A Forgotten Ambassador in Cairo, page 26
Mr. Mubarak Ali, with Mr. Langer’s present bill will form a group of their own. Mr. Checker and his group will act as they see fit. Mr. J.J. Singh, with the sanction of India League, will work as he thinks to be wise. Of course there will be no co-operation among other leaders of the League—Hossain & Anup—and J.J. Singh. It seems for some particular reason they cannot co-operate. Thus money and energy will be spent with doubtful result. Unless co-ordinated action can be worked out the object may not be attained. India League and the Committee for Washington depend upon support from you and your friends, you might induce the three leaders J.J. Singh, Anup Singh and Hossain—to coordinate their efforts in promoting one Bill, other than the present Langer Bill. The actual direction of carrying through the Bill should be left to a Committee and must not be in the hand of any individual who generally antagonises other responsible Indians with his over-bearing attitude and ignoring others.”
Taraknath Das’ objection to the Langer Bill was that it was silent on new immigration quotas for Indians, unlike the corresponding Chinese bill. The last sentence of his letter was an obvious swipe at J.J.
Watumull, heeding Das’ advice, seems to have advised J.J. and company, as indicated by a telegram from the ILA (signed by J.J., Baldwin and Rahkit) to Watumull, “After mature deliberation India League had decided to fight for Indian citizenship question, but we do not consider the bill adequate. We will have a bill introduced on the pattern of the Chinese bill aiming at removal of immigration and naturalization discriminations, which are a slur on our people and our country. Our recent success with UNRRA bill and our friendly contacts with leading senators and congressmen will greatly help. However, we need substantial funds for effective publicity and congressional campaign. Request you secure liberal financial aid.” Watumull and J.J. exchanged a few telegrams in which J.J. said that Senator Langer had agreed to change his bill and also that he [J.J.] had written to Clare Boothe Luce to introduce a similar resolution in the House of Representatives.25 Due to J.J’s efforts, Representatives Clare Luce and Emanuel Celler introduced a bill in the House on 24 March 1944 to “permit natives of British India to enter the United States under the quota system and become naturalized citizens.”26 Thus three bills, S 1595 by Langer, HR 4415 by Celler, and HR 4479 by Luce were introduced in the Congress to take care of naturalization of Indians already in the United States as well as citizenship for future Indian immigrants. However, it would take another two years for these bills to be signed into law.
Meanwhile, the tensions between J.J.’s group and the NCIF group of Syud Hossain had reached a stage where a split seemed to be the only option. Thus at its meeting on 20 March 1944, the “Executive Committee of the ILA decided that the NCIF should be dissolved and offered to consider the question of utilizing the services of Syud Hossain and Anup Singh ‘in the manner most useful to the cause of India’.” In a meeting of the ILA held on 28 March which Syud Hossain and Anup attended, Syud said that it would not be possible for him to cooperate with the ILA under the present set-up, and Anup too expressed his unwillingness to work on behalf of the ILA at Washington. Thus both of them parted company with the League, and said that the NCIF would function in Washington as an independent body, and that a “friendly, but not an organic relationship” would be maintained between the two organisations in the future.27 Following Anup, Hilda Boulter too resigned from the League and joined the NCIF. Soon after, Haridas Muzumdar and Krishnalal Shridharani joined the NCIF as well, though they maintained a tenuous link with the ILA. Anup Singh moved to Washington D.C. and made his home at Cairo Hotel,28 while Syud shifted his base to Chicago and moved into Palmer House, the same building from where Mumtaz Kitchlew operated his Indian store.29
Freed of the fetters imposed by the ILA, the NCIF quickly went about organising itself. Syud Hossain was made the Chairman, Muzumdar and Shridharani as the Vice-Chairmen, Anup Singh as the Secretary, Dr Kamala Kosambi as the Treasurer and Dr Ananda Coomaraswamy as the Honorary Chairman. The office was set up at Room 214, Portland Building at 1129, Vermont Avenue at Washington D.C.30 The NCIF also established regional representatives, all of them prominent Indians, in almost all the larger states of U.S.A., both for propaganda of the organisation’s mission as well as for collecting funds. The primary funding for NCIF’s activities continued to come from the Los Angeles activists, though perhaps surreptitiously. As Roshan Sharma says, “[Abnashi] Ram came to a secret understanding with Syud Hossain—all money collected through the network of Ram’s friends for each phase of their future struggle would be channelled directly to Anup Singh via Bhagwan Singh Gyanee and Mumtaz Kitchlew. In case funds were below expectation, Ram would supply the deficit. Only Syud knew that secret…”31 Muzumdar too did not seem to know the source of funding for all of NCIF’s activities. As he says in his memoirs, “I must here acknowledge that I have no way of knowing how the many activities of the new organisation were financed. My understanding was that the [Indian] patriots on the Pacific Coast—Sikh, Muslim, Hindu—had promised Dr. Hossain that they would underwrite all the expenses of the new organisation. So far as I know, not one of us received a penny from these contributions for ourselves personally, even when we were engaged in organisational work. All monies received were devoted to the maintenance of the office in Washington and to the many activities it sponsored, among them the publication of a monthly magazine.”32
The monthly magazine was the Voice of India that was launched in September 1944. The editorial team consisted of the office bearers of the NCIF, with Anup Singh taking on the role of the first amongst equals. The first issue was dedicated to the “martyrs to the cause of India’s freedom” such as Gandhi, Nehru and Azad, who had been imprisoned in August 1942 and were still in jail and held without trial.
As Syud wrote in the lead article, “Some Stifled Voices and Voice of India”, “I first came to Washington D.C. in 1921 to attend the Washington Arms Conference as Press Representative for India…Following the Conference Mr. H.G. Wells [who too covered the conference] published a volume embodying his impressions and experiences. In the book there is a chapter, ‘Some Stifled Voices’ in which Mr. Wells records his contacts with, and his reactions to, certain unofficial representatives of Korea, Syria, India and China…At this time when the authentic Voice of India has all but been stifled at home—and mostly the stooges and Quislings masquerade as her spokesmen under British auspices—there is added appropriateness in the appearance of Voice of India in Washington D.C., which is not only the capital of the United States but has become the focal point and clearing house for the aspirations of all the United Nations struggling and fighting for freedom…So, after twenty-three years I return to Washington to help make articulate, together with my colleagues, the Voice of India.”
Not forgetting the main issue at stake, Anup Singh wrote about the plight of the “three thousand nationals of India now living in the United States”, in particular, the Indian farmers of California who had been severely impacted by the Bhagat Singh Thind decision as well as the Immigration Act of 1924, and the steps that the organisation was taking to bring in legislation to alleviate their problems.33
The Voice of India arguably became the most influential magazine of the Indian nationalists in the years leading to Indian independence. Contributors included Oswald Villard, Taraknath Das, Abul Kalam Azad, Richard Walsh, Lin Yutang, Mary Das, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, Congressman E. Celler, Agnes Smedley, Prof. Meghnad Saha (scientist at Calcutta University) and such other supporters of India. The magazine had articles on a wide range of political and cultural issues dealing with South Asia, as well as brief news dispatches from India, and book reviews. It was not the theatrical New Orient of Syud Hossain’s earlier days, but a more subdued India-focused publication, reflecting the sedate personality of Anup Singh. Among the articles that Syud penned for it included: An Open Letter to Churchill (October 1944), Athens and Amritsar (February 1945), A Report to the President (March 1945), On the San Francisco Conference (May 1945), The Simla Conference (Summer 1945), Journalistic Ethics (October 1945) and An Open Letter to Clement Attlee (December 1945). The Voice of India, after publishing twenty-eight impressive issues, came out with its last in May 1947, having had an uninterrupted run for a little less than three years.
Syud Hossain continued with his barrage of anti-British propaganda, both in his writings as well as in his lectures that he had resumed at a blistering pace. Durga Das, a well-known journalist, recalls an incident that took place in September 1944 during one of Churchill’s visits to Washington D.C. Syud, under the auspices of the NCIF took out a full-page advertisement in the morning newspaper, which was an open letter addressed to the British Prime Minister. As Durga Das describes the scene in his memoirs, “One of the most telling ripostes to the British propaganda was delivered at a time when Churchill was in Washington for one of his frequent consultations with Roosevelt. Some Indians and their American sympathizers booked a full-page advertisement in The Washington Post. Churchill was breakfasting with his host at the White House when the Post was brought in. Roosevelt was unaware that the paper contained the ad, which had been prepared by Syud Hossain, Chairman of the Committee for Indian Freedom, and was a biting indictment of British rule in India. He passed the paper to Churchill, who opened it and saw the ad, captioned ‘What About India?’ Churchill threw the paper down angrily. On learning the cause of his ire, Roosevelt calmly observed that the ad had obviously been paid for, and buying newspaper space for propaganda purposes was not unusual in the United States.”34 The advertisement actually appeared in the Evening Star, not in the Washington Post, and the full text is given in Annexure III.
The advertisement got a great deal of attention as Syud wrote to Abnashi Ram a few days later, “The open letter to Churchill created a real sensation in Washington. Scores of telegrams, telephone calls and other messages came in to the office. One American—a total stranger to us— sent a check of $50 as a token of his appreciation of the letter and towards its further publicity. Two radio stations—one in Washington & one in Baltimore—asked to interview me on the air regarding the Churchill letter. Two Congressmen—one Republican & one Democrat—after reading it have spontaneously offered to place the full text of it in the Congressional Record! So perhaps some little good has been done.”35
The apprehension that the dissention amongst the Indian nationalists would impair their effectiveness seemed largely unfounded. As British reports indicate, “The important fact remains that there are in existence two organisations, one in Washington and the other in New York, actively working on behalf of the All India National Congress, and thereby steadily strengthening the impression that the A.I.N.C. alone is representative and qualified to speak on behalf of the people of India. While jealousies and rivalries between the two organisations undoubtedly exist, they have, at all events, so far managed to preserve an outward show of unity and unanimity as far as their two chief mutual interests are concerned, namely the campaign for U.S. citizenship for Indians, and the campaign to force the hand of the British government in the matter of Indian independence.”36 Thus, both the NCIF and the ILA were well placed to play a major role in hosting perhaps the most significant Indian who travelled to the United States at that time.
25
A Leader in the Making and a Bucket Seat to New York
(1921–45)
REWINDING OUR CHRONOLOGICAL narrative to May 1921 brings us to the last unattached days of Sarup Nehru, who changed her name to Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit soon after getting married to Ranjit Pandit on 9 May. Ranjit Pandit, hailing from a Brahmin family of Kathiawar in Gujarat, was an outstandingly accomplished man; a graduate of European universities, a polyglot in eleven languages, a scholar of classical Sanskrit texts, a talented musician and singer with a passion for both Indian and Western music, an extrovert who loved riding and swimming, and above all, a dashingly handsome six footer. Vijaya Lakshmi and her husband led a fairly placid life, interspaced with the joy of bringing up their three young daughters, Chandralekha, Nayantara and Rita Vitasta who were born respectively in 1924, 1927 and 1929.1 The Pandits moved from Calcutta to Anand Bhawan in Allahabad in early 1927 where the Nehru family home had by now became the unofficial headquarters of the INC.
It was in 1928 when the Pandits began to be drawn into the vortex of Indian politics and the freedom movement. The brutal police action that was let loose on those protesting against the Simon Commission led to the death of Lala Lajpat Rai and injuries to Jawaharlal Nehru. In March 1930, Gandhi launched the Civil Disobedience movement, and over the next few months Motilal, Jawaharlal and Ranjit, apart from Gandhi and other Congress leaders, were arrested and imprisoned. Motilal, now sixty-nine years old, enfeebled by his months in prison, and unable to bear the sight of so many of his family as his fellow prisoners, died on 6 February 1931. One of the wealthiest and most successful lawyers of India, he gave up everything to follow Gandhi on the thorny path of India’s freedom.
Despite the setback of arrests and deaths, the momentum of the Gandhi’s civil disobedience movement continued unabated across the country. Vijaya Lakshmi became a member of the Allahabad City Congress Committee and courted arrest by defying the ban on taking out processions. She was arrested on 26 January 1932, sent to Allahabad district jail for a few days, and then sentenced to a year’s rigorous imprisonment to be served at the Lucknow Central Prison. This was her first experience of prison life. Inexplicably, Gandhi called off the Civil Disobedience movement in 1933, despite the wide and vigorous support it continued to have across the country.
Soon after, the Government of India Act of 1935 was enacted, whereby elections to the legislatures of the British provinces (but not the Princely states) were held, and the Congress won handsomely in eight of the eleven provinces where elections were conducted in 1936–37. Vijaya Lakshmi contested the elections and won from the Kanpur constituency in Uttar Pradesh. She was then made a minister, the first woman minister of India, in the cabinet headed by Govind Ballabh Pant, and given the portfolio of Local Self-Government and Medical and Public Health, an assignment that she thoroughly relished as it gave her the opportunity to help the poorest of the citizens in a deeply individual way. It was a rigorous training ground for a woman who would go on to hold a number of public offices over the next quarter century.
On the outbreak of WWII in 1939, the British government committed India’s soldiers and its resources to the Allied war effort without any reference to the elected representatives or the legislatures of the provinces of India. The INC responded by asking all its elected representatives to resign from their positions, and Vijaya Lakshmi complied by resigning from her ministerial post. This period also saw the widening gulf between the Muslim League headed by Jinnah and the Congress represented by Gandhi. Jinnah considered the League to be the sole representative of Indian Muslims, a contention that was anathema to the secular leaders of the Congress. As historian R.C. Majumdar says, “Jinnah had converted Indian politics into a struggle for power, nay even the very existence with honour, between the Muslim minority and the Hindu majority. As the Hindu majority had a stronghold in the Congress organization, bare logic and sheer instinct for self-preservation demanded a similar citadel for the defenders, and there could be hardly any other choice than the Muslim League for this purpose.”2
1942 was a decisive year both in India’s Freedom struggle, and the World War. In the Eastern theatre, a belligerent Japan had captured Singapore in February, Rangoon in March, and Mandalay in May, and had conducted an air raid on Calcutta on 20 December. However, the American Navy that had recovered after the Pearl Harbor catastrophe slowly turned the balance of power in the Pacific. The INC had consistently refused to cooperate with the Allied war efforts unless Indian independence was guaranteed. Prodded by American President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister, was compelled to make overtures to the Congress, but he was resolute on not making any concessions. The Cripps Mission, headed by Sir Strafford Cripps, was sent to India in March 1942 more to mollify Roosevelt, but its proposals fell so woefully short of Indian expectations that the mission was a predictable failure. Churchill, the villain behind the failure of the mission, quietly smirked; as he was to say later in November, “I have not become the King’s First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire.”
The disappointment amongst the Congress leaders was unmistakable, and Gandhi in particular was frustrated and impatient, and his attitude hardened. He wanted the British to withdraw from India right away and his thoughts were formalised in the historic Quit India resolution that was announced in Bombay by the AICC on 8 August 1942. Gandhi memorably called out, “I am not going to be satisfied with anything short of complete freedom. We shall do or die. We shall either free India or die in the attempt.” The British-India government, taking this as an open call for rebellion, hit back with characteristic ferocity. All prominent leaders of the Congress, including the Working Committee members, were arrested the next day on 9 August. Gandhi, along with Sarojini Naidu, Mirabehn and Mahadev Desai were interned in the Aga Khan Palace (Yerwada) in Poona while the others such as Maulana Azad (Congress President), Nehru, Patel and Asaf Ali were lodged in Ahmednagar Fort. The prisoners had no means of communication and were initially not allowed newspapers. In the violence that followed protesting the arrests, over a thousand people were killed in police firings across the country.3
