Electoral politics, Europe, and economics: 1936–1938

Aug 29, 2021 - 11:16
 0

During the mid-1930s, Nehru was very concerned with developments in Europe, which seemed to be drifting toward another world war. He was in Europe in early 1936 visiting his ailing wife shortly before she died in a sanatorium in Switzerland.

At that time, he emphasised that, in the event of war, India's place was alongside the democracies, though he insisted India could only fight in support of Great Britain and France as a free country.

Nehru's visit to Europe in 1936 proved to be the watershed in his political and economic thinking. His real interest in Marxism and his socialist pattern of thought stem from that tour.

His later sojourns in prison enabled him to study Marxism in more depth. Interested in its ideas but repelled by some of its methods, he could never bring himself to accept Karl Marx's writings as revealed scripture. Yet from then on, the yardstick of his economic thinking remained Marxist, adjusted, where necessary, to Indian conditions.

At its 1936 Lucknow session, despite opposition from the newly elected Nehru as the party president, the Congress party agreed to contest the provincial elections to be held in 1937 under the Government of India Act 1935. The elections brought the Congress party to power in a majority of the provinces with increased popularity and power for Nehru.

Since the Muslim League under Muhammad Ali Jinnah (who was to become the creator of Pakistan) had fared badly at the polls, Nehru declared that the only two parties that mattered in India were the British colonial authorities and the Congress.

Jinnah's statements that the Muslim League was the third and "equal partner" within Indian politics were widely rejected. Nehru had hoped to elevate Maulana Azad as the preeminent leader of Indian Muslims, but Gandhi, who continued to treat Jinnah as the voice of Indian Muslims, undermined him in this.

In the 1930s, under the leadership of Jayaprakash Narayan, Narendra Deo, and others, the Congress Socialist Party group was formed within the INC. Though Nehru never joined the group, he acted as a bridge between them and Gandhi.

He had the support of left-wing Congressmen Maulana Azad and Subhas Chandra Bose.[69] The trio combined to oust Dr Prasad as Congress president in 1936. Nehru was elected in his place and held the presidency for two years (1936–37).

His socialist colleagues Bose (1938–39) and Azad (1940–46) succeeded him. During Nehru's second term as general secretary of the Congress, he proposed certain resolutions concerning the foreign policy of India. From then on, he was given carte blanche ("blank cheque") in framing the foreign policy of any future Indian nation.

Nehru worked closely with Bose in developing good relations with governments of free countries all over the world.

Nehru was one of the first nationalist leaders to realise the sufferings of the people in the states ruled by Indian princes. The nationalist movement had been confined to the territories under direct British rule.

He helped to make the struggle of the people in the princely states a part of the nationalist movement for independence. Nehru was also given the responsibility of planning the economy of a future India and appointed the National Planning Commission in 1938 to help frame such policies.

However, many of the plans framed by Nehru and his colleagues would come undone with the unexpected partition of India in 1947. The All India States Peoples Conference (AISPC) was formed in 1927 and Nehru, who had supported the cause of the people of the princely states for many years, was made the organisation's president in 1939.

He opened up its ranks to membership from across the political spectrum. The body would play an important role during the political integration of India, helping Indian leaders Vallabhbhai Patel and V. P. Menon (to whom Nehru had delegated integrating the princely states into India) negotiate with hundreds of princes.

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