The Nehru Report and the Road Not Taken

Speaking against the controversial 2026 Delimitation Bill, proposed in Lok Sabha under the guise of women's empowerment during a three-day special session of Parliament held in April, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra highlighted the historical roots of women's reservation in India. Reminding the house that it was Motilal Nehru who first championed the cause of women's empowerment through legislation nearly a century ago, she went on to spotlight the various initiatives taken by later Congress governments to further women's reservation. To understand the full weight of the Wayanad member of parliament's claim, one must turn to the Nehru Report of 1928, a document which was, in many ways, decades ahead of its time. 

The annual Congress session of 1927 was held in Madras (now Chennai) under the presidency of M.A. Ansari. Determined to assert India's right to self-governance, the Congress resolved to draft a 'Swaraj' Constitution in consultation with other parties. In February 1928, an All-Parties Conference met in Delhi and voted for a "full responsible government." It convened again in May and appointed a subcommittee to determine the principles of an Indian constitution. Headed by Motilal Nehru, this body came to be known as the Nehru Committee. It drew representatives from all the communities, and counted among its members Tej Bahadur Sapru, the leader of the liberals, and Jawaharlal Nehru, who served as its secretary. 

The minority question

The committee's work was anything but straightforward, faced with one of the most contentious questions of its age: what would be the position of minorities in a free and democratic India? If British autocracy was to be replaced by Indian democracy, would it hand a permanent advantage to the Hindu majority by default, as Sir Syed Ahmed had long warned? One approach to protecting minority interests was to incorporate special ' safeguards,' such as separate electorates, the election of Muslim candidates by Muslim votes and reservations.

Separate electorates were first introduced under the Morley-Minto Reforms of 1909 and were extended a decade later under the Reforms Act of 1919. The Lucknow Pact of 1916, in which Lokmanya Tilak played a pivotal role, further committed the Congress to the principle of separate electorates. By 1928, however, the Muslim political demands had grown considerably, and as B.R. Nanda noted, "The communal climate of the twenties encouraged a fantastic political arithmetic of percentages of seats and jobs, which baffled the Nehru Committee as soon as it set to work."

A blueprint for free India

Despite a great deal of hard work that went into the report, it was not easy reaching a consensus in a committee whose members diverged so widely in their views and aspirations. Though Motilal Nehru and Tej Bahadur Sapru were its principal authors, the original committee was later enlarged to include the three stalwarts of the freedom movement and former presidents of the Congress: Annie Besant, Madan Mohan Malaviya and Lala Lajpat Rai. The result, as Nanda observed was "the outline of a constitution which could be amplified and put into the form of a bill by a parliamentary draftsman." Among its recommendations, adopted at the Karachi session of Congress and ultimately enshrined in the Constitution of India, were a parliamentary system of government, adult franchise, equal rights for women, an independent judiciary with the Supreme Court at its apex, a bicameral legislature within a secular nation, the redrawing provincial boundaries on linguistic basis and the complete abolition of untouchability.

Why did the Muslim League say no?

The report was accepted by the Congress and most other parties, except for the Muslim League, led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the Aga Khan. The primary irreconcilable points of difference were: separate electorates, the vesting of residuary powers with the provinces and reservation of one-third of seats in the central legislature. Motilal Nehru was willing to accommodate minority safeguards, but he believed that a line had to be drawn so as to not undermine the very idea of common citizenship and a shared national identity. It was on this principle that he stood firmly against separate electorates. Nevertheless, the Nehru Report remained an earnest and sincere attempt by Indian leaders at finding a common ground with one another. Mahatma Gandhi aptly described Motilal Nehru as "an eminently worthy ambassador of a nation that is in need of, and in the mood to make, an honourable compromise."

The British imperial government, on the other hand, was quietly relieved that the Muslim League had not accepted the report, for had Jinnah done so, it would have cemented Hindu-Muslim unity in a way that could have fundamentally altered the history of the subcontinent, making the partition, two decades later, far less inevitable. However, such unity did not serve the British policy of 'divide and rule,' which ultimately led to the vivisection of India.

Nehru's unheeded warning

Motilal Nehru, who served as the first President of the Indian National Congress in 1919, was elected to the post again at the 1928 Calcutta session. He was the preferred choice of not only for Gandhiji, but also of Bengal's young leadership, headed by Subhas Chandra Bose and his rival J.M. Sen Gupta, both of whom enthusiatically proposed his name. In his presidential address, Motilal Nehru issued a warning on mixing religion with politics that resonates with uncomfortable accuracy today:

"Whatever the higher conception of religion may be, it has in our day-to-day life come to signify bigotry and fanaticism, intolerance and narrow mindedness... Not content with its reactionary influence on social matters, it has invaded the domain of politics and economics ... Its association with politics has been to the good of neither. Religion has been disgraced and politics has sunk into the mire. Complete divorce of one from the other is the only remedy." 

Had this warning been headed, Bengal, indeed the entire subcontinent, might never have fallen prey to the majoritarian politics and communal tensions that haunt us today.

Praveen Davar is a columnist and editor at The Secular Saviour. 

The quotations above are from B.R. Nanda's The Nehrus: Motilal and Jawaharlal.

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