The years 1947 to 1951 were of great tumult, unusual trials and thorny transitions. The essence and residue of these cataclysmic years still imbue and inform the political lives of South Asia in general and the Indian Republic in particular. The book under review is a sequel to an earlier volume by the author, titled India and the Interregnum: Interim Government, September 1946–August 1947, published in 2019. Both books have emerged by harnessing and distilling the large corpus of private papers pertaining to actors and interlocuters of the years from 1946 to 1951 particularly from the Prime Ministers Museum and Library (PMML), then called Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML), collected and excellently deployed by the author to weave an insightful narrative. The earlier volume dealt with the event and action-packed months of September 1946 to August 1947. The sequel, India in the Interim: The 1947–1951 Nehru Government is an outcome of the deep data mining from the same but unused corpus bequeathed by participants and actors who the author adeptly recasts in the current work. Jawaharlal Nehru papers remain the main source as the narrative is anchored on the trials and tribulations of the Nehru Government from 1947 to 1951.
The book deals with the most creative and challenging contexts of post-Partition and pre-Republic years of clash, contestation and conciliation across various fault lines. Pondering poignantly on the division of Bengal, Nehru gave vent to his anguish and torment thus: ‘[n]o Hindu in East Bengal has any feeling of security…a vast number of them will come over. It is difficult to push them back and it is impossible to absorb them…I have even thought that war is better than this… And yet I know well that war can only make them worse’ (p. 218).
The book is embedded in and anchored on the copious exchange of letters among political actors from different parts of the country bringing to the fore the flux of events and imperfections with which they were tackled and reconfigured by political actors, particularly Nehru. It was Nehru, the man of great fortitude and partial failures, whose hands shaped the destiny of India. By 1951, Nehru ‘combined the posts of Party President and Prime Minister, in addition to his Chairmanship of the Planning Commission and Ministership of External Affairs’ (p. 218). From that fateful year of 1951, India was poised for the Nehruvian era.
The author brings together an array of evidence from the documents to shed light on disparate and unconnected events arranged chronologically into chapters. He attempts to weave together the rapidly changing events in the political scenario unfolding particularly in the aftermath of the Partition, and chiefly anchors on Nehru’s engagement with these years of governance which was an unusually thorny journey. That Nehru was able to consolidate democracy amidst these years of vicissitudes and trial is undoubtedly his remarkable success in and contribution to nation building. The years were marked by economic downturn, food crisis and a massive refugee problem. The various committees and commissions for evacuee’s resettlement, redefined and challenged urban governance. Along with the general law and order problems and confusion, it was characterized by devaluation of money, linguistic clash and community closure vis-à-vis others. Corruption down the line to the lowest level along with contingent cunningness and confusion of various kinds haunted and interrogated the political class. The narrative with sardonic humour also portrays how the political class was a willing partner and contributor to corruption.
The book is an eye opener for those who vilify Nehru and find in him the arch perpetrator of hundreds of blunders and sins. The author without being remotely hagiographical brings the vicissitudes of initial governance and the formidable humane efforts that Nehru made to salvage the messy, unruly and chaotic situation. It was Nehru at his best in the most challenging of circumstances. He ardently strove hard to uphold the ideals and goals of the national movement in the initial and precarious years of governance. The prudence and tenacity of purpose that the Nehru and Patel duo deployed is of paramount importance. ‘Nehru “often differed with Sardar Patel, but [they] never had arguments about petty matters”’ (p. 131).
Taking a multitrack view of these years, the book also shows how the larger and lofty goals of the Freedom Movement were side stepped and sidetracked at the provincial levels. The tensions of provincialism and nationalism are writ large throughout the narrative. Both Nehru and Patel corresponded with great energy and foresight with co-journeymen from almost all provinces, both princely and otherwise to forge a nation. This is a period when India was politically free but without any constitutional framework, as the Constitution was still in the making. The Planning Commission did not exist as an entity. Moreover, the country was reeling under a severe food crisis, and the law-and-order problem was extraordinarily exacerbated by the havoc of the Partition.
The book portrays the tumultuous events of the pre-Republic years that in many ways determined the tenor of the decades that followed. In this sense these years of transitional governance with all their imperfections have come to the forefront through the book. The cluttered and confounding nature of events, and the ‘multitrack chronicle’ to render them understandable and comprehensible has made the volume a valuable addition to the scholarship on Indian polity and economy for the opening years of the Republic. As against the sanitized version of Indian nationalism, it offers a contested but creative view of nationalism and in this sense is instructive and insightful. A nuanced and synthesized generalization is not attempted here.
Rather it takes the reader to the world of provincial leadership, the challenges and contradictions emerging from the regions and communities, and how Nehru and Patel through multitrack negotiations attempted to unite and forge a united nation remains at the core of the book. ‘Gulzarilal Nanda, hailing from Patel’s State but an ally of Nehru, summed it up in July 1950: there are two urges at work—for safety and social justice. In the minds of the people, Sardar is identified with the [former], and (Nehru) represents the [latter]’ (p. 132).
The second chapter chronicles several parallel and crisscrossing events from April to December 1949. Like the earlier chapter we encounter here many rooted provincial leaders of great substance and consequence like Master Tara Singh, Shibbanlal Saxena, Ali Yavar Jung, Bhimsen Sachar, Gopichand Bhargava, Gopinath Bardoloi, Vishnu Ram Medhi, BG Kher, Mohanlal Saxena, DP Mishra, BC Roy, Hare Krushna Mahtab and many more. We find Lala Hansraj Gupta, S Vardhacharya and S Daulatram, and their intersecting views and actions. The provincial and local concerns are very much in dialogue with the national.
Unlike India, China inherited a more or less unified nation. In the Indian case, creating a united India with the unfolding holocaust of Partition was a mammoth task. Provincial politics were in disarray, opinions were divided to the extreme, but still, Nehru, Patel and their associates could forge a nation. ‘At (a) time, (when) the last word did not belong to Nehru’ (p. 83), when ‘it was not easy for people to understand the complicated constitution (nor) the idea of parliamentary responsibility’ (p. 82), the fact that Nehru was able to negotiate the situation, makes him a nation builder par excellence. The book also reveals how flexible Nehru was in accommodating leaders such as C Rajagopalachari, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, and various Chief Ministers and Governors. The book reveals numerous examples and instances where Patel gave a fair trial to a suggestion and a scheme proposed by Nehru and vice versa. The contextual correspondences between Vallabhbhai and various provincial leaders, including Kashmiri leaders, stand testimony to his efforts. Unlike the cacophony prevailing today, the correspondences reveal a robust, functional, and committed relationship between Nehru and Patel. Had that not been the case in the precarious foundational years of the Republic, India would not have acquired a consolidated tenure in the 1950s.
The book is dense, cluttered with innumerable events and populated with countless characters. Numerous unfamiliar contexts for the years from 1947 to 1951 are invoked and in that sense it is also revelatory. Subsequent to the high tide of nationalism, and its positive fallouts, the book portrays those fateful years when India was adjusting to the aftereffects of Partition, when provincialism, profiteering and many such primordial and communitarian pulls and pressures imbued and impacted every aspect of political, social and economic life.
The book is interesting, informative and insightful but a terse read even for specialists. No support is on offer for readers who are unfamiliar with the array of personalities encountered. In some places there is lack of coherence and consistency though adhering to chronology makes it understandable. The book has no chapter titles or captions but only chronological limits. Synthesis of events, contexts, personalities from which a generalized caption can emerge has not been attempted here. The festering wounds have been left open. Perhaps this was symptomatic of the years under study.
Dhrub Kumar Singh is with the Department of History, Faculty of Social Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi.