BY K. RAMAKOTISWARA RAU ^l

India mourns the loss of Sri Krishna Rajendra, the noble Maharaja who ruled Mysore for forty years and shed lustre on the Princely Order. Mysore is the sole remnant of the glory that was Vijayanagara: Sri Krjshna Rajendra was, in a sense, the successor of Sri Krishnadeva Raya, in whom Hindu Monarchy found its highest fulfillment. While representing in himself all that was best in the ancient Indian tradition, the late Ruler of Mysore was an apostle of progress. He laboured incessantly to modernise Mysore,–to give her a political and economic organisation which would enable her to be a light unto the rest of India. With the co-operation of a people devoted to him and his House, and assisted by a succession of eminent Dewans, the Maharaja made of Mysore the "Model State" of India. And he had the traits of a great constitutional monarch.

But it was his personal life, even more than his public acts as Ruler and Statesman, that endeared him to men of all parts of India. He was an ardent student of the Upanishads, and like King Janaka of old, modeled his life on the teachings of the Rishis. Austere in his habits, he was yet a great aesthete and patron of art and literature. "Here was a Caesar! when comes such another?"

The new Maharaja, Sri Jaya Chamarajendra, comes to the throne after a splendid training. May he prove worthy of his noble heritage, and may Mysore soon witness the dawn of Responsible Government under his aegis!

It was a fateful step that the Working Committee of the Congress took at Delhi. While adhering to the principle of utter non-violence in the matter of the struggle for Indian freedom, they committed themselves to a programme of employing armed force for purposes of defence against external invasion and maintenance of internal order. Even at the risk of losing Gandhiji’s leadership, they proffered help to Britain in the shape of men and material to win the war. To the stalwarts who had worked with Gandhiji for over two decades, this must have been a painful wrench. But they could not conscientiously declare that the country as a whole was ready to resist an invasion by non-violent methods. If the Congress was to become responsible for the governance and defence of India in the immediate future, it must make up its mind as to how it will maintain order. Even during the brief period of Congress rule in the Provinces, occasions arose when the aid of the Military and the Police had to be requisitioned. That was but the prelude to graver decisions like the one arrived at in Delhi, after considerable searching of hearts.

The offer to Britain, was coupled with a, two-fold demand,–the declaration of India’s freedom, and the Immediate formation of a National Government at the Centre. Here was a sincere gesture from India’s leading political organisation, calculated to end a state of intolerable suspense and pave the way to fruitful co-operation between Britain and India in a cause dear to both. The A.I.C.C. at Poona confirmed the Delhi decision by a good majority, and the nation was looking forward to an early solution of the deadlock. But the cussedness which Britain has nearly always displayed at every crisis in her relations with India wrecked all chances of a settlement. The Viceroy’s pronouncement was bad enough, but the Secretary of State’s gloss made matters worse. Between them they sought to stir up the minorities and arm them with the power of vetoing all constitutional progress. The Congress asked for bread; it got the proverbial stone.

The latest decision of the Working Committee at Wardha has not surprised anyone. In this case, it is not the Congress which rejects the Viceroy’s offer, but the British Government which spurns the Congress offer of co-operation. Britain has non-co-operated with the Congress and taken to its bosom the multitude of communalists, reactionaries, and ‘Yes’ men, who are good enough for a holiday parade but can never represent Nationalist India.

How about the future? Everything points to an acute struggle between the Congress and the Government. It is a struggle which the Congress has most earnestly tried to avoid, so earnestly indeed that it invited the contempt of the bureaucrats who fashion India’s destiny from Delhi and Simla. The desire of the Congress not to embarrass Britain was ‘misunderstood and despised’ as the Working Committee puts it. An invitation to the President of the Congress to meet the Viceroy was hedged in by a direction that the discussion was to be within the four corners of the Viceregal declaration. This "Take-it-or-leave-it" attitude, and the sinister importance attached to the minorities have stood in the way of a settlement. Behind it all lies the unwillingness of Britain to part with real power. Today a fight seems inevitable; unless a miracle happens, it cannot be averted. But it is a fight which is ill-timed and wholly unnecessary. Britain can avert it if she likes. Even now a National Government can be formed with a Muslim Leaguer as Premier. That is Sri C. Rajagopalachariar’s ‘sporting offer’. But nothing can happen so long as the will to concede the Indian demand is absent.

What are the credentials of the Congress? asks Mr. Amery. He is obsessed by the importance of the many ‘entities’ ranged against the Congress; he therefore fails to realise that the Congress is the only political body in India organised on a non-communal, non-sectional basis, and wedded solely to the cause of Indian Nationhood, as distinguished from communal or sectional interests. In asking for a Constituent Assembly to frame the future constitution of India, the Congress is seeking power, not for itself but for every Indian citizen, to shape the polity under which he will choose to live. This is self-determination, pure and simple–the same hallowed principle in defence of which Britain claims to be fighting this sanguinary war on many fronts. Any minority in any country can seek protection of its rights, cultural, political, or religious. It is only in India that the preposterous claim has been put forward that the minority can impose a permanent veto on all progress, that it can circumvent the just rights of the majority, that, further, it can call itself a separate nation and vivisect the Motherland. That British statesmen should have made themselves the tools of such propaganda, for gaining a temporary tactical advantage over the Congress, is the most amazing part of the tragedy now being enacted on the Indo-British stage.

Kowtha Ananda Mohan Sastri, the gifted South Indian painter, passed away at Dewas (C. P.) on May 21, at the early age of 32. This is a bald statement about an occurrence which has moved me beyond words. The news came to me in far off Berhampore. For a time, I tried to throw the veil of illusion over it. Ananda Mohan had been ailing for some years; it was a bad case of tuberculosis, and he stayed for long months at Madanapalle and Bangalore. Why not imagine he was there still? But the illusion could not be kept up when I returned to Madras and met the bereaved parents, and brothers and sisters. "There used to be two artists in my family;" wailed the father, Srirama Sastri, "now Ananda is no more, and only Rama Mohan is left."

Rama Mohan and Ananda Mohan! Yes, they were like twins. I first saw them in the school of Indian painting at the Andhra Jateeya Kalasala, Masulipatam, while they were having their early training under Sri Promode Kumar Chatterjee. That was in 1922. An year later, I joined the Kalasala as Vice-Principal, and the brothers became my students. From the beginning, I was slightly more attached to Ananda, for he was in my History and Politics class along with young Gopala Reddi, Guda Krishnamurti and others, while Rama Mohan, the elder boy, came in occasionally for English Prose or Poetry. In those days, Srirama Sastri edited an exceedingly beautiful Telugu magazine, the Sarada, and the paintings of Sri Chatterjee and his students were reproduced in Sarada in colours or in half-tone. The Art School run by the late lamented Damerla Rama Rao at Rajahmundry, and the Art section of the Kalasala, were the two important centres for aspiring artists. But the centre at Masulipatam was nearer to the approved, traditional Indian style. The first annual exhibition of paintings was opened by Dr. James H. Cousins, who delivered a very illuminating address on the Ideals of Indian Art, and blessed the new Art-centre.

After some years, the brothers migrated to Mysore. Ananda, more particularly, sat at the feet of Sri K. Venkatappa, the famous Palace-artist, and acquired something of the master’s colour-harmony and attention to detail. Some of his pictures were purchased for the Jagan Mohan Chitrasala, the art-gallery maintained by the Maharaja. For the rest of his all-too-short life, Ananda Mohan was a teacher of painting in Seth Ambalal Sarabhai’s household at Ahmedabad. The fell disease that overtook him unfitted him for serious work during long stretches of time, but he managed to paint some great pictures. It was about this time (1933) that the following tribute was paid to his worth as a painter by M. Pascal Levis, the French art-critic:

"Ananda Mohan Sastri, though aged only 25, has presented us at the ‘Salon Des Artistes Francais’ works exceptionally masterful, and revealing true originality of conception. This artist, who lives in India, has before him a marvelous field for exploration; his sensibility and refinement, his culture and sense of the beautiful, enable him to draw much from that which he has under his eyes. His paintings are little living dramas; truthful reproductions of the daily life of his passionate country. Let us add that the manner in which the two scenes entitled ‘Shadows’ and ‘Knife-sharpener’ are treated is exceedingly beautiful and they impress us by their richness and by a power that comes to them out of their own perfection. It is the style of a great artist in whom youthful Painting has gained one of its most worthy exponents. The Government of India has indeed recognised this by choosing in 1930, some works of Mr. Ananda Mohan Sastri for being shown at the exhibition of the Imperial Gallery of Arts at London."

It is difficult to believe that the icy hand of Death has gripped Ananda Mohan. He was so handsome and so talented; he had an unusually sweet temper, and even tuberculosis could not abate his cheerfulness. Art in South India has lost a brilliant votary. An album of his paintings is the only memorial which those who love him can give to the public, to keep his memory green.

I cannot console his family; for, I stand in need of consolation myself.