Nehru was now more isolated in his own party than ever. Together with all the crushing burdens of the Prime Ministership – the food problem, the war-mongering on both sides of the border, the Press Bill and the Hindu Code Bill and the endless legislation to be passed through Parliament, the relations between the Centre and the states (which had come to a boil with the declaration of direct Central rule in Punjab), the day-to-day running of the administration, the working out of the First Five-Year Plan, foreign affairs (an area that particularly exercised him), not to mention endless emergencies of one kind or another – Nehru was weighed down by the hard realization that his ideological opponents in his party had, in effect and at last, defeated him. They had elected Tandon, they had forced Nehru’s supporters to leave the Congress in droves and form a new opposition party, they had taken over the District Congress Committees and Pradesh Congress Committees and the Working Committee and Central Election Committee, they had forced the resignation of the Minister who, more than any other, was sympathetic to his way of thinking, and they were poised to select their own conservative candidates for the impending General Election. Nehru’s back was to the wall; and he may perhaps have reflected that it was his own indecisiveness that had helped put it there.
14.2
CERTAINLY, Mahesh Kapoor thought so. He was in the habit of unburdening himself to whoever was at hand, and it happened to be Maan with whom he was walking through the fields on a tour of inspection.
‘Nehru has finished all of us – and himself in the process.’
Maan, who had been thinking about the wolf-hunt he had enjoyed when he was last in the area, was brought back to earth by the despair in his father’s voice.
‘Yes, Baoji,’ he said, and wondered how to go on from there. After a pause he added, ‘Well, I’m sure something will work out. Things have swung so far this way that they have to correct themselves.’
‘You are a fool,’ said his father shortly. He recalled how annoyed and disappointed S.S. Sharma had been when he and some of his colleagues had said they were resigning from the party. The Chief Minister liked to balance the Agarwal and Kapoor factions of his party against each other, so that he himself had maximum freedom of action; with one wing missing, his craft listed uncomfortably and his own decision-making abilities were necessarily more constrained.
Maan was silent. He began wondering how he could get away to pay a visit to his friend the Sub-Divisional Officer, who had organized the hunt a couple of months earlier.
‘That things will swing back into order once they’ve been displaced is an optimistic and childish conceit,’ said his father. ‘The toy you should be thinking of is not the swing but the slide,’ he continued after a pause. ‘Now Nehru cannot control the Congress. And if he cannot control it, I cannot rejoin it – nor Rafi Sahib, nor any of the rest. It’s as simple as that.’
‘Yes, Baoji,’ said Maan, taking a mild swipe at a tall weed with his walking-stick, and hoping that he was not going to be treated to a long lecture on the rights and wrongs of various party positions. He was in luck. A man came running across the fields to announce that the jeep of the Sub-Divisional Officer Sandeep Lahiri had been sighted heading towards the farm.
The ex-Minister growled: ‘Tell him I’m taking a walk.’
But Sandeep Lahiri appeared a few minutes later, walking gingerly (and without his accompanying policemen) along the little ridges between the fields of emerald-coloured rice. On his head was his sola topi, and there was a nervous smile above his weak chin.
He greeted Mahesh Kapoor with a mere ‘Good morning, Sir,’ and Maan, whom he had not expected to see, with a hello.
Mahesh Kapoor, who was still used to being addressed by his erstwhile title, looked a little closely at Sandeep Lahiri.
‘Yes?’ he asked abruptly.
‘Quite a pleasant day –’
‘Have you simply come to pay your respects?’ asked Mahesh Kapoor.
‘Oh, no, Sir,’ said Sandeep Lahiri, horrified by the thought.
‘You have not come to pay your respects?’ asked Mahesh Kapoor.
‘Well, not not to – but, well, I’ve come for a little help and advice, Sir. I heard you had just arrived here, and so I thought –’
‘Yes, yes –’ Mahesh Kapoor was walking on, and Sandeep Lahiri was following him on the narrow divider, rather unsteadily.
Sandeep Lahiri sighed, and plunged into his question. ‘It is like this, Sir. The government has authorized us – us SDOs, that is – to collect money from the public – voluntary donations – for a small celebration on Independence Day, which is – well – just a few days away now. Does the Congress Party traditionally have any particular hold on these funds?’