Only in the last ten minutes or so of any speech did he spend time asking for their votes – for the Congress, the party which had brought freedom to the country and which, for all its faults, was the only party that could keep India together; for the Congress parliamentary candidate ‘who is a decent man’ (Nehru had forgotten his name); and for his old comrade and companion Mahesh Kapoor, who had undertaken such a heavy task for the whole state by framing the crucial zamindari laws. He reminded the audience of certain anachronisms in an age of republicanism who were attempting to misuse feudal loyalties for their own personal ends. Some of them were even standing for election as Independents. One of them, who owned a huge estate, was even using the humble bicycle as his symbol. (This local reference went down well.) But there were many such, and the lesson was a general one. He asked the audience not to swallow the present professions of idealism and humility of such notables, but to contrast these with their ugly past record, a record of oppression of the people and of faithful service to their British overlords who had protected their domains, their rents and their misdeeds. The Congress would have no truck with such feudalists and reactionaries, and it needed the support of the masses to fight them.
When the crowd, carried away with enthusiasm, shouted ‘Congress Zindabad!’ or, worse still, ‘Jawaharlal Nehru Zindabad!’ Nehru ticked them off sharply and told them to shout ‘Jai Hind!’ instead.
And thus his meetings ended, and on he went to the next one, always late, always impatient, a man whose greatness of heart won the hearts of others, and whose meandering pleas for mutual tolerance kept a volatile country, not merely in those early and most dangerous years but throughout his own lifetime, safe at least from the systemic clutch of religious fanaticism.
17.35
THE few hours that Jawaharlal Nehru spent in the district had an enormous effect on all the electoral campaigns there, and on none more so than Mahesh Kapoor’s. It gave him new hope and it gave the Congress workers new heart. The people too became perceptibly more friendly. If Nehru, who was indeed perceived by the ordinary people as the Soul of Congress and the Pride of India had put his stamp of approval on his ‘old comrade and companion’, who were they to doubt his credentials? Had the elections been held the next day instead of two weeks later, Mahesh Kapoor would probably have flown home with a large majority on the hem of Nehru’s dusty achkan.
Nehru had also partially drawn the communal sting. For among Muslims throughout the country he was perceived as their true champion and protector. This was the man who at the time of Partition had jumped down from a police jeep in Delhi and rushed unarmed into the midst of fighting mobs in order to save lives, no matter whether the lives were Hindu or Muslim. This was the man whose very dress spoke of nawabi culture, however much he fulminated against Nawabs. Nehru had been to the shrine of the great sufi saint Moinuddin Chishti at Ajmer, and had been honoured with the gift of a gown; he had been to Amarnath, where the Hindu priests had honoured him with puja. The President of India, Rajendra Prasad, would have gone to the latter but not to the former. It gave the frightened minorities heart that the Prime Minister saw no essential difference between the two.
Even Maulana Azad, the most notable leader among the Muslims after Independence, was a moon compared to Nehru’s sun; his brightness was largely that of reflection. For it was in Nehru – though he was not a man who was in love with it, and though he did not make the most effectual use of it – that popularity – and national power – was vested.
There were even some – both Hindus and Muslims – who said half-jokingly that he would have made a better leader of the Muslims than Jinnah. Jinnah had no sympathy for them – it was his will that had held them in his sway and led them towards Pakistan. But here was a man who was positively bubbling with sympathy, and who, unembittered by the partition of his country, continued, unlike others, to treat them – as he treated people of all religions or none – with affection and respect. They would have felt a great deal less secure and more fearful if someone else had been ruling in Delhi.
But, as the saying goes, Delhi is far away. And Brahmpur too for that matter – and even the district headquarters of Rudhia. As the days passed, once again local loyalties, local quarrels, local issues, and the local configurations of caste and religion began to reassert themselves. Gossip about Mahesh Kapoor’s son and the Nawabzada, about Saeeda Bai and the Nawab Sahib, continued to be exchanged at the small barber’s shop in Salimpur – more a pavement stall than a shop – in the vegetable market, over an evening hookah in a village courtyard, and wherever people met and talked.