Every freedom movement has a hidden history of unsung heroes, their sacrifices and their contributions. One such leader was Jagat Narain Lal who was a writer, a poet, a political leader, a freedom fighter, a member of the Constituent Assembly, Professor of Economics at Bihar Vidyapith, a practising lawyer, editor of journal Mahavir and also a very religious and spiritual person – his religiosity marked his place to the ideological right within the Indian National Congress.
He was also a member of the Hindu Mahasabha and was its general secretary in 1926. He had a conflicted relationship with both the Congress and the Hindu Mahasabha and, in his own words, he ‘wrestled with many anxieties’ throughout his political career.
In the 1930s, he moved away from the Hindu Mahasabha because, as he says, in a letter to B.S. Moonje: “When one originally took to it, and worked for the Sabha we hardly knew that it would take the shape of the Muslim League and come into conflict with Congress from time to time.”
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His disenchantment with the Hindu Mahasabha was complete by the time the first provincial assembly elections took place in 1937, which he fought and won on a Congress ticket by defeating the Mahasabha candidate who stood against him. With barely concealed satisfaction he wrote, ‘The election was almost a cake-walk for me. The Hindu Mahasabha candidate forfeited his deposit.’
Yet this did not signal a forfeiture of what it meant to be a Hindu for Jagat Narain Lal. The Constituent Assembly Debates (CAD) evidence the fact that he remained committed to the imagination of a nation-state that was Hindu in its core identity. The Western model of secularism had scant space for safeguarding religious identities, he felt.
He wrote in his autobiography, Light Unto A Cell, “Along with my old friend, Narayan Prasad Sinha, with whom I had first started the study of the Gita and the Upanishads in 1921, I wanted to form a study circle of lovers of the Gita. But, so nervous were most of the Gandhites and Congressmen, of anti-religious bias of our socialist and communist fellow prisoners, that they had hardly the courage to broach the matter openly.”
This brief introduction to Jagat Narain Lal’s conflicted world was provided by his granddaughter Rajshree Chandra.
The following is a short extract reproduced and translated from the essay that he had written on Jawaharlal Nehru, somewhere in the latter part of the 1950s when he was a member of the Bihar legislative assembly and a minister in the Krishna Sinha cabinet.
The excerpt reproduced here gives one a sense of how political relationships thrived in another era. Jagat Narain, a man who did not identify with Nehru’s vision of a secular India, recorded his impressions of Nehru with an affection, admiration, and regard for a fellow patriot, with a touch that only a true nationalist is capable of, demonstrating that a genuine calling of “nation first” should have the power to rise above political differences.
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“Individual satyagrahas” had begun in 1941. We were all under the impression that Gandhiji would choose from among Rajendra Prasad, Sardar Patel, Rajagopalchari, or Nehru as the pratham [first] satyagarhi. All four were, at that time, close aides of Gandhiji. But the whole country was taken by a huge surprise when the news came that he chose Vinoba Bhave as the pratham satyagrahi. Soon after the end of “individual satyagraha” in 1941, an AICC meeting was convened under the presidency of Maulana Azadji.
Jagat Narain Lal. Credit: Wikipedia Commons
With unequivocal support from Pandit Jawaharlal, I tabled a resolution for “undivided India”. It was pitted against C. Rajagopalachari’s resolution favouring the partition of India in accordance with the Stafford Cripps’ proposals. My resolution was backed by many Congressmen in the hope that the partition-talk would quieten down. It was passed by an overwhelming majority vote. This proposal received a lot of attention in the newspapers and was greeted wholeheartedly by the nation.
In 1942, as soon as “Quit India” resolution was passed, Gandhi ji along with Pandit Jawaharlal and members of the Congress Working Committee, were arrested in Bombay and locked in jail for an indefinite period. I, too, was arrested and detained in the Hazaribagh Central jail. In 1944, soon after I was released from jail, I was chosen as the chairperson of the Bihar “Chhatra Sammelan” (regional students’ convention).
At a meeting of the reception committee, it was decided that we invite Nehru ji to head the convention. Because we had limited time at our disposal, it was decided that I personally go and invite Pandit Nehru. Jawaharlal Nehru had been released from jail by then and was touring Calcutta then. I reached Calcutta, met Nehru ji and requested him to chair the convention. He met me with a lot of warmth and agreed to come to Patna for the students’ convention.
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On the date of the convention, Nehruji arrived in Patna straight from Calcutta. In anticipation, eager, expectant students and the general public swamped the Patna station. I had often seen such crowds when Gandhiji would arrive, but my eyes had never seen such thronging masses and a rousing welcome for Nehruji. In fact, such were the crowds that when I had reached the station to receive Pandit Nehru, that both I and the motorcar in which I had come, barely escaped any damage and injury.
But what can I say about Nehruji? On reaching Patna station, when he saw the unrestrained crowds breaching the barriers and checks put up by the police and volunteers, he came up with a plan. Upon seeing the swarming crowds, he quietly went back inside the train compartment and used the back door to get off on the tracks where another train from the east was stationed.
He got into the vacant train’s compartment, used the back door again to finally alight on to the main platform in the hope to leave unnoticed. But as soon as the crowds saw him, propelled by the love for their leader, they descended upon him.
It was only after a lot of manoeuvring, in which I nearly got injured, that I was finally able to extricate him and get him into the motorcar. From the station, we took him to Bihar’s veteran leader, Sachchidanand Sinha’s house where his stay had been arranged.
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The “chhatra sammelan” (student’s convention) was to be held in the Congress Maidan, Patna. The teeming crowds spilled outside into the neighbouring parks and adjoining roads as they thronged to see and hear Nehru. The crowds began from right outside Sachchidanand Sinha’s house and followed Nehru’s motorcar, running alongside with curiosity and adulation to catch his glimpse. And Nehru ji, standing tall in an open car, responded to their love and greetings with a wave and with folded hands.
A picture from Jagat Narain Lal’s jail diary in 1929. Credit: Rajshree Chandra
This crowd may have begun and ended in Patna, but in a deeper sense, it had begun to accumulate in aftermath of the 1942 “Agast Kranti” [Quit India Movement], when Nehru had been released from jail. From then on, Nehru’s support kept growing and the crowds kept gathering to see him wherever he went.
In 1946, Nehru was elected the president of the Congress to carry out the final negotiations with the British on the proposed division of the country. Gandhiji had already begun his talks with Jinnah on his Pakistan proposal in 1944. Partition seemed imminent.
I realised that my 1942 resolution – which the AICC had passed with resounding majority and which ruled out “liberty to any component State or territorial unit to secede” – was becoming a road-block in the talks between Gandhiji and Jinnah saheb. Hence, my proposal for an undivided India was dropped and the Congress accepted Jinnah’s proposal for the partition of India. Gandhiji, till the very end, was opposed to Partition.
But seeing the growing consensus amongst senior leaders like Sardar Patel, C. Rajagopalachari and Jawaharlal Nehru, Gandhiji acquiesced and did not offer any active opposition to the idea of partition. As a result, the British government drew up a proposal for both Partition and the complete independence of India. India was declared a free nation on August 15, 1947 and Nehru was elected the first prime minister of free India.