RAJAJI AS A POLITICAL
THINKER
Dr. D. ANJANEYULU
Like many other great men
the world over, C. Rajagopalachari (or Rajaji, as he
was popularly known and fondly addressed), was a mixture of opposites, if not
exactly a bundle of contradictions. He was reputed to be a conservative of
conservatives, but, he initiated many reforms, social and political, which
could have been hailed as radical and feared as revolutionary, had they come
from other hands. A confirmed no-changer in Congress politics, he played
the premier role of a pro-changer on more occasions than one. One of the
earliest satyagrahis in the struggle
for freedom, believed to be the conscience-keeper of the Mahatma, he often took
positions at the opposite pole, braving, widespread opposition, unpopularity,
even political ostracisation, in the process.
In the forefront of the
fight against British imperialism, since 1919 or even earlier, spending many
years in British jails, he took care to see that many of the values that he had
imbibed from the British political system and the Western Intellectual
tradition, including the European enlightenment, were preserved, and promoted
in Indian politics and society, whenever he had the power to do so.
Rajaji, as a politician,
was essentially pragmatic, not rigidly sticking to a dogma, to the detriment of
practical results and in the face of the hard realities of life and politics.
He certainly stood for certain basic principles, like political freedom,
individual liberty, private initiative, social progress,
not to speak of the spiritual foundations of material welfare. But he was ready
to compromise, where compromise was called for, on inessentials and marginal
issue.
Though he did not belong
to the Indian Liberal Federation (in fact, he was ranged against the great
Liberals. like Sivaswami Aiyer
and Srinivasa Sastri, Sapru and Jayakar
and others), he seemed to have imbibed the quintessence of classical
liberalism, represented by Mill ‘On Liberty’ and Morely ‘On Compromise’. He knew the art
of where to compromise and where not, separating the chaff from the grain,
standing for principle and letting the subsidiaries go, sticking to the
substance, leaving the shadows to take care of themselves.
To take the points in their chronological order, it
was at the Gaya Congress in 1922, under the presidentship of Deshabandhu C.
R. Das, that the problem of Council entry took an
urgent and serious turn vis-a-vis non-cooperation
and the constructive programme. It was the stand taken by Das
and his followers, that Congressmen, at least some of them, could be allowed to
stand for elections and enter the Councils, to prove their mettle and the
parliamentary democratic credentials, of the Indian National Congress, and
ultimately to wreck the Constitution, if not to work it. There was a strong
body of opinion in favour of this, supported by Motilal Nehru, N. C. Kelkar, Vithalbhai Patel, and others in the North and Srinivasa Iyengar, Satyamurti, Prakasam and
others in the South. These were known as the ‘Pro-changers’. The other side, sticking to
the principle of total non-cooperation with the Government and the constructive
programme, without any change of policy under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi,
were known as the ‘No-Changers’. They included seasoned Gandhites like Sardar Palel, Babu Rajendra Prasad, Dr.
Pattabhi Sitaramayya and C. Rajagopalachari.
The main resolution, on
behalf of the no-changers, was either moved, or seconded by Rajaji, but it was
carried, though with a narrow majority, thanks to the intellectual
resourcefulness and persuasive eloquence of Rajaji. It marked the parting of
ways between the two groups, which, of course, came together later, after the
death of Das in 1925. But Rajaji was known as the
high-priest, if not the prophet (who was Gandhiji) of the no-changers.
Surprisingly
enough, in 1937. after the elections under provincial autonomy, when the
Congress, after long deliberation and some dithering, decided in favour of office acceptance, it was Rajaji, the high-priest
of the no-changers, preoccupied with propagation of Khadi,
prohibition and rural reconstruction programme at the Gandhi Ashram at Tiruchengode, who was favoured
for the leadership of the Congress party and the formation of the Ministry. This
is not the place to discuss the merits and demerits of the aspirants to the position
or the justice and injustice of the ultimate choice made. In the event, it
turned out extremely well, earning a lot of prestige for the Congress Ministry
of Madras.
It was proved that
Indians, when entrusted with the high responsibility of administration, could
prove as good as, or even better than, their British counterparts. Rajaji’s flair for administration, with emphasis on order,
discipline and good government, was seen to advantage during the years 1937-39.
Critics were not wanting,
who found fault with Rajaji for the apparent contradictions in his attitude,
suggesting a possible falling off from the original principle and an obvious
compromise with contrary forces, in the interest of expediency. For instance,
the eminent journalist, Khasa Subba
Rau (who came to be an ardent admirer of Rajaji later) pulled no punches in
attacking him in 1939 or 1940).
He wrote in Men in the
Limelight:
“...but C. R. functions in
diverse capacities in significant styles that seem somehow to cast subtle
challenges at the essential spirit of the roles in which he appears. Thus he is
a nationalist by profession, with an administrative record filled largely with bolsterings of communalism. He is a Congressman with a
rather diluted regard for other brothers of the faith, and all
his considerateness seems to be reserved for Justicites,
Liberals, Europeans and the Services. One feels that a word of an I. C. S.
Civilian weighs far more with C. R. than the combined judgement of colleagues
of his own party. He has taken asceticism as the staff of life, but other
ascetics get very little of his attention, which is rarely denied by him to
millionaires. He is a Satyagrahi with truth and
non-violence for mottoes, but he is a veritable Chanakya in politics with a
genius for intrigue, unequalled in our times.”
We should realise that by the year 1937, the old polarisation
between the no-changers and the pro-changers, arising in a different context,
no longer hold good. It lost its relevance, because of the changed political
situation; Rajaji did not see any lasting wisdom in adopting inflexible
attitudes, like non-co-operation and co-operation, Swadeshi,
Videshi, nationalism, cosmopolitanism, etc. Same is
the case with issues like the teaching of Hindi. Rajaji like other Congress leaders, was a staunch advocate of the propagation of Hindi
as a “national language” in 1937. But by the early ‘Sixties, 1960-62, he became
one of the spearheads of informed and intelligent opposition to the rising tide
of Hindi domination as an official language. Before Independence, he was
opposed to the domination of English, under the British administration, to the
neglect of the Indian languages. When he realised the
new dangers, after coming face to face with the realities of the new situation,
he did not hesitate to take a stand that would throw him out of favour with the ruling party and the establishment at the
Centre.
An ardent Congressman for
about 35 to 40 years, Rajaji felt that when the Congress leadership tended to
become dictatorial, because of the continuous, unchallenged, monopoly of power
in free India it was high time that a strong opposition was organised.
As a deep student of British politics, he learnt to believe in the value of a
party-system for an effective, viable parliamentary democracy.
Writing on Our
Democracy he said in Swarajya:
“A strong opposition is
essential for the health of democratic Government. In a democracy, based on
universal suffrage, Government of the majority without an effective opposition
is like driving a donkey on whose back you put the whole load in one bundle.
The two-party system steadies movement by putting a fairly equal load into each
pannier. In the human body also, the two eyes and two ears, aid a person to
place the objects seen and heard. A single-party democracy soon loses its sense
of proportion. It sees, but cannot place things in perspective or apprehend all
sides of a question. This is the position in India today.”
It is the same position
today, 30 years or so, after these words were written. Though the forms of
democracy seem to have survived, the true spirit that should inform it, had obviously vanished, if it ever had been absorbed
here.
On the parting of ways and
growing conflict of views between Rajaji and Nehru, Monica Felton (the author
of I Meet Rajaji wrote (Page 185):
“One day I said to him, ‘I
have been thinking that if I were the mother of you and the P. M., I would bang
your two heads together and tell you to stop arguing and to settle down and run
things together. Each of you has qualities that the other has not, and which this
country badly needs. You would make a superb combination’.”
To which, he smiled
faintly and answered:
“But it is too late. Our
P. M. has arrived at a point at which it is impossible for him to change his
views. He has got into a settled habit of thinking that everything must be done
in a hurry. And I have reached a detachment, which makes it out of the question
that I should ever again return to public affairs.”
And yet, he did return to
public affairs, when he founded the Swatantra Party
in 1959, which he described as the Conservative Party of India at the inaugural
meeting at the auditorium of the Vivekananda College, with intellectuals like Minoo Masani and others present
there.
Rajaji is often described
as a “Conservative”, by public reputation, as also on his own admission, which
has to be understood in the proper perspective. He was indeed a conservative,
in the sense that he wanted to conserve what is worth conserving in native
tradition, while borrowing the systems from abroad and adapting them to our
requirements. In his attitude to political ideas, he was neither affected by xenolatry (worship of all things foreign), which as the
fashion in certain quarters, nor by xenophobia, which seems to be the bane of
certain indigenous regional parties, self-complacent in their own native glory of
wallowing in revivalist attitudes, and revelling in
socio-cultural, literary-historical, myths in pursuit of their populist
policies, as a psychological substitute for concrete, progressive programmes.
Rajaji was a liberal (with
an ‘l’ in the lower case), without ever belonging to a Liberal Party so called.
This fact becomes all the more relevant, when we remember that the distinction
between “enlightened conservatism” and “pragmatic liberalism” has almost
disappeared now, even in Britain and other parliamentary democracies, of the
advanced countries of the West.
Rajaji’s
approach to issues could be described as pragmatic, not partisan; dynamic, not
dogmatic. On the issue of a ban on Nuclear
proliferation, he found himself in the company of the Indian Communists, whom
he had earlier called his “Enemy Number One”, in a different context.
On the Cripps offer (in
1942), he was for giving it a “try”; in this he was in the very select and
distinguished company of Sri Aurobindo, who sent his personal emissary, S. Duraiswami Aiyer, to Simla to plead with the Congress leaders to accept it.
On the separatist demand
of the Muslim League under the leadership of Jinnah, Rajaji was for conceding
autonomy, if possible, and partition, if inevitable, as the only way out of the
political impasse – the only key to the deadlock. With his robust commonsense,
he said it was better for two brothers to partition their patrimony than to
stay on together in tension, always flying at each other’s throats.
Rajaji would have quite
approved of the utilitarian ideal of the greatest good of the largest number,
whatever the label of a political party might be. He was aware, earlier than others, that the real conflict was between “democracy” in
whatever form on the one side and “totalitarianism” and other forms of “authoritarianism”
on the other.
We shall do well to recognise that Rajaji was “conservative” without being “reactionary”,
“orthodox” without being “obscurantist”, “radical” without being “revolutionary”,
“progressive” (or forward-looking) without being “Marxist” or “communist”, and “democratic”
without being “populist”.