The duumvirate: Nehru and Patel

The duumvirate: Nehru and Patel

Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabhbhai Patel ruled India during the transition period 1947-1950.   No two leaders of any nationalist movement differed more than the duumvirs of the new India- in background, education, temperament, ideology, sources of power and qualities of leadership.  Nehru was an aristocrat, born with a silver spoon in the mouth, who came under the influence of European culture, habits and manners at an early age. Patel’s origins were plebeian and orthodox, from a peasant family which was deeply attached to Hinduism. 

Michael Brecher, in his book Nehru: A political biography had brought out the striking differences between the two.  According to him, “Nehru was a man of great charm, generous to a fault, sensitive and aesthetically inclined, impulsive and emotional.  Patel was generally dour and ruthless, unimaginative and practical, blunt in speech and action, cool and calculating. Nehru disliked political intrigue; he was a lonely and solitary leader, above group loyalties. Patel was a master of machine politics.“ 

To the outside world Nehru, with Gandhi, was the symbol of India’s freedom struggle. Patel never attained that stature, not even within India.  Nehru was a master of language and brilliant in conveying his ideas and the vision of new India and carrying the message of independence and socialism.   He traveled  extensively,,covering the length and breadth of India.  . He was a great orator in English and equally proficient in Hindi to communicate with the masses. Patel had undisguised contempt for speech-making and rarely toured the countryside.  Patel knew that Nehru was the darling of the Indian masses. He could never establish rapport with them, because of his disdain for the crowd.  The only elements in the countryside that looked to Patel for leadership were the landlords and the orthodox Hindus.

On the communal problem, too, the duumvirs were temperamentally and intellectually at opposite poles.  Nehru was an agnostic and a humanist, a firm believer in equal rights for all religious communities.  To Michael Brecher, "Patel never really trusted the Muslims and shared the extremist Hindu Mahasabha view on the natural right of the Hindus to rule India." During the riots in 1947, Patel openly questioned the loyalty of the Muslims who remained in India, and Nehru and Gandhi came to their defense. No doubt the Muslims turned to Nehru for support during the dark days after the partition and felt safe with him at the helm.

It was Gandhi who intervened in 1946 to make Nehru the President of the Congress and asked Patel and Azad to withdraw from the contest, as it was evident of transfer of power with an interim government headed by the Congress President. Gandhi had considered Nehru modern, secular and liberal more than any other leader, who would be acceptable to all Indians of diverse background, particularly the minorities, being “identified with all of India, rather than a particular caste, language, region or religion.” 

At the time of independence, Nehru was fifty seven and Patel seventy two- fifteen years age difference. Having worked as comrades in the freedom movement, they now had the responsibility of rescuing India from the dangers of internal strife and chaos. The duumvirate was the decisive fact of India politics for the next three years.  Neither Nehru nor Patel derived his power from the other.   

During his life time, Gandhi was the arbiter of differences between the two.  On the day he was assassinated, Patel was closeted with Gandhi who asked him for a solemn pledge that he would never forsake Nehru nor cause an open split.  On hearing Gandhi's assassination, Nehru rushed from his home, overwhelmed with grief.  He knelt beside the body and wept uncontrollably.  Gandhi’s death had forged a bond of unity and avoided open split between the two powerful men of independent India. Nehru denied the rumors of an impending break: “...there have been for many years past differences between us…but these have been overshadowed by fundamental agreements about the most important aspects of our public life…at this crisis in our national destiny either of us think of anything but the national good.” The same night  in a broadcast to the nation, he paid an eloquent tribute to Gandhi: “…the light has gone out of our lives and there is darkness everywhere…Our beloved leader, Bapu, as we called him, the Father of the Nation, is no more… the light that shone in this country was no ordinary light…”

What made the duumvirs to work together in shaping the destiny of modern India was mutual confidence in each other’s integrity and a firm belief that neither desired power per se and, most importantly, Nehru’s deep loyalty to political comrades.  They managed the differences pretty well, though towards the end sharp conflict came to the fore and the relation deteriorated. The rivalry was no longer concealed. The contest took place in the public view: the occasion was the Congress presidential election in September 1950. Patel’s hand-picked candidate Purshottamdas Tandon was elected as the President, defeating Acharya J.B.Kripalani. Tandon was “a venerable orthodox Hindu who admirably represented the extreme communalist wing of the party…Given the opportunity, he would have turned the clock of history back a few thousand years.”  However, with the death of Patel in December 1950, the clash of titans was averted.  And with the subsequent resignation of Tandon, Nehru had emerged as an undisputed leader both within the government and the party.