or authors of compromise formulae pointed the finger outwards at British
divide and rule tactics with some justification; but although they might
have claimed deliberate conspiracy on the part of the government, there
was no longer any need for a conspiracy: the structures were in place to
amplify and direct politics towards sectarianism, and the only way out was
to opt out of those structures altogether.
From 1928 to 1935, the long and tortuous process of discussing a new
Government of India Act ground on. Jawaharlal was quick to spot a trend
and to give it a description: the national movement, if there was to be one,
should not get into the pattern of discussing the details of piecemeal or
gradual constitutional reforms. It was essential that the right of a British
government to decide on the future of India must not be conceded in any
way, and to agree to discuss details would indeed be to concede that right.
In this way, the government was still able to set the agenda to which
Indians would be forced to respond. This would perpetuate a curious
theatrical game played out before an actual or imagined imperial audience,
of declaration and counter-declaration of the Indians’ fitness to rule
themselves.
Two processes were henceforth to be discerned in Indian politics.
One was that of formal politics set up and manipulated by British
governments in India and in Britain. The other sought to organise popular
movements and speak for underprivileged groups in Indian society – with
varying degrees of success. Jawaharlal, always a clearer thinker than a
decisive actor, sympathised with the latter trend even as he continually
found himself embroiled in the former; his clearest statements were
accompanied by his most compromising and ineffectual political actions.FINDING A VOICE
The Nehru Report had accepted dominion status on the basis that this
should be granted within a year, failing which the Congress would raise
the stakes and demand complete independence. That year passed without
a clear response from the government; and in Lahore, at midnight on
December 31, 1929, the Congress passed the Purna SwarajResolution- this was rendered in English as ‘complete independence’ and was,
henceforth, to be the goal of the Congress as an organisation. This was
Jawaharlal’s resolution from two years before; now, as Congress president,
he had his way. On January 26, 1930, ‘Independence Day’ was celebrated
64 ‘INEFFECTUAL ANGEL’, 1927–39