BY K. RAMAKOTISWARA RAU

It was a great upsurging of the national will that was witnessed in India last month–an emphatic determination to end the new Constitution and replace it by another answering the nation’s hunger and thirst for Swaraj. In a majority of the Provinces, the Congress scored heavily, and finally, in Madras the non-Congress groups were virtually wiped out.

Victory at the poll is but the beginning of a more intense struggle within and without the Legislatures. Opinion is sharply divided about the formation of Congres Ministries. The All-India Congress Committee meets at Delhi during the third week of March to decide this question, and, whatever the ultimate decision, it will be loyally carried out by the entire body of Congressmen.

The country is rapidly veering round to the view that, wherever the Congress commands a clear majority, it ought to accept office. The recent meeting of the Working Committee at Wardha passed no formal resolution on the subject; it could not prejudge the issue, and it therefore chose to await the reports of the provincial and district organisations which will help the All-India Congress Committee to frame its resolution. From the trend of discussions at Wardha, however, it is clear that nearly every leader of the front rank–barring, of course, President Jawaharlal–is in favour of forming Ministries in the first instance, and forcing a general election within an year on some important question affecting the people’s rights. It seems to be felt that the mere passing of a vote of ‘no-confidence’ in a patchwork Ministry of the minority groups, will lead nowhere; for, it is urged, if the Congress goes before the electorate as a result of an immediate dissolution of the Legislature within the first few week of its existence, the electorate may not return Congressmen in the same overwhelming strength as at the last elections. There will be no solid achievement to the credit of the Congress, no definite programme of work envisaged which would appeal to the masses of our countrymen.

Such, in bare outline, is the argument of the advocates of office-acceptance. But the electorate knows the views of the congress on the outstanding political and economic issues. If it is sought to end the present Constitution, it is much simpler and straighter to refuse to form Ministries and leave the Governors to their own devices. An Opposition which wields a compact and disciplined majority can carry through identical resolutions in six Provinces–resolutions of a vital character, calculated to change the entire outlook of the people. If these are given effect to, the battle is more than half won; power passes to the Congress; the foundations of Swaraj are well and truly laid. If they are voted by all the provincial Governors, the Congress can go before the country and explain how their well-meant efforts to help the cause of progress have been rendered futile by the exercise of the Governor’s special and reserve powers.

Acceptance of office is the cry of the hour; but if a fresh Constitution is to be forged, the cry is a misleading one.

An enthusiastic Hindi worker of Andhra has put forward a suggestion that the language of the Legislative Council and the Assembly in Madras should be Hindustani. As members from four linguistic areas, without a knowledge of each other’s languages, foregather in the Councils, and as it is not ‘patriotic’ to speak in English, they are solemnly abjured to learn, and speak in, Hindustani. The writer proceeds to observe that, unless this is done, all the money spent and the work accomplished on behalf of Hindi Prachar in South India must be deemed to have been wasted! This is similar to the advice given by another Hindi enthusiast in South India who pleaded that higher education in every Province should be imparted in Hindustani.

Here we come upon one of the astounding fallacies of over-zealous propagandists who misconceive the position and importance of Hindustani in our national life. Why, within any non-Hindustani Province, the mother-tongue should yield pride of place to Hindustani as the language of education and day-to-day administration, it is impossible to understand. When millions of men and women have been given the power to vote, and scores of persons without an adequate knowledge of English returned to the Legislatures, the only sensible procedure is to hasten the formation of linguistic Provinces in which all education and administration are in the mother-tongue. Till such Provinces are carved out, let every legislator in Madras speak in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, or Malayalam, and similarly in Gujarati, Marathi, or Kannada in the Bombay Legislature. A number of interpreters must be employed, who can translate a member’s speech, sentence by sentence, into every one of the other languages. The very clumsiness of this device and the tremendous waste of time involved, will intensify the demand for linguistic Provinces. As Mr. Burra V. Subrahmanyam points out in his very able and exhaustive presentation of the case for linguistic Provinces, such a redistribution is imperatively needed, not only for administrative convenience but even more for the preservation and enrichment of the distinctive, centuries-old, cultures of the linguistic areas.

All over India, and in many countries abroad, the Centenary of Sri Ramakrishna’s birth has been celebrated in a spirit of genuine devotion. Madras invited Mr. M. R. Jayakar, the accomplished Sanskrit scholar and exponent of Hindu thought at its best, to deliver the opening address. In the course of his magnificent oration, Mr. Jayakar exhorted the citizens of Madras and South India to keep the tradition of Hindu culture pure and unsullied. He stressed that Madras which in the olden days discovered Vivekananda and enabled him to journey to the West, and which today maintains an unique institution like the Ramakrishna Students Home, was eminently fitted to be the custodian of India’s cultural heritage. Justice Sir M. Venkata Subba Rao, who presided over the function, pointed out that an intelligent study of Sri Ramakrishna’s life and teachings was bound to yield fresh lessons about the true meaning of Democracy, for, the Guru was a real democrat. It was an eventful day on which two great Hindus–lawyers and scholars with a thoroughly modern outlook–paid their homage to the memory of Sri Ramakrishna.

The Guru Maharaj, as disciples everywhere love to call him, was the herald of a new era in the religious life of humanity. He was the apostle, not of mere toleration as between the followers of different faiths, but of sympathetic understanding and appreciation of divergent views in the realm of the spirit. Indeed, to him, there was no divergence at all: he realised, through his own personal experience, the ultimate unity of all paths to Reality. Through the body of Chelas who constitute the noble Ramakrishna Mission, the spirit of the Master lives and fulfils itself in an endless stream of loving service.

The question is often asked whether, in fact, there is a living, growing, literary and art movement in modern India. While it is known that Rabindranath Tagore and a few others have done literary work of outstanding worth, it is not generally realised that the contribution of every Province in India is considerable and merits close study. It is not just ‘promising’ but the fulfillment is also rich. A Renaissance is not a mere revival, some kind of cultural Sanatanism which is content to hark back to the things that once made India great. The contact with a new type of culture, and the reactions to it, inevitably awaken a new literary impulse which finds expression in new modes.

The cultural life of India in recent times, like its political life, may be divided into two broad eras,–the earlier one from, Ram Mohan Roy to Mahadev Ranade and Romesh Dutt, during which we were trying to adjust ourselves to the conditions brought about by the impact of Western ideas and to assimilate them; and the latter period from Ranade and Romesh Dutt to Gandhi and Tagore, during which assimilation and adjustment gave place to genuine creative work in all spheres, literary, economic, and political. This broad distinction between the earlier and the latter periods is sometime lost sight of, and it is wrongly imagined that India is merely imitating. This misapprehension can be cleared only by a critical yet sympathetic presentation of the work of our literary men and artists, by way of speeches, articles, and informal talks in study circles. At social functions and at festivals, the poets must be invited to chant their poems and the painters to exhibit their pictures. Thus will the Renaissance enter into the lives of the people, and body forth the New India of our dreams and strivings,–the Mother Beautiful whom we glimpse at spots like Adyar and Santiniketan.

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