K.
CHANDRASEKHARAN
Western biographies during the past three decades and more have been rejuvenated with something of a fresh absorbing interest. Either they are produced in art-form in the wake of Lytton Strachey’s method or made lively in the new-born fictional type. There are, no doubt, biographies which are yet to take to any of these modern variety; for they follow the earlier chronological narrative genre with carefully documented and illustrated material.
The
present first volume on Rajaji has conformed to the orthodox traditional
pattern of dealing with facts with enough supporting files and books, archives
of Government, press reports, brochures and pamphlets or incidents in the life
of the hero, apart from relevant personal impressions of contemporaries.
One
great merit of this endeavour in projecting the image of Rajaji without any
adventitious aids such as comments and criticisms of the writer,
is that from beginning to end you find an unvarnished account in which the Warrior
from the South is found engaged in the freedom struggle for more than half of
his long life.
The
preface to this volume is a tiny piece of explanatory note preserving a sense
of restraint which does credit to one who is a descendant of Rajaji. If culture
according to Rajaji was self-restraint, this preface wholly proves the value of
it.
The
title of the book is well-chosen and its appropriateness marks out the young
author’s discipline in writing with an awareness for
not destroying the beauty inborn to simplicity. The narration,
legitimately interwoven with episodes of Mahatmaji’s
close association, supply the needed significance in speech and action
employed by Rajaji. Often the reader may get a feeling that the disciple and
the master, as was the relationship between the two, only added to the
satisfaction that nowhere the disciple appears by contrast lacking any of the
essential traits which distinguished the Mahatma from the rest of mankind.
Every page printed here does not fail to impress how by nature and instinct
Rajaji had a heart as courageous and determinate in any step undertaken for
sacrifice as that of the saint in politics. If at all he differed from the
other it was only in his (on occasions) more supple and realistic approach to
problems.
The
beginnings of Rajaji are given with only meagre details. His capacity for freindship and his natural bent to be sympathetic and
tender towards the weak and the wronged are given briefly. The period of his
professional career, his short felicity of married life because of the
premature death of his partner, his entry into public life and his zeal for
reforms with painstaking qualities to carry out them successfully, his meeting
with the Mahatma while in Madras in his own rented residence, his wise help in Mahatmaji’s plans for starting the campaign of
non-co-operation, his imprisonment and his experiences of jail, his ability to
lead others as was witnessed in the famous Gaya
Congress, his Vedaranyam march, his quiet
constructive work in founding the Tiruchengode Ashrama, his standing for election as a candidate for the
assembly and the first opportunity for him to hold office as Premier of the
then Madras Government–all these are presented as shifting scenes before us
under captions which tell themselves the tale to follow very significantly.
He
showed the mettle of his pasture while trying to deviate from the path of orthodoxy in bringing out reforms of our society, and
never for once giving up some of the enduring principles of Hindu Dharma. Hence
if in the pre-Gandhian days he had already launched on his own initiative some
of the reforms such as drinking and untouchability-removal, it only clearly
brings out how much of an undiluted rationalist in progressive outlook he was.
In him was found a happy blending of some of the vital and viable points of
ancient culture with an easy accommodating breadth of vision guiding the future
generations to behave in a wholesome way in life.
Containing
about 342 pages of which nearly 42 are devoted to notes and references, the
volume printed very beautifully bids fair to induce readers for expecting with
eagerness the next installment of the Rajaji story. The printing and get-up are
worthy of the subject dealt with.
* A Warrior from
the South (The Rajaji Story. I): By Rajmohan Gandhi. Bharatan
Publications P. Ltd., Guindy, Madras-32.
Price: Rs. 45.
“Let
us yield to the wind of patriotism and broad-mindedness and at least on
occasion, rise up. Let us not be like stagnant water in a pool. We are not
heroes, but ordinary men. We may sometimes go down, but let us try to go up
also and maintain an average standard of patriotism and civic consciousness.”
–RAJAJI