As a responsible citizen of India, all I can tell the 1.5 billion people of this nation in chaos is ‘Jagtey Raho’.

By 1946, it was a foregone conclusion that India would get its freedom from the British Raj and that a ‘transfer of power’ was imminent. The British would quit India and expect a government of Indian leaders to administer the independent country. Since Congress was the political party of prominence, it had to step into the shoes of governance.

In April–May 1946, the Indian National Congress held an internal election for its party president, who would automatically head the Interim Government that was set to negotiate the transfer of power with the British.

The “Votes” were nominations, not a ballot count in this election process giving representation and power to all the provincial Congress committees (PCC).

The major regional and provincial committees active within the Indian National Congress organisational structure at that time included:

• Madras
• Bombay
• United Provinces (UP)
• Bihar
• Orissa
• Central Provinces
• Assam
• Bengal
• Punjab
• North-West Frontier Province (NWFP)
• Sindh
• Ajmer-Merwara
• Karnataka
• Maharashtra
• Gujarat

This was a fair geographical division, covering the entire continent of Bharat at that time.

Twelve of these fifteen provincial committees voted, and three abstained.

Out of roughly 15 provincial committees, the majority of formal nominations went to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (total 12 out of 15), which was 80%! None of the regional committees officially put forward Nehru’s name, and he was at 0%. This was a total knockout for Nehru!

In effect, the entire national representation was fully in favour of Sardar Patel as their leader. Therefore, Patel had ‘Prachand Bahumat ’, or an absolute majority, against Nehru, who got a BIG ZERO.

The game played thereafter- vote Chori, Seena Zori Ya karistani- or all three.

Remember there was no Election Commission of India back then; it was one man dictate- Gandhi, Gandhi and Gandhi who had a firm grip on Congress. He was the de facto chief election commissioner of Bharat.

Mahatma Gandhi did not “rig” an election, but he did express a clear preference. It wasnot rigging; it was swinging the pendulum. He moved it to another extreme. No wonder the foundation was laid on deceit.

He managed Sardar Patel emotionally.

A historical blunder

So many sane Indians will call out- ‘vote chori’.

Knowing Gandhi’s preference during a fragile historical moment, Sardar Patel chose to voluntarily withdraw his nomination. There was no violent overthrow or rigged ballot; Patel stepped down at Gandhi’s persuasion to prevent a public split in the national leadership.

Gandhi ‘believed ’that Nehru was better suited to deal with the British (just a perception, one can suppose). In fact, Nehru was his blue-eyed boy. Gandhi also knew Nehru’s temperament for sure—he was well aware that Nehru would not take kindly to playing second fiddle or serving under someone else in a cabinet. Jawaharlal Nehru was a confirmed pig-headed; it was an open secret.

होनहार बिरवान के होत चिकने पात? And this reflected in the next generations pretty well.

The situation Gandhi envisioned was that of Mamta Banerjee, who refused to resign even after a devastating defeat.

This possibly trickled down the bloodline from Indira to Rajiv to now Rahul. The sense of ‘entitlement’. Defying the system and the majority. With this, the fate of the nation was sealed for generations to come- eternity, Nehru thought. He did whatever he liked; he was never accommodating; he was strong-headed in taking every decision, often overruling his colleagues whom he thought were much inferior to him. After this ‘immoral victory’, the colour of his blood changed to blue- he became blue blooded dynast- Royal blue. He single-handedly messed up the Kashmir Issue, refused a permanent Security Council seat at the UN. These thorns are still in our flesh as if fresh wounds. The Indus Water Treaty was not even put up in the parliament, nor was it discussed with anyone. Nehru was the boss who had zero seats. Gandhi was hell-bent on giving Pakistan 50 Crore Rupees- for what? And he managed, arm-twisted the nation to give that amount.

Gandhi’s intervention had tilted the scales to secure Nehru for the top political post, while Patel took on the monumental task of unifying the country as Home Minister and Deputy Prime Minister. Some 540-plus small and big kingdoms, and convincing them to part with their ‘Raj Path’, army and wealth to join a new entity called the Union of India is hard to imagine when there were very few communication facilities.

The robbery of the surname Gandhi

As if robbing the throne was not enough, it was important to get into the skin of the man called Gandhi, who was cleverly engineered by the British and the Congress Party members to become an iconic figure- literally from Kaun to Icon.

Gandhi adopted a minimalist lifestyle, wearing a simple loincloth, riding in third-class train compartments, living in humble huts, and drinking goat’s milk. He abandoned the British pith hat and designed a “topi” of white cotton to protect himself from the sun and look ‘desi’. This was later famously called ‘Gandhi topi’.

Keeping Gandhi mobile and accessible to the masses involved substantial logistical efforts by the Indian National Congress and wealthy industrialists. This included reserving entire third-class train compartments, managing heavy security, and sourcing specific dietary items like fresh goat’s milk wherever he travelled. This was an Oscar-winning makeover specially crafted by social and psycho engineers of the Congress Party. This cost money, and a lot of it for stage management.

It was cleverly designed to democratise the independence movement and strip away elite, aristocratic barriers.

No wonder Sarojini Naidu famously remarked of Mahatma Gandhi, “It costs a lot of money to keep this man in poverty”.

Daughter, the only child of Nehru, ‘Indira Nehru’ got married to a Congress Party member, ‘Feroze Jehangir Ghandhy’. He published The National Herald and was the Managing Director of the organisation’

He later changed his name to Gandhi, supposedly out of respect. Name, of course, matters as much as ‘Kennedy’ in America. Was it by design or otherwise that this toolkit came in handy for a long, long time? And it is being flaunted by non-biological Gandhis (aka Ghandys) to this day.