AWAKENINGS

Munshi was India’s Agent General in Hyderabad before the Police Action.   The chapter opens with these tell-tale paragraphs:   The most ambitious of Indian Princes was the Nizam of Hyderabad who declared on June 12, 1947, that “the departure of the paramount power in the near future will mean that I shall become entitled to resume the status of an independent sovereign.” He also demanded the ‘retrocession’ of Berar, that had once formed part of his State, and started negotiations with Portugal to acquire the port of Goa, to secure an outlet for his State to the sea.   The Nizam had set his heart on becoming a “Third Dominion’ of the British Commonwealth. Sir Conrad Corfield, the Adviser to the Crown Representative, was reported to be its sponsor. It is possible that he himself had presented the idea to the Nizam in the first instance.   On November 29, 1947, after prolonged negotiations, a one-year Standstill Agreement was signed between Hyderabad and India. Sardar, in h

P a tel wanted the Congress to be a disciplined and democratic organisation in the making of modern India. He raised the dual membership issue and persuaded the Congress Working Committee (CWC) in 1948 to amend the party constitution prohibiting the existence within the organisation of other parties which had “a separate membership, constitution and programme”. The result was Congress Socialist Party’s (CSP) pulling out from the organisation. This weakened Nehru, who was closer to the CSP faction, and exacerbated his insecurity. He consistently attempted to impose his domination on the party organisation. In 1950, just before Patel’s demise, an intense struggle ensued to capture the Congress presidentship. Nehru unilaterally declared JB Kripalani his candidate against Purushottam Das Tandon supported by Patel. The correspondence between Patel and Nehru on Tandon shows their difference was ideological. Nehru criticised Tandon for attending a refugees’ conference in Delhi wh

Maniben Patel, Sardar Patel’s daughter, was a woman of tremendous honesty and loyalty. She told me that when Sardar Patel passed way, she picked up a book and a bag that belonged to him and went to meet Jawaharlal Nehru in Delhi. She handed them to Nehru, telling him that her father had instructed her that when she died she should give these items to Nehru and no one else. The bag contained Rs 35 Lakh that belonged to the Congress Party and the book was the party’s book of accounts. Nehru took them and thanked her.   Maniben waited expectantly, hoping he would say something more,but he did not, so she got up and left. I asked her what she had expected Nehru to say to her. ‘I thought he might ask me how I would manage now, or atleast ask if there was anything he could do to help me.  But he never asked .’ she explained.   She was extremely disheartened and in a way the incident revealed the strain in the Nehru-Sardar Patel relationship .   It was quite dis

The observations here are the extracts from the biography book written by K.P.S.Gill titled: KPS Gill: The Paramount Cop. Riots were at a peak in Gujarat; police was not able to control (the situation) and there were reports in the media that "The CM was ineffective for the challenge, or he simply lacked the will to stop this violence, or to say worse, he is himself, along with other BJP and VHP leaders, organising all these riots." Seeing the sensitive situation and the negative publicity it was generating for the BJP, L.K. Advani, the then  Deputy Prime Minister  and the Union Home Minister, was busy finding ways to end that mayhem. The situation was confusing since it was not becoming clear what the root cause of the problem was. Was it Modi himself or the ineffective administration of Gujarat! Anyway, the first priority of Advani was to end this violence at any cost... It struck Mr Advani that there was a man who was no more in active service but who was nev

Brief Profile:  Vidhya Subramanian, presently Associate Editor of The Hindu - is now Winner of Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Jourlalism Award  for the Best Commentary and Interpretative Writing for 2010. She is a PhD Research Scholar at the Zakir Husain Centre for Educational Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her previous assignments: ·         Reporter with   The Indian Express   in Chennai in 1981 and then Correspondent  from Bombay and then Lucknow correspondent between 1988 and 1990. ·         Editorial Team of   The Times of India   in 1994. She joined   The Hindu   in 2004, and has been writing political editorials for the paper, regular commentary pieces, as well as continuing her reportage, particularly during elections. Ms. Subrahmaniam is a well-regarded expert on the electoral politics of the Hindi belt. She has written extensively on the politics of communalism, social justice, party politics dynamics, democracy and civil liberties.

Historical Facts  about the anointment of Nehru as the First Prime Minister of India: Recent utterances of Modi that Sardar Patel would be a better choice as the First Prime Minister  can be at best considered as his personal perception – rather wild imagination. But the following historical facts are enough to show that Mr.Nehru was  preferred by Gandhi and was anointed as the First Prime Minister somewhat flouting the laid down procedures of the  then Congress Party. By 1946, it had become quite clear that India’s independence was only a matter of time now. The Second World War had come to an end and the British rulers had started thinking in terms of transferring power to Indians. An interim government was to be formed which was to be headed by the Congress president as Congress had won the maximum number of seats in the 1946 elections. All of a sudden, the post of Congress president became very crucial as it was this very person  who was going to become the fir

For full report: Link Wide spread allegations about Nrendra Modi are: Modi had given a free hand to extremists to go on a killing spree which lasted for several days/weeks and the army was called only after 3 full days. Guru Prasad cites the news reports of The Hindu - 4 in numbers - to refute the above allegations and draws the following conclusions: -Train was burnt on Feb 27th, 2002. -Riots started on Feb 28th. -Army was called on Feb 28th itself within hours. -Army began flag marches on the next day i.e March 1st (Feb in 2002 had 28 days) -By March 3rd, riots were under control . Special Investigation Team appointed by Supreme Court had given Modi a clean chit stating that apart from calling the army immediately, Modi had deployed special police forces - Rapid Action Task Force. From this, it is quite evident that the riot was in control within 72 hours.

We are here to deal and analyze the arguments and counter arguments of the essays published in the recent Hindu  newspaper – q Article titled “The forgotten promise of 1949” by Vidhya Subramanian and her reply article titled – “Written constitution was indeed a pre-condition” – Link for original article & Link for her reply article q Article titled “ The RSS ban, and how it was reversed – Lifting of proscription was unconditional” by S. Gurumurthy   repudiating Vidhya Subramanian’s contentions - Link Apart from these 3 links, Vidhya Subramanian had quoted two links – 1. Link - Government of India July 11, 1949 Notification Lifting the ban & 2. Link – News report from the Hindu during those periods.  As it would be too much strain  for the readers to browse the 4 links to know the issues, I like to jot down the points that were discussed and disputed by these two personalities. Vidhya Subramanian in her first article titled “ The forgott