Past & Present
Remembering an Indian democrat
RAMACHANDRA GUHA
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One of Jayaprakash Narayan’s greater contributions to Indian democracy was to highlight the shameful treatment of Kashmiris by successive governments in New Delhi.
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Photo: The Hindu Photo Library
Bucking the trend: Jayaprakash Narayan.
GREAT political leaders are often remembered and honoured for the wrong reasons. One of the brightest feathers in Mahatma Gandhi’s cap is supposed to be the Quit India movement he initiated in 1942. In nationalist myth and memory this is repres
ented as an epic battle that brought about the end of colonial rule. However, revisionist historiography now argues that Quit India, by alienating the Indians from their rulers and alienating Hindus from Muslims, made Partition much more likely than it had previously been. But whatever we think about Quit India, Gandhi remains a great man, to be remembered and honoured for all he did in fostering a spirit of independence among Indians, for challenging the pernicious practice of Untouchability, and for working tirelessly for inter-religious harmony.
Jayaprakash Narayan is best remembered for the movement he led against the authoritarian rule of Mrs. Indira Gandhi. But that movement, like Quit India, had its not-always-acknowledged flaws and unhappy byproducts. By asking the police to lay down arms, JP was undermining the authority of the State; by demanding that elected Ministries resign before the end of their term, he was undermining the processes of constitutional democracy; by inviting all and sundry to join his movement, he gave legitimacy to groups like the RSS. In any case, whether one approves or disapproves of what JP did in the years 1974-75, the fact is that our focus on that period obscures his remarkable — and in my opinion greater — contributions to Indian democracy in the years preceding.
One of these contributions was to highlight the shameful treatment of Kashmiris by successive Governments in New Delhi. In 1953, Sheikh Abdullah was arrested; he languished in jail without charges being brought against him. In his place, as head of the Jammu and Kashmir administration, the Government of India placed Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed, who ran a harsh and nepotistic regime known sarcastically as BBC, or Bakshi Brothers Corporation. Successive elections in the State were rigged to permit politicians loyal to New Delhi to remain in power.
Among the politicians and social workers of mainland India, Jayaprakash Narayan spoke out longest and loudest against the illegalities of the Union Government in Kashmir. He called repeatedly for the release of Sheikh Abdullah and when the Sheikh was finally set free in April 1964, encouraged the idea of sending him over to Pakistan as an emissary for peace. That idea, originally, was that of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. However, it was opposed across the political spectrum, by the Jana Sangh on the Right as well as by the Communists on the Left. Even the majority of Nehru’s own Congress party thought that the Sheikh should have remained in confinement.
Dissenting voices
Bucking the jingoist trend, two men of a conspicuous independence supported Jawaharlal Nehru’s initiative, despite being, on other matters, fierce critics of the Prime Minister’s policies. One was C. Rajagopalachari; the other, Jayaprakash Narayan. When some Cabinet Ministers threatened to put the Sheikh back in jail, JP wrote that “it is remarkable how the freedom fighters of yesterday begin so easily to imitate the language of the imperialists”.
Lost opportunity
Nehru died in May 1964; the peace initiative died with him. The next year Sheikh Abdullah was placed under arrest once more. In June 1966, Jayaprakash Narayan wrote an extraordinary letter to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi asking that the Sheikh be freed in time for the next elections (the letter is reproduced in Balraj Puri’s valuable collection, JP on Kashmir). To “hold a general election in Kashmir with Sheikh Abdullah in prison”, remarked Narayan, “is like
the British ordering an election in India while Jawaharlal Nehru was in prison. No fair-minded person would call it a fair election”. If “we miss the chance of using the next general election to win the consent of the [Kashmiri] people to their place within the Union”, continued JP, “I cannot see what other device will be left to India to settle the problem. To think that we will eventually wear down the people and force them to accept at least passively the Union is to delude ourselves. That might conceivably have happened had Kashmir not been geographically located where it is. In its present location, and with seething discontent among the people, it would never be left in peace by Pakistan”.
Changed circumstances
This letter got a brief, non-committal reply in return. It took another eight years for Mrs. Gandhi to allow the Sheikh to re-enter politics. When he was made Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir in February 1975, Narayan welcomed the move (despite, by now, being a bitter opponent of the Prime Minister). But the concession itself was perhaps eight years too late. For, by then the Sheikh had become reconciled to subservience to New Delhi; and in time was to place the interests of his own family above the interests of the Kashmiri people as a whole. What might have been the fate of Kashmir and the Kashmiris had Mrs. Gandhi listened to JP in June 1966, released Sheikh Abdullah, allowed him to contest a free and fair election that he would certainly have won, and then allowed him to run the administration in the best interests of the people themselves?
