As world headed to the bloodiest of all wars – World War II – the scene was rapidly changing in India. With the British leadership busy with the War – the independence movement was gaining ground. And the contours of this movement were changing rapidly.
The Aga Khan was no longer a visible face at the Race Course – having migrated to Europe. He left behind a puppet – Mohammad Jinnah.
BN was busy raking it in as the largest war supplier. In tents, he was the worlds largest. Business distractions made it difficult for him to focus on anything else.
Subhash Chandra Bose and Lala Lajpatrai had fallen out with the Bombay Gang – notably with Jawaharlal Nehru. Whilst Motilal Nehru was a respected lawyer, Nehru was not a lawyer of any standing. Bipin Chandra Pal considered him to be an intellectual of zero standing. Mohandas Gandhi was building a brand epitomised by poverty and non violence. He was inciting the poor using media as a weapon. It was an extremely frugal model. Helping him were the newly emerging media houses – Hindustan Times had been acquired by smart Maheshwari trader who had industrial ambitions – GD Birla.
The independence struggle had become a one horse race. And that one horse was the Indian National Congress. And it’s emerging leaders were Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. The emergence of Bombay as a economic hub was helping them. Tatas and Birlas were leading the gold rush to create capacity. The British mills had no capacity to sell to India. And the British Government agreed to allow Indian businessmen to build capacity.
Bombay and Surat emerged as new textile hubs. Tatas had built the Taj Hotel and Tata Steel before word war I. Now they started aggressively expanding into all kinds of areas – motors, consumer goods, textiles, even aviation. Tatas were white. The Birlas were brown – but they knew how to balance – they were in the good books of the British – yet they were supporting Gandhi. Their narrative to the British was that Subhash Chandra Bose was dangerous, Gandhi was not. Non violence did no harm. Bose would physically eliminate the British.
With the support of the Birlas and the British, the leaders supported by BN were removed from the Congress. Bose ceased to be the President of the Congress. Few remember the history of the Congress.
The Indian National Congress was founded in 1885 by Allan Octavian Hume, along with Indian leaders like Dadabhai Naoroji and Dinshaw Wacha. Early Congress leaders were moderates who sought greater Indian participation in governance through petitions and dialogue with the British. By 1937, the British were agreeable to provincial rule by the Indians. This is primarily what BN had lobbied for. And he had achieved his purpose without a drop of blood being shed or animosity.
History often forgets this milestone. And the fact that later leaders like Nehru and Gandhi had little to do with this.
