DR. MUNSHI’S HISTORIC LETTER TO PANDIT NEHRU

DR. MUNSHI’S HISTORIC LETTER TO PANDIT NEHRU: V.P. MENON CALLS IT ‘A MASTERPIECE’

5

In one of my earlier blogs I had dealt at length with how Sardar Patel, his close colleague V.P. Menon and Lord Mountbatten had acted in perfect concert to integrate India after the Britishers left. In that I had relied not only on the two remarkable books written by V.P. Menon, whom Sardar Patel had named Secretary of the States Department, but yet another more recent book authored by a lady named Alex Von Tunzelmann titled Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire. This lady is primarily a researcher educated in Oxford who now lives in London. Menon’s two books which I have been recommending to all book lovers are Integration of the Indian States and The Transfer of Power.

But the Tailpiece in that blog was taken from a news report in the Pioneer of 30^th October, 2012, that is, on the eve of Sardar’s birth anniversary last year. The news report was about a sharp exchange that took place in a Cabinet meeting between Nehru and Patel just a few weeks before GOI’s operation in Hyderabad. Pandit Nehru was opposed to the army action which Sardar Patel had decided upon after receiving reports how the Nizam’s private army, the Razakars, were committing atrocities on innocent citizens.

Pandit Nehru wanted to refer the Hyderabad issue also to the U.N. as he had done in the case of Kashmir ― that too against the advice of Patel.

The news report filed by Pioneer’s Chennai correspondent was based on a book written by a 1947 IAS official by name MKK Nair and carries the title With No Ill Feeling Towards Anybody.

The report also said that following the bitter exchange between the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, Sardar Patel had walked out of the meeting angrily. That on September 13, 1948, the army action, named Operation Polo did take place and culminated successfully on September 18, is now history.

But since the time I wrote that blog I have been desperately searching for the book which, I thought, may possibly fill up the gaps in the country’s knowledge as to what actually transpired during the interlude. The author, I gather, is no longer alive. Nor have I been able to locate the book at any bookstore, or even in any Library. Through this blog I would like to appeal to all my readers that I would feel greatly indebted to whosoever can procure the book for me. PioneerEditor Chandan Mitra also has been trying, but has not succeeded as yet.

My last blog was about Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya’s birth anniversary on September 25 and the two major BJP events that are connected with this anniversary, events which I cannot forget. The first was my Somnath to Ayodhya Yatra in 1990. The second was the record gathering of over six lakh BJP activists in Bhopal, who will be managing the over 53000 polling booths in the State when Madhya Pradesh goes to the polls on November 25 this year.

I have mentioned in this blog (October 8,) that as Sardar Patel who was to inaugurate the Somnath Temple after it had been reconstructed, passed away on December 15, 1950, the Temple’s formal opening was done by Rashtrapati Dr. Rajendra Prasad  I have mentioned that he did so even though the Prime Minister had opposed the move. And thereby hangs one more interesting episode worth recounting at this point. The episode commences with a clash in the cabinet not very different from the Army-action joust between Pandit Nehru and Sardar Patel.

* * *

It was Sardar Patel who had been the first to visit Junagarh after the popular revolt against the Nawab who had announced the state’s accession to Pakistan. Terrified by the people’s anger, the Nawab fled to Pakistan. Sardar Patel was given a rousing reception by the people. At a huge meeting Sardar Patel declared that the Somnath Temple, foremost among the twelve Jyotirlingas, would be reconstructed at its original site, and the Jyotirlinga reinstalled.

After returning to Delhi he secured Gandhiji’s blessings for the move and had Pandit Nehru have it endorsed by his Cabinet. The Cabinet’s decision implied that Government would incur the expenditure. But that evening itself when Sardar Patel, Dr. Munshi and N.V. Gadgil went to Gandhiji to apprise him of the Cabinet’s decision, Gandhiji welcomed it but added: Let the people and not the Government bear the expenditure.

Pandit Nehru’s cabinet had decided to reconstruct Somnath in 1947.  But in January 1948, Gandhiji was assassinated. 

In December 1950, Sardar Patel breathed his last. After the demise of these two veterans, a change came about in Pandit Nehru’s attitude. After a Cabinet meeting in early 1951, Panditji called Dr. Munshi, who was Food and Agriculture Minister in the Cabinet and said to him: “I do not like your trying to restore Somnath.  It is Hindu revivalism.”

Kanhaiyalal Munshi did not utter a word in reply.  He came back home and prepared a long letter whose text has been reproduced in his famous book Pilgrimage to Freedom. Dr. Munshi wrote to Pandit Nehru:

“Yesterday you referred to Hindu revivalism. You pointedly referred to me in the Cabinet as connected with Somnath. I am glad you did so; for I do not want to keep back any part of my views or activities….I can assure you that the ‘Collective Subconscious’ of India today is happier with the scheme of reconstruction of Somnath sponsored by the Government of India than with many other things that we have done and are doing.”

Emphasising the social reform aspect of Somnath’s reconstruction, Munshi added:

“The intention to throw open the temple to harijans has evoked some criticism from the orthodox section of the Hindu community. However, the objects of the Trust Deed make it clear that the temple is not only to be open to all classes of the Hindu community, but, according to the tradition of the old temple of Somnath, also to non-Hindu visitors. Many have been the customs which I have defied in personal life from boyhood. I have laboured in my humble way through literary and social work to share or reintegrate some aspects of Hinduism, in the conviction that that alone will make India an advanced and vigorous nation under modern conditions.”

Dr. Munshi concluded his letter with words that deserve to be preserved in perpetuity:

“It is my faith in our past which has given me the strength to work in the present and to look forward to our future. I cannot value India’s freedom if it deprives us of the Bhagavad Gita or uproots our millions from the faith with which they look upon our temples and thereby destroys the texture of our lives.  I have been given the privilege of seeing my incessant dream of Somnath reconstruction come true. That makes me feel – makes me almost sure – that this shrine once restored to a place of importance in our life will give to our people a purer conception of religion and a more vivid consciousness of our strength, so vital in these days of freedom and its trials.”

On reading this letter, V.P. Menon, the legendary civil servant who assisted Sardar Patel in the gigantic task of the integration of the princely states, wrote a missive to Munshi. “I have seen your masterpiece. I for one would be prepared to live and, if necessary, die by the views you have expressed in your letter.”

TAILPIECE

When the Somnath Temple was ready, Dr. K.M. Munshi approached the first President, Dr. Rajendra Prasad, with the request that he inaugurate the temple and ceremonially install the Jyotirlingam. He was apprehensive that Rajendrababu might not agree. After all, the President was aware of Munshi’s correspondence with the Prime Minister.

To his delight Dr. Rajendra Prasad readily agreed. “I would do the same with a mosque or a church if I were invited,” he added. “This is the core of Indian secularism. Our state is neither irreligious nor anti-religious.”

Pandit Nehru protested the President’s decision. But Rajendrababu disregarded Panditji’s objection, and kept his promise.