The Books that Raised a Furor in India
By Dr. Syed Amir
Bethesda , MD
M O Mathai, an Indian civil servant, served as Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru's senior assistant for well over a decade (1946-1959). He joined Nehru at his hometown of Allahabad, and when Nehru became the prime minister after independence, Mathai moved with him to Delhi, living in the prime minister's house.
He had daily interactions with Nehru, and had the unique opportunity of observing the first Indian prime minister at work at close range. He served as the watchdog, as all papers needing Nehru's attention had to be first cleared by him. He claims that he never attempted to influence any of his decisions, but then goes on to relate numerous instances when he prevailed upon him to change his mind. Mathai resigned from his powerful position in 1959 amid allegations of misuse of authority, and there are indications that he departed with ill feelings for many of those he had been associated with.
Two decades after his resignation, Mathai was catapulted into unanticipated fame and achieved notoriety when he authored two controversial books, Reminiscence of the Nehru Age (1978) and My Days with Nehru (1979), relating his experiences as the special assistant to the prime minister. The books contained many revelations of a personal nature, not all complimentary, not only about Nehru but a host of other powerful political figures of the time. They caused a furor when released in India and were subsequently banned. At the time of their publication, Nehru had already been dead for over a decade, and the author himself did not live much long. He died of a heart attack in 1981.
I had been curious for some time about the books that had aroused so much controversy in India so many years ago. However, I discovered that the books were no longer easily obtainable. They have been out of print since 1979, and my attempts to locate them in libraries around the Washington area were uniformly fruitless. They are also not listed on any publisher's catalogs. After some research, I discovered that the US Library of Congress, the world's greatest depository of books, had copies of both books in their collection. But there was a problem. The library ordinarily does not loan out books, except to senators and congressmen, while to others it grants only limited reading privileges. After waiting for over a month, my county library finally succeeded in locating old copies of the books at university libraries in Maryland and New York and borrowed them for me.
More than three decades have passed since the books were published, and all those once so dominant on India's political firmament who figured so prominently in the books are long gone. Also gone with them are any possibilities that the accounts of events as told in the books can be either refuted or corroborated. Mathai claims that he originally intended the books to be published only after his death, but had to accelerate the time table when he learnt during the emergency rule imposed by Indira Gandhi that his house would be searched, his files and documents confiscated and destroyed. Even so, he wrote that he had intentionally held back two chapters, as their contents were likely to be embarrassing to a person who was still alive.
Mathai has an engaging writing style and the two books, abounding in fascinating stories, historic anecdotes and entertaining quotations are highly readable. Surprisingly, he has little or nothing to say about Pakistan or its troubled relations with India. What generated most controversy in India was the revelation of Nehru's romantic involvement with several women, among them Padmaja Naidu, daughter of Soorojni Naidu, Mardula Sarabhai, Lady Mountbatten, and others who remained unidentified. The book, however, includes no salacious or sleazy details about these affairs. The information suggests that Nehru, a widower, was an easy and at times willing target of unscrupulous women who pursued him relentlessly, a common experience of many celebrities and powerful men. In the case of Nehru and Lady Mountbatten, all evidence, especially their correspondence uncovered after their death, suggests that the relationship was plutonic, based on shared interests and commonality of views.
Overall, Mathai's characterization of Nehru is highly complimentary, and he portrays the former prime minister as a thoroughly secular man, free of any religious or factional biases. In the wake of the Partition, he waged a lonely battle against rising religious fanaticism in the country at great personal risk to himself. In contrast, Patel, the deputy prime minister, was a communalist, with a vision of India that was parochial and dramatically opposite of that of Nehru's. The two frequently clashed and the disputes had to be settled by Mahatma Gandhi. Nehru, who was an agnostic, had requested in his will that his body be cremated, and part of the ashes thrown into the Ganges "to be carried to the great ocean that washes India's shores." The rest, he directed, be sprinkled over the plains and fields of India where the peasants toil so it became an eternal part of the soil. While most of his wishes were carried out, his body, in contravention to his wishes, was given some religious rites.
Mathai comments on a spectrum of influential Indian politicians, including Moulana Azad, Morarji Desai, and Indira Gandhi, most of whom he treats with varying levels of disparagement. He alleges that Moulana Azad sympathized with Muslims and tried to support them, often unsuccessfully. In rare praise, he credits Moulana Azad with uncommon courage, and the singular ability to speak to Nehru without fear. The prime minister showed great respect and affection for him.
Mathai reserved his most vehement and scathing comments for Krishna Menon, who served as India's defense minister during the Sino-Indian war and was at one-time favorite of Nehru. He accuses him of being a drug addict, involved in unethical, shady financial dealings and that the major responsibility for India's ill preparedness to face the Chinese rested with him.
How much trust can be placed in the contents of the Mathai's narratives? We shall never definitively find out, as the books were withdrawn before they could be critically and dispassionately examined by those with the knowledge to render a judgment. However, the books highlight the fact that political leaders, however powerful and influential in their time, were all humans with the attendant frailties and weaknesses, but these should not keep us from appreciating their other overriding qualities.
