month of spinning in Naini Prison completed today [May 26, 1930].
Have spun 8,520 yards during this period.’^9
Observing events as best he could from his cell, Jawaharlal was still
actively thinking on political issues. The civil disobedience movement,
he felt, must be carried on to the end – otherwise it would be a wasted
effort. He made notes on the constitutional proposals being discussed:
‘Federation – social change far more difficult than ever now. Nothing
but a bloody revolution will then be able to bring it about.’^10 The
proposed federation was weighted in favour of ‘stability’ through the
princely states appointing their own representatives alongside the elected
representatives (though on a limited property franchise) of the British
Indian provinces.
This was to be Motilal’s last campaign against British rule. Released
from prison on September 8, 1930, after ten weeks in prison due to
ill health (despite his protests that he would not accept special treatment),
he died not long afterwards. Jawaharlal was released on 26 January, 1931,
and was able to spend a few last days with his father. The Congress
Working Committee was meeting in Allahabad, at the Nehrus’ house
that was now also the headquarters of the Congress; many Congressmen
came to see the old man who they knew they would not see again. ‘There
he sat,’ Jawaharlal recalled, ‘like an old lion mortally wounded and with
his physical strength almost gone, but still very leonine and kingly.’
Motilal died at a Lucknow hospital on February 6, 1931. The loss of
Motilal affected Jawaharlal strongly; father and son had drawn closer than
ever before. ‘I found it difficult to realise that he had gone,’ Jawaharlal
noted; he believed that it was ‘the wonderfully soothing and healing
presence of Gandhiji’ that saw him and his family through those difficult
times.^11
A few weeks later Gandhi – again – called off the movement. He
had agreed to discuss constitutional reforms with the viceroy in February,
and by March 5 he had unilaterally suspended civil disobedience.
Circumstantial evidence points clearly to the fact that he was under
pressure from businessmen: a deal at this stage might secure benefits,
whereas the disorder created by the movement was disrupting business
conditions. Jawaharlal recalled a sense of déjà vuat this second disap-
pointment. ‘This is the way the world ends,’ he was to wryly observe,
quoting T.S. Eliot, ‘not with a bang but with a whimper.’^12 Had his father
been alive, he was heard to say, such a situation would not have arisen
‘INEFFECTUAL ANGEL’, 1927–39 71