Author: L.C. Jain
Publication: The Hindu
Date: June 3, 2002
Introduction: The Congress of today
cannot with any modicum of honesty and legitimacy claim lineage to Gandhiji.
At the just-concluded AICC session
in the capital, Arjun Singh beckoned the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi,
to pick up the thread of Congress history and "lead the army which was
once led by Gandhi and Nehru". One thought Mr. Arjun Singh knew Congress
history a little better. The Congress had long ago severed its connection
with Gandhi in absolute terms and, as we shall show, subsequently with
Jawaharlal Nehru too. In fact, from November 1947, Gandhiji repeatedly
urged the Congress to liquidate itself. And, days before his death, in
January 1948, he recorded a testament that his so-called Congress `army'
be disbanded.
In "Mahatma Gandhi - the Last Phase",
Pyarelal, the Mahatma's secretary, says Gandhiji was deeply worried over
the growing corruption and scramble for loaves in the Congress, discord
and the personal rivalries among members of the party high command. He
was sad that there were pocket boroughs, bogus membership, the deadweight
of inert majorities and the electioneering malpractice and hypocrisy of
self-seekers. Everybody was anxious to get onto the Congress bandwagon
now that it was in power. The more Gandhiji saw of this, the more his conviction
deepened that there was no other way of purging the Congress organisation
of corruption except for the party to go out of power politics.
Gandhiji followed upon his concerns
at the All-India Congress Committee (AICC) in November 1947. He mooted
the idea that the political goal of the Congress having been achieved with
the attainment of Independence, it ought voluntarily to liquidate itself.
He argued that the dissolution of the Congress as a party would release
the energy of all the progressive and patriotic elements in the country
and harness it to the great task of nation-building. After the AICC meeting,
he repeated his advice: "I am convinced that no patch-work treatment can
save the Congress. It will only prolong the agony. The best thing for the
Congress would be to dissolve itself before the rot sets in further. Its
voluntary liquidation will brace up and purify the political climate of
the country. But I can see that I can carry nobody with me in this."
The following week, Gandhiji returned
to the subject again. He remarked that if a big national organisation like
the Congress could not be purged of corruption, untruth and such other
unseemly practices, and if its infiltration by self-seekers could not be
stopped, it was clear that its doom was sealed and that he would not shed
a tear if it disappeared. "If a patient cannot be cured of a disease, the
best thing that can happen to him is to pass away," he said. Imagine the
angst that drove Gandhiji to such a desperate thought.
Subsequently, he told Rajendra Prasad,
then Congress president: "One brick after another in the Congress edifice
is loosening and coming off. The Congress has become lustreless. We should
either keep before us the pledges we gave to the people and duly implement
them or plainly admit that all we said before was mere rhetoric that can
have no place in practical administration." Gandhiji also told the constructive
workers that in the general "there is so much corruption today that it
frightens me". Also, we must recognise the fact that "the Constitution
we want or the social order of our dreams cannot come through the Congress
of today".
Eventually, he embodied his wishes
in `The Last Will and Testament' made public a day after his death. In
this document, he averred that having attained Independence, "the Congress
in its present shape and form i.e., as a propaganda vehicle and parliamentary
machine, has outlived its use." For these and similar reasons, he asked
the AICC "to disband the existing Congress organisation and flower into
a Lok Sevak Sangh".
His wishes were summarily dismissed.
Without even consulting the high command, Nehru decided that the Congress
would not disband itself in spite of Gandhiji's Testament. It was a breach
of trust. Nehru may have had good reasons not to go by Gandhiji's advice.
But then, the Congress of today cannot with any modicum of honesty and
legitimacy claim lineage to Gandhiji. As is well known, since 1948, the
Congress leaders have continued cynically to trade in Gandhiji's name every
time they go to the masses to garner votes.
The fact remains that in 1948, the
Congress became Nehru's Congress. But it continued to be so only for about
two decades, that is, till 1969, when Indira Gandhi, split it asunder.
Six years later, she finally buried the remains of Nehru's Congress five
fathoms deep with the imposition of the Emergency - suspension of Fundamental
Rights and press censorship in June 1975. These were fatal blows to Nehru.
Thus, the Congress came to snap its links with two of its illustrious ancestors
- Gandhi and Nehru. To seal their dismissal from history, the party was
christened Congress (Indira).
Nehru's ghost, however, continued
to haunt the usurpers in the form of a self-reliant, socialist pattern
of society - the non-aligned movement. Indira, followed by Rajiv Gandhi
and P. V. Narasimha Rao, derided and ultimately dismantled each of these
pillars of Nehru's economic and social philosophy and vision of international
order. Again, they may all have had good reasons for exorcising the ghost
of Nehru. But then what is one to make of the appeal to Sonia Gandhi to
lead Gandhi and Nehru's army. This is infinite sycophancy.
Political platforms apart, look
at the economic one. The cruel irony is that after decrying Nehru's economic
policies, Ms. Gandhi reportedly unveiled at the AICC meeting a five-point
agenda which "only can revitalise the sagging economy". And, what are these
five points? Strengthening of the foundations of agriculture, focussing
on accelerating the creation of new productive employment opportunities
on a sustainable basis, and reviving the investment momentum, particularly
in the manufacturing industry, and in physical and social infrastructure,
especially education and health. Were these points alien to Nehru's agenda?
Besides Arjun Singh, there were
others at the AICC meeting - like Vasant Sathe, who pleaded that Ms. Gandhi
should `hasten' to become Prime Minister in "his" lifetime. Incidentally,
the last time I heard him was in Hyderabad where he claimed that only one
of the two VS' would be the next Prime Minister - Vasant Sathe or Vishwanath
Pratap Singh. There were others, who called upon Ms. Gandhi to assume in
the fashion of Indira Gandhi, the all-devouring form of Durga. Forgetting
that Durga was not a human but a Goddess sent to kill the demon Mahishasura.
They also conveniently forgot that Indira was likened by M.F. Hussain to
Durga only after she trampled over the Constitution and the Fundamental
Rights. One hopes that they do not want Ms. Gandhi - to repeat that sordid
history.
In the face of these facts, mere
display of portraits of Gandhiji and Nehru at all its events and their
posters at poll times, cannot lend even an iota of substance to the spurious
claims that the present Congress is the old party of Gandhi and Nehru.
Arjun Singh et al are itching to be led by Ms. Gandhi. The only truthful
element in their peroration is the itch.
