Dr RADHAKRISHNAN–THE MAN AND WRITER

K. CHANDRASEKHARAN

When I reflect upon the tragedy, not his but ours, of the last days of Dr Radhakrishnan, sans speech, sans memory, sans everything, my thoughts go back to the striking picture or his, with his long coat, white turban, white dhoti wound round in Bengali fashion with the folds in front, and more than everything else the sharp glint of his eyes through his glasses and the ever vigorous expression on his lips. He was never known to have appeared in any negligent mood. He was always alert with his penetrating mind into everything he came in contact, whether persons or books.

Years back, in 1932, in Waltair as the Vice-Chancellor of the Andhra University, he was all active, attending to so many details. I happened to meet him just for favour of a foreword for a book of mine of sketches of some of the important men in public life. The printed matter was in his hands earlier to my meeting him, by previous arrangement. He accosted me as I entered his study which put me at ease. He made enquiries as to my stay and its duration. In a few minutes more, his typist handed him a few sheets of typed paper which he glanced through quickly. Without waiting for any more formalities, he read out in his own powerful voice the contents of the foreword which he had intended as befitting the launching of my first book into the literary world. No doubt, the foreword was more generous than I expected, and it contained very arresting expressions of his literary approach to the subject.

Thus started my acquaintance with him which with the years ripened into a wholesome admiration for him, and an unfailing interest in me on his side. Therefore, whenever he happened to be in Madras, it was not much of a difficulty for me, or for that matter, for any of his vast circle of acquaintances, to call on him without previous notice. He appeared ready to greet visitors of whatever rank or degree of acquaintanceship, with his usual raised voice of familiarity and benign smile.

It is true no other person in recent times has had such an amount of world-wide recognition for his attainments. Still, if he was called to be a Vice-Chancellor or a Chairman of the Upper House of Parliament or an ambassador in Moscow or the President of India, all the roles were to him coming in the usual way. Yet he remained the Professor of philosophy, which honour he deemed as in no way less significant or dignified than any of the new positions which he was destined to occupy. It was said that he even advised a friend who was receiving fresh honours but had started as a Professor in life, to introduce himself to newcomers as a Professor only. He attached indeed more significance to being a teacher than being a President of India.

Persons of public importance and dignitaries from foreign lands who met him as President, carried the impression of him as a real intellectual of the first rank, unperturbed by the changes which certainly publicised his presence more frequently to the world. The balance of mind which he retained in all his rapid transformations of the higher offices he held, proved him well-anchored in a spirit of equanimity and composure, germane to a philosopher.

With all his elevated rank in official society, there never was an occasion for friends known to him to complain of any assumed reserve on his part. He was quite normal in spite of many official functions to be attended to and too much restriction of the protocol. He even liked to have a chat wherein he could revive an old association to memory or engage himself in a light conversation recalling familiar landmarks of public life in Madras. If an younger spirit tried to regale him with anecdotes of the highly placed in life or draw his attention to some of the current gossips in politics, he affected no aversion but enjoyed with a sense of humour, the comments and reflections. Still, he was wary enough not to give the impression of his conversation descending into levity of any kind.

Books, monographs and pamphlets upon all aspects of philosophy of both the East and West have emerged from him; still, for all his repute as a great writer, he would not treat in highbrow fashion any of the writings of many an aspiring young writer. Rather he would bless him with a kind word if sought, and promote his claims to further-laurels by his enthusiastic encouragement.

Students of philosophy consider his two volumes on Indian philosophy as a classic which will stand time. Criticisms and contradictions are not unknown to authors in every stage of their rising popularity; Radhakrishnan too was not free from the clutches, of such carping reviewers and unsympathetic critics. Even while the English world had accepted him as a master of language and style, our own academic diehards hesitated to pass him (in) their tests. The penalty of greatness has to pay its price in sharing praise and dispraise in the same manner. And he, as a true philosopher bore with them, neither complainingly nor showing ultra-sensitivity. His writings flowed on with the same rate of creativity, season after season. There was the same eagerness and response to his output in the ever-widening circle of thinking minds the world over.

Apart from philosophy and his solid contributions to the expression of an urgent and world-embracing purpose, his service to literature was singular. He gave his unique gifts of brilliant ideas of splendour and vividness to the reshaping of a society plunged in its own conventional attitudes to the impact of a growing consciousness among all the other nations for a new way of life. At the same moment, he chastised the militant Western countries to desist from pouring molten steel into the veins of the youth’ and preparing them for mutual destruction through wars. Whatever he wrote, he made it a point to release philosophy from the bare prison of textualism and scholastic studies.

It was because he could interpret philosophy in terms of comprehending the aspirations of the entire humanity that sometimes other religionists like Christian began to suspect him as having only based his thoughts on their own tenets. It appears to be the fate of great minds to be misjudged whenever they swept the world by their resurgent philosophy. Rabindranath Tagore, with his “Gitanjali” captivating the entire world, was in the same manner suspected of Biblical influence on his poetry.

In the case of Radhakrishnan as in the case of the Rt. Hon. Mr. Sastri, the spoken word nearly got in its own form on to the printed page. But unlike any other known writer a vast distinction existed in the way that Radhakrishnan wrote his superb works which have brought the West and the East nearer to each other. If his utterances often struck listeners by his powers of packing his thoughts within a half-hour in the most extraordinary manner of arresting phraseology and metaphors, he no less proved his claim to recognition as an invigorating thinker in print where his mind reflected both the erudition he had gathered during his long studentship and the flair for enlivening expression of even abstruse thought by the best individualistic presentation.

Beautiful quotations gleaned from every source of literary execution nestled round his exposition of a point which otherwise would have remained unillumined for his readers. Often his mind went to fetch beauties of other minds in order to emphasise and carry conviction to his listeners or readers of what his thesis tried to develop. For illustration, let us just take his speech delivered at the Philosophical Conference in 1934, when he laid his indictment at the doors of the militant nations of the West preparing the youth of their countries to a great sacrifice of lives through wars. He dwelt upon a story of Oscar Wilde. He said: “Oscar Wilde has a great story which reads thus: Christ came to a white plain from a purple city and as He passed through the first street, He heard voices overhead and saw a young man lying drunk on a window-sill and said: “Why do you waste your soul in drunkenness?” He said, ‘Lord, I was a leper and you healed me; what else can I do?’ A little further through the town He saw a young man following a harlot and said: “Why do you dissolve your soul in debauchery?” and the young man answered: ‘Lord, I was blind and you healed me; what else can I do?’ At last in the middle of the city He saw an old man crouching, weeping upon the ground and when He asked him why he wept, the old man answered, ‘Lord, I was dead and you raised me to life, what else can I do?’ Here the story ends. If Jesus should visit us today and find that we are comfort-minded and have taken to worship of the most monstrous illusions like militant nationalism and are pouring molten steel into the veins of innocent youth that it may be used to undreamed-of heights in mutual destruction and ask ‘Why do you indulge after so many centuries of civilization, in human sacrifices on this colossal scale?’ Our answer would be: ‘Lord, you gave us eyes but no sight; you gave us brains but no soul; you gave us science but no philosophy’.”

The appositeness and the poetic exhortation inlaid in the illustration and the inference suggested are surpassingly original and unforgettable. That is Radhakrishnan!

Of memory for passages of excellence in literature of both English and Sanskrit, he had plenty. The quality of such selections also never flagged for all his many occasions to speak and write. The same memory relieved many a smaller man of too much labouring for being recognised as an old acquaintance or stray visitors at his door. He often proved a sympathetic listener encouraging the other with his superior gift of proving his equal and showing interest in the other by his attentive hearing. His witty remarks at times added to the piquancy of an observation or the juiciness of a narration. He was not trying to lord it over anybody or benumbing the person into an abject reticence in his presence. The observant listener in him often inspired the visitor, particularly if he happened to be young in years, to greater ease and confidence than even words of encouragement could provide. He was human in the best sense of the word.

Much more can be said of his eminence among men of knowledge and power; but none else had in an equal measure the qualities of an orator, writer and thinker, all gathered in one. The Churchills and Sastris too did not possess in an abundant measure all the three. He was out and out a force for making the citizens of the world relieve the way of life which our ancients alone had shown to mankind from times of yore. If he was not destined to portray a more dedicated life of service to philosophy, it was because of the necessities of a changing India which placed him in demand for different services after her liberation from a foreign yoke. Necessity alone drove him to render his share in New Administration and fulfil the dream of Plato for a philosopher-king at the helm of secular affairs.

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