Maulana Azad writing himself out of history

 What new information did Maulana Azad provide in 'India wins freedom' as revised and reissued in the Eighties?

1) Azad was surprised that Hindus were appointed Premiers in 1937 in preference to Nariman in Bombay and Syed Mahmud in Bihar. But, with hindsight, both were lightweights. Still, it shows a degree of naivete on the part of non-Hindu Congress wallahs that they thought a Hindu party would not favor Hindus.

2) Gandhi thought the Japs would win. His insistence on non-violence was based on the calculation that the Brits would be defeated. Once it was clear that the Allies would win he had no objection to Congress joining the Government and participating in the War effort

3) It was Azad who scuppered a modus vivendi with Jinnah by insisting that Muslims like himself could be Congress nominees to the Executive Council. Yet he himself knew that Congress Muslims were either 'show boys' or were used to settle internal disputes (which was his own role). Syed Mahmud attacked Azad on this but, Azad says, he showed magnanimity to Mahmud by giving him a ministerial berth!

4) Azad blames Rafi Ahmed Kidwai for Congress handing Finance to Liaquat. Azad says Patel- a stupid Gujju who thought Muslims were always either brandishing swords or eating biryani and thus could not understand Accountancy- jumped at the proposal. My guess is Patel didn't mind the money-bags in Mumbai getting soaked and the blame falling on a UP Muslim. 

5) Reading between the lines, it is obvious that the big mistake made in 1946 was not to put in a White Defence Minister who would enjoy the confidence of senior officers. Appointing Baldev Singh had a predictably polarizing effect. Any hope of the Army playing a peace-keeping role or not getting split on communal lines was immediately off the table. The fact that Singh wasn't a Congress man made no difference.

6) Azad, in a subtle way, links Nehru's putting a stop to aerial bombing in Waziristan with the decline in popularity of the (Azad says) miserly Khan brothers and the increase in League support in the NWF. We can read between the lines. If GoI wouldn't put the fear of God into the frontier tribes, then only appeals to Islam could defend the settled folk. Nehru was a fool to want to go there. 

7) Mountbatten was very evil. He brainwashed poor, simple, Indians- barristers like Sardar Patel- into believing Pakistan was inevitable. Obviously, a guy who had spent his life as a sailor- not as a lawyer or a politician- could easily hoodwink Indians. This is because Indians tend to know Indian languages and to have a vast knowledge of Indian history and culture. A 47 year old Englishman, who was sent off to Sea at the age of 13, could easily convince much older Indian politicians of anything at all. Had he said that South India should become a new country called 'Mountbattenia', then that is exactly what would have happened. What magic power did Mountbatten have? Azad said he could read minds. The great telepath used Krishna Menon- to whom Azad had given money- to influence Nehru. Had this not happened, Nehru would have handed over not just East Punjab, West Bengal and Assam but also large parts of every other province to the Muslims. It was Mountbatten and Menon who poisoned the mind of Nehru thus causing him to stick up for the Hindus. Mountbatten may have sodomized the Mahatma when they were closeted together for two hours. What is certain is that the Jolly Jack Tar mesmerized the mahacrackpot. That is why Gandhi accepted partition thus putting an end to the dream of Muslim domination of the entire sub-continent. Fuck you Mountbatten! Fuck you very much! It was you who planted the idea that India needed a strong centre. Only its lack of cohesiveness had opened the door to Turkish and European invaders. Indians would never have understood this if Mountbatten hadn't planted this evil idea in their minds. On the other hand, Mountbatten was very efficient. He completed all the arrangements for Partition and transfer of power in just three months. Azad also praises Dickie's handling of the post-Independence riots. In the end, the Brits turned out to be best at protecting Muslim minorities. But then, back in 1924,Delhi's Muslims had predicted their fate if ever the Brits left. From a third of the population in 1946, their numbers went down to just five percent. 

8) Azad was politically naive. He thought Bihar would have come under Muslim leadership if Gandhi hadn't built up Rajendra Prasad. The truth was Gandhi was brought to Champaran to draw attention away from the anti cow-slaughter riots going on at that time. The Muslims realized they were numerically weak. In any case, it was Brajkishore- later JP's father-in-law- and Rajendra who had enabled Gandhi to make a big splash in Champaran. Rajkumar Shukla- the 'poor peasant' who brought Gandhi there was actually a wealthy money lender. The truth is, Bihari Kayastha's used Gandhi- crackpot that he was- to rise up politically. They were small in number but very smart. Brahmins, by contrast, tended to be stupid. Bihari Muslims did have political ability and their upper class were great scholars. That's why they were attacked and chased away.

The other personality Azad gets wrong was Patel. He had used Gandhi to get out from under his older, more charismatic, brother's shadow and was certainly very useful to the Mahacrackpot. But Patel had advanced the economic interests of his own community which has never been a doormat for anybody. It was Patel, more than anybody else, who kept Congress solvent more particularly after the Mody-Lees agreement in 1932 which might have led Indian industrialists to deal directly with Westminster. 

Azad's most damaging allegation is that Patel did not provide protection to Gandhi and thus was responsible for his assassination. He mentions JP as giving strident voice to this suspicion. The truth is someone had to die to appease the wrath of the refugees. 

The big item in the book was, of course, Azad's denunciation of Nehru's vanity. What Azad does not realize- because he wasn't really a politician- is that the leader of a Nationalist Party must always be seen as pre-eminent in every way.  Nehru understood that for Congress to be dominant, it needed a leader who dominated- not Mahatmas or wannabe Imam-ul-Hinds. 

Azad says that Nehru torpedoed the Cabinet Mission Plan not because it was shit but just so as to put Azad's nose out of joint. The truth, however, was that neither Azad nor Nariman nor Mahmud mattered in the slightest. India's future was Hindu. Nehru hoped it would also be Socialist in some vague, perhaps magical, manner. 

Azad blames himself for proposing Nehru rather than backing Patel as the next President of Congress. This shows his naivete. Nehru was popular. The Americans liked him- more particularly after his book came out. Mountbatten had already been bowled over by him. Azad had some charisma. Patel had none. He couldn't even be Premier of Bombay- indeed, his elder brother had overshadowed him as a popular leader. The only reason history has been kind to Patel is because his community has risen and risen and continues to rise. Meanwhile, mention of Azad is being dropped from Indian history textbooks. This does not benefit the BJP. It benefits the Dynasty. Azad blames Nehru even for Suhrawardy's Direct Action Day in Calcutta during which his own car was attacked! He confirms that the police had orders not to interfere! Yet Nehru is responsible for Partition because he stated that Congress was no more bound than the League or anybody else to abide eternally by the provisions of the Cabinet Mission Plan. The plain fact is, Suhrawardy gambled on Hindu cowardice and launched Direct Action Day to keep Calcutta for the League. But the Hindus soon got the upper hand and slaughtered innocent Muslims with vim and vigour. 

There is a naivete to Azad's book. Perhaps he was writing it for his own people. He keeps saying 'I'd made a wonderful agreement with the League whereby the Muslims got double or triple what they were entitled to. Nehru or Tandon or some other such bastard shot down my wonderful agreement. It was almost as though they suspected that I might be Muslim myself! As if a Maulana could stoop so low as to be partial to Muslims! Why didn't Nehru just hand over undivided Punjab and Bengal and Assam to the Muslims while giving them at least half of all seats in Hindu majority areas? Was it because they were stupid or utterly unreasonable? No. Nehru was my good friend. He made me Union Minister of Education. His only problem was vanity. Otherwise, he'd certainly have sold out the Hindus- or tried to do so before eating a bullet.' 

In the end, the Maulana's book- at least after it was revised to include the matters alluded to above- made it inevitable that he himself would be written out of Indian history. Even if Nehru's stock has fallen- because Rahul is useless- Patel remains a sacred cow. What started in Bihar in 1917- i.e. cow protection riots signalling Hindu India's determination to be master in its own house- would continue once the mirage of 'Scientific Socialism' had evaporated. Champaran was a sideshow. The Mahatma was propped up by clever Kayasths and shrewd Marwari financiers. Like Azad, he was a deluded narcissist. Nehru, strange as this may sound, was the most sensible of the full time politicians- but that isn't saying very much at all. Still, it was he who was invested with a golden sceptre and crowned as the new Chakravartin of India by the pontiff of Chakravarty Rajagopalachari's favourite Saivite sect. Those Chola era rituals must be pretty potent. Rahul could have become PM- as he himself says- at the age of 25! Who knows? Perhaps, if Rahul drops dead, Varun will take his place and Congress will become electable again.