Whether or not C.R. was sorry, Nehru definitely was. His wish had been denied, his pride hurt. Now he spent as much time as he could in C.R.’s company. It was impossible for C.R. to think of blaming someone who looked as downcast as Jawaharlal. C.R.’s not holding a grudge against Vallabhbhai is more interesting, and perhaps explained by his knowledge that Patel threw his weight behind Prasad only after Nehru’s haste and over-confidence had botched the exercise. After C.R. had announced his retirement, Patel evidently said to him: ‘Jawaharlal has spoilt everything. I wanted to do it tactfully. He has rushed the matter.’ ‘Why are you offering me an explanation?’ C.R. replied. ‘I am not keen on the office.’38 And though it appeared to C.R. that Prasad wanted the honour (‘I could see in Rajendra Prasad’s mind hesitation and even perhaps desire,’ he wrote to Rama Rao), he had the wisdom not to blame or judge his old colleague from Bihar.
To the Mountbattens, C.R. wrote on New Year’s Eve:
The desire for a change in personnel when there will be such a great formal change in the Constitution is natural and has rightly overridden other considerations. Of course I am also glad to be relieved at the top of the tide and not left on the beach by a receding wave. I go without any diminution in the affection and trust with which my dear colleagues sweetened the days of my ripe years.39
The same day he also wrote to Rama Rao, who had sent a characteristic letter. ‘Is there,’ asked C.R., ‘any prize or crown greater than the intimate approval of a dear and tried friend?’
The final two months had their quota of tours: he did Gauhati and Shillong, Cuttack and Puri, Hyderabad and Vizag, and repeated Madras and Bangalore. When the wish was expressed in Madras that he should continue as head of state, he cited his age — 71 — and asked, ‘Do you still think that I should pull the bullock-cart?’ (Hindustan Times, 18.12.49)
The strenuous business of winding up — parting letters to Governors, Rajpramukhs, the miltary chiefs, the Chief Justice, Cabinet Ministers, a fearsome series of farewells, packing, planning the transfer of Thangam’s children to schools in the South, and so on — was now added to the chores of a Head of State.
Letters and messages were pouring in, offering farewell, tribute and evaluation. Chief Justice Kania said he had found C.R. ‘appreciating the other man’s point of view and treating his view as also put forth for the benefit of the country.’ Admiral Parry, the British C-in-C of the Indian Navy, thought that ‘the true wisdom of the undying civilisation of India was represented in Government House.’ The Hindustan Times gave expression to a common note: ‘Though Rajaji has more than earned his rest, it is doubtful whether he will be allowed to enjoy his retirement in peace’ (25.1.50).
At an informal Government House lunch, C.R. posted the President-elect, who would take office on 26 January, with some aspects of life in the House. The 24th was packed with protocol and emotion. President Sukarno and his wife arrived in the morning and had to be met at the airport. Jawaharlal, his sister Vijayalakshmi and daughter Indira came to lunch. In the afternoon C.R. was At Home to the House’s employees. They gave him a farewell address in Hindi, English, Tamil and Bengali. C.R. told them that ‘many Muslims, many Hindus, and many Sikhs’ would always be working together in the House and that he was leaving them ‘in the care of a good successor’(Hindustan Times, 25.1.50).
As he walked over to his study, he found on his desk a gift from his Ministers: a crystal Buddha and a silver plate bearing the Ministers’ names. An accompanying letter from Jawaharlal quoted a Cabinet resolution that referred to the Governor- General’s help to them and stated, ‘He has not only enhanced the prestige of India but further endeared himself to his own people.’ Sitting alone in the study, C.R. was overcome. As he was to say later that night at a banquet given by Nehru, ‘All my mother came into my eyes.’ Said Jawaharlal at the banquet:
It is rather odd to think of Warren Hastings and you in the same line of succession . . . You made people feel that . . . it made not the slightest difference to you whether you lived in the Viceregal Palace or in a little village in Salem district . . .
Because I was often troubled in mind and spirit I came to you and sought your advice and I always found it very helpful. And so when the time comes for you to go away from here there is a feeling of a slight emptiness in me.
In his reply C.R. said:
Sometimes the truth comes upon us with overpowering conviction. Now I realise that the greatest joy in life is to give up a thing and go. What greater reward can I have than the feeling which you heard expressed by the Prime Minister?
I therefore go, my friend Mr Prime Minister, with very great joy in my mind. The only thing which worries me is the feeling that I perhaps leave some of you with a sense of relative loneliness. I wish I could go and also remain here but that is not possible . . .
The Prime Minister and his first colleague, the Deputy Prime Minister, together make a possession which makes India rich in every sense of the term. The former commands universal love, the latter universal confidence. Not a tear need be shed for anyone going as long as these two stand four square against the hard winds to which our country may be exposed.
Addressing the ambassadors who were present, C.R. said:
The Prime Minister says I have done very well and many of you, my dear friends of the diplomatic corps, have been saying the same thing, before me at any rate — I do not know what you have said in my absence. What is the secret? I am a simple fellow. I do not hate anybody (Hindustan Times, 26.1.50).
On the 25th there was a broadcast to the nation:
I feel deeply thankful for the affection showered on me by all sections of the people, which alone enabled me to bear the burden of an office to the duties and conventions of which I have been an utter stranger (Hindustan Times, 26.1.50).
The Durbar Hall, 26 January. Rising from his throne, C.R. announced, ‘in clear and distinct tones,’ the birth of the Republic. Then he asked the President-elect to move over to the throne. While Prasad did so, C.R., older by five years, patted a blessing on his shoulder. Then Prasad was sworn in.
Nehru decided that pageantry should mark C.R.’s departure for Madras. There was a guard of honour beside the great steps, a drive in a six-horse coach to the House’s front gates, and a ride in an open car to the airport, where C.R. received a combined guard of honour from the Army, the Navy and the Air Force.
Just before walking to his place, he embraced Prasad and with almost trembling fingers placed round the President’s neck a garland of homespun cotton thread hued in the colours of the national flag. Jawaharlal escorted C.R. and Namagiri into the twin-engined Air Force Dakota.
Up rose the plane. Below, after some moments, lay what now was Rashtrapati Bhavan, with North Block and South Block looking like its extended arms. There was India Gate and the Old Fort. Buildings and roads soon shrank and gave way to little rectangles, where specks — the faithful peasants — slowly moved on the good earth. Mood matched panorama, and C.R. penned in the plane a letter to Prasad:
My dear Rajen Babu, My thought goes back naturally to you all whom I have left behind. There is an almighty, kindly and vigilant Power that has evolved this beautiful and great world out of the primordial substance.
May that Power bless you and our dear country and the men and women entrusted to your charge and that of your colleagues! . . . I go out with joy in my heart at the beautiful manner in which the little changeover has taken place. There was nothing to mar the beauty of it. God bless you all. Yours affectionately, C.R.
A postscript to the letter said: ‘Please show this to Jawaharlal and Vallabhbhai. I am not writing separately to them.’40 It would have been natural to write to Jawaharlal, who had been responsible for the grandeur of the send-off. But to write to the President was proper: C.R. was not as complete a stranger to ‘the duties and conventions’ of high office as he had claimed in his broadcast.
19
‘Matchstick’
1950-51
The Bazl
ulla Road house needed an extra room before it could take in C.R., Namagiri, Narasimhan, Thangam and her five children. While that was being added C.R. stayed in a bare house in Adyar that Lakshmi had just acquired. To Rama Rao C.R. wrote:
I am leading an interesting and disabled existence without secretaries, ADCs and staff . . . For years now I have lived without touching stamps or coins or having to think and plan for my private existence . . . Till now I was, though Governor- General, a Sanyasi free from cares. Now it is difficult and housekeeping is not pleasant.
He felt the heat — there was no air-conditioner in Adyar or at Bazlulla Road, when he returned there — and had trouble with his eyes. ‘Black wandering spots hover before my eyes . . . It is a race that cataract runs with the better known friend that pays court to old men!’ he wrote to Rama Rao.1
The pension of Rs 1000 a month to which, as a former head of state, he was deemed entitled, began to arrive, and there were moments when it looked as if he had retired. In a letter to Rama Rao, he said:
The desire to take up work that haunts the mind of old warriors on their retirement from ther long labours should be resisted as severely as a desire to marry again and look after a young girl (20.3.50).
This was a reaction to Rama Rao’s wish for a fresh assignment, but C.R. was also addressing himself, for Nehru had urged him to return to Delhi. As what? There was speculation when C.R. was seen boarding a plane for Delhi at the end of April. ‘Are you becoming the Vice-Chancellor of Delhi University, sir?’ he was asked at the airport. ‘I would prefer the Vice-Chancellorship of Madras University,’ C.R. replied (Hindustan Times, 28.4.50).
Nehru wanted C.R. in the Cabinet, believing, no doubt, that this would strengthen him vis-a-vis Patel. But when, as he had to, Jawaharlal spoke of his wish to Patel, the latter at once remarked that C.R. would make an excellent Foreign Minister — a hit at Jawaharlal, who held the External Affairs portfolio and was possessive of it.
In the event, Jawaharlal offered C.R. Finance, with the alternative of the chairmanship of the Planning Commission. Either would be too strenuous, C.R. thought; finally, Nehru, Vallabhbhai and he agreed that he would assist as Minister without Portfolio, ‘a kind of fifth wheel,’ as C.R. put it in a letter to Rama Rao (19.5.50).
Not exactly an instance of ‘severely and firmly resisting’ a new assignment! That Nehru and Patel both wanted him sufficed for C.R., who was not conscious of any loss of dignity in joining a Cabinet that had very recently been subordinate to him.
But it took him eighty days, including some spent recuperating in Ooty, before he joined duty in Delhi. C.R. and Namagiri flew to a welcome at the airport by both Nehru and Patel. Nehru drove with them to Lakshmi’s flat in Connaught Circus. On 15 July Prasad swore C.R. in, and a few days later Namagiri and he moved to their latest address at 1 York Place. Many years later, Lal Bahadur Shastri would live as Prime Minister in this house with a large garden.
Nehru asked C.R. to head the Cabinet’s Economic Affairs Committee, hitherto chaired by the Finance Minister, Chintaman Deshmukh. The latter would recall:
Rajaji would come to the meeting of the Committee, . . . take the chair, and turning to me would say, ‘Now, Mr Deshmukh, please conduct the meeting.’ I thought that was very gracious on his part.2
Jawaharlal himself presided over the External Affairs Committee, which also included Patel, C.R. and Gopalaswami Iyengar. An account of a discussion in this Committee on the future of Goa, then under Portuguese rule, has been provided by K.P.S. Menon, who was present as an official. According to Menon, C.R. opposed a proposal for curbs on travel by Goans to India and on remittances to Goa.
Goans were ‘our brethren,’ C.R. evidently said; hurting them would hurt ‘ourselves.’ At this Patel proposed ‘going in’ and taking over Goa. ‘It is two hours’ work,’ he said. According to Menon, ‘Nehru objected to this suggestion strongly; it would amount to an invasion and India would lose her reputation for nonviolence.’ C.R. backed Nehru and the proposal was dropped — for the time being.3
But on Tibet, attacked by Peking at the end of October 1950, C.R. and Patel were on one side and Nehru on the other. Nehru regretted the Chinese action but spoke of Peking being motivated by fears of American acts against the Red regime. On the other hand, Patel publicly denounced the action.
Though there was no public statement by C.R., at Cabinet meetings he advocated a firmer Indian response. ‘Rajaji was then in the Cabinet and he opposed Nehru’s Tibet policy,’ recalls N.V. Gadgil, who was also in the Cabinet.4 K.P.S. Menon, Foreign Secretary at the time, describes how C.R. ‘sent for me for a talk on Tibet . . . and argued forcibly that we should not recognize Chinese sovereignty or even suzerainty over Tibet.’5 In a letter on the subject to Nehru, C.R. was frank:
May God help us from drifting to be just a satellite of China! I feel hurt whenever Panikkar (India’s ambassador to Peking) tells us with extreme satisfaction that China is very friendly to us and has no territorial ambitions. We do not want any patrons now, do we? (1.12.50)
A different facet of the C.R.-Nehru relationship emerges from an account of another meeting of the Foreign Affairs Committee. B.N. Chakravarty, an official present, recollects the outcome of a discussion that had found C.R. and Nehru on opposite sides:
The Prime Minister said, ‘You see, Rajaji, the majority is with me.’ Rajaji grinned and said, ‘Yes, Jawaharlal, the majority is with you but logic is with me.’ The Prime Minister laughed and despite the majority support accepted Rajaji’s views.6
Files do not cascade towards a Minister without Portfolio and C.R. was not pinned to his desk. He saw a Test match against a Commonwealth eleven and conferred fruitlessly over Kashmir with Liaqat Ali, who made a visit to Delhi. The English version of his Mahabharata was published, and he delivered three lectures on the Gita. ‘The Gita,’ he said, ‘is like a railway guide. You should travel with its help, not commit it to memory’ (Hindustan Times, 21.11.50).
He found time, too, to answer letters from strangers asking for advice on personal problems. But he saw as his main task the maintenance of the Nehru-Patel relationship, which was now under heavy strain. ‘Nehru would come to the house with a long face,’ recalls Namagiri, referring to this period. ‘Anna would ask me to get coffee and the two of them would talk alone.’7 Often the subject was Vallabhbhai. And on his visits to Patel, who was no longer in good health, C.R. would hear complaints about Jawaharlal.
The question of a new Congress President almost led to a rupture. Purushottam Das Tandon of the UP, with his striking bearded face and a richly-deserved reputation for independence and integrity, offered himself for the post, as he had done a year earlier, when Pattabhi Sitaramayya of the Telugu country had defeated him in the balloting.
Patel backed Tandon. Nehru thought him old-fashioned and too much of a Hindu and did not conceal his views. Also, he may have felt threatened by a Patel-Tandon combination.
Searching for a way of securing Tandon’s withdrawal, Nehru asked C.R. if he would accept the party post, but C.R. was not willing. In the event, Tandon was opposed by J.B. Kripalani, who received Nehru’s support.
On the morning of 26 August, when it was clear that Tandon was winning, a deeply hurt Jawaharlal told C.R. that he would leave both Congress and the Government. Predictably, C.R. asked Nehru not to overreact. Later in the day Jawaharlal wrote to C.R.:
I think most Congressmen know how I feel . . . If, in spite of this, Tandon is supported and encouraged and elected, that seems to be the clearest of indications that Tandon’s election is concerned more important than my presence in the Government or the Congress . . . I shall consult you of course before I take any step (26.8.50).
Not having asked the party to choose between Tandon and himself, Nehru could not — C.R. pointed out — accuse Congress of withdrawing confidence from him. Patel’s reaction was that Nehru was bluffing. ‘If he wants to resign, let him.’ Following Tandon’s triumph, this was Patel’s attitude, conveyed to C.R.
&n
bsp; C.R. could not agree with Patel. If Nehru’s pride forced him to resign, every Congress unit in the country, from the national executive down to each village committee, would split. Moreover, Nehru was the country’s most popular figure, whereas Patel was too ill to run the government.
Namagiri recalls that C.R. hardly slept that night of 26-27 August. ‘He was greatly agitated. Next morning early he went to the drawing room, phoned Sardar and told him: “You alone cannot do it. Don’t try to get rid of him. What are you going to do without him? You are sick.” ’8
C.R. succeeded. Both Nehru and Patel backed away from the edge of a precipice. It was still a wounded Nehru who had another letter hand-delivered to C.R. on 27 August, but not one talking of resigning:
If on a major issue, to which I attach importance, my colleagues go against me, then there is something wrong somewhere . . . I suppose I am not big enough for the job . . . I am a kind of a show window for the outside world and to some extent for people in India, but I am supposed to keep to my place and not interfere too much in the real business of life.
On his part Patel wrote to C.R. (27.8.50) that he wanted ‘to be able to relieve Jawaharlal of his mental distress,’ but a new hurdle was Tandon’s unwillingness to include Nehru’s friend Rafi Ahmed Kidwai in his Working Committee. Nehru declared that if Kidwai was kept out of the executive, he himself would stay out.
To prevent the proclamation of a major rift, a frantic C.R. called on Patel, who now was quite unwell, tried to involve the far-removed Mountbattens, and, accompanied by Maulana Azad, even requested President Prasad to persuade Tandon to yield! The President asked his staff to contact Tandon but changed his mind before they got through.
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