On Sardar Patel not becoming

the first Prime Minister of India….

Socio-political netspace, these days, is overflowing with Shri. Narendra Modi. He has almost been the single biggest subject matter today. Some of his supporters even have gone to the extent of projecting him as the 'New Sardar of Gujrat'. They obviously are referring to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and see Modi as a reincarnation of the old Sardar. One person has gone to the extent of saying that Gujrat missed the chance of having the Prime Minister of India in 1946, largely owing to Gandhiji; now it should not lose this chance. Every Gujarati must support the reincarnated Sardar of Gujrat to be the Prime Minister of India. A couple of voices are seen talking about Morajee Desai. But it appears like nobody takes him seriously when Prime Ministers of India are counted. Personally I also agree with this view and hence am not counting it seriously. In this context, I propose to view the reasons why Sardar was not chosen as the Prime Minister.

One site has described the sequence of events that took place at the time of choosing the first prime minister of India. It has some impressions and perceptions also. But overall, this is what the site has to say about the events, sequentially.

How Sardar Patel did not become first PM of India?

It was a meeting in Delhi to decide new president of Congress and Gandhiji said that whoever would be a new congress president will take an oath as a first prime minister of India. Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel and other Congress leader were present in this crucial meeting.

Gandhiji declared in this meeting that out of 15, 12 regional Congress committees had suggested Sardar patel’s name as a president (and thus as the first prime minister of India) and only one had suggested Shri Krupalaniji’s name who took his name back in favor of Jawaharlal Nehru. So Gandhiji said that now there were two candidates Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Patel.

Gandhi asked Jawaharlal ‘Jawahar none of the regional committees has suggested your name and only working committee has suggested your name, what do you think?’ Jawaharlal Nehru wanted to become prime minister so he did not answer this question and just kept looking at the floor. Gandhiji immediately understood what Jawaharlal’s wish was. Gandhiji wrote a note on a paper and gave it to Sardar Patel who was siting just next to him. Sardar read that note and imidietly took his name back.

Thus Jawaharlal Nehru became first prime minister of India instead of deserving Shri Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. This was major major injustice to Gujarat and India. Jawaharlal gave us Kashmir problem, China war, wrong socialist development model and his daughter, daughter’s son, his wife and her children to rule India.

Prof. Makkhan Lal, Senior Fellow at Vivekanand International Foundation in fact goes to saying that ‘Talking about the death of party democracy and High Command culture has become far too common now a days. There is an impression that this High Command culture began in the Congress with Mrs. Indira Gandhi and since then it has spread in other parties as well…….. Maulana Azad’s India Wins Freedom, K.M. Munishi’s Pilgrimage to Freedom, N. V. Gadgil’s Government From Inside, D.  P. Mishra’s Living an Era (in three volumes) and above all Sardar Patel’s Correspondence (Edited by Durga Das in 12 Vols.) throw light on how the process of all powerful High Command and the death of internal party democracy began in the Congress during the pre-Independence days itself in the Congress. Three episodes – namely choosing the First Prime Minister, Electing the First President of India and Ousting the Elected President of the Congress (Purushottam Das Tandon) – throw ample light on it.

Shri. Anurag Ranjan provides this information. “(In 1946) Azad was also interested in fighting and winning election for  the Congress president’s post  as he, too, had ambitions to become the PM,  but he was told in no uncertain terms by Mahatma Gandhi that he does not approve of a second term for a sitting Congress president and Azad had to fall in line ,albeit reluctantly. Not only this, Gandhi made it very clear to everybody that Nehru was his preferred choice for the Congress president’s position.” This piece is corroborated by Vallabhbhai’s biographer Shri. Balaraj Krishna. According to him, it was only on protracted insistence by Gandhiji that Azad stepped down as Congress President. Azad himself wanted to be the Prime Minister of India. But at the time of election, 12 out of 15 PCCs had suggested the name of Vallabhbhai Patel. Nobody had suggested the name of Nehru for presidentship. But Gandhiji, defying all norms of democracy, prevailed on Patel to withdraw his name, in favour of Nehru. Shri. Krishna wonders why Gandhiji did not support his most loyal lieutenant of three decades though he confirms that socialist leaders like Jayprakash Narayan and muslim leaders including Maulana Azad were against Patel.

Personal Secretary of Maulana Azad Humayun Kabir, however, exonerates Mahatmaji of any interference. According to him, Gandhiji was in favour of Patel only. But the outgoing president, Maulana Azad, always felt Patel had a narrow vision. He, therefore, suggested Nehru’s name when it became clear to him that its not going to be him. However, this claim seems to have no takers. An overwhelming majority of analysts are sure on Gandhiji’s open support of Jawaharlal Nehru. According to Prof. Makkhan Lal, Gandhiji had made his choice known in the favour of Jawaharlal Nehru on 20^thApril, 1946. This was not the first time that Gandhiji spoke about his choice of Nehru; even before the process of election was set in motion. He had been speaking about it from the last several years. But Maulana’s desire for re-election and newspaper reports about it upset Gandhiji and on 20.04.1946 he wrote to Maulana Azad, who had already been President of Congress for the last six years: “Please go through the enclosed cuttings.… I have not spoken to anyone of my opinion. When one or two Working Committee members asked me, I said that it would not be right for the same President to continue…. If you are of the same opinion, it may be proper for you to issue a statement about the cuttings [the news item Gandhiji had sent him] and say that you have no intention to become the President again…. In today’s circumstances I would, if asked, prefer Jawaharlal. I have many reasons for this. Why go into them?”

However, the reasons for this choice of Gandhiji are not clear. The space of net and written material is buff with speculations. Prof. Makkhan Lal states, only after Gandhiji was informed that “Jawaharlal will not take the second place” he asked Patel to withdraw. Dr. Rajendra Prasad lamented that Gandhiji “had once again sacrificed his trusted lieutenant for the sake of the ‘glamorous Nehru’ and further feared that “Nehru would follow the British ways.” That fear of Nehru not being amenable to Gandhiji was the prime reason. On the other hand, Anurag Ranjan provides at least two reasons. “We can conclude that Gandhi chose Nehru over Patel because of two main reasons: 1. Gandhi believed a foreign educated Nehru with modern thoughts had an edge over Patel who, according to him, was orthodox in his thoughts. 2. Gandhi feared Nehru would revolt in case he was denied PM’s post and that would give the British an excuse to delay transfer of power. On the other hand, he was fully convinced of Sardar Patel’s loyalty. He knew Sardar Patel was a true patriot and would never play a spoilsport. It must be accepted here that the decision to prefer Nehru over Patel has been criticised by two known critics of Sardar Patel who took the decision to be correct when it was taken but later realised the folly. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad confessed in his autobiography that was published posthumously in 1959, “It was a mistake on my part that I did not support Sardar Patel. We differed on many issues but I am convinced that if he had succeeded me as Congress President he would have seen that the Cabinet Mission Plan was successfully implemented.” Similarly, C Rajgopalachary who blamed Sardar Patel for depriving him  of the first Presidentship of independent India,  wrote, “Undoubtedly it would have been better if Nehru had been asked to be the Foreign Minister and Patel made Prime Minister. I too fell into the error of believing that Jawaharlal was the more enlightened person of the two…” Admitting the honesty of the two gentlemen, it seems possible that while the PCCs were overwhelmingly in favour of Sardar Patel, the top Congress leadership was not so sure about him, may be including M. K. Gandhi. It may be recalled here that Patel was the only Congress leader to say openly that Jinah’s call would be taken heads on and “swords will meet swords”, if Jinah insisted on his adamant ways. If Maulana Azad, who was willing to accept anything and everything for keeping the united India intact, saw this as raw arrogance and aggression, it can be understood.

Rajmohan Gandhi suggests that the primary reason for Gandhiji not to select Patel was the age. Patel was 71 in 1946 as against Nehru, who was 56 only. “The main reason why Gandhi could not name Patel Prime Minister was Patel was very ill, he was very old. Patel belonged to Gandhi’s generation, Jawaharlal was leading to next generation.” I, personally, believe this could be the most important reason. For a nation getting independence after centuries of old fashioned backward looking and apathetic rule, the leadership, at least in the initial period, has to be consistent, modern in outlook, compassionate and charming. Due to his age as well as background, Patel had none of these while Nehru had all.

The issue, however, doesn’t stop there. Many writers, based on their set of information, aired other possibilities. Broadly they move along the border of being negative, anti-Congress and anti-Nehru and one-sided. Prof. Makkhan Lal, as already seen above, suggests that Gandhiji was informed that Nehru will not take second place. So Gandhiji had to offer him the post of the PM. Anurag Ranjan suggests that Gandhi feared Nehru would revolt in case he was denied PM’s post and that would give the British an excuse to delay transfer of power. Some analysts go to the extent of saying ‘It is believed that Nehru blackmailed Mahatma Gandhi by saying that he would dissolve Congress if he is not sworn in as the Prime Minister. Another view supporting this blackmail theory suggests that Nehru had threatened to split Congress. As an observer standing over six decades away, it seems possible that Nehru may have refused to play a second fiddle to Sardar Patel. That would have deprived the newly liberated India of his services. But it this does not look like the reason for Gandhiji switching over his preference to favour Nehru. As has already been seen above, even before the nominations for the post of Congress President were open, Gandhiji had written to Maulana, supporting Nehru for the post. The theory of blackmail sounds hollow on account of two more reasons. Gandhi was not used to keep lying down even in cases of open defeats. Like in case of Netaji Subhash becoming Congress President, much to the embarrassment of Gandhi, in all likelihood, he would have fought the betrayer whosoever it be. On the other hand, Nehru’s name was not brought up by any PCC. As Shri. Balraj Krishna often asserts, Patel had a steely grip on the Congress Party. Many times he pushed his agenda even though almost no other senior leader favoured him. That being the case, how Nehru could have split Congress, standing against the Patel-Gandhi duo is hard to fathom today. Officially, Nehru was not even the then President of Congress. Maulana Azad was the outgoing President while the incoming was being decided. In the circumstances, the talk of blackmail and Bapu succumbing to a firm and adamant Nehru sounds untrue. It seems most likely that Gandhiji was always in favour of Jawaharlal, owing to the modern outlook and charm of the latter. Some times, I even feel that the polished personality, poetic nature and the romantic fabian that Nehru was, made Gandhi believe that it could help India attain a respectable position in the international fraternity in the shortest possible time. I can’t see Patel, as Prime Minister of India, taking up ventures like Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). He would have, in all probabilities, confined himself to India and, at best, South East Asia.

Some of the reactions suggest that there is a large scale impression across the board that had Sardar been the PM, Kashmir issue has been solved then and there only. The mess, in which India finds itself today, would not have arisen at all. Similar is the impression on issues with China. One of the posts (not by a Gujrati) says ‘History has proved it beyond doubt that had Patel been the PM in place of Nehru, the country wouldn’t have faced humiliation of 1962 war. Days before his death, Patel had written to Nehru warning him about China’s nefarious designs but Nehru didn’t pay any attention to that letter. Even Kashmir would not have become a thorn in the flesh for India, had Patel and not Nehru been the first prime minister of India.’ How Sardar would have handled Kashmir and China? What can we say on this impression?