A review of the book '1947-1957, India: The Birth of a Republic' written by Chandrachur Ghose.
The story of a decade that made and unmade India.
Thought-provoking, argumentative and thoroughly enjoyable, 1947-1957, India: The Birth of a Republic is a must-read for anyone interested in Indian political history.
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Coming up: A review of the book '1947-1957, India: The Birth of a Republic' written by Chandrachur Ghose.
Namaste Friends. My name is 'Shinil Subramanian Payamal' and you are listening to the Historylogy podcast.
Before I proceed, a full disclosure: This book was bought with my own money and not been provided to me by the author or publisher.
Little bit about the author:
Chandrachur Ghose is an author, researcher and commentator on history, economics and the environment. He graduated from Visva Bharati and the University of Sussex. His book Bose: The Untold Story of an Inconvenient Nationalist was published by Penguin Random House India in 2022 and is a national bestseller. He has also co-authored Conundrum: Subhas Bose’s Life after Death, which features among the bestsellers on Amazon. He is one of the founders of the pressure group Mission Netaji, which has been the moving force behind the declassification of secret documents related to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. His activism led to the declassification of over 10,000 pages in 2010.
Let me read what is written on the back cover of the book:
QUOTE
The story of a decade that made and unmade India.
The first decade after India's independence, 1947-1957, was probably the most crucial in the nation's history. Opening a window to this period, this book weaves a story out of the complex ideas and events that have largely remained beneath the surface of public discourse. The transfer of power, the framing of the Constitution and the formation of the governance machinery; the clash of ideas and ideologies among parties and personalities; the beginning of the disintegration of the Congress and the consolidation of political forces in the opposition; Nehru's grappling with existential problems at home and his quest for global peace; the interplay between democratic ideals and ruthless power play—all these factors impinged on each other and shaped the new republic in its formative decade.
Thought-provoking, argumentative and thoroughly enjoyable, 1947-1957, India: The Birth of a Republic is a must-read for anyone interested in Indian political history.
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Some of the interesting things I learnt after reading this book:
1st ─ In a February 1955 interview with BBC’s Francis Watson, Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar wondered, ‘I don’t know how Mr. Attlee suddenly agreed to give India independence. That is a secret that he will disclose in his autobiography. None expected that he would do that.’ Ambedkar told the BBC that from his ‘own analysis’ he had figured out what had convinced the Labour Party to take the decision to free India:
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The national army that was raised by Subhas Chandra Bose. The British had been ruling the country in the firm belief that whatever may happen in the country or whatever the politicians did, they could never be able to change the loyalty of soldiers. That was one prop on which they were carrying on the administration. And that was completely dashed to pieces.
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2nd ─ In October 1956, two months before Ambedkar passed away, Attlee himself disclosed the reason to Phani Bhusan Chakravartti, chief justice of the Calcutta High Court and acting governor of West Bengal, in a private conversation. Chakravartti recounted what he’d heard from Attlee in a handwritten letter to historian Ramesh Chandra Majumdar:
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The INA activities of Subhas Chandra Bose, which weakened the very foundation of the British Empire in India, and the Royal Indian Navy mutiny which made the British realise that the Indian armed forces could no longer be trusted to prop up the British.
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Justice Chakravartti, the first Indian to become permanent Chief Justice of India’s oldest court, also asked Attlee about the extent of Gandhi’s influence upon the British decision to quit India. In Chakravartti words:
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‘Hearing this question, Attlee’s lips became twisted in a sarcastic smile as he slowly chewed out the word, “m-i-n-i-m-a-l”!’
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In 1960, in Nuffield College, Oxford, Attlee repeated the same statement to Historian Barun De.
3rd ─ In a debate on 15 November, 1948, K. T. Shah had moved that the words ‘secular’, ‘federal’ and ‘socialist’ be inserted, so that the clause read, ‘India shall be a Secular, Federal, Socialist Union of States.’ As far as the word ‘secular’ was concerned, Shah argued, ‘We have been told time and again from every platform, that ours is a secular State. If that is true, if that holds good, I do not see why the term could not be added or inserted in the constitution itself, once again, to guard against any possibility of misunderstanding or misapprehension.’ Calling the amendment ‘purely superfluous’, Ambedkar protested:
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What should be the policy of the State, how the Society should be organised in its social and economic sides are matters which must be decided by the people themselves according to time and circumstances. It cannot be laid down in the Constitution itself, because that is destroying democracy altogether.
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4th ─ On 25 November, 1949, closing the debate on the adoption of the Constitution, Ambedkar made some incisive comments defending the work done by the Drafting Committee and the Constituent Assembly, and putting the onus of working the Constitution on the people of the country:
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I feel, however good a Constitution may be, it is sure to turn out bad because those who are called to work it, happen to be a bad lot. However bad a Constitution may be, it may turn out to be good if those who are called to work it, happen to be a good lot. The working of a Constitution does not depend wholly upon the nature of the Constitution. The Constitution can provide only the organs of State such as the Legislature, the executive and the Judiciary. The factors on which the working of those organs of the State depend are the people and the political parties they will set up as their instruments to carry out their wishes and their politics. Who can say how the people of India and their parties will behave? Will they uphold constitutional methods of achieving their purposes or will they prefer revolutionary methods of achieving them?
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5th ─ The quantum of privy purses was determined on the basis of annual revenue of each state for 1945-46. The rulers were to get 15 per cent on the first lakh of their annual revenue, 10 per cent on the next Rs. 4 lakh, and 7.5 per cent on all the revenues above Rs. 5 lakh, subject to a maximum allowance of Rs. 10 lakh. This formula came to be known as the Eastern States Formula.
6th ─ ‘The Hindus are, I think, resigned, a little hurt that the Congress has done so little for them,’ the governor of Sindh Francis Mudie wrote to Mountbatten four days after the plan for partition was announced. There was ‘some movement of bank balances’ to India, a fall in the value of real estate in the Hindu areas and some ‘vague talk’ about migration to India, but Mudie didn’t think any of those to merit serious consideration.
7th ─ The defence minister confirmed in the Constituent Assembly on 19 November, 1947 that the Indian government had decided to continue to employ British officers in non-operational commands, advisory roles, and in technical and training establishments.
Gandhi’s views, which counted for little at this time, were very different. Speaking at a prayer meeting on 22 July, 1947, he said that a reporter want to know:
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… if the proposal to retain British officers in the army and the partition of the army had my approval. The correspondent should rather ask me if I approve the retention of the army itself. Keeping an army, whatever its nature or size, can have no support from me.
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A few days later, he sent out a message to army officers:
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You have got your guns and sten-guns and you are proficient in killing men and all living things. Instead of that you should learn the art of using the sickle, ploughing the land and producing the food necessary for men and other living beings. Forget violence and gain proficiency in non-violence … You note down in your diary that the world will curse the scientist who has made the atom bomb.
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On 5 November, Gandhi told a prayer meeting:
QUOTE
I have never abandoned my non-violence. I have been training myself in non-violence and it was acceptable till we attained independence. Now they wonder how they can rule with non-violence. And then there is the army and they have the help of the army. Now I am of no value at all … if I could have my way of non-violence and everybody listened to me, we would not send our army [to Kashmir] as we are doing now. And if we did send, it would be a non-violent army.
UNQUOTE
When Major General Cariappa told Gandhi that ‘Non-violence is of no use under the present circumstances in India and only a strong army can make India one of the greatest nations in the world,’ Gandhi retorted, ‘I fear, like many experts, General Cariappa has gone beyond his depth and has been unwittingly betrayed into a serious misconception of ahimsa, of whose working in the nature of things, he can only have a very superficial knowledge.’
8th ─ When Gandhi expressed his wish to spend the rest of his life in Pakistan, Mountbatten noted, ‘This will infuriate Jinnah, but will be a great relief to Congress for, as I have said before, his influence is largely negative or even destructive and directed against the only man who has his feet firmly on the ground, Vallabhbhai Patel.’
9th ─ Partition became a reality, but most Congress leaders believed it to be a temporary measure. Gandhi told a prayer meeting on 4 June, 1947 that ‘the wonderful thing about it is that we can undo it anytime we want.’
The AICC resolution of 13 June, 1947 accepting the 3 June plan declared that the ‘AICC earnestly trusts that when present passions have subsided… the false doctrine of two nations in India will be discredited and discarded by all’.
Conclusion:
I highly recommend this book to people involved in research and framing of policies, students and analysts of politics, aspirants and coaches of UPSC civil services, and dedicated history enthusiasts. Much of today's political upheavals can be traced back to the immense complexities which emerged in the time when the nation was passing through the transfer of power.
I give this book a rating of 4.5/5.
The book is available for around Rs. 450/- on Amazon India and for around Rs. 550/- on Flipkart. And it is available for $25.99 USD on Amazon USA. I have given the respective buy links in the show notes. Please check them out for the latest prices.
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