How Mahatma Gandhi’s Comments in 1940 Resonate in Rahul Gandhi’s Quest for Justice
It is indeed of momentous significance that Congress party in its extended All India Congress Committee (AICC) session in Patna organised on September 24 recalled the 1940 resolution passed in the Ramgarh session of the party that year to set up a Constituent Assembly to frame a Constitution for India. That resolution represented the assertion of Congress for India’s independence from British rule and the rejection of British authorities in the UK to forcefully make India a participant in the second World War without consulting its people and leaders fighting for India’s independence.
RSS opposition
The Congress leadership, by invoking that resolution in 2025, 85 five years after it was adopted in 1940, is educating the nation how the demand for a Constituent Assembly flowed from the freedom struggle in which RSS, Hindu Mahasabha and even the Muslim League led by Jinnah never participated, remaining loyal to the British regime. It is particularly so in the context of the centenary of RSS, which, since its foundation in 1925, never accepted the anti-colonial struggle for India’s independence and even opposed the national flag when it was adopted by the Constituent Assembly. More importantly, its fierce rejection of the Constitution after it was adopted and enacted on November 26, 1949 by the Constituent Assembly is well documented.
Echo of Gandhi’s vision
Against this backdrop the Congress resolution of 1940 demanding a Constituent Assembly constituted a revolutionary act. In fact, Mahatma Gandhi who was invited to address the Ramgarh session of Congress in 1940 gave an interview to Times of India in October 1939, five months before that session commenced, and articulated the yearning of India for a Constituent Assembly and independence of our country from British rule. In that context he forcefully stated, “Independent India will not tolerate any interests in conflict with the true interests of the masses, whether the latter are known as Muslims, Scheduled Classes, Christians, Parsis, Jews, Sikhs, Brahmins and non-Brahmins, or any other”.
That essence of that profound remark of Gandhi got reflected in the ‘Resolution for Extremely Backward Class Justice’ for Bihar’ adopted by the Congress and its allies in the 2025 Patna session, among others, for enacting a law to protect extremely backward classes (EBCs) from caste atrocities, reserving 50% of government contracts for EBCs and providing land to landless Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe, Other Backward Class or EBC individuals. It formed a part of the architecture of social justice for Bahujan communities whose interests Gandhi flagged while defending the demand for a Constituent Assembly for India.
Constituent Assembly, a remedy
On November 19, 1939, in an article 'The Only Way,' Gandhi wrote about the fundamental necessity of establishing a Constituent Assembly and described it as “a remedy…for our communal and other distempers, besides being a vehicle for mass political and other education”. These comments assume greater significance when hatred and venom are spewed daily by Hindutva and BJP leaders to polarise society and divide people on the basis of faith for reaping electoral dividends.
On March 17, 1940. while attending the Ramgarh session of the Congress, Gandhi dealt with the question of how he wanted both complete independence from Britain and settlement of the question of minorities through a Constituent Assembly. Answering it he said, “My hope in desiring a Constituent Assembly is that whether the Muslims are represented by the Muslim League mentality or any other, the representatives when they are face to face with the reality will not think of cutting up India according to religions but will regard India as an indivisible whole and discover a national, i.e. Indian solution, even specially of Muslim questions.”
It clearly underlined the point that a Constituent Assembly would provide a forum for its members to come together and face the reality in a manner devoid of religious discord and acrimony. Such an approach, he hoped, would enable people to unite regardless of their faith-based identities.
That was why in his speech delivered at the Subject Committee of Ramgarh session of Congress on March 18, 1940 he went to the extent of saying that the Constituent Assembly for him meant “agreement and settlement.”
The Constitution of India framed by the Constituent Assembly represented that spirit of “agreement and settlement” and now it is being assaulted by powers that be, to demolish the architecture of unity and amity forged by Indian people. That was why the Bahujan justice flagged by Rahul Gandhi is a reminder of those ideals based on which Mahatma Gandhi conjured up the vision of the Constituent Assembly and Constitution.
Mass contact
It is instructive that he while upholding the cause of the Constituent Assembly underlined the fundamental necessity of political leaders cultivating enduring bonds with the people. “A living, continuous mass contact is impossible without some constructive programme requiring almost daily contact of the workers with the masses,” Gandhi had asserted. Now that the Constitution is imperilled, the animated contact with the masses through Bharat Jodo Yatra, Bharat Nyay Yatra and Vote Adhikar Yatra has contributed to awaken them to uphold constitutional values.
In his speech at the Subject Committee of the Indian National Congress in Ramgarh on March 18, 1940, Gandhi very sharply observed that “…getting into the Congress means getting to power”.
“Those who, therefore, never before thought of entering the Congress have come into it and corrupted it,” he bemoaned.
“Proceeding further Gandhi had asked, “And how can we prevent people from coming into a democratic organisation because they come from selfish motives?”
Therefore, his pleadings for “a living, continuous mass contact” assumes critical necessity to sustain the ideological struggle to defeat those who never accepted the Constitution and are now controlling the State apparatus to fatally attack it.
In his foreword to the 1940 publication 'Constituent Assembly and Our Demand' authored by Jai Gopal Narang, Jawaharlal Nehru wrote that there would be no real democratic freedom except through a Constituent Assembly and cautioned that its alternatives would, among others, be continuation, in a greater or lesser degree, to live under the control of the British Parliament and some kind of fascist or military dictatorship.
Eighty five years later, Nehru’s fears are playing out and we can avert the danger by saving the Constitution and the intent of the Constituent Assembly.
S.N. Sahu served as Officer on Special Duty to President of India, K.R. Narayanan.
This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.
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