S.S. Sharma made every possible effort to dissuade Nehru from what looked increasingly like a collision course between him and Tandon. In this, Sharma was one of many, for leaders like Pant of U.P. and B.C. Roy of West Bengal had attempted to do the same. When they got to Delhi, however, they found Nehru as vaguely adamant as ever. But this time S.S. Sharma’s ego was slightly hurt: Nehru did not suggest that he come to Delhi and join his Cabinet. Presumably he either knew that Sharma would beg off as usual — or he was not pleased with Sharma’s attempts to paper over the cracks in the party — or else the invitation had been displaced by other matters of greater urgency that were on his mind.
One of these matters was a meeting of the Members of Parliament from the Congress Party, which he had called in order to explain the events that had led to the drastic rift and his resignation. He asked them for a vote of confidence. Whatever their political complexion (and there were, as Nehru was soon to discover when the bill to reform Hindu law was brought up before Parliament, many diehard conservatives among them), most Congress MPs perceived the dispute largely in terms of a conflict between the mass party and the parliamentary party. They were not enamoured of the thought that the Congress President would try to dictate policy to them through resolutions of the Congress, as he had on several occasions stated that he had the right to do. Besides, they knew that without the national image of Nehru they would have a very difficult time getting themselves re-elected in a few months’ time. Whether it was because of the fear that they would lose their soul or their power or the elections, they overwhelmingly passed a motion of confidence in his favour.
Since confidence in Nehru as such had never been at issue, Tandon’s supporters resented this action, which smacked of the build-up to a showdown. They were also somewhat surprised by Nehru’s most uncharacteristic unwillingness to back down, to understand their point of view, to postpone unpleasantness, to compromise. He was talking now of insisting on a ‘change of outlook’ and a ‘clear-cut verdict’. And rumours had begun to float about of the possibility of Nehru taking on the Congress Presidency together with the Prime Ministership, an onerous — and, in some ways, ominous — combination that he had in the past declared himself against on principle. Indeed, in 1946, he had resigned the Congress Presidency to become the Prime Minister. But now that the main threat to his power came from within the Congress Party itself he had begun to hedge on the issue.
‘I definitely think that it is a wrong thing practically and even otherwise, for the Prime Minister to be the Congress President,’ he declared at the end of August, just a week before the decisive meeting of the All-India Congress Committee in Delhi. ‘But that being the general rule, I cannot say what necessity might compel one to do in special circumstances when a hiatus is created or something like that.’
The typically floppy Nehruvian tail to that sentence could not entirely counter the surprising inflexibility of the body.
14.15
With every passing day, however, it became increasingly clear that the month-long deadlock could not be resolved except by some desperate expedient. Tandon refused to reconstitute the Working Committee at Nehru’s dictation, and Nehru rejected anything less if he was to rejoin it.
On the 6th of September, the entire Working Committee dramatically submitted their resignations to Tandon, hoping thereby to retrieve what would otherwise have been, in an open conflict, an irretrievable position for both him and them. The idea was that the much larger body of the All-India Congress Committee (due to meet two days later) should now pass a resolution asking Nehru to withdraw his resignation, expressing confidence in Tandon, and requesting Tandon to reconstitute the Working Committee by election. Nehru and Tandon could then draw up a slate of candidates jointly. Tandon could remain President; he would not have surrendered any presidential prerogatives to the Prime Minister; he would merely have implemented, as he was bound to, a resolution of the AICC.
This should have been, the Working Committee thought, agreeable to both Nehru and Tandon. In fact it was agreeable to neither.
That evening Nehru told a public meeting that he wanted the All-India Congress Committee to make it entirely clear which way the Congress should go and who should hold its reins. He was in a fighting mood.
The next evening Tandon too, at a press conference, refused the face-saving formula proffered by his Working Committee. He said: ‘If I am asked by the All-India Congress Committee to reconstitute the Working Committee in consultation with A, B, or C, I would beg the AICC not to press that request but to relieve me.’
He placed the responsibility for the crisis squarely on Nehru’s shoulders. Nehru had tendered his resignation over the issue of the reconstitution of the Working Committee; and, by so doing, he had forced its members to tender their own.
Tandon stated that he could not accept these forced resignations. He repudiated any suggestion by Nehru that the Congress Working Committee had failed to implement Congress resolutions. He made a few references to Pandit Nehru as ‘my old friend and brother’ and added: ‘Nehru is not an ordinary member of the Working Committee; he represents the nation more today than any other individual does.’ But he reaffirmed the inflexibility of his own stand, which was one based on principle; and he announced that if no acceptable formula could be reached by mediators, he would resign from the Congress Presidency the next day.
And this was what, the next day, with good grace — despite the many personal attacks against him in the press, despite what he saw as the impropriety of Nehru’s tactics, and despite the bitterness and length of the battle — he did.
In a noble gesture, which did much to assuage any residual bitterness, he joined the Working Committee under the newly elected Congress President, Jawaharlal Nehru.
It was in effect a coup; and Nehru had won.
Apparently.
14.16
The jeep had hardly arrived at Baitar Fort than Maan and Firoz got horses saddled and rode off to hunt. The oily munshi was all smiles when he saw them, and brusquely ordered Waris to make the necessary preparations. Maan swallowed his gorge with difficulty.
‘I’ll go with them,’ said Waris, who was looking even more rough-hewn than before, perhaps because he appeared not to have shaved for a few days.
‘But have a bit of lunch before you disappear,’ said the Nawab Sahib.
The two impatient young men refused.
‘We’ve been eating all along the way,’ said Firoz. ‘We’ll be back before dark.’
The Nawab Sahib turned to Mahesh Kapoor and shrugged.
The munshi showed Mahesh Kapoor to his rooms, almost frantic with solicitude. That the great Mahesh Kapoor, who by a stroke of the pen had wiped vast estates off the map of the future, was here in person was a matter of incalculable significance. Perhaps he would be in power again and might threaten to do worse. And the Nawab Sahib had not merely invited him here, but was behaving towards him with great cordiality. The munshi licked the edge of his walrus-like moustache and puffed up the three flights of steep stairs, murmuring platitudes of intense geniality. Mahesh Kapoor said nothing in reply.
‘Now, Minister Sahib, I was given instructions that you were to stay in the best suite in the Fort. As you see, it overlooks the mango orchard and then the jungle — there is no sign of disturbance, none of the hubbub of Baitar town, nothing to disturb your contemplation. And there, Minister Sahib, as you can see, are your son and the Nawabzada riding through the orchard. How well your son rides. I had the opportunity of making his acquaintance when he was last at the Fort. What an upright, decent young man. The moment I set eyes on him I knew that he must come from a remarkable family.’