Nehru or Savarkar: Which of the Two was in Terror of a Prison Sentence?

 

Nehru or Savarkar: Which of the Two was in Terror of a Prison Sentence?

Shrikant G. Talageri

 

A major piece of news these days is Rahul Gandhi being found guilty of defamation by a court for his remark (or rather rhetorical question) at an election rally in 2019: "Why do all thieves have Modi as their surname?", which was in effect a casteist slur against castes where this surname is common. That such a statement is indeed worthy of some kind of retribution is beyond doubt. Whether this merited a sentence of two years in prison, and then also disqualification from his Lok Sabha membership, and (unless I am mistaken) also disqualification for six years from standing for Lok Sabha elections, will be a matter of debate. But, in order to justify the common allegation that he is a clown and a buffoon, Rahul Gandhi came up with the following remark when asked to apologize for his casteist remark: "My name is not Savarkar; it is Gandhi, and Gandhi does not apologize to anyone."

This is very strange, since on 8/5/2019 (in the same year when he made the Modi remark), this same Rahul Gandhi had tendered an unconditional apology in the Supreme Court for falsely stating (at another rally in the same year on 10/4/2019) that the Supreme Court, in its order on the Rafale Review plea, had said "Chowkidar Chor Hai". This apology came after a BJP leader filed a contempt plea against the statement and the SC issued a notice to Rahul Gandhi for this statement! Was his surname at that time Savarkar?

But this mortal terror of going to prison has been a central feature of the mental make-up of the Nehru clan ─ let me specify here that this is not a casteist slur against all people who have Nehru as a surname but against the particular Nehru family to which Rahul Gandhi belongs (if not by surname then definitely by way of genetic descent, political pedigree and as a political asset).

Many people on social media have brought up the issue of Motilal Nehru in 1923 using his political influence with the British rulers to bail out his son Jawaharlal from a further prison sentence of 18 months after Jawaharlal's initial (pre-trial) two week stint in the Nabha jail had left him in a psychological condition of utter unwillingness to repeat the experience for a longer period of time. While Savarkar spent 14 continuous years (1910-1924) in the cellular Jail in the Andaman Islands suffering utter isolation, untold torture and prolonged separation from his family and loved ones, Jawaharlal Nehru (in his post 1923 career) did serve small and well-publicized jail sentences in the company of other colleagues and receiving special preferential treatment from the authorities. But there can be no comparison between the two.

 

The Breaking India Forces have sprung into action to whitewash the 1923 incident. An example is the following article by Utkarsh Mishra:

https://www.rediff.com/news/column/did-nehru-write-mercy-plea-to-get-out-of-jail/20220527.htm

The article seeks to exonerate both Motilal Nehru and Jawaharlal Nehru from these charges, quoting their own statements and the sycophantic accounts of leftist admirers like Sarvepalli Gopal, to claim that Jawaharlal Nehru refused to apologize for participating in the Nabha demonstration, and was displeased by the attempts by his father to get his (pre-trial) jail stint revoked, and that Motilal finally reconciled himself to his son's adamant stand.

 

However, the cleverly worded article fails to achieve its objective. All the above, even if we take their claims to be true, actually pertain only to the two-week (pre-trial) stint. The post-trial sentence of 18 months was never carried out. The writer hastens to tell us: "The assertion that Motilal used his influence to get the sentences suspended is also mere conjecture. In fact, the gaps in Nehru's recollection of this incident are filled by Gopal's meticulous research who, writing many years later, had access to all the documents that Nehru didn't have a chance to see."

 

Unfortunately, "all the documents" cited pertain only to the two-week stint in jail and not to the 18-month jail sentence which was immediately suspended on the very same evening after Motilal Nehru's intervention with his British friends: "He [Gopal] cites the letter Motilal wrote to Jawaharlal in prison after he returned to Allahabad: 'I was pained to find out that instead of affording you any relief my visit of yesterday only had the effect of disturbing the even tenor of your happy jail life... please do not bother about me at all. I am as happy outside the jail as you're in it'. This letter clearly indicates that not only was Motilal unable to do anything to help his son, the latter did not want him to do anything in this regard either. It completely goes against the theory that Jawaharlal sought help to get out of jail and his father rendered it."

 

If Jawaharlal, before completing two weeks in the Nabha jail, was "happy inside the jail" (not a particular indication that he faced the kind of things Savarkar faced for 14 years), this happiness certainly did not influence his behavior after completing that two-week sentence. And for that, we need not go to any Hindutva sources: this very same rediff article tells us what was the attitude of Jawaharlal Nehru and his father and other well-wishers after he had really experienced that short stint in jail. The writer quotes Jawaharlal saying the jail stint was "not an experience I should like to repeat", and that the prison cell was "small, damp and most unsanitary".

 

So, although the writer repeatedly assures us that Jawaharlal was determined to continue to participate in the Nabha agitation even after his release from the two weeks in jail, the fact is that he did not participate in the agitation after that. And for the reason why he did not participate in the agitation after his two-week jail experience, again, we need not consult Hindutva historians: the same article tells us why. The account is interesting. It starts with the arrest of another colleague of Jawaharlal, Gidwani, who was arrested again after he was released (in the post-two-week era) for again trying to visit Nabha:

 

"Nehru wrote to the Nabha administrator and 'challenged the legality' of Gidwani's arrest, once again requesting the copy of the order which was again refused.

He writes: 'I felt inclined to go to Nabha myself and allow the administrator to treat me as he had treated Gidwani. Loyalty of a colleague seemed to demand it. But many friends thought otherwise and dissuaded me'.

Among these 'friends' was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who wrote to Nehru, in a letter dated September 6, 1924, 'The Nabha answer is from its own standpoint conclusive. The only answer that can be returned is to take up the challenge to be arrested. In the present state of things, it seems to be unwise. The best thing, therefore, is to be silent and wait for better times.'"

 

Strangely, the writer quotes Jawaharlal's own admission on the subject, and expects us to treat it as a testimony to his frankness and finer feelings rather than as a testimony to his fear of the jail which kept him away from further participation in the agitation after that:

"Nehru's concluding lines of the chapter on Nabha in his autobiography reflect a sense of this 'defeat' for despite him wanting to visit the state again after Gidwani's arrest, he didn't do so.

'I took shelter behind the advice of friends, and made of it a pretext to cover my own weakness. For, after all, it was my weakness and disinclination to go to Nabha Jail again that kept me away, and I have always felt a little ashamed of thus deserting a colleague. As often with us all, discretion was preferred to valour'."

 

A very, very, far cry indeed from Savarkar, who suffered in the Andaman island jail for 14 long years, and then, acutely aware that he was not serving any purpose to his motherland by dying in isolation in a far-away prison instead of actively taking part in his mission to liberate the country from the foreign yoke, he filed his "mercy petitions" in the necessary format if they were intended to be seriously considered, and then, after his release from the Andamans continued to fight in different ways for the political liberation and social emancipation of India and Hindu society.

 

Anyone who defends Nehru and decries Savarkar (the above writer clearly tells us: "I detest the communal leader of the Hindu Mahasabha that Savarkar became in his later years") cannot be credited with even the slightest bit of honesty or objectiveness in his writings. The writer pretends to be excusing Savarkar's "mercy petitions", when he writes (as extension to the above sentence) "I do not for a moment look down upon him for writing the mercy petitions", but gives it a demeaning twist to degrade Savarkar's status: "While it is true that many revolutionaries braced the harsh conditions of the Cellular Jail and never gave up, many of them died and their bodies were thrown in the ocean, it is also true that no human being should be blamed for breaking under those circumstances."

 

In short:

a) Savarkar's "mercy petitions" (in the course of 14 endless years of isolation and torture in the isolated Andaman jail) were because he was not able to " brace the harsh conditions of the Cellular Jail" and "gave up", and not because he wanted to do something more concrete for India than rot in a distant jail and have his body "thrown in the ocean".

b) But Nehru's decision (after two uncomfortable weeks in a "small, damp and most unsanitary" jail) to avoid participating in a mere agitation was only made out of respect for his advisers, and because he "prefered discretion to valour" and wanted to remain free to fight for India's independence.

 

After India became independent, that same Nehru ─ who was advised by another earlier (to Rahul) Gandhi that "The best thing, therefore, is to be silent and wait for better times" and who himself felt that "discretion was preferred to valour" ─ lived to enjoy "better times" as an autocratic Prime Minister for 16 years (two years more than the period of  Savarkar's Andaman imprisonment) as a reward for his "discretion".

 

And Savarkar, whose entire life was dedicated to freeing India from a foreign yoke, kept away from all seats and positions of power once his dream was realized and India became free from that yoke (in howsoever much a truncated, mutilated and distorted form incompatible with his dreams).

 

Yes, Rahul Gandhi is certainly a Nehru or a Gandhi, not a Savarkar!