Topic: Sardar Patel

Wow my neoliberal ThePrint and the sanghi-author Makhhan Lal cherrypicking details to suit his agenda.

In early 1946, Gandhiji had realized that the interim government to be set up according to the Cabinet Mission Plan would be set-up somewhere in the middle of the summer of the same year. Since the Congress had been presided by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad since 1940, the Mahatma felt that a new president had to elected before the Interim government would become a reality, since this government would eventually invite the President of the Congress Party to occupy an important position in the government, which would most probably pave way for the Prime Ministership of Independent India.

The usual way of election for the Congress Presidency was by a voting procedure in which all the delegates of the AICC were to cast their vote for the candidate they wanted as president (these delegates numbered into more than a couple of thousand). Since the Congress session was due in November of 1946, this usual method wouldn’t have been possible, since the president had to be elected before the Interim government was formed—before the end of the summer.

Thus, in April, it was decided that the election would take place in a different way: the PCC (Pradesh Congress Committee) heads were to submit their votes, and it was on the basis of the majority of these votes that would’ve finalized the Congress President for 1946.

We more or less know the rest of the story: Patel, Nehru and Kripalani stood for the post; Out of 15, 12 votes were cast in the Sardar’s name, 2 in Kripalani’s, and the remaining PCC didn’t vote for any candidate; Gandhiji asked Kripalani to withdraw his name and lobby for Jawaharlal, who eventually got 2 of Kripalani’s votes. With Gandhiji wanting Nehru to be president, now the Sardar was asked to withdraw his nomination, which he did at once.

This is where the usual story ends for those who resent Jawaharlal’s existence and the Sardar’s senility.

HOWEVER…

We forget that the PCCs who voted for Sardar did so to elect him as the Congress President, not the Prime Minister of India. As Dwarka Prasad Mishra (one of the PCC heads who voted for Patel) wrote in a letter*, they had voted for Sardar and not Panditji because the latter had occupied the post (Congress Presidency) twice, that too consecutively in 1936 and 1937; whereas the last time Patel had held the post was 1931. It was because of this reason that majority of votes were cast in Sardar’s name. D.P. Mishra also clarified that even though he had voted for Sardar as president, for Prime Minister’s Office, he would’ve voted Nehru!**

Eminent historian Rajmohan Gandhi, who is the author of arguably the most authoritative biography of Patel, himself says that had it been left to the people of India, Jawaharlal Nehru would’ve been elected as the Prime Minister. **

Finally, since many talk about this affair of Congress Presidentship as some sort of an ambitious maneuver by Nehru, let me sum up by quoting from a biography of him (considered the best available):

…Jawaharlal was elected in succession to Azad as president of the Congress. Azad’s handling of the Congress case in the discussions with the Cabinet Mission had merited no confidence, and there was general agreement that Jawaharlal should take over. Hindsight has led to much significance being read into this election, it being seen as a part of the Gandhian technique to ease Jawaharlal into the prime ministership which was looming ahead and deprive Patel of what was his by virtue of his control of the party machine. But at that time no one saw it in that light. In the summer of 1946 the presidency of the Congress seemed to bestow immediate responsibility rather than imminent office. ***

Last but not the least, we must not forget why Gandhi had chosen Jawaharlal over Patel: appeal among all communities and groups, international stature, moderation, age, health etc. Patel himself wrote in 1949 that it was fitting that Nehru came to head the country after Independence:

The sincerity of his convictions, the breadth of his outlook, the clarity of his vision, and the purity of his emotions – all these have brought to him the homage of millions in this country and outside.It was, therefore, in the fitness of things that in the twilight preceding the dawn of independence he should have been our leading light, and that when India was faced with crisis after crisis, following the achievement of our freedom, he should have been the upholder of our faith and the leader of our legions. No one knows better than myself how much he has labored for his country in the last years of our difficult existence. I have seen him age quickly during that period, on account of the worries of the high office that he holds and the tremendous responsibilities that he wields.****

REFERENCES

*The letter is cited in Patel: A Life by Rajmohan Gandhi
** See the interview of the historian below.

*** Sarvepalli Gopal, Jawaharlal Nehru: A Biography Vol.1 (1889–1947) (Oxford University Press, 2015), p. 326

****Nehru Abhinandan Granth, 1949, p.xviii-xxix.

Who is Makhan Lal to decide who has right to nominate Congress President?