Remembering Yashwantrao Chavan, Only Maharashtra Politician Who Came Close To Becoming Prime Minister

Apart from holding the four major union ministries, Yashwantrao Chavan almost became the Prime Minister of India.

He was the first Chief Minister of the Western state of Maharashtra. He was the fifth Deputy Prime Minister of India. He holds the record of being the only Maharashtrian leader who held the 4 most important portfolios in the Union government: Home, External Affairs, Defence and Finance. Yashwantrao Chavan, often referred as the architect of modern Maharashtra, passed away on this day in 1984.

Early life

Yashwantrao Chavan was born in a Kunbi-Maratha family on 12 March 1913 in the village of Devrashtre in Satara District (now in Sangli District) of Maharashtra, India. He had three siblings. Chavan lost his father in his early childhood and was brought up by his uncle and mother. His mother taught him about self-dependency and patriotism. From his childhood he was fascinated by the freedom struggle of India.

Chavan was an active participant in the struggle for independence of India. As a schoolboy in Karad in 1930, he was fined for his participation in the Non-cooperation Movement led by Mahatma Gandhi. In 1932, he was sentenced to 18 months in prison for hoisting the Indian flag in Satara.

In 1938, after obtaining his B.A. degree in history and political science, he joined Law College of Pune. After obtaining his law degree (LLB) in 1941, he started practice as a criminal lawyer at Karad.

Association with Congress and freedom movement

During his years in college, young Yashwant was involved in many social activities and was closely associated with the Congress party and its leaders, such as Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel and Keshavrao Jedhe. In 1940, he became President of Satara District Congress.

 

Yashwantrao Chavan with the first Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

 

Gandhi made a call to Do or Die in his Quit India speech delivered in Bombay on 8 August 1942 at the Gowalia Tank Maidan. The All India Congress Committee launched a mass protest demanding what Gandhi called “An Orderly British Withdrawal” from India. Even though it was at war, the British were prepared to act. Almost the entire leadership of the Indian National Congress was imprisoned without trial within hours of Gandhi’s speech.

Chavan was one of the delegates at the Bombay session of the A.I.C.C. in 1942 that gave the call for Quit India. He went “underground” before being arrested for his participation in the movement. He spent around two years in jail, and was released only in 1944.

In 1946, Yashwantrao was first elected as Member of Legislative Assembly of the Bombay State from the South Satara constituency.

In 1957 Assembly elections, Yashwantrao Chavan was elected from the Karad constituency. This time he was elected as Leader of Congress Legislative Party, and became Chief Minister of the bilingual Bombay state.

Samyukta Maharashtra

The 1950s witnessed the Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti (United Maharashtra Movement) leading struggle for United Maharashtra with Bombay (now Mumbai) as its capital. Chavan never joined the Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti (United Maharashtra Movement) and in fact called Prime minister Nehru, who opposed formation of language based state reorganization, as “Greater than Maharashtra”.

However, after the 1957 assembly elections, though he became the CM, the Congress party suffered badly in the Marathi speaking areas to the Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti.

“A close aide of India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Chavan’s role in the emotive and violent struggle for Maharashtra’s formation is seen as contentious, but also key in ultimately creating the state on linguistic grounds,” wrote Manasi Phadke for The Print.

 

Jawaharlal Nehru, Yashwantrao Chavan and Sri Prakasa unveiling a map of the new state of Maharashtra at Raj Bhavan, Mumbai, on 1 May 1960.

 

However, Chavan must not had imagined that his efforts, though contentious, towards separation of Maharashtra and Gujarat would come back to harm his prospects of becoming the Prime Minister of India in the future.

National politics

After the resignation of Krishna Menon as Defense Minister in 1962 in the wake of India-China Border Conflict, Yashwantrao was given that portfolio by Prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru. He handled this serious job well and took several decisions to empower the armed forces and negotiated, along with Pandit Nehru, with China to end the hostilities. He also held the Defense portfolio in the Lal Bahadur Shastri Government during the Indo-Pakistan War of September 1965, which India won.

Yashwantrao Chavan had become a fairly popular politician across the country, as he helped the country recover from the 1962 embarassment of China war and led to the victory in 1965 war against Pakistan. Chavan had accompanied then Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri to Tashkent in Uzbekistan for the peace agreement between two countries, famously called as the Tashkent declaration. After signing the agreement, Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri died mysteriously in Tashkent.

Almost Prime Minister

Chavan returned to India with PM Shastri’s body, narrated Sharad Pawar in a recent interview to Marathi daily. Sharad Pawar, who himself is a veteran leader in both state and national politics, has often referred to Yashwantrao Chavan as his Guru. Chavan had a long-lasting imapact on Sharad Pawar and was influenced by the leader since his early age.

“Many influential people in the country had started projecting Chavan’s name for the Prime Minister’s post. Several Congress chief ministers had told the party that they support Chavan’s nomination for the top job. We were at his Delhi home. All tall leaders from Maharashtra were present and it was decided that Chavan will go on to become the next Prime Minister,” Sharad Pawar said.

“But Chavan insisted that he’d call Indira Gandhi first to ask her about the same, since she had helped Chavan convince PM Nehru during the Samyukta Maharashtra movement. He had great regards for Indira Gandhi but I was against this decision. I was of an opinion that Chavan gathered all the support and then told Indira Gandhi that he is ready to acquire the Prime Ministerial post,” Pawar added.

“He called Indira Gandhi. She told him that she will get back to him in some time. When she called back, she told Chavan that she was willing to take the responsibility of the top post if he gave his support. Chavan could not deny,” said the NCP chief.

 

Yashwantrao Chavan with former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

 

Important roles

On 14 November 1966, he was appointed Home Minister of India by Prime minister, Indira Gandhi. Though he was a part of the Congress split in 1969 over the presidential vote to Sanjeeva Reddy. However, after voting against the will of Indira Gandhi, he shifted his ground and supported her.

On 26 June 1970, she appointed him the Finance Minister of India. During his term, Indian economy went into recession for the first time since 1966 and real GDP growth fell by 0.55% in 1972.

He was appointed as the Foreign Minister on 11 October 1974. In June 1975, an Internal State of Emergency was declared in India by the Indira Gandhi Government.

In the subsequent general elections 1977, the Congress was routed with the party leader and Prime minister, Indira Gandhi herself losing her parliamentary seat. Therefore in the new Parliament, Chavan was elected the Congress Party Parliamentary leader. As Congress now the biggest opposition party, he became the Leader of opposition.

Towards the end

However, in 1978, the Congress party split in two groups namely Congress (Indira) and Congress (Urs). While the former was led by Indira Gandhi, the latter was led by Devaraj Urs, powerful Chief Minister of Mysore.

Yashwantrao Chavan’s political career suffered a major setback following his decision to move away from Indira Gandhi. Devaraj Urs himself soon joined the Janata Party, following which the Congress(Urs) was renamed the Indian Congress (Socialist). Yeshwantrao was appointed as Home Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of India in the short-lived cabinet of Prime Minister Charan Singh in 1979.

It was the last political post that he held. After the Indira fraction won the 1980 general elections, Chavan, who was the only MP of Congress (S), was allowed to return to Indira fraction after 6 month wait.

In 1982, he was appointed the Chairman of the 8th Finance Commission of India. He died in 1984.

Yashwantrao Chavan, by far, remains the most successful politician from Maharashtra. Apart from holding the four major union ministries, he almost became the Prime Minister of India. However, at the end, he had to be satisfied with the short term as Deputy Prime Minister in the latter half of his life.

Since then, no politician from Maharashtra has ever come close to the top political post, barring few efforts by Chavan’s disciple Sharad Pawar. Unfortunately, Pawar could never gather the amount of support Chavan enjoyed across the ranks. It’s a pity that Maharashtra, the wealthiest and highest tax-paying state in the country, has not sent a single Prime Minister to Delhi in 74 years.

 

Yashwantrao Chavan with Sharad Pawar.