REVIEWS

ENGLISH

WIT AND WISDOM OF VIGHNESWARA *

By D. ANJANEYULU

‘Vighneswara,’ as most readers in South India might know by now, is the pen-name of Mr. N. Raghunatha Aiyar, one of the ablest and most learned of leader-writers in this country (who had retired from The Hindu, after a distinguished record of service for nearly three decades), under which he was writing, the Sotto Voce column for Khasa Subba Rau’s Swatantra, without a break, from its very inception, till the day the founder-editor had to leave it. It was a happy thought of the publishers to collect these brilliant contributions in book form and rescue them from the limbo of decaying files of the defunct periodical. The first volume, covering the papers for the first three years 1946-1949, came out two years ago under the original title of the column.

The second volume in the Sotto Voce series, covering the next three years, has now been made available under the title Our New Rulers, which might obviously suggest the predominantly political character of its contents, more than its predecessor. Week after week, he brings the new democracy and its economic and educational policies and its social and cultural legislation under his powerful microscope and points out where in his view they are found wanting, in the light of the ideals set before themselves, and judged by his own standards of public conduct and private behaviour, which are quite high. Brought up in the orthodox Hindu tradition and steeped in the classics of the East and the West, his emphasis is invariably on the values of individual liberty (which has now to be understood in the new context of planned economy and a progressive society) and a social organisation in which the memory of the race persists, as he puts it in his own way (but this memory seems to fade with the break-up of the caste system and the disintegration of the joint family–the signs of the times are unmistakable).

But it would not be correct to assume that politics of the hour were the only or even the main theme of his brilliant column. In fact, like his mythical namesake, who was the worthy amanuensis of the author of the Mahabharata, ‘Vighneswara’ takes all knowledge for his province and he takes everything in his majestic, elephantine stride. He has an apt word for everything that comes his way and his shrewd comment on all foibles of human behaviour–whether it be the wedding of a septuagenarian political leader or the food fads of a high-up in ministerial office. He is also an astute dialectician, who can cross swords with Dr. Ambedkar and other doughty constitution-makers. But, even in the most serious of disputations he does not cease to be a wit.

As a political commentator, he has a cynical flair for pricking all the pretentious balloons. There are all kinds of weapons in his intellectual armoury, but he enjoys wielding the rapier of wit and the lance of irony and sarcasm rather than the sledge-hammer of heavy argument. But, I personally feel he is at his best when he is unbending, as it were, on his favourite themes, which are, luckily, non-political. The artist and poet in him comes out of the columnist’s sun-burnt shell here. This, of the deodar of Almora:

“It may be a pigmy by the side of the famed American redwood. And the pine, with its green tapers pointed heavenward, has a more slender grace. But the deodar is instinct with adoration. It yearns towards the infinite, its gesturing arms undulant under the pressure of caressing winds.”

And then of the Ashram surroundings:

“……..Outside, the rhododendrons and the wild walnuts in bloom swayed to the ripple of the morning breeze. And the western sky was flushed with rose as the unseen sun blew a kiss to the towering cliffs.”

Here’s the connoisseur of music, on the art of the violin wizard, Prof. Dwaram Venkataswami Naidu:

“In handling the ghana ragas, Mr. Naidu is prone to pay less attention to their architectonics than do those instrumentalists, whose musical imagination has been largely fed on the work of the great classical composers, particularly Tyagaraja. He loves to explore, instead, the tempting by-ways which are hinted at, rather than worked out, by more orthodox expositors. Those sancharas, which tease the imagination with their suggestion of strange frontiers, call out all his originality. The smaller rakti ragas and their analogues of the Hindustani school are his metier.”

The fine piece on his lifelong friend, K. S. Venkataramani, was instinct with genuine admiration which could coexist with good-humoured mockery. However, only the warmth is felt in these lines:

“Not looking for the mot juste, he often achieved it with surprising facility, like the inebriate bee blundering into the chalice of the ready flower…..Venkataramani has always backed his fancy, to use a racing metaphor. He was never one of your timorous half-and-halfers. He was too full of his vision to spare any thought for the mockers. And snobbery wilted in his presence. His enthusiasms are those of a poet; they have the quality of the rainbow, intangible and ever fresh. For the Ashrama on the Kaveri and the rural university of his dreams there may be as little to show after a life-time of high endeavour as the few sticks and stones that, for the imaginative child, are the king’s palace. The poet shares with the child the simplicity of self-surrender; it is of such the Vedic seer said: Tyaagenaike amtrtatvam aanasuh.”

Of Dr. C. R. Reddi, the ‘Statesman of Education,’ he has this summing-up: “Dr. Reddi was almost the only one among the educationists, who cultivated and inspired the research outlook. For the best part of his working life he was preoccupied with the philosophy of education.”

Also, these vivid recollections:

“There lingered about him, almost to the last, a suggestion of the Naughty ‘Nineties, whose breath was probably still hot on the cheek of the Cambridge of his days….Though he was profoundly interested in politics and took a gladiator’s delight in exercising his thews and sinews in the arena, he could, somehow, never bring himself to take party politics of his day seriously. On the puppet stage of the Montford regime he spoke the language of Fox and Pitt. And when he discovered that you cannot run a ghost through the heart, he threw away his sword with a sigh of relief.”

He can, very often, be cryptic, as well as a little caustic, as in:

“The trouble with Dr. Radhakrishnan is, not that he is laconic, but that the luminous Shelleyan mist he spins too often obscures drab reality.”

He almost forgets himself in this ecstatic tribute to his old Sanskrit teacher at home:

“In the poets of the classical age as in the singers of the Saamam it was the mysterious power of Vaak that gripped him. Music, he held, came before meaning and subsumed it. And as he read, or rather sang, the great hymn to Vishnu or Aja’s lament in the Raghuvamsa, the magnificent Gangaavatarana scene, or the dythyramb on the season of snows in the Bhoja Champu, you were transported to the world of pure imagination where materialities ceased to exist. You saw the magnanimity of Dileepa, the humanity of Ramachandra, the serenity of Dharmavyaadha, as painted frescoes on the crystal of the poet’s luminous sperch. To Sastriar a half-verse was a nodal point of beauty, a jasmine bud that blossomed at the touch of the sahridaya. And to one chrysalis mind he brought the first intimations of a world of immortal essences.”

It is rarely that a journalist’s work-a-day column survives the passage of the day or the week. But ‘Vighneswara’ is no mere journalist. He is a writer and a scholar. He is an essayist to the manner born, and, at his best, is in the hallowed tradition of the English essayists of old. He can be pithy and epigrammatic as Bacon, quaint and whimsical and allusive as Lamb, as also learned and mock-serious like the fourth leaders from the London Times. He is a consummate stylist, as well as a scathing satirist. The progressive intellectual may not enthuse over the golden age if it is always in the past. Vighneswara’s Latin tags may now and then take us beyond our depths. His Sanskrit proverbs may irritate some who are strangers to the language. Sometimes, he might send the average reader scurrying for the dictionary. But, a careful reading of the book is sure to be rewarding like the company of the classics. Political opinions notwithstanding, it is one of the few modern books which repay study by lovers of the English language.

Society: An Introductory Analysis by R. M. Maciver and Charles H. Page. Macmillan & Co., Ltd., London, 1961. Pages 695. Price Sh. 16.

‘Society’ by the famous authors Prof. R. M. Maciver and Prof. C. H. Page is a well-known book in Sociology, widely used as a text-book by college students and teachers in many countries. Since the publication of its first English edition in 1950 a number of reprints have been issued from time to time, and now that the same has been issued as a papermac at a considerably reduced price (16 shillings) is to be greatly welcomed.

The book is divided into three main parts. The first part is concerned with the analysis of the nature of social relations and the influence of environment over social life. The second part discusses the nature of social structure, the forces that sustain social structure and also its major forms. The third part analyses in detail the nature of social change. One of the special features of this book lies in the precision with which the primary sociological concepts have been defined. In fact, Sociology has always been criticised for the lack of standardised precise concepts. Therefore the credit of making clearer the analytical tools of Sociology definitely goes to the authors of this book; and it is heartening to note that in recent years a number of text-books have been adopting these concepts and definitions. The authors of this book have made a clear-cut distinction between the important terms civilisation and culture. To them all those things, techniques or organisational aspects which are used by us ‘because of some outer necessity’ and are meant either for controlling natural phenomena (basic technology) or for regulating the behaviour of human beings (higher of social technology) are within the category of civilisation, and those, like art and religion, which ‘we seek them as such’ and give us ‘direct satisfaction’ are within the category of culture. The other special feature of this book is the extensive treatment given to the topic ‘Social Change’. No other text-book in Sociology has attempted an analysis of this topic so thoroughly. Indeed the authors have made a notable contribution to this field by introducing the two concepts of ‘technological lag’ and ‘technological restraint’ as against Prof. Ogburn’s concept of ‘cultural lag.’ Prof. Ogburn divided culture (in line with the classification of culture made by Anthropologists) into two large categories–material and nonmaterial. He argues that usually changes occur first in the material culture and even though the nonmaterial culture tries to adjust itself to the former, it lags behind. Criticising Prof. Ogburn’s analysis the authors write: “If, for example, we cling to old fashioned ways when under new conditions our needs could be better served by changing them, we cannot properly say that the lag is between the material and nonmaterial. Nor again should we assume that it is always the ‘material’ that is in advance of the ‘nonmaterial’.” Thus, keeping in line with their distinction between civilisation and culture, they point out that the term ‘lag’ cannot be made applicable to “relations between technological factors and the cultural pattern or between the various components of the cultural pattern itself.” Therefore the authors use the term ‘technological lag’ to denote “certain failures of adjustment within the basic technolog and the ‘higher’ technological organisation, that of politico-economic order” and use the term ‘technological restraint’ to denote the situation “where the introduction of more efficient instruments, methods, or agencies, or the utilisation of more efficient products is impeded or balked by controls designed to protect some established interest.” Above all, the authors have successfully tried to simplify and combine, where and when necessary, the important theories of Sociology, Cultural Anthropology and Social Psychology, and impress upon the reader the necessity and usefulness of having a background knowledge of all these three closely related social sciences so as to understand human society in full, without, of course, losing sight of the fact that each science has its own special field of study and that the analysis of social relations is the prime concern of a student of Sociology.

After a perusal of this book one cannot but agree with the opinion of the authors that if this book goes in more thoroughly for social analysis than do most introductions to Sociology it is because any such analysis is the first requisite for the intelligent study of society. But, as in this book there is a vast citation of references and a great number of examples are drawn mainly from Europe and the U. S. A., the Indian student would rather feel it difficult to understand thoroughly their significance. The Indian teacher, therefore, has to carefully select appropriate examples from Indian society and fit them into the theoretical framework of the book and thus make the student derive the full benefits of the scientific analysis of ‘Society’.

–K. RANGA RAO

Fundamentals of Hindu Faith and Culture by Dr. C. P. Ramaswami Aiyar. Ganesh & Co., Pvt., Ltd. Madras-17. Price Rs. 6 (Sh. 12)

It is a happy idea of the Publishers, Ganesh & Co., to have collected some of the thoughtful utterances of Dr. C. P. Ramaswami Aiyar, during the course of twenty years nearly, at the time of his eighty-first birthday in November 1959. Dr. Ramaswami Aiyar’s range of studies and his richly stocked mind are evident on every page of this volume so finely printed and elegantly got up. Though according to the note of the Publishers, it is neither comprehensive nor fully representative, it is yet a veritable sample of what the scholar and the connoisseur in Ramaswami Aiyar are.

Here are fourteen chapters containing material sufficient to feed anyone eager for understanding Hindu thought through the ages and Hindu culture as expressed in philosophy, religion, aesthetics and society. We are not a little taken up with the erudition and reflection of the man of vast experience in many a field of life’s activities. Apart from the arrangement of the subjects here which betokens a sense of sequence also, there is a patent attempt at providing the seeker of knowledge with bits of science, art, literature and philosophy in the context of modernism.

Dealing with Sankara, Dr. Ramaswami Aiyar has brought out the striking similarity of thought in the Western philosopher Spinoza: “Perhaps, however, one of the truest successors of Sankara was Spinoza. According to him God of Nature, the totality of all existing things, is God. God, according to him, is not a cause outside of things, which passes over into things and works upon things from without. He is immanent, dwelling within, working from within, penetrating and impregnating all things.”

The chapter on Hinduism and Tolerance is a mine of information upon the many trends and forces that have shaped Hinduism and also the ethnic and historical background of the race which has had the longest amount to give of the influences which generally form the sources of long ingrained habits and conventions.

What is Culture is a satisfactory and intimate interpretation of the significance of the term. He wisely concludes: “One of the main reasons for the catastrophic developments that we are now witnessing in the world is perhaps the exclusive and aggressive devotion of the scientist to his forte and the preoccupation of the teachers of the world with the non-moral aspects of education.”

Speaking of the Renaissance of India, he opines quite pertinently that “The secular State that has now been established should involve only complete impartiality and not the uprooting of spiritual influences, traditions and instructions……What is meant by a secular State is that all religions are entitled to equal treatment. That does not mean that equal treatment should be ill-treatment.”

The Importance of Music and Writers’ Responsibility in the India of today are really contributions to the many problems that face the world of music as well as writers.

The last chapter which is a convocation address perhaps does not quite fit in with the entire scheme of arrangement in sequence of the subjects here selected, as it is certainly an earlier survey of almost the same topics which have been in fuller measure dealt with in the previous chapters.

On the whole a reader, if he is careful to benefit by a perusal of the book, cannot escape the feeling how one so busy all his life has integrated a vivid and vast accumulation of experiences with some of the fundamental bases of our great tradition, permeating every aspect of life and every stage of man’s progress. Also one is grateful to a man of such advanced age having so much interest in life as to give of his own useful and valuable acquisitions to others who have neither the opportunity nor the ability of his to profit themselves by their own.

Eighty years of a scintillating mind will never go to the shoreless regions of academic discussion and purposeless controversy, is more than proved in the way Dr. Ramaswami Aiyar has measured his words and materialised his information in the sage counsels from time to time to the youth and to the aged of the land.

–K. C.

Tagore: A Master Spirit by K. Chandrasekharan. Published by Triveni Publishers, Madras-1, and Masulipatam. Pages 164. Price Rs. 5.

Sri K. Chandrasekharan, the reputed scholar, critic and writer, needs no introduction to the readers of Triveni. Nor is there any need for justifying the publication of a volume on Tagore, in India, during the year of the centenary of his birth, when tributes and homages are being paid to the poet all over the globe.

This slender volume includes several studies, some of them originally published, at different times, as articles in cultural magazines like Triveni, the Aryan Path, the Scholar and the Modern Review, and some of them delivered as lectures at the Indian Institute of Culture, Bangalore and elsewhere. It cannot, therefore, claim to be a definitive study of Tagore, the creative artist, nor is it a comprehensive survey of the many sided personality and achievement of the Master Spirit.

It is rather, as described by Dr. K. R. Srinivasa Iyyengar in his foreword, “the record of a sensitive student’s responses to the multi-verses of Tagore’s power as a creative artist and his personality as the Gurudev.” It presents Tagore from many angles familiar to his ardent students. With characteristic restraint and modesty Sri Chandrasekharan contents himself with looking at the power from diverse angles, without attempting to impress his own integral apprehension of the Master Spirit on the reader’s mind. Such studies are well calculated to stimulate thought, provoke further study, and thus contribute to a better understanding, and more real and sincere appreciation of the artistic talent and philosophic wisdom of the Master, so that the beneficent influence of his life and achievement might be felt in increasing measure by the people in his country and outside.

In the opening essay Sri Chandrasekharan stresses the elements of mysticism, symbolism and suggestiveness in Tagore’s poetry and in some of the rest he points out how the great modern Indian poet, who has captured a world audience, belongs in essentials to the poetic tradition of his own country in his art as well as his thought which derives from roots of traditional Hindu religion and Upanishadic philosophy. This thesis is maintained even with reference to the achievements of the poet in the modern literary forms of the One-Act Play and the Short Story, and especially in a scholarly and detailed comparison of Tagore with Kalidasa.

The practical idealism of the Gurudev again is clearly brought out by a comparison of his views and achievements with those of his great contemporary, Gandhiji, and the contribution, of these two great sons of modern India to the evolution of the common human culture and civilisation of the future, is impressed on the reader.

A very interesting, inspiring and thought-provoking book, well calculated to stimulate the reader to serious study of the writings and life of the poet, and therefore constituting a useful tribute to the Master Spirit, and a valuable addition to the literature on Tagore.

–M. S. K.

* Our New Rulers by ‘Vighneswara’ (N. Raghunathan). B. G. Paul & Co., Francis Joseph Street, Madras-1. Pp. 396. Price: Popular Edition Rs. 5. Library Edition Rs. 6.

Back