BY K. RAMAKOTISWARA RAU

The country is just now in the throes of the elections to the provincial legislatures. Some Provinces have already registered appreciable majorities for the Congress, and, judging from the press reports, yet, others may do likewise. Quite apart from the actual results of the elections, the propaganda carried on by the various parties enables large masse of voters everywhere to appraise the worth of men and methods. Political education on an extensive scale, coupled with the personal contact of the candidates with their constituents, is an important step towards Democracy. But it must be borne in mind that, even after the elections, such contact has to be maintained by countrywide organisations with definite principles and outlook. Mushroom parties which spring up on the eve of elections, and nondescript individuals who label themselves ‘Independent,’ must soon cease to be a feature of our public life. Before the next general elections, and as a result of work in the legislatures during the first term, parties may crystallize into, (1) those that stand by the Congress in its unflagging fight against autocracy, and (2) those that by temperament, or for the safeguarding of individual and class interests, ally themselves with the representatives of Britain, while nominally functioning under party designations.

Before such a clear division of parties is effected, intermediate groups will seek to gain an altogether artificial importance by holding forth, at every decisive moment, as the prospective allies of one or the other of the two leading parties. It is against this tendency that the Indian legislatures of the future have to guard themselves, for, once such a group is able to turn its position of vantage to good account, it persists group, and similar groups will always be thrown up to the surface in the seething unrest preceding every election. The power to bargain rather than the ability to serve the Nation’s interests, will become the passport to office and preferment.

It is possible to argue that the presence of groups holding a ‘middle’ view conduces to the stability of political institutions, and further, that it prevents the unhealthy dominance of extreme views–whether radical or reactionary. Do these groups which claim to hold the balance between conflicting schools of thought really serve that purpose? Now, every leading party contains at least some individuals of eminence gifted with the ‘cross-bench’ mind, and it is they who stand out against ruinous courses and ensure a return to sanity after momentary fits of extremism. But, for purposes of discipline, they identify themselves with a party. The ‘cross-bench’ groups, however, are in a different category. They are mostly composed of the waifs and strays of party politics, whose differences with their erstwhile party men are personal instead of being based on any intelligible principle. Such disgruntled persons draw together into amorphous groupings which dissolve and re-form at every election. These groups owning no party allegiance and floating about like nebulae in the political firmament, are a hindrance to the growth of a healthy public life. They confuse the issues on all important occasions, and rush in whenever a tactical advantage can be scored. They are middle-men and profiteers rather than honest exponents of the middle view.

This is the question propounded by the Rev. Fr. T. N. Siqueira in an exceedingly interesting article in The New Review of Calcutta. According to him, it is not so much the mass-production of unwanted graduates year after year, as the lack of a common life in our university centres which makes the graduates "capable neither of leading nor of being led to useful purpose," but to "drift aimlessly with the ebb and flow of the tide." And he regrets that there are no "hidden Nuffields in India whose wealth might be harmlessly turned from pomp and pageantry into the less spectacular but ultimately more useful service of true culture." Such service should take the shape of more Common Rooms, Unions and Clubs which will foster "personal contact on terms of equality with their teachers."

While Fr. Siqueira emphasises an important aspect of university life, he misses the real import of the failure of the Indian Universities to serve the needs of a progressive modern nation. These centres of learning are in no way organically related to the larger life of the country. There is an almost complete divorce between the outlook of the average citizen and that of the man who passes out of a university. In the early days of English education in India, it was expected that our graduates would take a leading part in the spread of popular education, and bring the light of Science and modern knowledge to the men of the village through the mother-tongue. That expectation was not realised. Instead of helping to ‘leaven the mass,’ the products of university education cut themselves off culturally from their less fortunate countrymen, and, except in recent years, no sustained effort has been made to bridge this gulf. Our universities have not grown out of our soil; they neither draw sustenance from it, nor do they nourish it into strength. But for this lack of coordination between our centres of learning and the vast areas that surround them, we might not have had the spectacle of a great people hungering for the bread of culture, but failing to be fed.

It often happens that a child is more genuinely happy and care-free in the house of an aunt than in its own mother’s. The usual inhibitions and rules of dull routine are relaxed for a while, and the child is petted and made much of. But even the best of holidays must end, and with a pang the child has to tear itself from the fond embrace of the elderly aunts and of the affectionate little cousins. A similar feeling overpowers me whenever I take leave of literary friends in Poona or Bangalore. It is not that Karnataka or Maharashtra is really dearer to me than Andhra, or that Kannada or Marathi is sweeter to my ears than Telugu. But without forswearing that allegiance to the homeland and to the mother-tongue, it is always possible to cultivate a deep and even passionate regard for the cousins in other language-areas, for, they too form sub-nations within a wider Indian Nation.

I am anxious–and there must be many others who are equally so–that personal contacts should be established between the literary men and artists in the various Provinces and States of India. A beginning may be made by inviting fraternal delegates to the periodical Sahitya Parishad (literary conferences) and Kavi-Sammelans (poets’ gatherings) from the neighbouring areas. After the conference, the delegation, of not more than three or four persons, may be taken to the important centres of cultural activity and introduced to the local literary and art groups. Informal talks and readings from their respective literatures will naturally follow. In an unobtrusive way, a great deal may thus be done to promote mutual understanding, from which will spring those intimate friendships which are the supreme reward–and often the sole reward–of lonely artistic endeavour.

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