10
Central Minister of Industry and Supply, 1947–50
Dr Mookerjee’s inclusion in the central cabinet following Independence was no surprise. Having achieved the partition of Bengal and snatched away West Bengal, including the prize of Calcutta, from Jinnah’s teeth, his position as the foremost leader from Bengal was unassailable. The only other leader of comparable stature was Sarat Bose, who had been discredited in the Rameswar Banerjee incident of 1945, and was moreover in a precarious state of health. Meanwhile, in the process, Dr Mookerjee had also achieved a remarkable degree of understanding with the Congress. On 10 July 1947, the Bengal legislature elected him as the Congress nominee to the Constituent Assembly of India for framing a new Constitution for India. Dr Mookerjee’s performance in the Constituent Assembly, his political acumen, oratorical skill and mastery of parliamentary procedure won new laurels for him. His position as one of the topmost public figures, whose record of service in the cause of the country’s independence was outstanding, was also universally recognized. He had become Bengal’s undisputed leader and spokesman. It was, therefore, no wonder that his name readily occurred to the Congress leaders, who were then engaged in selecting capable people for the national government to be formed on 15 August 1947.
Gandhi’s voice, however, was very material in his selection. He was always kindly disposed towards Dr Mookerjee, and had once remarked that he wished Dr Mookerjee to be a ‘Hindu leader with a Congress bent of mind’ after the late Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya, just as ‘Patel was a Congress leader with a Hindu mind’. Prashanto Chatterji has commented in his treatise on Dr Mookerjee that Gandhi had realized that freedom had been achieved by the combined efforts of all the nationalist forces in the country and not by the Congress alone.1 He, therefore, wanted the first government of free India to be a truly national government, capable of inspiring confidence and creating enthusiasm in the whole nation. He had insisted that the first cabinet be broad-based. It was at his insistence that a number of non-Congressmen, eminent in different spheres of national life, were invited to join the cabinet. They included, besides Dr Mookerjee, Sir John Mathai, the noted economist and business magnate, Sir Shanmukham Chetty, the well-known financial expert and B.R. Ambedkar, the noted jurist and scheduled-caste leader. Whatever little hesitation Dr Mookerjee had in his having to work with Congressmen was removed by his Hindu Mahasabha colleagues, particularly Savarkar, who strongly advised him to join.
Dr Mookerjee was given the important portfolio of industry and supply. He would probably have personally preferred education which had been his special field since his early youth. That would have been in the best interests of the country as well. He could have laid a sound foundation for a truly national education policy and moulded the new generation of the country constructively, while also preparing them for an intellectual revolution which must precede any social and economic revolution. ‘But that was not to be. Maulana Azad,’ wrote Madhok,2 ‘[who] knew little about education, Indian culture or heritage, was determined to keep [the] education ministry within his grip with a set purpose.’ Syama Prasad’s experience as finance minister of undivided Bengal and his general grasp of things were also determining factors. This assignment gave Dr Mookerjee an opportunity to lay the foundation of India’s industrial policy and prepare the ground for the nation’s industrial development in the years to come. Madhok says, ‘The loss to education and cultural life was thus a gain to the economy and industry.’
His record as minister for industry and supply for the two and a half years he remained in office amply justified the faith and trust that had been put in him. He brought his solid intellectual grasp and realistic understanding of the problems of industrialization in a predominantly agricultural country to bear upon the task entrusted to him. His experience, first as a chief executive of Calcutta University, the biggest employer of top intellectuals and scientists at the time, and then as finance minister of undivided Bengal, stood him in good stead. He carried no major ideological baggage and, therefore, could handle the task entrusted to him with refreshing realism. His intellectual prowess, mental alertness and rocklike integrity evoked spontaneous respect and fullest cooperation from the British-trained civilians. Even his political opponents praised the way he handled the industrial problems and formulated policies in independent India’s most formative years.
Before we look at his performance in governance as a minister in the very first central cabinet of independent India, we have to look at two serious problems in other fields that beset him around this time. One of these was purely political—it involved his relationship with his party, the Hindu Mahasabha, that he had been associated with for the last nine years. The other problem was intensely personal. It involved a serious illness of his youngest child and daughter Arati, also called Hasi.
According to Dr Mookerjee’s perception of the political scenario that followed Independence and Partition, the Mahasabha could no longer play the part of a staunchly Hindu political party that it did before Partition. For, its role before Partition was dictated to a great extent by its obligation to oppose and expose the misdeeds of the Muslim League and carry on a political struggle for the protection of Hindus from the onslaughts of the League, something the Congress did not or would not do. Moreover, the electorate was communally divided by an unjust award, and the Muslims in some cases got an improper advantage. Now that the antagonist, namely the Muslim League, was gone, the communal electorate was gone, and the party had been unsuccessful in preventing the partition of the country that was its principal objective, although it had succeeded in achieving the partition of Punjab and Bengal, which was its fallback position, Dr Mookerjee wanted the Mahasabha not to be restricted to Hindus alone and to work as a political body for the service of the masses. Savarkar did not agree, and the distance between them grew.
Then came the tragic day of 30 January 1948 when Nathuram Godse, a terribly misguided youth, incensed by what according to his perception was a treachery on the part of Gandhi on the country during the Kashmir hostilities, shot him dead during a prayer meeting. The country was struck dumb by pain. Although Godse was a Hindu Mahasabha member and close to Savarkar, there was no reason to believe that the leadership of the Mahasabha had anything to do with the assassination. Yet, the government had to be seen to be doing something drastic—so the party was banned and Savarkar prosecuted. Likewise, a Hindu social reform movement called the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS),3 which had nothing whatsoever to do with Godse or the assassination, was also banned. Nothing of course could be found against either Savarkar or the RSS and the government was forced to release Savarkar and lift the ban on the latter. Godse and one of his associates were hanged and a few others jailed. Dr Mookerjee unequivocally condemned the assassination.
After the banning of the party and the imprisonment of Savarkar and other leaders, those leaders of the Mahasabha who were outside prison resolved to take Dr Mookerjee’s advice to transform the party and take non-Hindus. However, in August 1949, after the release of Savarkar and the lifting of the ban on the Mahasabha, the party went back on their resolution and decided that they would continue to remain in politics. Disagreeing strongly on this stand of the Mahasabha, Dr Mookerjee resigned from all his positions in the party. He was now a leader without a party, but a cabinet minister of the Union government nevertheless.
Now on to his personal problems. While Dr Mookerjee was in New Delhi trying to grapple with his new responsibilities as a central minister, his youngest child and daughter Arati (Hasi) was suffering from frequent onsets of low fever. She had grown up to be a very pretty girl, but rather introverted and withdrawn, quite unlike her elder sister Sabita (Bua) who was a tomboy and an extrovert. Dr Mookerjee doted on the motherless child in the little time that he could find for her, but that time was very little. She must have hidden the matter of her fever from her aunt and other relatives, because when the illness was diagnosed as tuberculosis it was quite advanced, and moreover of the ‘galloping’ type, the one that becomes fatal very quickly unless treated. This was towards the end of February 1948, and Streptomycin, the ‘wonder drug’ of Dr Waksman, had not come to India as a regularly available drug––it was probably still at a trial stage.
Dr Mookerjee on being informed consulted Dr Benjamin, who was then the adviser to the Government of India on tuberculosis, then a serious and countrywide health problem. Dr Benjamin advised him to take her, without any loss of time, to the sanatorium at Kasauli (Himachal Pradesh) run by Dr Joseph which was then the best place for treating the disease in India. Dr Mookerjee air-dashed to Calcutta and telephoned Captain V. Sundaram, the pilot who used to fly the Mysore maharaja’s Dakota aircraft. Sundaram agreed, arrived at Calcutta with his wife and co-pilot Usha, and Dr Mookerjee put them up in the Grand Hotel. He also told Sundaram that he could spend the evening at an industrial exhibition that was on in the city. Sundaram says that they were accompanied to the exhibition from the hotel by a gentleman who simply introduced himself as Dr Mookerjee’s brother. When they went to the exhibition, they found that their guide was being treated with unusual deference by the organizers. He asked around and came to know that the brother was a judge of the Calcutta High Court, none other than Rama Prasad. Sundaram has written in his autobiography, An Airman’s Saga, that ‘Usha and I had never met such an unpretentious man before.’
Arati was brought in very early in the morning while still on oxygen. They made the flight to New Delhi without any problems, although there were thunderclouds on the way, and Sundaram had to climb to 4000 feet for some distance. Usha acted both as co-pilot and nurse during the flight and reported that the patient was doing quite well. Arati was whisked away by ambulance to Kasauli from Safdarjung airport. Sundaram writes further, ‘Dr Mookerjee thanked us, noting how touched he was by the attention and concern Usha had shown throughout the flight. “Usha is not only a good co-pilot, she is also a kind and gentle person,” adding that he would be paying from his personal funds for the trip, and asking us to convey his thanks to the maharaja for the loan of this beautiful plane.’
Dr Mookerjee rented a bungalow in Kasauli for his relatives to stay close to Arati, and after some months got her removed to Davos and then Leysin in Switzerland which at that time had probably the best arrangement in the world for treating tuberculosis. Meanwhile, Streptomycin came on the market and reached her. In one year, she had completely recovered from her illness and resumed a normal life. Ironically, this Streptomycin might have contributed to Dr Mookerjee’s premature death, just five years later.
Now we can return to Dr Mookerjee’s public life. Dr Mookerjee had very clear ideas on the role of private capital in India’s industrial development as also on the relationship between capital and labour. He was in favour of giving full scope to private enterprise under suitable government regulation and control, to play its part in India’s industrialization. He wanted the state to utilize its meagre resources for developing that sector of industry whose growth was essential for the defence of the country but for which private capital was not readily forthcoming. In formulating this policy, he was guided solely by a realistic assessment of the needs and circumstances of the country and not by abstract theories or dogmas, to which he had no attachment.
Apart from the basic objections to total nationalization, he was convinced that India lacked the requisite resources, experience and trained personnel to nationalize all industries and still run them efficiently. He was, therefore, opposed to loose talk about nationalization of all industries which antagonized private capital. He also knew by experience that state-managed industries had been generally working less efficiently because of lack of incentive and initiative on the part of government employees who managed them, excessive use of government rules and formalities, and top-heavy administration. He, therefore, initiated the policy of managing the state-controlled industries through corporations, organized on the lines of joint stock companies, with the government supplying the major portion or the whole of the share capital and having some of its nominees on the board of directors, together with a number of private industrialists. Over the years this became the general pattern for running public undertakings in India.
He had made his ideas on industry quite clear in a speech he delivered in Calcutta on 21 April 1948 at the annual general meeting of the Eastern Chamber of Commerce at the Grand Hotel. He was very clear that the profit motive would have to remain and play a major part in the development of the country. He rubbished the classical Marxist theory of continual class struggle by stating that for the development of industry, cooperation between capital and labour was essential, and an atmosphere would have to be created where the two camps could play complementary roles.
Dr Mookerjee’s ideas were reflected in the Government of India’s declaration of industrial policy through a resolution dated 6 April 1948. This resolution envisaged a mixed economy, with overall responsibility of ensuring planned development and regulation of industries in the national interest lying with the government. While it supported the right of the state to acquire an industrial undertaking in the public interest, it reserved an appropriate sphere for private enterprise. Industries were placed into three categories according to the part which the state was to play in their development. In the first category were arms and ammunitions, atomic energy, river valley projects and railways, which would be the exclusive responsibility of the state. In the second category were industries which would be progressively state-owned but in which private enterprises would supplement the effort of the state. These included coal, iron and steel, aircraft, telephone, telegraph, wireless, shipbuilding and mineral oils. The third category would include all remaining industries, for example, fertilizers, cotton and woollen textiles, paper and newsprint and so on, which were left open to private enterprise, subject to regulation and control by the government. The coordination of cottage and small-scale industries was also recognized to be a part of the central government’s responsibility. Between 1948 and 1950, the All India Handicrafts Board, the All India Handloom Board and the Khadi and Village Industries Board were set up to supply the much-needed organization and finance required by cottage and small-scale industries to survive and develop. In July 1948 was established the Industrial Finance Corporation of India (IFCI) which was a government-sponsored institution acting as an investment banker, collecting private savings on government guarantee of repayment and distributing them in the form of advances and long-term loans to industrial borrowers.
In accordance with the government’s industrial policy, the Chittaranjan Locomotive Works (at Chittaranjan, West Bengal), the Hindustan Aircraft Factory (Bangalore), the Sindri Fertilizer Factory (Sindri, Bihar) and the Damodar Valley Corporation, the four most successful and gigantic governmental ventures, were conceived and organized by Dr Mookerjee.
As part of a plan to achieve self-sufficiency in locomotives, early in 1948 the government started at a cost of Rs 15 crore a factory to manufacture steam locomotives at Chittaranjan in West Bengal. The first India-made locomotive from assembled parts, named Deshbandhu, was produced in 1950. The workshop was originally designed to produce 120 locomotives and fifty spare boilers a year.
Hindustan Aircraft Limited was promoted by Walchand Hirachand in December 1940 in association with the Government of Mysore at Bangalore. During 1947–48, the Board of Directors was reconstituted with the minister of industry and supply, Government of India, as the chairman and the dewan of Mysore as the vice chairman. The factory, which was reformed into a limited company, undertook the assembly and manufacture of Vampire Jet Fighters for the Indian Air Force, built HT 2 (a trainer aircraft for civilian and defence purposes) and manufactured all-steel rail coaches for the Indian Railways, and bus bodies for various state and private transport authorities.
Dr Mookerjee also conceived the plan of establishing a steel plant at Bhilai, 16 miles west of Raipur and 9 miles to the east of Durg in the Central Provinces (later renamed Madhya Pradesh). His dream was fulfilled in 1955 when an agreement for the Bhilai steel plant with Soviet assistance came up, preceded and followed respectively by the Rourkela and Durgapur plants in Orissa and West Bengal. It was again during his tenure as industry minister that the first steps for the manufacture of newsprint were initiated by establishing National Newsprint and Paper Mills Ltd in Nepanagar, Central Provinces, which went into production in 1954.
The idea of establishing a large-scale fertilizer factory, in the context of the grave shortage of foodgrains and the expanding population, goes back to the twilight years of the British Raj in India. The idea came to fruition after Independence, particularly in view of a world shortage of chemical fertilizers. Sindri in Bihar, a small village situated on the banks of the River Damodar about 14 miles downstream from Dhanbad, was ultimately selected. To the plan to produce 3,50,000 tonnes of ammonium sulphate was added 1,05,000 tonnes of cement per annum from the by-product, calcium carbonate, and to build a thermal power plant, not only to feed the plant but also to supply 20,000 kW to the Bihar grid. It was largely due to Dr Mookerjee’s dynamic leadership that this vast and most modern factory went into production in October 1951. This was in accordance with the starting date anticipated in December 1947, although by that time, Dr Mookerjee had resigned from the ministry. Because this was one of the very first factories set up by the government,4 a lot of bureaucratic wrinkles had to be smoothed out by him. He did all this very well, exhibiting great innovativeness in the process.
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) of the USA, set up during the depression years of the 1930s, provided to the world a model for governmental enterprise through public works. Another of its striking features was ensuring cooperation among the various states in the Tennessee valley in a country like the USA where every state guards its rights very zealously and where any venture by the government is looked upon askance. The multipurpose Damodar River Valley Project, which was modelled after, but was far more complicated than the TVA, is another outstanding achievement of Dr Mookerjee. Its need had been particularly felt after a devastating flood on the Damodar River in 1943. Besides creating other disasters like tremendous loss of life and property, it had severed the main line of the East Indian Railway which was essential for the war effort. A joint venture of the central government and the provincial governments of Bihar and West Bengal, it was an enterprise owned and managed by a public corporation. The Damodar Valley Corporation Act, which received the governor general’s assent on 27 March 1948, established a corporation for the development of the Damodar Valley in Bihar and West Bengal. The objectives behind this act were quite a few: flood control, irrigation, hydel and thermal power, internal water transport, afforestation, prevention of soil erosion, optimizing use of land, resettlement of displaced population, sanitation and public health measures, and economic and social welfare of the people.
It was again during his ministership that the Hirakud Dam Project on the River Mahanadi near Sambalpur in Orissa was initiated in 1948 to harness the river and provide irrigation to 67,00,000 acres of land in Sambalpur and Balangir districts of western Orissa. Up to June 1950, only preliminary work relating to land, buildings, roads and railways, powerhouse and workshop was completed. The dam, completed in 1957, also supplied power to Rajgangpur cement factory and vast areas of backward western Orissa.
From 21 September to the third week of October 1948, he undertook a whirlwind tour of the USA, the UK, Switzerland, France, Belgium and the Netherlands to discuss matters relating to the fertilizer factory at Sindri and the projected new steelworks, to consider imports of American and British steel and the extent to which purchase by foreign agencies should be replaced by the local agents of foreign manufacturers and suppliers. Through the tour, Dr Mookerjee also meant to recruit superior personnel for Hindustan Aircraft Limited and a cotton textile expert in connection with the newly started Textile Research Institutes.
The same consideration of the wider national good, which prompted him to delve deep into the diverse aspects of his ministerial work and advocate a policy of cooperation and coordination between the private and public sectors, guided his approach to the question of industrial labour. One result of this was the Factories Act of 1948, which followed the suggestions of the Rege Committee appointed during the Second World War to inquire into the conditions of industrial labourers in India and was modelled on the British Factories Act of 1937. The new Act was the first to codify the old international principle that no worker should be employed on any industrial process without making elaborate provisions regarding his safety, health and welfare.
Dr Mookerjee addressed a letter to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, home member, central cabinet, in which he contended that although ordnance factories were vital links in India’s defence system, European officers, many of them strongly reactionary and intensely prejudiced, were practically controlling the administration and management of these factories, which gave them the power to frustrate national interests of overriding importance. He called upon Patel to devise some means for dispensing with every temporary non-Indian war recruit as soon as possible so that the ordnance factories, then the only department where there was a preponderant strength of European personnel, might be saved in a manner conducive to India’s interests. He also argued that the policy of orientation of ordnance factories to civilian production on a mass scale could best be carried out by men whose national interests were essentially bound up with the success of the scheme, not by men whose stake was nil and interest, at best, half-hearted.
Dr Mookerjee’s work as industry and supply minister also included solving problems that an industry might face and ensuring its development. One such was that of the matches industry, which owed its origin in India in 1926 to Swedish enterprise. In addition to match-producing factories at Ambarnath, Madras, Bareilly, Calcutta and Dhubri, all owned and run by the Swedish combine called Wimco, there were about 200 small cottage factories making matches by hand, mostly in the Sivakasi area of Madras (now Tamil Nadu). With the major factories producing the bulk of the total output, the cottage factories complained about their critical condition on account of the severe competition from the former and the loss of West Pakistan markets due to Partition. The grievances put forward by the south Indian cottage match manufacturers were mostly redressed by giving considerable relief in excise duty on handmade matches, making sufficient provision for the import of the required raw materials like potassium chlorate, sulphur and phosphorus and facilitating transport for the small-scale producers to move their goods to reach all destinations.
Dr Mookerjee had, during his period of ministership, devoted great attention to the woollen handloom, cotton textile and cotton handloom industries. His objective was to make available all government assistance so that the industries could stand on their own feet and thereafter flourish on a commercial basis. With respect to the woollen handloom industry which, among other tasks, was producing blankets, carpets, tweeds, shawls, scarfs, socks, pullovers, jerseys and, in the process, serving the needs of the defence services and the export trade as well, he ensured that the largest possible number of their workers were brought under the umbrella of cooperative societies. The cotton handloom industry was also languishing. It employed some twenty-five lakh weavers, but had been plagued by shortage of yarn during the war. Additionally, after Independence, it lost the markets in the areas that had now become Pakistan and Burma. To gain some fresh export markets, Dr Mookerjee arranged for samples to be sent to the trade commissioners abroad. Provincial and state governments using cotton cloth were also prevailed upon to use handloom. The Railways were persuaded to give concessions in freight. The government also set up a Central Institute of Cottage Industries at Harduaganj, near Aligarh, for the training of instructors and master-weavers in better techniques of production and new designs.
The last memorable achievement of Dr Mookerjee as the industry and supply minister was the development of the cotton textile industry, which was more than 150 years old and occupied the foremost place among India’s organized industries, generating an estimated Rs 127 crore in capital and providing employment for 7,00,000 workers in 1938–39. It produced about 4737 million yards of cloth and 1614 million pounds of yarn annually, valued at about Rs 450 crore. By November 1949, new mills were installed and twelve mills were under erection, following acceptance by the British Indian government of the report (November 1945) of a committee appointed to prepare a plan for the development of the Indian cotton textile industry, to have the total weaving capacity of 6437 million yards of cloth a year. However, the price of mill-made cloth was still unconscionably high. A new textile policy was announced by Dr Mookerjee at a press conference in New Delhi on 30 July 1948, which envisaged reimposition of control over the price, production and distribution of cloth so as to supply the public with adequate quantities of cloth at reasonable prices. It froze the stocks of some 400 textile mills, on which ad hoc prices were proposed to be stamped. Sale of unstamped cloth held by wholesalers and retailers was permitted up to 31 October. The central, provincial and state governments assumed powers to requisition cloth from wholesalers and dealers at prices considered fair by them.
While working as the minister of industries, Dr Mookerjee had also to contend with a most unfortunate trait present among Indians: that of regional chauvinism. In a secret letter to Dr Mookerjee dated 1 December 1948, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru said that there was considerable talk in the Constituent Assembly and among the general public about the former converting his ministry into a ‘miniature’ Bengal. He invited Dr Mookerjee’s comments on the matter. Nehru forwarded a copy of a letter from a member of the Constituent Assembly regarding his ministry. It is important to note that the complaint was not that he was favouring West Bengal in regard to establishing industries there or creating more employment opportunities for the Bengalis, but merely that he was running his ministry mostly with Bengali officers. Petty-mindedness of sick minds can descend to unfathomable depths indeed.
In reply, in a similarly secret letter to Nehru dated 4 December 1948, Dr Mookerjee wrote that the letter made a general reference to the ‘highly unsatisfactory administration’ of his ministry and to the ‘lack of achievement of anything tangible’ by it, without mentioning anything specific or pointing at anything in particular by way of details. On the other hand, those who were in touch with his ministry––officials and non-officials coming from all parts of India and even abroad––had paid compliments regarding the work done by the ministry. The only specific matter which the writer referred to in the letter as ‘sins of commission’ on his part related to the appointment of Bengalis in his ministry. This was factually wrong. The statement that ‘seven out of eight heads of Departments in his Ministry were Bengalis’ since Dr Mookerjee took charge was ‘amazingly incorrect’, as Dr Mookerjee put it. The three most important offices in his ministry were those of Secretary and two Joint Secretaries, who practically controlled the entire administration––and all three were south Indians. The two next important posts of director general, industry and supply, and director general, disposals, were held respectively by Dr J.C. Ghosh, a Bengali who was selected with cabinet approval, and Sivasankar, a south Indian who was selected by Dr Mookerjee. Of the next three important officials, the textile commissioner was a Bengali who was promoted from the office of joint textile commissioner, which he held with great credit before Dr Mookerjee became a minister; the iron and steel controller was a Parsee; and the coal commissioner was S.K. Sinha, a retired ICS officer, who was also selected with cabinet approval. He asserted that no partiality had been shown to anyone merely because he happened to be a Bengali. He enclosed a short note regarding the method of appointments to officers’ posts followed in his ministry, which was presumably similar to the procedure followed in other ministries as well. He had no occasion to reject any recommendation of the Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC) and of the selection board attached to the home ministry. It was with the concurrence of the cabinet that the special appointments of Dr J.C. Ghosh and S.K. Sinha (retired from the ICS) were made. In most other cases, postings were made on the recommendations, based on seniority as a rule, of a departmental promotions committee within the ministry and the question of arbitrary provincial bias did not arise. Temporary posts, which had to be filled in, on an ad hoc basis, went almost invariably to refugees from West Pakistan, whereas only a few refugees from East Pakistan were selected. In fact, Dr Mookerjee had many complaints on this count from Bengalis. He added that the selection board could draw upon the West Bengal government to a larger extent than other provinces because it came to have a surplus of non-Muslim officers after the partition.
Dr Mookerjee also enclosed two separate notes relating to the appointments of two Bengalis, D.N. Mukherjee as salt controller and M.K. Sengupta as general manager of Hindustan Aircraft Ltd, Bangalore, described as ‘a first-rate scandal’ in the letter forwarded by Nehru. In both notes he totally rubbished the allegations which were apparently based on hearsay and were contrary to facts. In the notes, he explained how each appointment had been made from among competent officers, strictly in accordance with established procedure and after due consultations with related officers.
Now that the question of provincial bias on the part of ministers had been raised, Dr Mookerjee requested Nehru to immediately call for a statement showing a complete list of appointments to all higher posts made in all ministries since 15 August 1947, detailing the procedure adopted in each case and also the percentage of persons belonging to various provinces. In his utmost anxiety to fairly and equitably represent all the provinces within the ministry, he had specially requested provincial governments to spare the services of some competent officers, but in most cases they failed to oblige. Regarding his own ministry, Dr Mookerjee offered to meet such members of the Constituent Assembly and others who had approached Nehru over the matter and satisfy anyone, who kept an open mind, regarding both the method of recruitment and the qualifications of the candidate selected. When one of his colleagues was the victim of an unfair attack of this character that was injurious not only to the minister concerned but also to the government as a whole, he looked forward to getting full protection from his Prime Minister.
Barely a year after Dr Mookerjee rebutted this complaint to the effect that partiality was being shown in appointments in his ministry, he received another secret letter from Prime Minister Nehru, dated 13 February 1950, forwarding a statement regarding gazetted appointments made in the industry and supply ministry and its attached organizations from 15 August to 22 December 1949. According to Nehru, this statement indicated that the number of Bengalis appointed was very considerable in relation to the total figure and also that some of the senior appointments were of superannuated persons. While not interested in provincial or communal percentages, Nehru thought that, in view of repeated criticism, Dr Mookerjee should be careful to keep a certain balance within the parameters of merit, merit being the chief criterion. Replying to Nehru on 15 February 1950, Dr Mookerjee said he was sorry to find that the question of alleged partiality shown towards Bengalis in his ministry, effectively answered by him already, had been raised again. He then proceeded to show, with reference to records, that out of 605 gazetted appointments made between 15 July 1947 and 15 December 1949, 188 were from Bengal, 115 from Madras and the rest from elsewhere, all over India. Dr Mookerjee wanted this campaign of calumny to stop once and for all and requested Nehru to collect complete information regarding the distribution of provincial representatives under different ministries and also the procedure adopted to select them.
On another occasion, a whisper campaign was started by some interested persons about a sham transaction by some officers of the stores section of the supply department, who were alleged to have sold huge stocks of toothbrushes and combs for a paltry sum, though they were worth much more. Questions on the subject had been tabled in Parliament. Files about the whole affair, with the usual notes which admitted that stocks consist of both good and bad toothbrushes and the price fetched had been really very low, were submitted to Dr Mookerjee by the office staff at about 9.30 a.m. At about 10.30 a.m. he went to Parliament and at once began answering questions raised in connection to this. Replying to three questions, he answered that a very small price had been obtained for a large quantity of these articles, some of which were in good condition but others were so bad that they could not fetch a good price. And immediately, he produced from his pocket a number of toothbrushes which had absolutely no bristles! The members looked at these worthless articles and were at a loss to comprehend how they could be offered for sale. Officers of his own department were puzzled as to how he could equip himself with such effective materials within such a short time.
During this period Dr Mookerjee also wore two other hats. For one, he was elected the president of the Calcutta-based Maha Bodhi Society, the principal organization of Buddhists in India. Balraj Madhok, who had seen Dr Mookerjee at very close range, has observed that it was his firm conviction that Buddhist thought and culture could bind together the Buddhist world, particularly the South East Asian and East Asian countries with India. This culture was an essentially Indian inspiration and constituted a departure from orthodox Hindu belief in India, by not accepting the Vedas but nevertheless working within the broad framework of Hindu beliefs such as reincarnation. Dr Mookerjee felt that awareness of the thought and culture of Lord Buddha would create an abiding unity between India and the other countries, transcending any difference in the economic and political sphere. He also noted that while Buddhism had all but disappeared from its country of origin, namely India, it had been assimilated by the age-old current of Hindu culture. The fact that Buddha has been accepted as one of the ten avatars or incarnations of Lord Vishnu by the Hindus was in his belief compensating refutation of the premise that India had moved away from Buddhism.
While acting as such, he discharged an important function. He received the relics of the Buddhist saints and disciples of Buddha, Sariputta and Mahamouggallana, from Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in a colourful function organized by the society at the Calcutta Maidan in January 1949. These relics had been taken away from the ancient stupa at Sanchi, Madhya Pradesh, by one General Cunningham in 1851, sent to England and kept in the British Museum. After India’s independence, they were returned to India. Prime Minister Nehru handed them over to Dr Mookerjee, the then president of the Maha Bodhi Society of India, on 14 January 1949.
He visited Burma and French Indochina with the sacred relics. This was followed by requests from Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and Tibet (not yet annexed by the Chinese) for an opportunity to see the relics in their own land before they were re-enshrined at Sanchi. The final act of this phase of his life was in the re-enshrinement of the relics in the new vihara at Sanchi near Bhopal, capital of present-day Madhya Pradesh, in November 1952. The function was presided over by India’s Vice President and Dr Mookerjee’s old personal friend Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan. Thakin Nu, the Premier of Burma, visited Sanchi to take part in the ceremonies and told Dr Mookerjee, ‘You do not know what a great service you have rendered to my country. Your visit with the relics brought about a wonderful change in my people. They have found their soul.’
Finally, a description of this phase of Dr Mookerjee’s life would not be complete without a reference to the work he did as a member of the Constituent Assembly. One of the most memorable speeches that he made in the assembly was regarding the adoption of Hindi as the official language of the country. Dr Mookerjee was a great advocate of Hindi––which is remarkable, because a substantial part of the social class he belonged to, namely that of the Bengali middle-class bhadralok, was one of staunch anglophiles, and looked down upon Hindi (a small part of them still do). It must, however, be said in mitigation that in Bengal there was no fanaticism or violence about this anti-Hindi attitude of the type that was subsequently seen in Tamil Nadu.
Dr Mookerjee’s speech on Hindi is an example of what a balanced approach to the question should be. While advocating progressive adoption of Hindi in clear terms, he had cautioned Hindi enthusiasts not to come on too heavy and thereby damage their own cause. He had also demonstrated his keen eye for detail when advocating the use of international numerals in preference to Devanagari ones. Excerpts5 from his speech in the assembly, delivered on 13 September 1949:
India has been a country of many languages . . . Some of my friends spoke eloquently that a day might come when India shall have one language and one language only. Frankly speaking, I do not share that view . . . If it is claimed by anyone that by passing an article in the Constitution of India, one language is going to be accepted by all, by a process of coercion, I say, that that will not be possible to achieve. Unity in diversity is India’s keynote and must be achieved by a process of understanding and consent . . . Left to myself, I would certainly have preferred Sanskrit . . . Why do we accept Hindi? . . . It is for the main reason that that is the one language which is understood by the largest single majority in this country today. If 14 crores of people out of 32 today understand a particular language, and it is also capable of progressive development, we say, let us accept that language for the purposes of the whole of India, but do it in such a way that in the interim period it may not result in the deterioration of our official conduct of business or administration and at no time retard true advancement of India and her other great languages.