(K C Kalkura*)
Elections to the Gujarat State Assembly were held in December 2022.
In spite of much fanfare and all sound and fury of the BHARATH JODO YATHRA of the Indian National Congress led by Rahul Gandhi, Bharatiya Janata Party won, hands down.
It is for the 5th successive time that BJP captured power in the state. By winning 156 seats in an assembly of 182 members it added 57 seats to its 2017 tally. Congress, losing its earlier strength by 60 and by retaining only 17 seats technically lost the claim to be called the Opposition Party. Aravind Kejriwal of Am Admi Party (AAP) spared no effort to unseat the BJP. Response of the voters was more than a disappointment, a shock. It was routed. With just 5 seats it marked its presence in the assembly.
In Khambalia assembly seat, AAP, CM candidate, Isudan Gadhvi lost miserably. However, AAP was successful in dividing the opposition vote, which proved beneficial to the ruling BJP. This, in spite of the sensational collapse of the pedestrian Morbi Suspension Bridge, across the Machchhu River, about a month before the elections on 30th October, 2022.
The situation and the political atmosphere can be compared to the 1952, ’57 and ’62 General Elections in the country. Elections were bitterly fought. Electioneering was hectic. The propaganda by the opposition, particularly by the Socialists and the Communists in 1952 and 1957 and the Swatantra Party (a Party of only commanders, without soldiers) in 1962 was hectic. Money power and cast considerations were yet to make inroads. Some stalwarts of the national movement were sidelined by the Congress. Many veterans were disgusted with the ‘go by’ to the Gandhian principles by the Congress, They were all ranged against the towering Jawaharlal Nehru.
Five Year Plans, building of modern temples, rapid industrialization, establishing institutions of higher learning like Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Regional Engineering Colleges (RECs), eradication of hunger and illiteracy were the trump cards of the Congress. It was sarcastically remarked; “The Opposition had won the battle; but Congress won the war.”. To offset the desertions of the pioneers, the Congress had welcomed to its fold many British Raj Loyalists and ‘August Tyagies.’ Suitability and winnability were the main criteria in the selection of the candidates by the Congress. In later years honesty was totally given a go by and loyalty meant to the leadership and not to the principles.
August Tyagies is a term coined by the renowned Historian, K A Neelakanta Sastry. When it became certain that the British would depart from India, those who were sitting on the fence during the freedom struggle plunged into the QUIT INDIA MOVEMENT in the month of August, 1942 and onwards; disturbed law and order, breached peace and tranquility and joined the Movement to court arrest. Their number outnumbered the honest non-violent soldiers. They started to gain upper hand in free India. Thus started the decay of the grand old Party.
However there were exceptionally honest, brilliant, able and efficient administrators among those non Congressmen also. e.g. All the first three Finance Ministers were more or less British Raj Loyalists. On account of being a leader of the Justice Party and due to his pro-British views, R.K. Shanmukham Chetty was not included in the Constituent Assembly. When India got independence on 15 August 1947, he is reported to have said: “… We have secured freedom from foreign yoke, mainly through the operation of world events, and partly through a unique act of enlightened self-abnegation on behalf of the erstwhile rulers of the country….” Due to his expertise in economics, Shanmukham Chetty was chosen by the Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi, against the wishes of Jawaharlal Nehru, to be the Finance Minister in independent India’s first cabinet. However, due to conflict of views with Nehru, Chetty quit after a short time. Shanmukham Chetty is, today, remembered for presenting the first budget of independent India on 26 November 1947.
Taking office shortly after the presentation of India’s first Budget, in 1948, John Mathai, an economist, succeeded Chetty. Mathai was earlier Railway Minister. Mathai presented two Budgets as India’s Finance Minister, but resigned following the 1950 Budget in protest against the increasing power of the Planning Commission. Yet his services were utilised as the first Chairman of the State Bank of India when it was set up in 1955. He was the founding President of the Governing Body of the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) in New Delhi, India’s first independent economic policy institute established in 1956.
Chinthamani Dwarakanath Deshmukh the first Indian to be a Governor of the Reserve Bank of India from 1943 to ’49 a member of the Planning Commission succeeded John Mathai as the Union Finance Minister in 1950. Deshmukh’s term as Finance Minister covered the period of the First Five Year Plan. He employed deficit financing as a key tool in bringing about planned investment but inflation and revenue deficits became major challenges during this period.
Deshmukh was also chairman of a panel of economists that recommended the proposed Second Five Year Plan with its capital intensive model of development. He envisioned a significant role for the village and cottage industries in curbing unemployment and inflation caused by deficit financing.
In 1955, the State Bank of India was formed through the nationalization and amalgamation of the Imperial Bank with several smaller banks. This was undertaken on the recommendation of the All-India Rural Credit Survey Committee although Deshmukh had been opposed to plans for nationalizing the bank when he was the RBI Governor. The nationalization of insurance companies and the formation of the Life Insurance Corporation of India was accomplished by him in 1956. He resigned over the proposal of the Government of India to move a bill in Parliament bifurcating Bombay State into Gujarat and Maharashtra while designating the City of Bombay a Union Territory.
Deshmukh’s tenure – during which he delivered six budgets and an interim budget – is noted for the effective management of the Indian economy and its steady growth which saw the economy recover from the impacts of the events of the 1940s. Even after his resignation, he was appointed Chairman of the University Grants Commission, National Book Trust and Indian Institute of Public Administration and Vice Chancellor of Delhi University.
Prof Jagmohan Singh (Nephew of Bhagat Singh) in his foreward to Raman Magsaysay Award winning Journalist, P. Sainath’s “THE LAST HEROES, FOOT SOLDIERS OF INDIAN FREEDOM” narrates the experiences when he ‘had the privileges of meeting the Old Ghadar party heroes of the 1914-’15 uprising.’ A Ghadari, Baba Hari Singh Usman was walking in the hot Sun to supervise the construction of a village school building, saying: “It was the conviction of our party that the important revolutionary work is to ensure the education of the younger generation,” Professor continues to tell us that any number of such heroes are neglected. He recalls the memories of R.K. Narayan’s Lawley Road.
R K Narayan humours the enthusiasm of the ‘turncoats’ to honor the freedom fighters, offer civic receptions and rename the roads after Gandhi, Nehru and other warriors of freedom. Jagmohan graphically describes that his nears and dears were approaching his mother, Bibi Amar Kaur, younger sister of Bhagat Singh, immediately after independence seeking favours from her. Mrs Kaur, along with her two year old son (later Prof Jagmohan) ‘had been jailed in 1945-’46 in Ambala Central Jail for making bold speeches against British imperialism and also for criticizing their Indian lackeys’. In disgust the Professor remarks: This was for the first thirty to forty years after 1947.
Later, they were back in positions of power and would never visit. In the early post-independence period they lay low, fearing that their properties gained by acting against the struggle and collaborating with British colonial rulers might be confiscated. The system was manipulated to favour these resourceful persons. There was a time when, in elections, voters chose people who had given themselves to public services, then slowly that changed to favour those with property and resources. Lawley road turncoat class was influential and began to get a grip on independent India. (To be concluded)
(*K C Kalkura, Advocate and Social Activist, President, Gadicherla Foundation, A P Grandhalaya Association,
Sankalbagh, N R Pet, Kurnool. Mob: 9440292979. Mail; kalkurakurnool@gmail.com)