PATEL, PRASAD AND RAJAJI
Myth of the Indian Right
Neerja Singh
Sage
316 pages; Rs 850
The Indian National Congress provided a broad platform for representatives of diverse political and social ideologies to launch a powerful anti-colonial liberation struggle. Thus, Congress Socialists, Liberals, Social Conservatives, Traditionalists and Modernists united around the main goal of securing independence for India from the British. The cementing factor for these disparate groups was the broad understanding that only the end the exploitative impulses of colonialism would free India's masses from poverty. Beyond this, there were fundamental disagreements on every socio-political issue, which is the scope of Neerja Singh's study.
In a surgical examination of Congress right and Congress left, Patel, Prasad and Rajaji have been correctly identified as the tallest leaders. They represented the ideology and programme of the Congress right as different from the Congress left represented by the Congress Socialist Party, or Subhash Chandra Bose and Jawaharlal Nehru.
In the first chapter, the author has devoted attention to the contentious issue of describing the concept of the "right" in India as distinct from the West. She has extensively reviewed the literature to establish that the Indian right has its own context, salient features and meanings. The western right, the author says, "deliberately invented the myth of hurt, pride and hatred for specific ethnic groups by reviving the memories of bygone rights and bygone greatness, whether true or false". The Congress right, on the other hand, as represented by the troika of Patel, Prasad and Rajaji, "fought for the basic values emphasised in the Congress ideology, shaped and articulated by leaders of national liberation struggle".
The Indian right was committed to all the values of democracy whereas the European right was racist and anti-democratic. On social issues, the Indian right took socially progressive positions but the Congress left did not accept that Patel, Prasad and Rajaji's nationalism was enough to socially transform India after independence.
One common point of the troika was the firm commitment to Mahatma Gandhi and some of his major ideas on social and political issues including partition and princely rule. These disciples of Gandhi fundamentally believed in Hindu-Muslim unity and comradeship in spite of being Hindu conservatives.
Non-communalism was, in fact, the essence of the Congress right's ideology, a position best appreciated when compared with the Hindu right as represented by the Hindu Mahasabha and the Sangh Parivar led, guided and controlled by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). If the Congress right believed in the process of "gradual change" and "accommodation", the Hindu right believes in polarising society between Hindus and other religious minorities.
The best example of the Congress right's non-communal approach is provided by Rajaji who offered Mohammed Ali Jinnah the prime ministership of India so that Hindu-Muslim unity could be maintained.
Sardar Patel, too, in a speech on September 11, 1948, clearly expressed his rejection of RSS ideology when he observed, "…the objectionable pact arose when they, burning with revenge began attacking Mussalmans…All their speeches were full of communal poison… opposition turned more severe, when the RSS men expressed joy and distributed sweets after Gandhiji's death". He observed that the member of the RSS "claimed to be the defenders of Hinduism, but they must know that Hinduism would not be saved by rowdyism". Patel represented the best of Gandhian philosophy and this is the reason that he harshly condemned the RSS and banned it by declaring it as an undesirable organisation.
The sharp differences between the Congress right and socialists, however, were on the issues of basic economic policies and economic planning for independent India. Whereas the troika took a "detailed and systematic discussion over drain [of wealth] and de-industrialisation…the conclusions drawn here are largely based on their views over the issues of economic development, the role of Charkha in rejuvenating the economy and revival of cottage and village industries". As the author states, "In the realm of ideas, Patel, Prasad and Rajaji regarded the Gandhian concept of Panchayati Raj and trusteeships as two pillars of economic decentralisation".
The socialists rejected the right's economic ideology and prescriptions as simplistic, amusing and nonsensical. It was the emergence of Subhash Chandra Bose, especially during the Tripuri crisis, that attacks and counter-attacks between these two ideological tendencies within the Congress were enhanced. Chapter 5 is devoted to this basic ideological conflict which eventually created a real cleavage when Bose became Congress president in 1938.
Such differences did not end with the transfer of power on August 15, 1947. The policy of non-interference in the people's movement in the princely states, as the Congress right pleaded, was seen by the left as appeasement. Similarly, Rajendra Prasad's social conservatism as a Hindu believer attracted much attention when he took a stand on Hindu Code Bill and, as President, decided to visit the renovated Somnath Temple.
On some issues in post-independence India, Patel and Nehru had differences of approach. Patel stated that "on some vital matters, his views were different from Nehru, as he did not believe in inevitability of class war… The answer… was not in the annihilation of one class for the progress of another". This view was shared by all who are described as the Congress right and rejected by those who were defined as the Congress left. Yet, all of them were comrades-in-arms devoted to building a secular, democratic, non-sectarian and non-communal India.
One major issue that the methodological approach of this research highlights is that anti-western knowledge systems and categories of analysis cannot be rejected simply because they are European. The Congress right can be fruitfully studied by comparing it with British Liberal-Conservatives and Centrists and the Congress left can be studied by situating it in the European context of democratic socialism. Further, the extreme Hindu tight represented by the RSS can be studied by comparing it the leadership of Mussolini and Hitler. The notion that the blind rejection of Western ideas and experiences may lead to a narcissist approach towards the study of India is unique in this work.
