Who should wear the Crown – Mahatma Gandhi

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar, Professor, Editor and Linguist

Gandhi International Study and Research Institute, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

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Who should wear the Crown – Mahatma Gandhi

 

The occupation of the Congress chair is becoming more and more onerous year after year. It is a serious question who should wear the crown for the next year. It is all thorns and no roses. I have noticed my name alone of the possibilities. When I first saw it amongst the nominees of some committee, I did not treat it seriously. But now I find friends speaking to me seriously and pressing me even to ask for the crown even if it is not offered to me. I need not discuss here the reasons advanced in favour of the proposal.

I admit the weightiness of some of them. I have given them all the consideration I was capable of giving them, but I must own I have neither the courage nor the confidence in my ability to shoulder the burden. I feel that I have become almost unfit for attending to the details of office work which I must do, as is my nature, if I accepted the office. I know too that I am not keeping pace with the march of events. There is therefore a hiatus between the rising generation and me. I look a back number in their company. Not that I believe myself to be a back number. But when it comes to working in their midst, I know that I must take a back seat and allow the surging wave to pass over me. I have mentioned two decisive reasons for my reluctance to shoulder the burden. There are others which I do not put in the same category as these. But I hold these two as sufficient to eliminate me from the list of nominees. In my opinion the crown must be worn by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. If I could have influenced the decision, he would have occupied the chair even for this year.

But the imperative demand of Bengal compelled the senior partner to capitulate. Older men have had their innings. The battle of the future has to be fought by younger men and women. And it is but meet that they are led by one of themselves. Older men should yield with grace what will be taken from them by force if they do not read the signs of the times. Responsibility will mellow and sober the youth, and prepare them for the burden they must discharge. Pandit Jawaharlal has everything to recommend him. He has for years discharged with singular ability and devotion the office of secretary of the Congress. By his bravery, determination, application, integrity and grit he has captivated the imagination of the youth of the land.

He has come in touch with labour and the peasantry. His close acquaintance with European politics is a great asset in enabling him to assess ours. But say the older heads: “When we are likely to have to enter into delicate negotiations with various groups and parties outside the Congress, when we might even have to deal with British diplomacy, when we have yet the Hindu-Muslim knot to undo, we must have someone like you as the head.” In so far as there is force in this argument, it is sufficiently answered by my drawing attention to the fact that whatever special qualities I may possess in the direction indicated, I shall be able to exercise more effectively by remaining detached from and untrammeled by, than by holding, office. So long as I retain the affection and the confidence of our people, there is not the slightest danger of my not being without holding office to make the fullest use of such powers as I may possess. God has enabled me to affect the life of the country since 1920 without the necessity of holding office.

I am not aware that my capacity for service was a whit enhanced by my becoming President of the Congress at Belgaum and those who know the relations that subsist between Jawaharlal and me know that his being in the chair is as good as my being in it. We may have intellectual differences but our hearts are one. And with all his youthful impetuosities, his sense of stern discipline and loyalty make him an inestimable comrade in whom one can put the most implicit faith. “Will not Jawaharlal’s name be a red rag to the English bull Whispers another critic. We give English statesmen little credit for common sense and diplomatic skill and betray less faith in ourselves when we think like the imaginary critic.

If a decision is really right for us, it ought to be right for the whole world. If in choosing our President we have to take into consideration what English statesmen will think of our choice, we show little courage of our convictions. Personally I have a higher estimate of English character than that assumed by the critic. The Englishman prizes honesty, bravery, grit and outspokenness all of which Jawaharlal has in abundance. Even if therefore British statesmen are to be considered in making our choice, Pandit Jawaharlal suffers from no disqualification. Lastly, a President of the Congress is not an autocrat. He is a representative working under a well-defined constitution and well-known traditions. He can no more impose his views on the people than the English King. The Congress is a forty-five-year-old organization and has a status above its most distinguished Presidents. And it is the Congress as a whole with which, when the time is ripe, British statesmen will have to deal. They know this probably better than we do. All things considered therefore my advice to those concerned is to cease to think of me and to call Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to the high office with the fullest confidence and hope.

 

Reference:

Young India, 1-8-1929