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru,” said Azad to The Times of India in April 1946. “This is my personal opinion, but I am glad to find from informal discussions with friends and colleagues that they share my opinion. The choice, however, is with the delegates and they are free to exercise their right as they will.”
Nehru issued a statement the very same day. Although he mainly intended to dismiss the speculations that Azad was being removed to placate Jinnah, he also expressed surprise.
“It was only one day before he issued the statement that Maulana Azad mentioned the matter [of Congress presidentship] to me for the first time. Till then no one had mentioned it and, indeed, I had given no thought to it, for I had taken it almost for granted that someone else should be President. I begged him then to give me some time to think. One thing certainly I can say now. I am deeply grateful to the Congress President and my colleagues for the high honour they have proposed for me.”
Although he didn’t state it explicitly, the ‘high honour’ Nehru mentioned was most likely his nomination by Kripalani and the support he received from his CWC colleagues.
Kripalani’s version supports Nehru’s claim: “It required only fifteen Congress delegates to propose the name of any Congressman for the Presidentship of the organisation…The proposal for the high office did not require the consent of the person whose name was proposed. Jawaharlal was not, therefore, consulted.”
CWC member Dr Pattabhi Sitaramayya clearly said in a 28 April statement to Hindustan Times, “It rests with the electorate now to make the election of Pandit Nehru uncontested, if they like. If that is so, it will be competent for him to assume office even from May 1 as a result of the immediate declaration of the uncontested election.”
Two days after the last date of filing nominations, Kripalani issued an official statement on the presidential elections, “The AICC office has received the following three names for presidentship of the next session of the Congress. Shri Jawaharlal Nehru, Shri Vallabhbhai Patel and Shri J. B. Kripalani. Two more names, those of Shri Subhash Chandra Bose and Shri Jai Prakash Narain, have also been received. But in terms of the Congress constitution these names cannot be entertained.”
The final date for the withdrawal of a nomination was 10 May. The news of Kripalani withdrawing appeared on 7 May. Had Patel withdrawn his nomination by that time, Kripalani’s withdrawal would have effectively ensured Nehru’s selection as an uncontested candidate. However, the news of Nehru becoming Congress president appeared only on 10 May.
Filed from Shimla on 9 May, where the country’s entire leadership was gathered for discussions with the Cabinet Mission, the report in Hindustan Times read: “Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Acharya Kripalani having withdrawn from the Congress presidentship election contest, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru has been declared president-elect without contest for the next annual session of the National Congress.’
The series of newspaper coverage suggests Patel, or for that matter, Kripalani did not sign withdrawal immediately after Nehru’s nomination.
I also accessed the issues of Janmabhoomi, a Gujarati daily published from Bombay. It reported Nehru becoming the president in a very characteristic manner, with a three-column heading on the front page: ‘The crown of thorns of Mahasabha has been put on the head of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru’. Neither nationalist papers like the Hindustan Times and Janmabhoomi nor pro-British papers like The Times of India portrayed this as a defeat or injustice to Patel. It was merely mentioned that Nehru became the president as Kripalani and Patel withdrew.
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Key conclusions
What might have transpired then? One possibility is to assume that everything was decided in the meeting of 25 April and the press was informed in a phased manner as and when relevant dates approached. The other, more logical possibility is that in the days following Nehru’s nomination, Gandhi might have suggested to Patel that he give Nehru a chance to withdraw by highlighting the majority of nominations Patel had received from the PCCs.
However, if Nehru chose not to withdraw, Patel would have had to, as it was a critical time for India. The country’s leadership was in serious talks with the Cabinet Mission and the voting for the presidentship could have created a distraction. Since Patel‘s nomination was not withdrawn (or at least was not declared withdrawn) until 6 May and Nehru was declared elected on 9 May, Patel‘s withdrawal might have been finalised between 6 and 9 May.
It’s unfortunate that none of the leaders at the time considered this election significant enough to be documented in detail, which ended up leaving room for vicious propaganda. Yet, it’s comforting to know that these issues didn’t overshadow their unwavering commitment to serving the nation with their utmost capability.
Urvish Kothari is a senior columnist and writer based in Ahmedabad. He tweets @urvish2020. Views are personal.
(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)
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