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Nehru vs Patel: CONGRESS ABHORS TRUTH, By Proloy Bagchi, 5 Feb, 2016 Print E-mail

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New Delhi, 5 February 2016

Nehru vs Patel

CONGRESS ABHORS TRUTH

By Proloy Bagchi

 

The Congress High Command, read Sonia, has sent a show-cause notice to its Mumbai Chief Sanjay Nirupam for publishing an unsigned article in the Party’s mouthpiece “Congress Darshan” last November which denigrates India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Party President Sonia Gandhi.

Worse, the periodical underscored Sonia’s father, Stephano Maino as a fascist and that she became Congress President within 62 days after becoming the Party’s member. Moreover, it faulted Nehru’s Kashmir and China policies which have tied down the country over the last 66 years and its repercussions continue to reverberate.

True, the article does not reveal any secret that was already known. Factually, Sonia became a Congress member only after its rank and file persuaded her to lead the Party as most had lost faith in its senior leaders. Recall, she had refused to join the Party or partake in politics post Rajiv’s assassination and earlier her mother-in-law Indira which left her with no stomach for affairs of State. However, Partymen’s insistence compelled her to take over the reins after eight years of her husband’s death. Many believed that sans a Gandhi member at the helm, the Party would go nowhere. This surely is also Nehru’s legacy!

That Sonia’s father was a soldier in fascist Benito Mussolini army and a prisoner of war in the then-Soviet Union is also well known. Reports of Manio swearing allegiance to the Fascist regime and then later promoting the Soviet line were, however, not quite well known. Before he joined the fascist army he reportedly was of modest means living in an Italian village.

Surprisingly, now the Maino family is said to be worth $2 billion. Indeed, that is saying quite a lot about the family and its extension to the Indian ruling family that was profitably used by the KGB. No wonder, the diaries of a Soviet sleuth Mitrokhin mention the KGB’s penetration in the Prime Minister’s House.

Undeniably, what was written in “Congress Darshan” on Nehru for which its editor was sacked is largely true. Also, it is a fact that Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel differed with Nehru in respect of the latter’s Kashmir and Tibet policies. While Nehru was a romantic living in his own make-believe world wherein everything was hunky dory and where there were no enemies, only friends and well-wishers, Sardar was a realist and practical and knew how nations played power games. Nehru thought India had no enemies even as Pakistanis invaded Kashmir.

While Nehru did not protest against invasion of Tibet by China, Patel saw clearly what was coming. His 17th November 1950 letter to Nehru is an exceptionally clear-headed exposition of external and internal implications of the Chinese occupation of Tibet. As Beijing was exterminating a buffer state bringing the unfriendly neighbour close to the Himalayas, Nehru was still singing of “Panchsheel” and “Hindi Chini bhai bhai”. Only the humiliating 1962 defeat knocked him back into senses. But it was too late. The animus has continued.

Notably, Patel successfully integrated the 562 princely States in the Indian Union as there were rendered free after the lapse of Paramountcy ---  the supremacy of the British Crown over them --- by 15th August 1947. Keen on saving India from balkanization, the Sardar announced that he did not recognize the right of any State to remain independent and in isolation within India. With strong-arm methods he broke the separatist princes’ union and by 15th August 1947 all princely States except Junagarh, Hyderabad and Kashmir had joined the Indian Union.

Regarding Junagadh, Patel saw to it that conditions were created for a forcible takeover despite the fact the Nawab had opted for Pakistan. Hyderabad was, however, a tough nut. Its Nizam tried all the options, from remaining independent to opting for Pakistan and remaining as a dominion under the British Commonwealth. All this was not difficult to fathom as was the opposition from within the Indian Government.

While Patel wanted to send in the Army, Nehru would have none of it. There were reportedly sharp exchanges between Nehru and Patel in a Cabinet meeting over sending the Army wherein Nehru is stated to have called Patel a “total communalist”. Soon, however, a report of rape of a British woman in Hyderabad provoked him to take a “U” turn and the Indian Army, waiting in the wings battle-ready by Patel, was asked to march into Nizam’s Hyderabad.

Like all other princely States, Kashmir surprisingly was not being handled by Patel who used to be the Home Minister. For reasons best known to him Nehru who also had the Foreign Ministry under his charge for no rhyme or reason kept “Kashmir” in his portfolio and made a thorough mess of it. First, he seems to have been instrumental in having the Kashmir accession delayed because of his close friendship with Sheik Abdullah whom he wanted freed from the prison term he was undergoing. (Ironically, he had to put him under arrest in 1953.)

Thus on 26th October 1947 when the Instrument of Accession was signed Pakistan Army-backed raiders were already in Kashmir. In the ensuing war Nehru prevented the Indian Army from pushing the raiders back to where they came from. Instead he, ill-advisedly, took the matter to the United Nations and that too not under Chapter VII whereby the world body could take armed action against the aggressors, but by invoking Chapter VI for resolution of the dispute.

Clearly, Kashmir was a case of Pakistani aggression, not a dispute about determination of sovereignty over the State. The so-called “dispute” has been festering all these years like a cancer and there is no end in sight. As if all this was not enough, Nehru later put another albatross round the country’s neck by forcing Baba Saheb Ambedkar, despite his vehement protests, to include Article 370 in the Constitution awarding a special status to Kashmir.

Curiously, the Congress Party is unable to face the truths about the mistakes made by Nehru. Despite all his good work in many other spheres, India’s first Prime Minister was a failure in dealing with Pakistan and China. But for him we would have been free of many of the serious problems that have been plaguing us in respect of our relations with these two countries.

In hindsight, Sardar Patel, perhaps, would have made a better Prime Minister. But all these are among the many “ifs” of our post-Independence history. ------ INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)

 

 

 

 

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