A crucial issue - garnering almost no attention and remaining undebated -
is Mahatma Gandhi's suggestion to dissolve the Congress and turn it
into a Lok Seva Sangh. Why did he wish that? The Congress, during the
Gandhi era, inspired thousands to practise purity and probity. Freedom
fighters and Congress workers were almost synonymous. Gandhi was not
oblivious to ambitions; he was aware that cut-throat competition and
hypocrisy existed in the Congress. He was afraid that thousands of
workers, trained in the anti-imperialist struggle to fight for
righteousness, who had inculcated the characteristic of renouncement,
would either become irrelevant or be co-opted into a venal system.
Gandhi's vision for struggle was not confined to 'transfer of power' or a
change of guard on the Delhi throne. He believed these trained
idealists should be used to create democratic consciousness in society,
which he considered the best way to curb absolutism. He was the first
modern Indian politician who drifted from western-style politics and institutions. He was a critic of
Westminster democracy and sharply criticised the nature and role of
Parliament. Gandhi drew his intellectual and moral strength from our
traditional system of knowledge and concept of kingship. In our history,
it is those kings who renounced the most, based their rule on justice
and preferred merit over kinship who are venerated as ideal rulers.
Vikramaditya is revered for his commitment to larger interests. Gandhi
expected political actors to follow the principle of life based on
minimum materialism and maximum renouncement. The extravagance of
'swadeshi' rulers and their joy upon the transfer of power, even as
thousands were being massacred and millions going homeless and
breadless, stunned Gandhi. He wrote to Nehru, "We are adopting British
extravagance, which the country cannot afford" and proposed to Nehru
that "the Viceroy should reside in an unpretentious house and the
present palace (later to be known as Rashtrapati Bhavan) should be more
usefully used". Mountbatten happily accepted Gandhi's proposal and the
latter wrote back, "May I say how deeply I have appreciated your wish to
go to an unpretentious house as the chosen Governor General of millions
of the half-famished villagers of the nation." But this proposal was a
discomfort for 'socialist' Nehru and he informed Gandhi of "difficulty
in finding suitable accommodation and making arrangements for changing
over, when we are so busy". Why Nehru suppressed the proposal was
revealed by his own action. Soon after the Mahatma's demise, he shifted
from his 'small' residence, 17 York Road, in the capital to Teen Murti
House (spread over almost 22 acres), former residence of the British
commander-in-chief of the Indian Army. Michael Edwards wrote that Nehru
had moved into a luxurious house "surrounding himself with guards, large
cars, bodyguards on prancing horses, pomp and protocol". Nehru was not
what he appeared to be, a fact he himself was aware of. He wrote in
Modern Review (November 1937) under the anonymous name 'Rashtrapati'
that he had a tendency to become dictatorial and needed to be checked.
After Independence, when the Congress was grappling with internal
democracy Nehru shrewdly created a psychological halo among party
workers that he alone could save it from tottering. A national leader
like Harekrushna Mahatab issued a press statement urging the 'need' for
Nehru's dictatorship in the interest of the Congress and country. During
the first general election, S K Sinha from Bihar proposed that Nehru
should be solely authorised to select all 4,000 candidates for the Lok
Sabha and the Assemblies. The subversion of democracy began with proxies
of Nehru inside the Congress. It is a paradox that despite knowing
Nehru's proclivities, Gandhi favoured him.
