Here was a man who weilded no power or authority, had no wealth, but innate goodness, compassion, patriotism. Yet all those with power, wealth, bowed before him.

Some time in the early 60’s, Prof. A. B. Shah, Managing Editor of Quest, invited me to the biennial meeting of the Indian Committee for Cultural Freedom. I was delighted when I learnt that JP, Minoo Masani and Ashok Mehta would address the meeting. To my generation who were 9 to 10 years old in 1947, great leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Nehru, Sardar Patel, Rajaji and Rajen Babu, were too senior and remote. But even for us school going boys, leaders like JP, Masani, Lohia, Mehta, Aruna Asaf Ali, Achyut Patwardhan, S. M. Joshi, et al, of the Quit India Movement were the real heroes. So to get a chance to meet JP, Masani and Mehta was an exciting and rewarding boon. I was deeply moved by the way JP talked to me, showing concern, interest in my career and future after that meeting.

A few years later in 1968, when I started working for the Leslie Sawhny Programme, JP asked his old comrade and friend, Minoo Masani, to organize a seminar under the auspices of the LSP to work out a Declaration on the Social Responsibilities of Business. That brought me in close touch with JP and the association continued till his passing away in 1978.

Gandhiji’s True Heir

JP struck me as the true heir of Gandhiji. I had always felt that JP, Achyut Patwardhan, Lohia, Masani and other Congress Socialist leaders who had as their role model, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, and who after disappointment with him went their own ways, should have stuck together to provide a radical liberal alternative to Nehru’s Congress. They were the natural successor-leaders. Had they done that, Indian politics and history would have been gloriously different.

Serving through Failure

There is now a vulgar fashion among many to call JP a ‘failure’. These people neither understood him nor the meaning of success or failure. The great Gopal Krishna Gokhale was once asked what if India didn’t become free in his lifetime? He said ‘we are destined to serve India and the large cause through failure’. And, were Gandhi, Nehru, Subhash successful and in what way? The fact that JP, considered as natural successor to Nehru as Prime Minister, chose to withdraw from politics, to engage in the more enduring struggle against poverty, social evils and violence, itself shows that there’s nothing like ‘failure’ in such a life of struggle.

I would like to recall one incident to show that JP was a totally different kind of leader and man. In 1969, I had to see him in New Delhi at his friend, J. J. Singh’s place, to get his signature on an appeal he and Nani Palkhivala were to make to industrialists, urging them to accept social audit. While I was sitting with him, the charismatic Kashmiri leader, Sheikh Abdullah, suddently entered the room and said something very harsh to JP. It seemed JP had asked Sheikh Abdullah to go and see Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, and get confirmation on assurances she had given JP on Kashmir. But when the Sheikh went to the Prime Minister, she said that JP had got it all wrong. So the Sheikh walked out and came straight to JP, spoke harshly and stormed out. Both Mr. J. J. Singh and I were stunned by the Sheikh Saheb’s behaviour, but not surprised by Mrs. Gandhi’s denial. But what was JP’s reaction? He stopped signing papers and sat like a statue with tears rolling down. When we asked him what had happened, he just shook his head and said in sorrow, “How could Indira do this to me? (i.e. lie to him). She is like my elder brother’s (Nehru’s) daughter. How could she do this to me?” No anger, no harsh words for the Prime Minister– only deep sorrow.

And yet, after attending JP’s funeral, Mrs. Gandhi could write to Mrs. B. K. Nehru, “Poor JP! What a sad and confused life he led. I think he became a victim of Gandhian hypocrisy. He was forced to live the life of a celebate. Because of this and the envy he had for my father, his life and conduct took a strange turn. To say that he did not want to exercise power or the Prime Minister’s post is foolish”. What condescending drivel! Naturally, those who consider JP a ‘failure’, must consider Mrs. Gandhi a resounding success. Any way, what struck me was JP’s innate nobility, capacity to endure without submission or bitterness.

I was privileged to be with him throughout the emergency period. He came to my Trusteeship Foundation office a couple of times and attended (but did not speak) a seminar in May 1976. He was the only leader who could tell us in February 1977 that the Congress Party would be wiped out in North India and that even Mrs. Gandhi would lose. Like Gandhiji, he was a ‘moral force’. That he could not eliminate corruption in public life is not his failure but his countrymen’s.

Here was a man who wielded no power or authority, had no wealth, but innate goodness, compassion, patriotism. Yet all those with power, wealth, bowed before him.

Mr. Arvind Deshpande is Honorary Secretary of the Leslie Sawhny Programme.