India After Gandhi

by Ramachandra Guha

  45

  George Greenstein, ‘A Gentleman of the Old School: Homi Bhabha and the Development of Science in India’, American Scholar, vol. 61, no. 3, 1992, p. 417.

  46

  Hindustan Times, 3 October 1952. TheCommunity Development programmes were inspired by, and to a great extent modelled upon, the work of Albert Mayer in eastern Uttar Pradesh in the late 1940s. See Alice Thorner, ‘Nehru, Albert Mayer, and Origins of Community Projects’, Economic and Political Weekly, 24 January 1981.

  47

  S. C. Dube, India’s Changing Villages (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1958), pp. 157–63, 192–216 etc.

  48

  T. S. Epstein, Economic Development and Social Change in South India (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1962), esp. pp. 27–47.

  49

  For details see B. H. Farmer, Agricultural Colonization in India Since Independence (London: Oxford University Press, 1974).

  50

  See, inter alia, R.P.Masani, The Five Gifts (London: Collins, 1957); Hallam Tennyson, Saint on the March: The Story of Vinoba (London: Victor Gollancz, 1961); Geoffrey Ostergaard and Melville Currell, The Gentle Anarchists: AStudy of the Leaders of the Sarvodaya Movement for Non-violent Revolution in India (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971). There is a characteristically acid portrait of Bhave in V. S. Naipaul’s A Wounded Civilization (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977).

  51

  See Ronald J. Herring, Land to the Tiller: the Political Economy of Agrarian Reform in South Asia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983); ‘Slow Pace of Land Reforms’, Economic Weekly, 30 May 1953; S. K. Dey, Power to the People? A Chronicle of India 1947–67 (Bombay: Orient Longman, 1969), pp. 232f.

  52

  The climate of economic policy in the postwar world is usefully sketched in Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw, The Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2002), chapters2 and 3.

  53

  Hanson, Process of Planning, p. 128.

  54

  See ‘A Note on Dissenton the Memorandum of the Panel of Economists’ (1955), reprinted in Mahesh P. Bhatt and S. B. Mehta, Planned Progress or Planned Chaos? Selected Prophetic Writings of Prof. B. R. Shenoy (Madras: EastWest Books, 1996), pp. 3–24.

  55

  ‘A Memorandum to the Government of India, 1955’, in Friedman on India (New Delhi: Centre for Civil Society, 2000), pp. 27–43.

  56

  Note of 10 October 1955, reprinted in V. N. Balasubramanyam, Conversations with Indian Economists (London: Macmillan, 2001), pp. 198–201.

  57

  It is noteworthy that the essays of Shenoy, Krishnamurti and Friedman were printed for public distribution only in the 1990s by which time, of course, the political and intellectual climate was far more congenial to their views.

  58

  ‘Not a People’sPlan’, Economic Weekly, 18 June 1955.

  59

  I have written elsewhere, and at greater length, about these ‘Green Gandhians’; as in Ramachandra Guha, Environmentalism: A Global History (New York: Addison-Wesley-Longman, 2000), pp. 23–4, 67–8, and ‘Mahatma Gandhi and the Environmental Movement’, Parisar Annual Lecture, Puné, 1992.

  60

  Reports in the Current, 11 June 1952 and 8 June 1955.

  61

  For the consensus among economists see I. G. Patel, Glimpses of Indian Economic Policy: An Insider’s View (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002), esp. chapter 2.

  62

  Memorandum, p. 92.

  63

  ‘A Correspondent’, ‘On Revisiting the Damodar Valley’, Economic Weekly, 28 February 1953.

  64

  Letter of 2 October 1952, LCM, vol. 3, pp. 114–15. Nehru was speaking here of the Tungabhadra dam, which he visited barely a month before coming to Bokaro.

  11. THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS

  1

  André Malraux, Antimemoirs, trans. Terence Kilmartin (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1968), p. 145. The conversation took place sometime in 1958.

  2

  CAD, vol. 8, pp. 543–6, 722–3 (emphasis added).

  3

  Ibid., pp. 551, 781.

  4

  Foran analysis of the Rau Committee see Chitra Sinha, ‘Hindu Code Bill (1942–1956) and Feminist Consciousness in Bombay’, unpublished PhD thesis, Department of History, Mumbai University, 2003.

  5

  See for example, Bina Agarwal, ‘A Bill of Her Own?’, New Indian Express, 23 December 2004.

  6

  Ambedkar’s speeches on the bill are reproduced in Valerian Rodrigues, ed., The Essential Writings of B. R. Ambedkar (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 495–516.

  7

  Dhananjay Keer, Dr.Ambedkar: Life and Mission, 3rd edn (1971; reprint, Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1995), p. 417.

  8

  The correspondence between Prasad and Nehru has been reproduced in SPC, vol. 6, pp. 399–404.

  9

  SPC, vol. 9, pp. 109–11.

  10

  This account of the doings of the All-India Anti-Hindu-Code Bill Committee is based on the reports and documents in Subject File 106, D. P. Mishra Papers, Third and Fourth Instalments, NMML.

  11

  J. D. M. Derrett, Hindu Law Past and Present (Calcutta: A. Mukerjee and Co., 1957), pp. 69–70. For a sampling of the conservative legal opposition to the code, see K. S. Hajela, ‘The Draft Hindu Code, its Exposition, Comment and Criticism’, All-India Reporter (Journal), 1949, pp. 64–7. For a modernist view, see Lahar Singh Mehta, ‘Some Implications of the Hindu Code Bill, 1948’, All India Reporter Journal), 1950, pp. 26–9.

  12

  The debates on the Hindu code in the provisional Parliament are reproduced in Vasant Moon, ed., Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches, vol. 14 (Bombay: Government of Maharashtra, 1995).

  13

  See Files 422, 423, 424 and 430, Delhi Police Records, Ninth Instalment, NMML.

  14

  Rajendra Prasad to Nehru, 15 September 1951, copy in Subject File 189, C. Rajagopalachari Papers, Fifth Instalment, NMML.

  15

  Nehru to Rajendra Prasad, 15 September 1951; secret note to Cabinet by Nehru, dated 25 September 1951, both in Subject File46, C. Rajagopalachari Papers, Fourth Instalment, NMML.

  16

  Derrett, Hindu Law, p. 71.

  17

  The text of Ambedkar’s resignation speech was reproduced in the Hindustan Times, 12 October 1951. Cf. also Vasant Moon, ed., Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches, vol. 15 (Mumbai: Government of Maharashtra, 1997), pp. 825–8.

  18

  See File 127, Delhi Police Records, Sixth Instalment, NMML.

  19

  See Lok Sabha Debates, 26 April 1955.

  20

  The most significant of Nehru’s parliamentary interventions on the subject are collected in Jawaharlal Nehru’s Speeches, vol. 3: March 1953–August 1957 (New Delhi: Publications Division, n.d.), pp. 438–54 (section entitled ‘Changing Hindu Society’).

  21

  Nehru to K. N. Katju, 13 June 1954; to R. Venkataraman, 30 September 1954; SWJN2, vol. 26, pp. 173, 180.

  22

  See, for example, the speeches of K. C. Sharma, B. D. Shastri and Nand Lal Sharma, Lok Sabha Debates, 29 April, 2 May and 13 December 1955, respectively; speech of H. C. Mathur, Rajya Sabha Debates, 11 December 1954.

  23

  Rajya Sabha Debates,9 December 1954.

  24

  Interventions of Seeta Parmanand and M. P. N. Sinha, Rajya Sabha Debates,8 and 6December 1954. To placate the orthodox, the law minister changed the title of the bill from the ‘Hindu Marriage and Divorce Bill’ to the ‘Hindu Marriage Bill’ – this to put the accent ‘not on the dissolution of marriage’ but on the ‘maintenance of marriage [which] is more important’ (Lok Sabha Debates, 26 April 1955). The change, needless to say, was purely cosmetic.

  25

  Lok Sabha Debates, 29 April 1955. O
thers opposed the clause out of not logic, but envy. As S. Mahanty sourly noted, ‘it makes a discrimination in favour of the Muslims who may marry four wives under the Shariat law and not incur any of the offences under this Act’ (Rajya Sabha Debates,6 December 1954).

  26

  Lok Sabha Debates, 2 May 1955.

  27

  Lok Sabha Debates, 26 and 29 April 1955.

  28

  Intervention by Shri Khandekar, Lok Sabha Debates, 29 April 1955.

  29

  Ibid., Rajya Sabha Debates, 8 December 1954.

  30

  Intervention by M. Muhammad Ismail, Rajya Sabha Debates, 11 December 1954.

  31

  Lok Sabha Debates, 29 April 1955.

  32

  Intervention by Nand Lal Sharma, Lok Sabha Debates, 13 December 1955.

  33

  Lok Sabha Debates, 13 December 1955.

  34

  Intervention by S. S. More, Lok Sabha Debates, 2 May 1955.

  35

  Marc Galanter, Law and Society in Modern India, ed. by Rajeev Dhavan (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 29; J. D. M. Derrett, Religion, Law and the State in India (London: Faber and Faber, 1968), p. 326.

  36

  Cf. Rajya Sabha Debates, 11 December 1954, where Dr P. Subbarayan gave his ‘special meed of tribute to Dr. Ambedkar who is not here but who laboured hard to push through the Hindu Code before the last Parliament but circumstances did not permit of this measure going through’.

  37

  Lok Sabha Debates, 6 December 1956.

  38

  For a fine discussion of these questions see Lotika Sarkar, ‘Jawaharlal Nehru and the Hindu Code Bill’, in B. R. Nanda, ed., Indian Women: From Purdah to Modernity (New Delhi: Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, 1976).

  39

  Quoted in D. E. Smith, India as a Secular State (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), p. 290.

  40

  See Parliamentary Debates, 17 September 1951, excerpted in Eminent Parliamentarians Series, Monograph Series, Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee (New Delhi: Lok Sabha Secretariat, 1990), pp. 82f.

  41

  On the workings of the new laws in the several decades they have been in operation, see J. D. M. Derrett, A Critique of Modern Hindu Law (Bombay: N. M. Tripathi,1970); Satyajeet A. Desai, Mulla’s Principles of Hindu Law,18th edn (New Delhi: Butterworths India, 2001). The caveat ‘somewhat’ is in deference to feminist arguments that while the new bills removed many of the disadvantages suffered by Hindu women, they did not bestow ‘radical equality’ on them. See Archana Parashar, Women and Family Law Reform in India (New Delhi: Sage, 1992), pp. 79–134.

  12. SECURING KASHMIR

  1

  Sisir Kumar Gupta, Kashmir: A Study in India-Pakistan Relations (Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1966), p. 365.

  2

  SeeMichael Brecher, The Struggle for Kashmir (New York: Oxford University Press, 1953), p. 111.

  3

  Lionel Fielden, ‘India Revisited: Indo-Pak Problems’, Indian Review, May 1950.

  4

  Note by Nehru on Kashmir, dated 9 January 1951, in Subject File 62, C. Rajagopalachari Papers, Fourth Instalment, NMML.

  5

  See Jawaharlal Nehru Correspondence, Vijayalakshmi Pandit Papers, NMML.

  6

  Cable to State Department by Henderson, quoted in Ajit Bhattacharjea, Kashmir: The Wounded Valley (New Delhi: UBS, 1994), pp. 196–7.

  7

  See Abdullah to Gopalaswami Ayyangar, 16 January 1951, and note on file by latter, both in Subject File 62, C. Rajagopalachari Papers, Fourth Instalment, NMML.

  8

  See ‘Leaderlessness of Jammu’, article of March 1950, reprinted in Balraj Puri, Jammu A Clue to the Kashmir Tangle (Delhi: privately published, 1966), pp. 20–3.

  9

  Baburao Patel, Burning Words: A Critical History of Nine Years of Nehru’s Rule from 1947 to 1956 (Bombay: Sumati Publications, 1956), pp. 147–8.

  10

  The Sheikh’s speech is printed in extenso in Gupta, Kashmir, pp. 367–70.

  11

  Prem Nath Bazaz, The History of Struggle for Freedom in Kashmir, Cultural and Political: From the Earliest Times to the Present Day (New Delhi: Kashmir Publishing Co., 1954), pp. 569–71.

  12

  Ian Stephens, Horned Moon: An Account of a Journey through Pakistan, Kashmir, and Afghanistan (London: Chatto and Windus,1953), pp. 212–13. From Stephens’ book we learn that he was in the Valley in April 1952 – exact dates are not given, so we cannot say whether he talked to the Sheikh before or after his notorious Ranbirsingpura speech. That speech had also hinted that perhaps Kashmir’s place in India was ‘unnatural’. This might have been a mere coincidence in thinking. On the other hand, if Abdullah met Stephens before Ranbirsingpura, his speech might very well have been influenced by one who cynically saw ‘an anti-Muslim substructure’ in ‘Pandit Nehru’s new secular Republic’ (Horned Moon, p. 267).

  13

  Gupta, Kashmir, pp. 371–2.

  14

  Speeches of 11 and 19 August 1952, copies in Subject File 4, Y. D. Gundevia Papers, NMML.

  15

  See Daniel Thorner, ‘The Kashmir Land Reforms: Some Personal Impressions’, Economic Weekly, 12 September 1953.

  16

  Cf. Richard L. Park, ‘India Argues with Kashmir’, Far Eastern Survey, 2 July 1952.

  17

  Eminent Parliamentarians Series, Monograph Series, Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee (New Delhi: Lok Sabah Secretariat, 1990), pp. 18–19, 109–23.

  18

  Balraj Madhok, Portrait of a Martyr: Biography of Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee (Bombay: Jaico Publishing House, 1969), pp. 159–61.

  19

  Karan Singh, Autobiography (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 149–50.

  20

  The Current, 10 and 24 December 1952.

  21

  The letters exchanged between Mookerjee on the one side and Nehru and Abdullah on the other were later published by the Jana Sangh in Integrate Kashmir: Mookerjee–Nehru and Abdullah Correspondence (Lucknow: Bharat Press, 1953).

  22

  See Files 12, 127 and 164, Delhi Police Records, Eighth Instalment, NMML.

  23

  The Current (Bombay), 26 August 1953.

  24

  Quoted in S. Gopal, Jawaharlal Nehru: A Biography, vol. 2: 1947–1956 (London: Cape, 1979), p. 131, n. 65.

  25

  For a contemporary interpretation along these lines, see Sadiq Ali and Madhu Limaye, Report on Kashmir (New Delhi: Praja Socialist Party, 1953). This reports that the Sheikh ‘was often heard to remark in his private talks that if Jammu wanted to go out of Kashmir it was welcome to do so; in fact it would be good riddance. Its merger in India would serve just the purpose he had in view, namely an Independent Kashmir’ (p. 5).

  26

  Madhok, Portrait of a Martyr, pp. 147–65.

  27

  See correspondence between Mookerjee and Rajagopalachari in Subject File124, C. Rajagopalachari Papers, Fifth Instalment, NMML.

  28

  Madhok, Portrait of a Martyr, pp. 240–2.

  29

  Letter of 2 July to Rajagopalachari, Subject File 123, Rajagopalachari Papers, Fifth Instalment, NMML.

  30

  The Current, 1 July 1953.

  31

  See File164, Delhi Police Records, Eighth Instalment, NMML.

  32

  See reports and correspondence, File 166, Delhi Police Records, Ninth Instalment, NMML.

  33

  Gopal, Nehru, vol. 2, pp. 130–1, which also excerpts Nehru’s letters to Abdullah.

  34

  Nehru to Rajagopalachari, 31 July 1953, Subject File 123, C. Rajagopalachari Papers, Fifth Instalment, NMML.

  35

  See B. N. Mullik, My Years with Nehru: Kashmir (Bombay: Allied Publishers, 1971), chapter 3.

  36

  The Current, 26 August 1953
. Three years later a copy of the Id speech that Abdullah was to have made surfaced. This did not call directly for independence, but reopened the question of accession to India and also, for the first time, asked that Pakistan be made a party to the dispute. See Mridula Sarabhai, ed., Sheikh-Sadiq Correspondence (August to October 1956) (New Delhi: privately published, 1956), appendix I: ‘Id Speech’.

  37

  Karan Singh, Autobiography, pp. 156–64.

  38

  See reports in File73, Delhi Police Records, Sixth Instalment, NMML.

  39

  Gopal, Nehru, vol. 2, pp. 132–3; Mullik, My Years with Nehru: Kashmir, pp. 42–7.

  40

  P. N. Kaula and K. L. Dhar, Kashmir Speaks (Delhi: S. Chand and Co., 1950), pp. 189–90. An American journalist wrote of the Bakshi that he was a ‘realist [who] can run a party machine and keep its joints oiled’, adding that he seemed to be ‘constituted chiefly of iron or steel’ (Vincent Sheean, Nehru: The Years of Power (London: Victor Gollancz, 1960), pp. 109–10). This likewise brings Patel to mind; not least because he was known as the ‘Iron Man of India’.

  41

  The Hindu, 25 August and 14 and 29 September 1953.

  42

  The Current, 31 March, 25 August and 6 October 1954 and 12 October 1955.

  43

  The Current, 14 November 1955. Cf. also Sheikh Abdullah, Flames of the Chinar: An Autobiography, a bridged and trans. Khushwant Singh (New Delhi: Penguin India, 1993), chapter 18.

  44

  See File73, Delhi Police Records, Sixth Instalment, NMML.

  45

  General Roy Bucher to Rajagopalachari, 14 August 1953, in Subject File124, Fifth Instalment, C. Rajagopalachari Papers, NMML.

  46

  Bhattacharjea, Kashmir, p. 205.

  47

  See Spratt’s unsigned column ‘The World This Week’, MysIndia, 13 July, 3 and 17 August, and 9 November 1952 respectively.

  13. TRIBAL TROUBLE

  1

  This account of the early years of the Naga National Council is based on Mildred Archer, ‘Journal of a Stay in the Naga Hills, 9 July to 4 December 1947’, Mss Eur F236/362, OIOC. Archer, the wife of the last deputy commissioner in the Naga Hills, W. G. Archer, had interviewed a wide cross-section of the NNC membership and subscribed to the NNC journal. In later years she became an authority on British art in India.