Nehru’s ‘Honest John’

This is a book on people who strode a bygone era. This was when the British and the Gandhi-Nehru-Patel combine selected persons of unimpeachable integrity for top jobs, regardless of their party affiliation or the lack of it. Post-Independence, the same trend continued for a while till demands of realpolitik became overbearing. But by then, John Mathai, with no political following but brilliance and the advantage of elite education, had become a footnote in the less-documented economic history of early Independent India.

John shared the same surname as the bent and bitter Mundapallil Oommen (MO), Private Secretary to PM Nehru. Their paths did cross and MO was to comment saucily on John in his two books on his tenure with Nehru. Author Bakhtiar Dadabhoy takes them up and after fact-checking MO’s observations, comments: MO was “less than a watertight source”.

MO disliked John as he did every member of Nehru’s penumbra after he quit following charges of corruption raised by the Communists. Cabinet Secretary Vishnu Sahay “was convinced that MO had compromised every file since the days of the Interim Government of India”, wrote MJ Akbar in ‘Nehru: The Making of India’. But despite his grudges, MO admitted: “…he (John) was a man of personal and financial integrity”.

John’s family church was convinced that education alone could alleviate ignorance and poverty. ‘Honest John’ (a sobriquet bestowed on him by Nehru) shone at one such school in the rural sylvan of Kerala. The father of India’s cooperative movement, Verghese Kurian, makes a fleeting appearance, but it was John who did the early field and theoretical groundwork on the cooperative movement.

The book, however, is not an iteration of his achievements, of which there were too many. As Independent India’s first Railway Minister, he grappled with the quirky as well as human dimensions of Partition.

The deeply-researched book is interspersed with backstories. Some demolish long-held notions about Nehru’s economic orientation — the first four Finance Ministers were either close to the industry (John was a Tata executive and drafted the seminal Bombay Plan) or from the Opposition, and the first two Budgets were industry-friendly.

Tedious in spots, especially on the railway budgets, the book uncovers the openness with which policymakers parsed every issue. In his letters to Nehru, the candidness was carried to the extremes, leading to John’s resignation as India’s second Finance Minister.

Nehru did not take umbrage at the openly-aired differences. John subsequently graced a string of top economic positions. Such was the drive to modernise the country that he took up what would be considered demotions. Throughout his career, from the early 20s as a member of the Madras Legislative Council, ‘Honest’ John’s forthrightness ensured that he gathered no moss. There were resignations aplenty. It was not all hunky-dory in a newly emerging India.

A bit overpriced, the book brings out other aspects, including political duels of an India inching towards Independence in the first two decades of John’s public life, followed by a decade in the service of the nation.

— The writer is a senior journalist

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