V. V. S. Aiyar and Duggirala Gopalakrishnayya

A Study in Comparison

Dr. D. ANJANEYULU

Thomas Carlyle, who lived wholly in the 19th century England, spoke eloquently of the Hero as a Poet, the Hero as a Politician, etc. Had he lived in 20th century India, at least in the first part of the 20th century, he might well have discoursed even more eloquently on the Hero as a Patriot. There were literally hundreds of those who would qualify themselves for this description in almost every part of India, before the advent of Mahatma Gandhi on the Indian scene, as well as after it.

Among them, there were some, much the larger in number, who took a plunge in the Freedom struggle, under the leadership of the Mahatma. They included those like Nehru and Azad, Sardar Patel and Rajendra Prasad, Sarojini Naidu and Dr. Pattabhi, Rajaji and Kripalani, who were destined to play a major role, in the years after Independence. Mohammed Ali in U. P., Sen Gupta in Bengal and Duggirala Gopalakrishnayya in Andhra, among others, were snatched away, almost in their prime, before they could see the dawn of freedom and probably rise to greater heights.

In Tamil Nadu, three heroic figures come before our mind’s eye in this connection. They are: V. O. Chidambaram Pillai, Subramania Bharati and V. V. S. Aiyar. The source of their inspiration, in all these cases, was earlier than the movement initiated by Mahatma Gandhi. While all of them were fiery patriots, the first was a pioneer in shipping, the second a poet and the last a revolutionary and a man of letters. Aiyar was a man of letters as well as a man of action, a translator and interpreter of the classics as also a creative writer, a journalist and an educationist, rather a path-breaker in the realm of education. He was a man with a mission and a man with a vision. He died before he could complete his mission or realise his vision.

For some reason, or another, maybe thanks to the chosen field of his activity or the language and literature, to whose cause he dedicated himself, V. V. S. Aiyar is better known in Tamil Nadu than in the rest of India. While he wrote copiously in Tamil, he has at least two major works in English to his credit–The Kural or The Maxims of Tiruvalluvar and Kamba Ramayana: A Study (now available in the Book University Series, published by the Bharatiya Vifya Bhavan). Even so, one is not sure if they had been able to attract the attention of the non-Tamil readers, at least as adequately as they might be expected to do. For which, one has to examine one’s own taste in serious reading.

Before giving my personal response to these two works available in English, I would like to draw a comparison between the life and personality of V. V. S. Aiyar and his younger contemporary from Andhra, Duggirala Gopalakrishnayya. Aiyar was born on April 2, 1881 and died in June 1925 at the age of 44. Gopalakrishnayya was born on June 2,1880 and died sometime in June 1928, when he was just 39.

Even in the early course of their careers, there was some similarity. While Aiyar became a First Grade Pleader, then went to Burma and later to England for being caned to the Bar, Gopala krishnayya, while studying at the Andhra Christian College at Guntur, came in contact with a group of young men which managed to go to England for higher studies. He was able to reach England, with the help of an affluent friend, Mr. N. V. L. Narasimha Rao, who became a barrister and played a leading part in the local politics of Guntur town in the 1930’s.

Though he had completed his legal studies in London, Aiyar could not be called to the Bar, because of his refusal to take the oath of loyalty to the Crown. Apart from his revolutionary activities in London and elsewhere, after his association with V. D. Savarkar and other intrepid young souls of the Abhinava Bharat, Aiyar, always a compulsive scholar in quest of knowledge, was able to improve his knowledge of religions like Sikhism and Islam, along with his familiarity with the lives of freedom-fighters like Mazzini, Garibaldi and Cavour (of Italy) as also the personality of Napoleon, to whom he was particularly drawn.

During his five years’ stay in England, Gopalakrishnayya studied History and Economics at the University of Edinburgh and kept some terms at the Inns of Court in London, though he did not complete them for being qualified to be called to the Bar. Unlike most Indians of the day, who were apt to become too westernised, Gopalakrishnayya was driven by the contact with the West to a re-discovery of the traditional values and art forms of India. He was particularly fond of the Harikatha and Burrakatha, including the Bobbilikatha, and other heroic ballads peculiar to Andhra. Apocryphal stories have survived of his Harikatha performances on the banks of the Thames and the Rhine, with commentary in English, for supplementing his meagre financial resources.

After his return to India, Aiyar spent about ten years in Pondicherry, a place within the orbit of the mystic influence of Sri Aurobindo. He enjoyed the stimulating friendships of fellowpatriots like Subramania Bharati and the Mandyam Brothers, Srinivasacharya and others. He continued to disseminate revolutionary literature from his hideout in Pondicherry till the end of the First World War. He was also busy with his literary work, covering the English translation from the Kural and the life of the American Negro educationist, Booker T. Washington.

During his stay in Edinburgh in 1915, Gopalakrishnayya happened to make the acquaintance of the great scholar and savant, Dr. Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, who accepted him as his disciple and was responsible for shaping his outlook on Indian nationalism in all its basic aspects. It was Coomaraswamy again, who spoke to him of Gandhi as “the coming man of India.” They shared many common interests, covering the plastic and performing arts of India and the result of their fruitful collaboration could be seen in The Mirror of Gesture, which was a translation of Nandikeswara’s Abhinaya Darpana (by A. K. Coomaraswamy and G. K. Duggirala).

Leaving Pondicherry, sometime in 1920, after the general amnesty, following the end of the First World War, Aiyar found himself in Madras, as Editor of the Tamil daily, Desabhaktan, started by M. S. Kamath (founder of the Sunday Times Weekly), who was an ardent follower of Mrs. Besant. It was during his tenure as Editor that he had to undergo a prison sentence on a charge of sedition for a leading article not written by him, but for which he had to bear liability as declared editor. He had, however, severed connection with the paper soon, following change in the management. Aiyar had already come under the influence of Mahatma Gandhi and had accepted his non-violent methods, having already given up his faith in political liberation through violent means.

On his return to India in 1917, Gopalakrishnayya, who also had no private means to fall back upon, did some job-hunting for a time. Finally, he succeeded in getting into the Madras Educational Service and was posted as a Lecturer in History and Economics at the Govt. Training College in Rajahmundry. By his natural eloquence and nationalist leanings, and his unconventional ways, he proved more popular with the students than with the authorities of the college. He soon clashed with the British Principal, who was exasperated with his attitude of defiance, added to an incurable allergy to punctuality. “We, Indians, don’t measure time by minutes or hours but by eternity,” he is supposed to have retorted, on being questioned about his being late by an hour or so.

When the college gates were closed, after the scheduled hour one day, on the Principal’s instructions, Gopalakrishnayya is reported to have scaled the compound wall, to enter the campus, to the merriment of the boys and the anger of the authorities. The parting of ways after an uneasy spell of nine months was, therefore, inevitable.

He had also by that time come under the influence of the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi. After quitting Government service, he was, for a brief while, on the teaching staff of the Andhra Jateeya Kalasala, Machilipatnam, the institution of national education, founded by Kopalle Hanumantha Rao, with the cooperation of Dr. Pattabhi, Mutnuri Krishna Rao and others. But this too was short-lived.

Gopalakrishnayya’s approach to the subject of national education and method of teaching were found to be too radical even for those tried patriots, in charge of the institution. Fearing that the institution might attract the unwanted attention of the British Government, the management threw a broad hint that he was no longer wanted. He quit it and was a free man again.

One of the great influences on Aiyar’s imagination was the classic of Kamban, for which his mind, with its classical training, provided a fertile ground. He was fascinated by many of the incidents and characters, particularly “the destruction of Ravana.” It was, for him, the heart and core of the epic. Ravana looms large as an epic hero, next only to Rama in his majesty and grandeur. In the words of Aiyar himself:

“......In fact, Kamban has carved his Ravana in such proportions that no words that may be put into his mouth can be too brave or too exalted for his moral stature.”

Gopalakrishnayya was also inspired by Ramayana in his own way. He was an ardent devotee of Rama, calling himself “Ramadas”, after joining the national movement. He used to galvanize the masses by going about the streets, singing “Rama Bhajans”, along with his followers. In fact, he called his youthful followers, mostly students, “Rama Dandu” (or Rama’s army). He used them to great effect in his campaign against the Provincial Government’s move to constitute the three small towns of Chirala, Perala and Jandrapeta into a municipality in 1920-’21. With the help of his devoted band of red-robed volunteers, he led the rate-payers out of the municipal limits into the sandy fields nearby. For over nine months, a total population of nearly 15,000 lived a camp life in their palm-leaf huts. He used the Rama Dandu to run a sort of parallel government here. They also served as his volunteers at the AICC Session at Bezwada in 1921 and Gandhiji was much impressed by them. His admirers claim that he had anticipated Gandhiji’s concept of “Rama Rajya.”

In his life, Aiyar had two dreams. One was to produce a Tamil periodical to serve the Tamil language. The other was to start and run an educational institution on purely national lines, to inspire the youth and mould their ideas and rejuvenate the country’s life, which he felt was fast being denationalised. After seeing the Gujarat and Kashi Vidyapeeths and admiring Gutukul Kangri (founded by Swami Shraddhanand) and Shantiniketan (started by Rabindranath Tagore), he wanted to create one, which according to his ambition, would be “another Nalanda or Takshasila.” The result was the Tamil Gurukulam at Shermadevi in Tirunelveli District. It was comprehensive in its intent, covering moral instruction and physical education as well as teaching in academic subjects–humanities and sciences. It was an all-round exercise in self-help, with training in handicrafts.

Everything went on well for a couple of years. Unfortunately for the youth of Tamil Nadu, and the progress of national education in this region, the Gurukulam ran into trouble on an issue, which should have been only of marginal interest for the working of any educational institution. It arose out of the insignificant, even trivial (as it might now appear to us) issue, of inter-dining in the Gurukulam mess and soon assumed the proportions of a major controversy, thanks to some interested parties. Aiyar himself was a cosmopolitan in these matters, having partaken of non-vegetarian food, while in London. But, in deference to the wishes of two Brahmin donors, he had agreed to make separate dining arrangements for their boys, as an exemption from the general practice. This had provoked some non-Brahmin parents and their friends to mount a campaign to compel Aiyar to cancel the exemption.

Compulsion, even in matters of social reform, was unfair, in the view of Aiyar, who feared it might defeat the original purpose itself. But some of the non-Brahmin leaders, in control of the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee, which had promised a sizable donation to the Gurukulam, of which only half the amount was paid, blocked the other half. The matter was taken up by them to Mahatma Gandhi, then Congress President, who endorsed Aiyar’s view on compulsion, though he advised him against any further exemption. This did not satisfy the opponents of Aiyar, who threatened a wider campaign against him, and he resigned his post. Meanwhile, Kavyakantha Ganapati Muni intervened to bring about a rapprochement. But, as ill luck would have it, Aiyar died in a drowning accident, while trying to rescue his young daughter, while crossing a river. And the Gurukulam died a natural death.

As for Gopalakrishnayya, he did not actually run an educational institution. But he was not without ideas of his own on educating the youth of the land. From some of his expressed views, he would seem to have anticipated the latter-day apostles of linguistic extremism in going all out for the mother-tongue at all levels of education. He wanted to establish a “Goshti Vidya Peeth “and experiment with a university of his conception at Vadarevu, near Chirala (in old Guntur District, now in Prakasam District), where vast open spaces were available and the climate was salubrious. The required stretch of land was sanctioned by the then Divisional Magistrate (the late Mr. S. V. Ramamurty, I. C. S.), but the British Government of the day came in the way, on hearing of Gopalakrishnayya’s association with Gandhiji, whose speech at Bezwada he had translated into Telugu. So the new university was blasted in the bud, as it were.

Along with Kamba Ramayanam, Aiyar had a great love for the Tirukkural. He wanted its mellowed wisdom to be broadcast to the whole world through the English language, a world medium, then as now. His translation was admittedly modelled on the authorised English version of the Bible (also known as the King James Version). He felt that it bore a close resemblance, in style and substance, to parts of the Bible, especially, the Ecclesiasticus, the Proverbs, the Wisdom of Solomon, and the Sermons of Jesus Christ.

The following few samples from Aiyar’s simple, straight, precise rendering will do, to illustrate the point:

“The wise whose thoughts are set on the solution of great problems utter no words that are not full of deep significance.”

“They whose eyes are whole say not vain words even by oversight.”

“Speak thou only such words as are worth saying; and speak not ever words that are profitless and vain.”

Gopalakrishnayya, unlike Aiyar, was not really a man of the written word. At least, he did not leave behind him much of written work. His forte was the spoken word. He was a spellbinder in Telugu, English and Sanskrit. He could recite slokas from Leelashuka’s Krishna Karnaamrita and Ashtapadis from Jayadeva’s Gita Govinda (to the unceasing delight of thousands of listeners without the microphone). But he could be as tactless as he was witty and resourceful. He composed, impromptu a series of humorous, satirical verses, known as Chaatuvulu, in which he made fun of the high and mighty, including leading patriots, e.g. Konda Venkatappayya Pantulu, Unnava Lakshminarayana, Kasinadhuni Nageswara Rao Pantulu, Dr. Pattabhi Sitaramayya, Duvvuri Subbamma and others. Nor did he spare himself, well aware of his own Puck-like propensity for innocent pranks.

Both V. V. S. Aiyar and Gopalakrishnayya could be described as charismatic personalities, to use an expression much in vogue in contemmporary parlance. And their charisma owed nothing to the adventitious aids of official and quasi-official image-building agencies. Both of them were men of strong emotions and powerful intellect, of whose work, the best was yet to be. Aiyar, the steadier and more balanced of the two, had left a few solid examples of achievement. Gopalakrishnayya, more flashy and mercurial, proved insubstantial like the lightning or the rainbow. In their makeup, if the one was classical, the other was romantic. If the one was a scholar and critic, the other was a poet and singer.

For some peculiar reason, we do not seem to be producing comparable men of heroic stature in this country after Independence. Maybe, the throes of a nation in its struggle for freedom had brought out the best in human potentiality. Or, maybe our best men and women are now to be found elsewhere – in the fields of constructive activity – in medical aid, scientific research, in building architecture, civil engineering and economic planning. Whatever be the reason, we don’t see many among us, not even any, like V. V. S. Aiyar or Duggirala Gopalakrishnayya, both of whom might have risen higher, had they been given a longer lease of life on this planet.

Back