Suniti Kumar Ghosh: An Assessment of a Revolutionary Activist—V

Amit Bhattacharya

G D Birla played an important role in arranging the ‘Poona Pact’ and on the Harijan front, helped in terminating civil disobedience(as Nehru said) and in guiding the Congress along the constitutional path. Ghosh spells out the new tasks that lay ahead. The new constitution that would be imposed by the British raj had to be worked, ministerial offices under the constitution had to be assumed and the role of “partners in this repression and in the exploitation of our people”( to borrow Nehru’s phrase) had to be played by the Congress in the coming days.

The Joint Parliamentary Committee’s Report, which formed the basis of the Government of India Act of 1935, appeared towards the end of 1934. He wanted the British government to talk to Gandhi before the framing of the Constitution. But all his appeals for a ‘personal touch’ were fruitless. Ghosh points out that early in 1935, helped by Anderson; Birla saw the Viceroy, Commerce Member Joseph Bhore, and Home Member Henry Craik. Birla said to the Viceroy:

“There must be a proper understanding between the rulers and the ruled so that leaders like Gandhiji and his lieutenants may begin to teach people to treat the Government as their institution” (Cited in Ghosh, ibid, p.92).

Birla told Joseph Bhore that “If there was sincerity and goodwill, Mr. Gandhi may find a formula to work the constitution” (Birla to Gandhi’s secretary, Mahadev Desai, 18 December 1934, Bapu a Unique Association, p.456; II, 11, 9, 14, 17. Emphasis added). Birla told Henry Craik, the Home Member, that Gandhi endorsed Birla’s view “that the proposed scheme could be worked successfully and to the advantage of India, if there was sympathy and goodwill from both the sides”. He stated to the Home Member:

“There is already a section growing up gradually which believes that even the best should not be achieved by constitutional means…Gandhiji is fighting against this mentality…It is essential that some settlement should be made in Gandhiji’s life time which may bring the government and people closer to each other. This would be the beginning of the new kind of education which would teach people to believe that the Government is their own institution, which should be mended and not ended”.

Birla warned that, otherwise, “A revolution of the bloody type may become an inevitable factor. And this would be the greatest calamity not only to India but also to England. Tories may say this would be India’s funeral. I say it would be of both” (Ibid, 10-14. emphasis added).

Ghosh remarks: Birla was right. As the interests of the Birlas and those of imperial Britain were tied together, the ruin of one would spell the ruin of another” (Ibid, p.93).

Ghosh has summed up the situation in the following words:

“First, before the Government of India Act of 1935 was enacted in August of that year as well as after, Birla on behalf of Gandhi and the other Congress leaders repeatedly gave the raj the assurance that it would be worked by the Congress. Gandhi approved of the commitment that Birla made to the raj.

“Second, on behalf of Gandhi and the other Congress leaders, Birla assured the raj that they would abandon the path of mass action ‘once and for all’ and take to the road indicated by the raj—the peaceful. constitutional road to self-government and expect to be guided there by British imperialism.

“Third, Birla held that an understanding between the Raj and Gandhi and the other Congress leaders was necessary so that the latter could teach people that ‘the government is their institution, which should be mended and not ended’. Such understanding would also create the proper atmosphere in which the constitution could be worked. In the absence of such an understanding, a violent revolution might spell “the funeral” of both Tory Britain and the Birlas’ India.

“Fourth, Birla, who held that imperial Britain and colonial India were bound together by destiny, urged that the raj and the right wing of the Congress should combine to crush the left-wing” (Ghosh, II pp.95-96).

It is important to note that Birla’s views and commitments to the raj received Gandhi’s unqualified approval.

The constitution bristled with things like “reserved subjects”, “special responsibilities” and “safeguards”. The British-owned industry, trade, banking etc. were protected by the “safeguards” against any interference with their right to fleece the country as before.

As Ghosh points out, the Act was devised to build up a constitutional alliance between the imperialist masters, princes, big landlords and the compradors—all reactionary forces, foreign and native—to thwart the aspirations of the people.

When the Act was at the stage of preparation, an article in the Communist International observed: “In its scheme of a pseudo-federal colonial India British imperialism seeks to create such a system as would enable it to preserve and consolidate in the safest possible manner its rule over India, by utilizing to the utmost the feudal relics and all the different contradictions(of a national, religious character etc..)…The constitution which imperialism seeks to introduce is aimed not only at strengthening the British yoke but at consolidating all exploiting classes for the struggle against the Indian people, against the Indian revolution” (Valia, “The Economic Crisis and the Policy of British Imperialism in India”, Communist International, 15 May, 1932, in Radical Periodicals, 1932, p.285, cited in Ghosh, II, p.97.

Gandhi and his close associates and the Indian big compradors like Birla were optimistic. Even when the constitution was under consideration in the British Parliament, he “realized that the ‘Bill’ was capable of producing benefit, if worked in the right spirit”. As Ghosh observed, indeed the Act which Gandhi later described as “the creation of the best British brains: and behind which “there were honorable motives” was capable of producing benefit for the classes Gandhi represented. To Birla, the Act “did contain seeds which were to germinate, blossom and bear fruit giving us ultimately the full independence that we aspired for”. According to Ghosh, Birla was right as he added: “we have embodied large portions of the Act, as finally passed, in the Constitution which we have framed ourselves which shows that in it was cast the pattern of our future plans. (Birla, In the Shadow of the Mahatma, p.131; Bapu III, p.268, cited by Ghosh, p.98).

Before leaving England, Birla wrote to Anderson” …so I am returning now to India with the blessings of the new Viceroy, the Secretary of State and those others who count” (Birla, Bapu, II, 140—emphasis added, cited in ibid).On his return to India, Birla went to Wardha to Give Gandhi a first-hand report of his impressions as well as the messages from Hoare, Halifax and others. Mahadev Desai, Gandhi’s personal secretary, was sent to Bombay to bring Birla and Patel. Rajendra Prasad and Rajagopalachari had also arrived.

[To be concluded]

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Vol 57, No. 22, Nov 24 - 30, 2024