"...there is hardly any common ground between me and Bapu and the others who lead the Congress today. Our objectives are different, our ideals are different, our spiritual outlook is different and our methods are likely to be different.... `Independence' is almost a forgotten thing so far as our leaders are concerned -- a brave plain word submerged under various `points', `interpretations', speeches, safeguards and assurances. That has been the fate of our political ideal.... Interpretation is our strong point after we have made our equivocal statements....
"It [the Congress] is aggressively anti-socialist and politically it is more backward than it has been for fifteen years.... That statement [Gandhi's statement of 7 April withdrawing the civil disobedience movement] seemed to me to be an insult to the nation, to the Congress and to any person with a grain of intelligence."(96)
Almost immediately after release from prison on parole, Nehru wrote a long letter to Gandhi. He stated that what had happened was not merely a set-back or temporary defeat but a spiritual defeat. Congress ideals had been betrayed and the people "who had co-operated with the opposite party in the time of our direst need", who had actually hauled down "the flag of Indian freedom", emerged as the leaders of the Congress. "The Congress from top to bottom", he wrote, "is a caucus and opportunism triumphs." Referring to the Working Committee's resolution on socialism, confiscation and class war, Nehru observed that it "showed such an astounding ignorance of the elements of socialism that it was painful to read it and to realize that it might be read outside India. It seemed that the overmastering desire of the committee was somehow to assure various vested interests even at the risk of talking nonsense."(97)
Replying to this letter Gandhi assumed "full responsibility of the resolutions and the whole conception surrounding them". While defending them, he tried to apply the healing touch to Nehru's fevered mind and, as usual, he was successful. Writing to Patel, Gandhi said: "Jawaharlal's explosion is not as frightening as it seems from the flames. He had a right to let off steam, which he has exercised. I think he has calmed down now."(98)
Patel was the key person among those who were in charge of elections to the Central Legislative Assembly held in 1934.(99) The Congress won 46 out of 142 seats in the Central Assembly but failed to obtain a single Muslim seat. Bhulabhai Desai, a former Advocate-General of Bombay, who `came on the political horizon in 1932', became the leader of the Congress Assembly Party. He was also a member of the Congress Working Committee. Early in 1935 this member of the Working Committee and leader of the Congress Party in the Central Assembly "stated that the establishment of self-government in India `consistent with the interests of India and England' would make direct action `a thing of the past'".(100)
Another attempt at forging elite-level unity was made in 1932 when the Gandhis and Nehrus were in prison. Again, even after MacDonald's `Communal Award' had been announced, the Muslim leaders, undeterred by a warning from the Viceroy, sought to arrive at a settlement with Hindu leaders on the basis of joint electorates, but at the end the Muslim leaders were lured away by some concessions which the British government announced, perhaps to frustrate the move. And it failed. Gandhi had shown little interest in the negotiations when informed by Abul Kalam Azad.(101)
Jinnah was elected permanent president of the Muslim League in 1934. On his return to India after his voluntary exile to England, he again tried to bring about an elite-level unity. He "was still thinking in terms of co-operation between Hindus and Muslims, and in the [central legislative] assembly he pursued a non-communal policy still in line with his policy of pursuing Hindu-Muslim unity".(102) He said to Patel: "The Congress I admit would have to change its attitude in some respects, but looking to the great interests at stake Congress leaders should not flinch. I think that the future is with the Congress Party and not with me or the Aga Khan."(103) Jinnah wanted a joint attack on the White Paper, issued by the British government. Poor Jinnah was unaware that the Gandhis, as we shall see, had already made commitments through Birla of not opposing the Act under preparation.
However, talks between Jinnah and Congress president Prasad started in January 1935 for arriving at a settlement of the communal problem. "Jinnah and I", wrote Prasad, "had heart-to-heart talks and as far as I could see, we liked each other." Among others who were associated with the talks were Patel, Malaviya, G.D. Birla and Bhulabhai Desai. The formula agreed to by the Congress leaders and Jinnah proposed that joint electorates should replace separate electorates; that in all the provinces of India, other than Bengal and Punjab, and in the Central Assembly the number of seats reserved for the Muslims under the communal award should stand; that in Bengal and Punjab the franchise should be differential, that is, the electoral rolls should reflect the proportion of population formed by Hindus and Muslims in Bengal and by Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs in Punjab; that the seats allotted to the Muslims in these two provinces under the award should remain reserved for them and that the seats surrendered by the Europeans, if any, should be divided between Hindus and Muslims in proportion to their population.
Jinnah insisted that the formula should be endorsed not only by the Congress but by Malaviya (the high priest of 'Hindutva'), the Hindu Mahasabha and the Sikhs, without whose agreement he could not "risk trying to push the scheme through the Muslim League".(104) One more attempt foundered on the rock of Malaviya's refusal.
Several groups which styled themselves as socialist were formed in different provinces like Bihar, U.P., Delhi, Punjab and Bombay between 1931 and 1934. While confined in the Nasik Jail in 1933, a group of political prisoners who had participated in the civil disobedience movement -- Jayaprakash Narayan, Ashok Mehta and a few others -- decided to weld the different groups together and form a Congress socialist party on the basis of a programme. The first all-India conference of Congress socialists, convened by Jayaprakash Narayan of the Bihar Socialist Party, was held at Patna with Narendra Dev as president in May 1934, at about the time when the AICC met there. At this conference emerged the All India Congress Socialist Party. The party held its first conference in Bombay in October with Sampurnanand, who later became a Congress chief minister of U.P., as its president. Jayaprakash became its general secretary and E.M.S. Namboodiripad one of its joint secretaries.
The party held that the Congress was the main `national-organization' -- the organ of struggle against British imperialism for national freedom. But it disputed the Congress claim to represent the workers and other `dumb millions'. Its professed objectives were "the achievement of complete independence in the sense of separation from the British Empire" and "the establishment of a Socialist Society".(105) Its programme included among other things, "the elimination of landlordism", "the progressive nationalization of the instruments of production, distribution and exchange", "state monopoly of foreign trade", the "abolition of the rule of princes", the "liquidation of the so-called Public Debt of India" to Britain. The programme stated its `plan of action' would be to "work within the Indian National Congress with a view to secure its acceptance of the objects and programme of the party". The constitution it adopted at the Bombay conference restricted membership of the party to the members of the Congress. From its inception its leaders sought to build the party as a wing of the Congress, submitting to its political leadership. The CSP also upheld the Congress `creed' of peaceful and legitimate means as its forms or methods of struggle.
Among the leading members of the CSP were Narayan, Narendra Dev, Ashok Mehta, Achyut Patwardhan, M.R. Masani, Sampurnanand. "There were from the start", wrote M.R. Masani, "two clear tendencies discernible among the participants, which continued to survive for well over a decade in the Party's life..." He added: "One tendency, then represented by Jayaprakash Narayan, was Marxist.... The other tendency, that of Democratic Socialism, was represented by M.R. Masani.... Also, without being able to formulate it, they were -- despite their allegiance to Marxism -- deeply and increasingly influenced by Gandhism."(106) There were, again, some Congress socialist leaders like Sampurnanand who were Vedantists. Those like Jayaprakash who were supposed to be Marxists wanted their followers to submit to the political leadership of the Congress and adopt `peaceful and legitimate means' for overthrowing imperialist rule.
Jayaprakash was very close to Gandhi from the very beginning. G.D. Birla's biographer, R.N. Jaju, writes: "It was Gandhiji who had introduced G.D. [Ghanshyamdas Birla] to Jayaprakash Narayan. He found J.P. very enthusiastic at the beginning and made him his secretary from 1926 to 1927."(107)
The Congress socialist leaders pinned their hopes on Nehru and devoutly wished that he would assume their leadership. At the conference at Patna in May 1934, President Narendra Dev referred to Nehru as "our beloved friend" and as "our great leader".
Nehru influenced many of their important decisions and was able to keep them on the right rails (or wrong), though, as Sampurnanand notes, he felt only "amused contempt" for them.(108)
At first Gandhi and his associates disliked the formation of the CSP and its programme. Presiding over a meeting of the Gujarat PCC early in October 1934, Patel warned the Congress socialists that "he would not tolerate any interference from them in Gujarat..."(109)
It was the emergence of the CSP that provoked the Congress Working Committee to adopt in June 1934 the resolution drafted by Gandhi, declaring that class war and confiscation of private property were contrary to the Congress creed of non-violence. Immediately, four leading members of the CSP, including Narayan, pointed out that the Congress Constitution laid down that the Congress `creed' was `peaceful and legitimate means' and there was nothing in the CSP programme which militated against this `creed', and that they were resolved to follow it scrupulously. As for confiscation of private property, they clarified that their programme was meant to be carried out by the Indian state after the achievement of independence and by legal means. As an article in the Communist International stated, the Congress socialists "are for peaceful and lawful methods of struggle! They do not want to go outside the framework of British imperialist `legality'. Within the framework of this imperialist lawlessness and licence, the Congress socialists promise to bring about political freedom and the further introduction of socialism by `legal means'."(110)
In his book Why Socialism? Jayaprakash held that the princes and the landlords as well as the Indian bourgeoisie would not join the anti-imperialist united front. According to him, the Indian industrial class which grew up under the aegis of imperialism played a servile role and any united front with it was out of the question. He was of the view that the right-wing should be ousted not only from leadership but from the Congress altogether. The `Faizpur thesis' that the CSP adopted at its third conference towards the end of 1936 stated that the leadership of the anti-imperialist front belonged to the working class. It said: "The working class in India, though organizationally weak and politically not conscious of its role, is none the less potentially the most revolutionary class. But the struggle of the Indian masses for freedom will not reach its objective unless the working class is the vanguard of that struggle. Therefore, it is our task as socialists to see that it assumes a historic role in the national movement."(111) Though critical of the right-wing leadership of the Congress, CSP leaders were respectful to Gandhi and believed in his `revolutionary' role. The reaction of the Congress leadership to the emergence of the CSP was far from friendly. It was G.D. Birla's complaint that the CSP's agitation within the Congress had a harmful effect on labour relations where the employer was a Congress supporter. On 3 August 1934 Birla wrote to Thakurdas:
"You know the mischief that is being done by the so-called Socialist Party.... Gandhiji has taken up a very hostile attitude to this. Vallabhbhai, Rajaji and Rajendra Babu are all fighting Communism and Socialism. It is therefore necessary that some of us who represent the healthy Capitalism should help Gandhiji as far as possible and work with a common object.... I can, however, say this much that even the Government is gradually getting attracted towards Gandhiji as they are finding in him a man who will be the greatest guardian of an ordered society.... I do not think there is the slightest disagreement between us and Gandhiji as regards the representation of the commercial community."(112)
The resolution that the Congress Working Committee adopted in June 1934 was intended to ban any Congressman who "preaches class war" from membership of an executive committee.(113)
In January 1936 the CSP invited communists to join it individually. On his election as General Secretary by the CPI in April 1936, P.C. Joshi asked communists to work within the CSP. The units in the South -- Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra -- came to be controlled by the communists. They acquired considerable influence in the North too. A section of the CSP leadership -- Masani and others -- wanted to expel the communists from their organization while bitter polemics raged between the two parties. Ultimately, in 1940, the CSP executive expelled all communists from their party and broke off the `united front' with the CPI.
During these years there were many discussions and much correspondence between Gandhi and CSP leaders. Very soon Gandhi thought it wise to assimilate the CSP. It was Gandhi who included three Congress socialists -- Jayaprakash Narayan, Narendra Dev and Achyut Patwardhan -- in the Congress Working Committee when Nehru became Congress President in April 1936.(114) Gradually, the CSP leaders moved closer and closer to Gandhi and Gandhism.