M K Gandhi And The Gandhian Legacy

[Guest]

Dr Ramesh Rao's article which was published in a local desi newspaper in US. Apparently MK Gandhi's grandson (who's only claim to fame was his Gandhi genes) was not too happy and started a chain of letters to the editor.

Some excerpts...

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->What if Gandhi had not supported Motilal and Jawaharlal Nehru in their bid to create a Nehru dynasty in India?  Few people have remarked about the machinations of Gandhi to have his way and make Congress his “political-spiritual” playground.  Motilal did not support Gandhi’s “leading the country away from the path of constitutional struggle into the wilderness of sterile political agitation”, as did C. R. Das, and Vithalbhai Patel (brother of Vallabhai Patel).  To win Motilal over to his side, Gandhi appointed Jawaharlal to be his principal aide as General Secretary of the Congress, promoting the novice over the heads of senior party men.  Motilal was not just won over, but then began to actively lobby for Jawaharlal’s climb to power in the party. 

The Lahore session of Congress saw Jawaharlal appointed as party president, over the wishes of the majority of Congressmen who wanted Sardar Patel to be made President.  Patel had led the civil disobedience movement at Bardoli in 1928 and organized it and commanded it so well, he had been given the sobriquet of “Sardar”.  When Durga Das asked Gandhi why he had chosen Jawaharlal over Vallabhai, and had succumbed to pressure from Motilal, the Mahatma said that he was won over by Motilal’s argument that Jawahar represented “youth and dynamism”.  As Das remarks, “It is certain that Gandhi’s decision marked a turning point in the history of modern India.  A dying man, Motilal was naturally eager to see Jawaharlal Congress President in his own lifetime….  But the effect of Gandhi’s decision was to identify the Nehru family with the nation.  There is little doubt that this identification was a factor in the choice of Nehru as the first Prime Minister of free India and of his daughter Indira as the third”.  Das wrote this in 1969, and we now know that this was also the reason why Rajiv Gandhi became Prime Minister, and why Sonia Gandhi is now the defacto Prime Minister, and why Rahul and Priyanka are waiting in the wings to take over the mantle.

Gandhi’s writ ran so large that he got away with many more undemocratic actions.  And his “ascetic” bent and idiosyncrasies saw him inflict shame and embarrassment on fine men, and mindfully ignore the worse peccadilloes of his favorite, Jawaharlal.  For example, Gandhi heeded the gossip and complaints about Bhulabhai Desai’s drinking, and he wrote to Desai asking him whether he drank!  Gandhi had taken on the role of father, school teacher, and scolder of men, and there was none who could challenge him except Jawaharlal.  Seems when Gandhi persisted in asking Maulana Azad if he drank, Nehru said, “I took sherry last evening.  Why pursue this matter?” 

Gandhi undermined Subhash Chandra Bose’s influence in the party when he opposed Bose becoming president for the second time.  Bose argued that Nehru had been president for two consecutive terms, and he too deserved that chance.  Gandhi proposed Pattabhi Sitaramayya, who lost to Bose.  Gandhi quit in a huff, and Bose’s position was undermined when the Congress High Command passed a resolution directing Bose to form his “cabinet” in consultation with Gandhi!

May be the final act of Gandhi to anoint Nehru “leader” was taken in 1944 when he insisted once again on Nehru becoming party president.  Patel was head of the Congress Parliamentary Board, and all the provincial Congress Committees had expressed their preference for Patel to be party president.  Why, Durga Das asked Kripalani, did Gandhi prefer Jawahar over Vallabhai?  It seems Kripalani said that like all “saints and holy people” Gandhi wanted “significant men” among his adherents, and he believed too that Nehru would be a “better instrument to deal with Englishmen as they would talk in a ‘common idiom’”. 
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