Mahatma's hand in the Gandhi dynasty

Sonia Gandhi is in her 15th year as Congress President. In the foreseeable future, son Rahul will no doubt take over the reigns of the party dominated for the better part of a century by the Nehru-Gandhi family. In the popular mind, Indira Gandhi is often seen as the architect of dynastic rule, primarily because of the wild prince she spoiled and groomed. After Sanjay Gandhi’s death in an air crash and Indira’s to an assassin, a somewhat reluctant but inevitable successor flew in, and the rest has been in the newspapers since. This is how people generally view ‘the dynasty’. The people are wrong. The Nehru-Gandhi dynasty’s roots are much older. They go back, in fact, to the first significant Nehru —Motilal. This is the story of how dynasty rule began in the Congress — and in democratic India. But it must begin not with a Nehru, but with a Gandhi.

Twelve years after Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi had moved permanently to India, a period during which he was clearly established as the fulcrum of the Indian freedom movement, he felt the need to plan succession. Gandhi’s poor health around 1927 had made the question of a successor important in his mind even though he was still not 60. In the near future, the key position of the Congress president needed to be filled. It was a post Gandhi had been elected to in 1924, but he had since moved on to become the patriarch of the freedom movement rather than just a Congressman. The new president would have to be someone who would not just run the organisation successfully, but was qualified to take on the much larger mantle of being Gandhi’s political successor.

If the first task was fraught with the intrigue supplied by the politicians within the Congress, the second had an obvious downside: Gandhi’s successor would be judged by Gandhi’s standards. Add to this the fact that in the late 1920s, although the freedom movement in India had had significant successes, it was still something of a sputtering engine.

Within the movement itself, there were divisions over religion and caste. Strategic differences, such as the pace at which reform should come, or the means through which it might be achieved, were still far from settled. Although there was a general drift toward Gandhi’s route of non-violence, there were significant figures in the regions of Maharashtra, Bengal and the Punjab, who remained votaries of armed struggle.

Despite the many differences, pushes and pulls, there was one thing that could be put down as irrefutable: no other individual in the Congress enjoyed the kind of undiluted respect that the Mahatma commanded. And no other leader in the Indian freedom struggle could unite the vast, diverse population of India in placing their faith in one man without a second thought.

It would be fair to say that in the late '20s, a “replacement” for Gandhi in terms of political succession (the post of Congress president, being a step in that direction) had to be found from a field of candidates who fell short on many counts when compared with the towering figure of Gandhi. Many leaders had the narrow interest of groups they represented as first priorities and dreamt of the freedom of ‘India’ in terms that were vague except on the issues that affected their group.

To their credit, most leaders of the freedom struggle recognised these circumstances. Within the Congress, the realisation that Gandhi was the best (and only) man to lead it at this critical time rested on three arguments. First, that the organisation required a clear, unchallenged leader; second that negotiations with the British would require a “seasoned interlocutor”; and third that there was no one else capable or qualified enough to find and solve the complex Hindu-Muslim question.

This was all very well, except for one thing. Gandhi didn’t want the job. And he was a notoriously obstinate man — once he was convinced he was “right”.

So on the eve of the 1929 Lahore Congress, even though 10 of the party’s regional committees had proposed his name, Gandhi found reasons to decline. He was not in good health, he said. The movement needed a younger man. What Gandhi characteristically did not reveal was that he had other plans, some of which were not yet fully shaped in his own head, and none of which were fully understood by others — no matter how well acquainted with his ways they were.

Jawaharlal Nehru, writing about this time says: “Gandhiji was still keeping away from politics… He was, however, in full touch with developments and was often consulted by Congress leaders. His main activity for some years had been khadi (homespun cloth) propaganda and with this object he had undertaken extensive tours of India… In this way he gathered his unique knowledge of India and her people…”. This knowledge, and the resulting contact with millions of ordinary Indians, was to be applied in tasks to be undertaken later. But in 1929, Gandhi had the succession issue to sort out.

His choice of candidate would at once be elevated to a position much higher than just the president of the Congress. This individual would be looked upon as Gandhi’s chosen political heir.

Who were the contenders? The field was strong, and looked like this:

Vallabbhai Patel (54). The Gujarati barrister, whose initial scepticism about Gandhi (he would joke about the Mahatma’s methods at his club in Ahmedabad) had given way to unstinting loyalty and a belief in Gandhi’s leadership strong enough for him to abandon a very successful practice. A widower, Patel had set aside concerns about his children and joined Gandhi full-time.

In 1928, he led a successful Gandhian struggle in his home state. The peasants of Bardoli, where Patel ran ashrams that taught untouchables and tribals spinning weaving and reading, were burdened with a heavy tax. Patel’s forthright, tough, leadership of a completely non-violent movement, resulted in the reversal of the tax order and the return of property confiscated from villagers who had refused to pay the tax as a part of the struggle.

Patel’s case was therefore strong. Apart from being educated, upright and committed to non-violence, he had the additional qualification of having successfully applying Gandhi’s methods on the ground.

C Rajagopalachari (51) A Tamil Brahmin from Madras, CR had joined the freedom movement at the same time as Gandhi — in 1919. The Mahatma would call CR the “keeper of his conscience” and in 1927 actually announced that the Madras lawyer would succeed him. After all, when Gandhi was imprisoned in 1922, CR had stepped into his shoes and driven Gandhi’s agenda forward successfully in the face of opposition from within the Congress. Of all the prospective candidates, Rajagopalachari was the man who grasped satyagraha the best and was able to articulate the idea clearly. He was, however, playing with a handicap that had little to do with him. Gandhi’s son Devdas had proposed to his daughter. As Rajmohan Gandhi points out: “Gandhi would think several times before recommending a potential relative.”

Rajendra Prasad (45) A lawyer from Bihar, Dr Prasad also gave up a flourishing law practice to join the national movement, his chief inspiration being Gandhi, who he met in 1916 in Lucknow. An accomplished scholar (he had studied Persian and arithmetic, and went on to teach economics), Prasad overcame the burden of his conservative, casteist family, to embrace Gandhi.

Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (41) The only non-lawyer in the fray, Azad was a scholar and journalist. He was a leader of the Khilafat movement, which Gandhi had joined. Azad was also a firm believer, like Gandhi, in the idea of Hindu-Muslim unity and an undivided India.

Jawaharlal Nehru (40) The youngest man in the mix, Nehru had first met Gandhi in Lucknow, outside the Charbagh train station. They had arrived for the 1916 Congress annual conference. Nehru was 27 then, a barrister who had just got married, his father Motilal was an influential figure in the Congress, and had served as its president in 1919.

Gandhi had observed Jawaharlal closely since 1924, and was impressed by the young man’s commitment to fighting intolerance. But the Mahatma had reservations about Nehru’s leanings toward the Soviet experiment. In 1927, the two men had another clear—and public—difference of opinion.

Nehru, then general secretary of the Congress, wanted it to declare that its goal was Complete Independence and had a resolution passed to this effect, without the approval of Gandhi and other elders. Gandhi felt the Congress was underprepared, and reminded Nehru and others that the Independence they mooted could turn farcical without full sanction, whereas the dominion status that he was proposing had all the elements of independence. But perhaps more than anything else, Gandhi did not like the fact that the resolution wasted a bargaining chip (the intermediate demand for dominion status) in the game for full independence. Gandhi always preferred calibration over escalation.

Differences came to such a pass that Gandhi asked Nehru to announce a formal parting of ways. This immediately humbled Nehru into writing to his mentor. “Am I not your child in politics?” Jawaharlal’s biological father, however, was very keen that the “crown” (as he referred to it) of the presidency of the Indian National Congress should pass to his son. He was the incumbent in 1928—his second term in the job after a stint in 1919—but was lobbying with Gandhi from the year before.

In ‘The Nehrus—Motilal and Jawaharlal’ B.R. Nanda says: “if Motilal felt any embarrassment in sponsoring his son’s candidature… he did not betray it.”

This was a fair assessment, because the elder Nehru persistently justified Jawaharlal’s candidature despite Gandhi’s own endorsement of C.Rajagopalachari. In 1927, Gandhi had also written to Motilal saying that the time wasn’t right for his son to take on the Congress presidency. The organisation was in ferment, and was it would be too much for the young Jawaharlal to “stand the anarchy and hooliganism that seemed to be growing” within it. Motilal appeared to have agreed with this but seems to have harboured hopes that the “right time” would come for Jawaharlal sooner rather than later.

As it happened, Gandhi endorsed Nehru in 1929. It was a decision that seemed difficult. The feeling within the Congress was that Patel was the best man for the job—he also had the endorsement of five of the Congress’ regional committees against Nehru’s three, and had just returned victorious from Bardoli.

Motilal’s persistent pressing wasn’t held against his son either. In fact, Gandhi accepted a valid argument from the elder Nehru when he chose Jawaharlal. Motilal had written to Gandhi saying the best man for the Presidency was Gandhi himself, should he decline, then Jawaharlal would be a very good choice. He had pointed out, however, that his generation of leaders (including Gandhi, who was not yet 60) displayed an “apparent stinginess in parting with power and keeping the younger set out of it.”

This “stinginess”, clearly wasn’t part of Gandhi’s character. But he saw the point of ushering in youth. His reasons were personal and political, but as so often in Gandhi’s case, they seemed to converge. With just six years between them, Gandhi viewed Patel as a brother and contemporary, rather than a successor. But Nehru, at 40, was more like a son and heir. Gandhi was also acutely aware that the younger generation seemed increasingly inclined towards violence: incidents occurred in several parts of the country around 1928. The youth desperately needed one of their own to represent and lead them away from terrorism and towards the agenda laid out by Gandhi.

In what had become a two-horse race in the end, Gandhi asked Patel to withdraw—which he did instantly and gracefully. Nehru’s election was now assured. Explaining his choice, Gandhi told the press in July 1929: “The battle of the future has to be fought by younger men and women… And it is but moot that they [should be] led by one of themselves…”

He addressed some concerns about his choice as well: ‘He is rash and impetuous’, say some. This quality is an additional qualification at the present moment. And if he has the dash and rashness of a warrior, he also has the prudence of a statesman… He is undoubtedly an extremist… But he is humble enough and practical enough not to force the pace to the breaking point.”

Gandhi had listed the qualities that made Nehru fit for the job, but he did more than that: he let Nehru and the others know that the office of the Presidency came with a defined set of powers. Nehru might be the President, but there was room to overrule him: “He can no more impose his views on the people than can the English king.”

There are several things to note about Gandhi’s choice of Jawaharlal Nehru. The first is that he looked at the appointment as part of a broader vision for India, without compromising on the need of the

organisation (a revitalisation through youthful leadership). The second is that he wasn’t swayed by the constant pestering by his protégé’s father. Neither did he hold this against Jawaharlal. In fact, what might have helped Gandhi decide was the younger Nehru’s sincere pleas not to be considered for the job even as his father pressed his case.

The third, was his ability to communicate to the other candidates that they were not powerless, along with him, they would help keep Nehru in check within the Congress, and work on his broader vision outside it.

Fourth, though he was choosing a successor from within the organisation (albeit an organisation of immense size, complexity and diversity), he had intimate knowledge of the candidates through their

actions—knowledge he used to come to his own, independent, judgement.

Fifth, in what seems inconceivable in politics in India and elsewhere today, Gandhi at 60 felt he was too old to lead Congress; and asked Patel (54) to stand down for the same reason. This could be called textbook succession planning, but it was par for the course for Gandhi. There was, however, one drawback embedded in the decision to anoint Jawaharlal Nehru. His appointment marked the beginning of dynastic rule in the Congress Party, and in effect in India.

Jawaharlal took over from his father Motilal Nehru in 1929, and would continue as president the next year as well. However, with Gandhi always watching over the politics of the Congress, the presidency

changed a number of times till his passing in 1948. Among those who held the post during this time were Patel and Subhash Chandra Bose, and apart from the war years, elections were held regularly.

Things changed fairly quickly after 1950, with Nehru, then Prime Minister of independent India being elected between 1951-4. His daughter Indira, then 42, followed in her father’s footsteps becoming president 1959.

But after more than a decade of turbulence and intrigue post Nehru’s death in 1964, an all-powerful Indira Gandhi returned as president in 1978. She continued in the post till her death in 1984. The ‘crown’ now passed to her son Rajiv, a qualified pilot but a political novice. He remained in the post till his assassination in 1991.

Elections were pretty much done away with after Indira Gandhi took over. Perhaps the formality of holding them became increasingly unnecessary. Because bar one or two dissenting noises made over the past decades, there has been wholehearted acceptance within the Congress that a Nehru-Gandhi, when available and willing must lead the party.

Given his personal abhorrence of nepotism (he was very hard on his own children and family) it is more than plausible that Gandhi would have dwelt on the issue. But it never arose during his lifetime. Nehru’s daughter Indira was far too young. Meanwhile, the men he had ‘not crowned’ so to speak, all went on to have glittering political careers and that helped shape India after Gandhi.

List of sources:

1. Mohandas: Rajmohan Gandhi p 314

2. Mohandas: Rajmohan Gandhi p 321

3. Nehru, the first sixty years. Vol 1. Dorothy Norman

4. Indian National Movement. Imam Hasan Vol 2.

5. Mohandas: Rajmohan Gandhi p 315

6. Nehru, The first sixty years. Vol 1. Dorothy

7. Quoted in B.R. Nanda; The Nehrus—Motilal and Jawaharlal.

8. Quoted in Dr Pattabhi Sitaramayya; The History of the Indian National Congress, 1935-37. Vol II

9. Quoted in Michael Brecher; Nehru: A political biography.

The writer is an author, journalist and consultant editor with dna