India After Gandhi (141 page)
Read India After Gandhi Online
Authors: Ramachandra Guha
Tags: #History, #Asia, #General, #General Fiction
13. T
RIBAL
T
ROUBLE
| This account of the early years of the Naga National Council is based on Mildred Archer, ‘Journal of a Stay in the Naga Hills, 9 July to 4 December 1947’, Mss Eur F236/362, OIOC. Archer, the wife of the last deputy commissioner in the Naga Hills, W. G. Archer, had interviewed a wide cross-section of the NNC membership and subscribed to the NNC journal. In later years she became an authority on British art in India. | |
| Charles Chasie, The Naga Imbroglio (Kohima: Standard Printers and Publishers, 1999), pp. 33–6. | |
| The Crown colony scheme is discussed in a forthcoming book by Professor David Syiemlieh of the North-eastern Hill University, Shillong. | |
| A. R. H. Macdonald to P. F. Adams (secretary to the governor of Assam), 23 March 1947, copy in Mss Eur F236/76, OIOC. The ‘Lushai hills’ are now more familiarly known as the Mizo hills. | |
| See A. Z. Phizo, The Fate of the Naga People: An Appeal to the World (London: privately published, July 1960). | |
| CWMG, vol. 88, pp. 373–4. The context makes it clear that Gandhi was against the Nagas using guns and tanks though, of course, he would have opposed the Indian army’s use of them too. | |
| Cf. J. H. Hutton, The Angami Nagas (London: Macmillan, 1921), p. 11 and passim. | |
| See entry for 30 August 1947 in Archer, ‘Journal’. The invocation of God, and the recourse to American heroes, were a consequence of the deep influence on the Nagas of the Baptist missionaries who had converted them. | |
| Entries for 27 September and 23 August 1947, in Archer, ‘Journal’. | |
| CAD, vol. 4, pp. 947–8. | |
| Useful studies of the tribal predicament include G. S. Ghurye, The Scheduled Tribes (Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1959; first published under a different title in 1943); C. von Fürer Haimendorf, Tribes of India: The Struggle for Survival (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982); Verrier Elwin, The Tribal World of Verrier Elwin: An Autobiography (Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1964); and K. S. Singh, Tribal Society in India (New Delhi: Manohar, 1985). See also André Béteille, ‘The Concept of Tribe with Special Reference to India’, in his Society and Politics in India: Essays in a Comparative Perspective (London: Athlone Press, 1991). | |
| See Agapit Tirkey, Jharkhand Movement: A Study of its Dynamics (New Delhi: Other Media Communications, 2002), chapter 2. | |
| Memorandum dated 1May 1947, in Subject File 37, C. Rajagopalachari Papers, Fifth Instalment, NMML. | |
| Jaipal’s speech is reproduced on pp. 2–14of Ram Dayal Munda and S. Bosu Mullick, eds, The Jharkhand Movement: Indigenous Peoples’ Struggle for Autonomy in India (Copenhagen: IWGIA, 2003). | |
| This paragraph is based on an anonymous three-part report on the Naga situation in the Current, 4, 11 and 18 July 1956, and on Nirmal Nibedon, Nagaland: The Night of the Guerillas (New Delhi: Lancer, 1983), pp. 24–5. | |
| Letter to Jairamdas Daulatram, governor of Assam, 11 December 1950, in Subject File188, C. Rajagopalachari Papers, Fifth Instalment, NMML. | |
| A. Lanunungsang Ao, From Phizo to Muivah: The Naga NationalQuestion in Northeast India (New Delhi: Mittal Publications, 2002), pp. 48–9. | |
| ‘No Independence for Nagas: Plain Speakingby Mr Nehru’, Times of India, 1 January 1952. | |
| ‘Demand for Naga State: Delegation Meets Nehru’, Times of India,12 February 1952. | |
| Report by Krishnalal Shridharani in the Current, 19 March 1952. | |
| ‘The Tribal Folk’, in Jawaharlal Nehru’s Speeches, vol. 2 (New Delhi: Publications Division, 1954), pp. 576f. | |
| Nehru to Rajagopalachari, 26 October 1952, in Subject File107, C. Rajagopalachari Papers, Fifth Instalment, NMML. | |
| The report on the NEFA tour is reprinted in LCM, vol. 4, pp. 147–65. | |
| NNC letter of 24 October 1952, quoted in the Current, 15 April 1953. | |
| Ramachandra Guha, Savaging the Civilized: Verrier Elwin, His Tribals, and India (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), p. 285. | |
| Entry for 10 July 1947 in Archer, ‘Journal’. | |
| Arthur Swinson, quoted in Nibedon, Nagaland, p. 26. | |
| Asoso Yonuo, The Rising Nagas: A Historical and Political Study (Delhi: Vivek Publishing House, 1974), pp. 210–13. | |
| This account of the Phizo-Sakhrie rift is based on Nibedon, Nagaland, pp. 57–68. | |
| Ibid., pp. 80–2. | |
| Lt. Gen. S. P. P. Thorat, From Reveille to Retreat (New Delhi: Allied Publishers, 1986), chapter 15, ‘The Nagas’. As the commanding officer of the Eastern Command, General Thorat was in charge of operations against the rebels. | |
| See clippings in Mss Eur F158/239, OIOC. | |
| Dr S. R. S. Laing to Charles Pawsey, letters of ? June 1956 and 13 August 1956, in Boxl, Pawsey Papers, CSAS. | |
| Lok Sabha Debates, 23 August 1956. | |
| India News, 8 December 1956; Manchester Guardian, 18 December 1956; both in Mss Eur F158/239, OIOC. | |
| Ignes Kujur, ‘Jharkhand Betrayed’, in Munda and Bosu Mullick, The Jharkhand Movement, pp. 16ff. | |
| Lok Sabha Debates, 22 November 1954; the Current, 16 February 1955. | |
| Letter of 9 March 1955, in T. T. Krishnamachari Papers, NMML. | |
| Nehru to Bishnuram Medhi, 13 May 1956, reproduced as appendix VII in Udayon Misra, The Periphery Strikes Back: Challenges to the Nation-State in Assam and Nagaland (Shimla: Indian Institute of Advanced Study, 200), pp. 203–4. |
14. T
HE
S
OUTHERN
C
HALLENGE
| Report on the Second General Elections in India, 1957 (New Delhi: Election Commission, 1958). | |
| Feroze Gandhi was also from the Nehrus’ home town, Allahabad. A Parsi by faith, he at first spelt his surname ‘Ghandy’. However, after he joined the national movement as a young man, he changed the spelling to bring it in line with that of Mahatma Gandhi. That amended surname proved to be of incalculable significance to his wife; for most foreigners, and not a few Indians, assumed that she was in some way related to the Mahatma. | |
| Cf.Katherine Frank, Indira: A Life of Indira Nehru Gandhi (London: HarperCollins, 2001), pp. 240–1. | |
| Indira Gandhi to Brijkrishna Chandiwala, 11 November 1957, Chandiwala Papers, NMML. | |
| Nehru to Vijayalakshmi Pandit, 12 March 1957, quoted in Nayantara Sahgal, Indira Gandhi: Her Road to Power (New York: Frederick Ungar, 1982), pp. 1–2. | |
| The data in this and the subsequent paragraphs are chiefly derived from the excellent statistical supplement on Indian elections printed as an appendix to the Journal of the Indian School of Political Economy, vol. 15, nos 1 and 2, 2003. | |
| For the rise of the DMK in the 1950s, see Marguerite Ross Barnett, The Politics of Cultural Nationalism in South India (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976). | |
| The social history of modern Kerala has been treated with authority and insight in several books by Robin Jeffrey. See specially his The Decline of Nair Dominance (1975; 2nd ednNew Delhi: Manohar, 2003) and Politics, Women and Wellbeing: How Kerala Became a ’Model’ (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992). | |
| See Dilip M. Menon, Caste, Nationalism and Communism in South India: Malabar, 1900–1948 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). | |
| Nikita Khrushchev, quoted in Communist Double Talk at Palghat (Bombay: Democratic Research Service, 1956), p. 112. | |
| ‘Communist Manifesto for Stable Government, Prosperous Kerala’, quoted in Victor M. Fic, Kerala: Yenan of India (Bombay: Nachiketa Publications, 1970), pp. 68–9. | |
| Sadly, like Abdullah, Phizo et al. EMS has yet to find a serious biographer. | |
| E. M. S. Namboodiripad, Twenty-Eight Months in Kerala (New Delhi: People’s Publishing House, 1959), esp. pp. 5–6, 22–3. | |
| P. N. Sampath, ‘Red Government in Kerala’, Indian Review, July 1957. | |
| The Current, 8 May 1957. Krishna Iyer was actually an independent member of the Kerala legislature, a fellow-traveller rather than a card-holding communist. He was later a judge of the Supreme Court. | |
| Ronald J. Herring, Land to the Tiller: The Political Economy of Agrarian Reform in South Asia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), p. 163. | |
| This paragraph draws upon material in ibid., chapter 6, and T. J. Nossiter, Communism in Kerala: A Study in Political Adaptation (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1982), pp. 149–57. | |
| The Current, 24 April 1957. | |
| ‘Letter from Kerala: Bloodsuckers still Thrive’, Economic Weekly, 19 April 1958. | |
| Ibid. | |
| Kerala Mail, quoted in the Current, 28 August 1957. | |
| George Mikes, East is East (London: André Deutsch, 1958), p. 153. | |
| For a useful summary see S. C. Joseph, Kerala: The ‘Communist’ State (Madras: The Madras Premier Company, 1959), chapter 8. | |
| See ‘Who Supported the Communists in Kerala? An Analysis of the 1957 Election Results’, Economic Weekly, 1 August 1959. | |
| See ‘Kerala Letter: Co-existence in Peril’, Economic Weekly, special issue, July 1959. It is not clear whether these excerpts were originally in English or are translated here from the Malayalam. | |
| Rajni Kothari, ‘Kerala: APost-mortem’, Economic Weekly, 28 November 1959. | |
| ‘Kerala Letter: Congress Misalliance with the Congress Church’, Economic Weekly, annual issue, January 1958. | |
| Nossiter, Communism in Kerala, p. 145. | |
| ‘Red Rule in Kerala’, statements by E. M. S. Namboodiripad and Panampilli Govinda Menon, Illustrated Weekly of India, 25 January 1959. | |
| Kamla Chopra, ‘Indira Gandhi: A Profile’, Illustrated Weekly of India, 22 February 1959. | |
| S. Gopal, Jawaharlal Nehru: A Biography, vol. 3: 1956–1964 (London: Cape, 1984), p. 66. | |
| Profiles of Mannath in the Illustrated Weekly of India, 28 June 1959 and in the Current, 16 September 1959; Anon., The Agitation in Kerala (Trivandrum: Department of Public Relations, 1959), pp. 9–12. | |
| W. H. Morris-Jones, ‘India’s Political Idioms’, in C. H. Philips, ed., Politics and Society in India (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1963). | |
| A good description of the protests is contained in George Woodcock’s Kerala: A Portrait of the Malabar Coast (London: Faber and Faber, 1967), pp. 270ff. | |
| See the letters from Nehru to the prominent Kerala Congress politician R. Sankar, quoted in Robin Jeffrey, ‘Jawaharlal Nehru and the Smoking Gun: Who Pulled the Trigger on Kerala’s Communist Government in 1959?’, Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics,vol. 29, no. 1, 1991. | |
| See Gopal, Nehru,vol. 3, p. 68. | |
| Quoted in ‘Mrs Indira Gandhi’s Election’, undated, unsigned typescript in Pupul Jayakar Papers, held by Mrs Radhika Herzberger (emphasis added.) Cf. also The Statesman, 27 July 1959. | |
| Kannikara Padmanabha Pillai, The Red Interlude in Kerala (Trivandrum: Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee, 1959), pp. 183ff. | |
| Woodcock, Kerala, p. 272. | |
| Nehru to Namboodiripad, 30 July 1959, quoted in Gopal, Nehru,vol. 3, pp. 71–2. | |
| See K. P. Bhagat, The Kerala Mid-Term Election of 1960 (Bombay: Popular Book Depot, 1962). | |
| Gopal, Nehru,vol. 3, p. 73. | |
| See correspondence and papers in Subject File34, C. Rajagopalachari Papers, Fifth Instalment, NMML. | |
| The article is reproduced in C. Rajagopalachari, Satyam Eva Jayate (The Truth Alone Shall Triumph) (Madras: Bharathan Publications, 1961), vol. 1, pp. 149–53.Cf.also ‘Rajaji on Need for Strong Opposition’, Swarajya,9 March 1957. | |
| C. Rajagopalachari, ‘Some Thoughts on the Budget’, the Current, 17 August 1957. | |
| See ‘Statement of Principles of the Swatantra Party’, reproduced in Economic Weekly, special issue, July 1959, p. 894. | |
| C. Rajagopalachari, ‘The Case for the Swatantra Party’, Illustrated Weekly of India, 16 August 1959. | |
| See H. L. Erdman, The Swatantra Party and Indian Conservatism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967). | |
| Gopal, Nehru,vol. 3, p. 120. | |
| See TarunKumar Mukhopadhyaya, Feroze Gandhi: A Crusader in Parliament (New Delhi: Allied Publishers, 1992), pp. 109–23. | |
| A useful summary of the main aspects of the controversy is contained in M. C. Chagla, Roses in December: An Autobiography (1973; revised edn Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1994), pp. 203–11. Justice Chagla headed one of the commissions; Justice Vivian Bose the other. But cf. also A. D. Gorwala, The Lies of T. T. K. (Bombay: R. V. Pandit, 1959). Feroze Gandhi died in 1960, not long after his speeches about the Mundhra scandal in Parliament. | |
| Quoted in Motilal C. Setalvad, My Life: Law and other Things (Bombay: N. M. Tripathi,1970), p. 282. |
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