Sunday, April 26, 2015

Before and after resignation from Congress President in AICC meeting-1939


Subhas Bose exchanged letters and telegrams with both Gandhiji and Nehruji which started on 24th March 1939 and ended in May estimated about 50 in number without any positive outcome.
Among the leftists M.N.Roy wanted Bose to go ahead and form a left Workng Committee. ultimately Roy said that a Roman general who won't take advice was not worth fighting for.
CSP was in turmoil and some members, particularly, in the small Bengal cadreof the party , resigned. Tridib Chaudhury and others eventually formed the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) , Hiren Mukherjee, a young Communist member of the CSP , ill at the time of the Tripuri Congress , sent a telegram to J.P.Narayan congratulating him for the victory of Subhas Bose and their support to him.
Sharp criticism was made by ex-revolutionaries running news paper Forward, founded by C.R.Das and offered advice to  Bose to put on  the Working Committee. They further continued;
" But Subhas Babu having revolted for nothing other than the Presidentship ,carried a blank mind as far as a plan or a programme was concerned....When asked why he was not acting in this situation , he replied that his supporters were 'shaking in their shoes' ..."
Although Bose insisted that ninety percent of the left was still with him but they are not organised to replace the old leadership and carry on the Congress on their shoulder. Nehru was correct in this respect.
Near the fag end of the negotiations , just before the AICC was to convene in Calcutta on April 29, 1939, Bose and Nehru met. They had They had some nasty ex-changes and ultimately came to a point that only Gandhi would have been able to resolve the conflict. Gandhi also met with Bose just before the AICC conclave but nothing was resolved.
In the AICC meeting held in May 1939, Bose described his inability , under the present circumstances , to work out a compromise formula with Gandhi and laid a letter to this effect from Gandhi before the assembly . Then he tendered his resignation, saying , in part,
" Mahatmaji's advice to me is that I should myself form a working committee leaving out the members , who resigned from the previous working committee..... If I formed such a committee I would not be able to respect to you that the Committee commanded his implicit confidence.
...My own conviction is that in view of the crucial times that are ahead of us in India and abroad , we should have a composite cabinet commanding the confidence of the largest number of Congress possible...I could only repeat my request that he should kindly shoulder the responsibility vested in him by the Tripuri Congress.
At a last step , I tried my best to arrive at an informal solution of the above problem , as Mahatmaji told me, to sit together with the prominent members of the previous Working Committeeand myself ..but that to yielded no result.
Bose did not really want to resign and others particularly left were not happy with this result.
Now Nehru who all aling had been arguing privately with Gandhi and others for a compromise arrangement offered a motion calling for Bose to withdraw his resignation . Nehru suggested that the working Committee from the previous year should be renamed and the slot of two members shortly to resign because of ill health should be filled by Bose's chaice. In contrast to Gandhi , Nehru maintained that ....there is no difference between Mr. subhas Bose and Mahatma Gandhi on any issue involving principles '. like Rajaji , Nehru did not want 'to change horses in mid-stream.' but in the group Nehru wished to retain , congress President elect .Bose, was included Rafi ahmed Kidwai and Jayprakash Narayan rose to support Nehru's motion.the meeting was then adjourned for the day.
The following day , Bose said that he was honoured that Nehru had asked him not to resign, but wanted a greater consideration for his views about a composite Working committee than he found in Nehru's proposal. He did not withdraw his resignation, but made it clear that he did not want to resign if he could work with a more representative Working Committee. Leaving the matter he said in the hands of the AICC, he sat down. The chairperson  of the meeting , Sarojini Naidu, an experienced Congress leader and former President , found Bose's statement too vague. Also feeling that there had not been a clear response to his motion , Nehru withdrew it. Naidu now pushed the gathering to elect a President. Niharendu Duttamajumdar, and K.F.Nariman objected, but she overrode them and the AICC elected Rajendra Prasad to finish the presidential term until the next full Congress session.
The new president named the Working committee, as Bose and Nehru declined to serve , he filled their position with Dr, B,C,roy and Prafulla chandra Ghosh, Bengal Congressmen. The latter was pure Khadi Gandhian and the former was once close to Bose ,now he became close to Gandhi. Electing two non Bose men from Bengal in the Working Committee were another slap at the Boses.
Later in a question answer session of Gandhi Seva Sangh Gandhi pointed out that there were fundamental difference in principle with Bose.
Ultimately resignation of Subhas Bose was accdepted and Rajedra Prasad became the next President.  The main contributors towards his resignation were Mahatma Gandhi, Pant's resolution, Jawaharlal Nehru and Sarojini Naidu who hammered the last nail in the coffin of this episode.  
The main problem was Subhas was fully charged with Violence and also to use violence, observed Gandhi.
  

No comments:

Post a Comment