This refers to T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan's analysis in his column "The two phases of JLN" (Line and Length, November 1). Three cheers to him for calling a spade a spade and stating two home truths upfront: that the Congress high command was Mahatma Gandhi and that Jawaharlal Nehru survived in the pre-1947 Congress "probably wholly, and only, because of Gandhiji who liked him because he never, ever went against him".
When we achieved Independence, as everyone knows, Nehru became prime minister only because he was nominated as such by Gandhi, who had already declared Nehru as his "heir". Inevitably, after Gandhi, Nehru became the high command - and after him, of course, the family. One wonders whether the term high command was used in the Congress before 1920. I suppose it would take some more generations before anyone even dreams of attempting an honest and critical history of the Congress. If at all, it will have to begin with what may be called the mother of all counterfactual questions of Indian history: what if Gandhi had chosen to remain in South Africa and not returned to India in January 1915?
Sharadchandra Panse Pune
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