REVIEWS

Indian Universities-Retrospect and Prospects: Dr. C. P. Ramaswami Aiyar, LL. D. D. Litt. Published by the Annamalai University. Pp. 298. Price Rs. 7.

This book comprises nineteen convocation addresses, delivered by the distinguished author, on different occasions, all between 1924 and 1964, a significant and fruitful period in the history of modern education in India.

The main purpose of a convocation address is to exhort the young men and women leaving the portals of the University, after the completion of their courses of study, on the duties and responsibilities devolving upon them as educated and enlightened citizens, which they will have to discharge conscientiously and efficiently, so at to bring credit to themselves, their country, and their alma mater. But an exposition of the aims and ideals of higher education and a discriminating assessment of the achievements and shortcomings of the University, in its endeavours to realise the aims and ideals, are also relevant to the occasion and generally find a place in such an address by a competent person.

As the learned Maharajah of Mysore points out in his Foreword, “Our ancient seers inaugurated, among other things, the highest ideals and methods of education: Our early Universities captured and preserved, in a notable degree, the essence of this ancient tradition and it is the hope of thinking men all over the world that the Universities of today will also keep the same spirit alive and strong amidst all the preoccupations of a materialistic cjvilisation and the noises and vibrations of the modern age of speed and high tension.”

Again, he says, “The basic principles of higher education have been practically the same throughout the ages–the acquisition, propagation and application of knowledge, the preservation, extension perpetuation of knowledge by the evolution of learners into teachers the synthesis of knowledge and wisdom, and the devotion of both, not only to the purposes of material advancement but also to the promotion of social happiness and moral and spiritual excellence.” But the application of these principles to the organisation of a system of higher education, and the shaping of institutions, and formulation of courses of study, calculated to realise these principles, naturally varies with the changes in time, place and circumstances of the people concerned and these changes lead inevitably to constant adjustment, adaptation, experiments and attempts at improvement.

A convocation address by Dr. C. P. Ramasvami Aiyar, one of the most distinguished sons of modern India, with his singularly well-stocked and fertile mind, his distinguished career of spacious and varied public service and his close association with the foundation and administration of several Universities in the country, is bound to be highly interesting and instructive.

In these addresses, taken together, we find almost every aspect of higher education dealt with somewhere or other, and dealt with characteristic verve, vivacity and lucidity. The learned and talented author brings to bear upon his treatment of the subject, his wide and varied learning, his careful and acute observation in many parts of the world, and his vast and rich experience.

The book thus constitutes a conspectus of higher education as it is and as it might be. The publication of it at this juncture in the history of modern education in India, when a thorough enquiry into the prevailing system has been undertaken, with a view to making it more purposeful, significant and fruitful, is very timely and opportune.

A careful perusal of the contents of this volume will, no doubt, be of inestimable value and benefit to teachers, students, and all others interested in, and concerned with, educational reform, particularly at the higher levels.

–M. SIVAKAMAVYA

From Purdah to Parliament: by Begum Shaista S. Ikramullah. (The Cresset Press, London. Pp. 168. Price 25 shillings.)

Begum Ikramullah is one of the remarkable women in the public life of Pakistan. In her courage, intelligence and charm, she could be compared only to Mrs. Pandit in India. Like the latter, she had played a prominent part as her country’s representative abroad in international conferences and elsewhere. She had tried to reconcile, with a commendable degree of success, the demands of an active political career with the requirements of a happy home! The story of her eventful life is an absorbing account of warm personal friendships and violent political changes.

Hailing from one of the old aristocratic families of Calcutta, she could claim some of the most distinguished Muslims, of this century among her closest relatives. Her father was the late Sir Hassan Suhrawardy, who was the Vice-Chancellor of Culcutta University, after retirement as an able medical officer. Saheed Suhrawardy, Chief Minister of undivided Bengal and Prime Minister of Pakistan, was her first cousin. Her husband has been brilliant member of the I. C. S., who was Pakistan’s High Commissioner in London for some years. She herself had been a member of the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan, where she made a mark. Her academic career was crowned with the award of a London doctorate for a thesis on contemporary Urdu fiction.

If she owed her modern education to her enlightened father, Begum Ikramullah acknowledges her debt to a progressive-minded husband who took her out of the purdah. It was the social life of official Delhi that she found herself in as the wife of a junior civilian in the ‘Thirties and has never looked back since, except in a reminiscential manner in this book. The real turning point in her life, however, came when she met Mr. Jinnah at his Delhi residence. He had never ceased to be her matchless idol–magnetic, fascinating, awe-inspiring. Her recollection of the scene of their first encounter has the vividness of a close-shot in a motion-picture:

“…..the beautifully proportioned room, the early morning sun pouring through the windows, Miss Jinnah sitting, looking most elegant at the head of the table that was laid with exquisite China and gleaming silver; Quaid-i-Azam pushing back his chair and getting up on seeing us, his snow-white napkin sliding from his knees as he did so, his quick gesture in stooping to pick it up and put it on the table, and then coming, hands outstretched, with a most radiant smile on his face. He smiled very rarely, but when he did, his smile was the kind that lights up the whole face. This is how I first saw–him and that is how I see him over and over again in my mind’s eye each little detail as clear as if it had happened only yesterday.”

The focus is then on the mind of the mighty leader of the Muslim league:

“Quaid-i-Azam, the leader of the majority of the Muslims of the Indian sub-continent, reported to be arrogant and dictatorial, was allowing a completely inexperienced, unimportant young person to argue with him and was taking the trouble of meeting her arguments! The wonder of it did not strike me for the moment as I was carried away by the fascination of listening to Quaid.”

“Now, after nearly twenty years, during which I have met some very great statesmen, I still maintain that to listen to Quaid and not be convinced was not possible. It was not that he over-ruled you, it was not that he did not reply to your argument, but that he was so thoroughly, so single-mindedly, so intensely convinced of the truth of his point of view that you could not help but be convinced also.”

She does not seem to realise, in the ecstasy of her enthusiasm, the basic assumption that identity of interests was the deciding factor in being convinced about this kind of truth. About Mr. Jinnah’s freedom from arrogance and vanity, she could have profitably compared notes with the Special Correspondent of The Hindustan Time’s whom he once asked to quit his Press Conference! Anyway, she is giving us glimpses of what she saw and, she was doing so from a vantage point. Her wholehearted preoccupation with League politics, which, of course, was to pay her good dividends after the partition, makes little difference to the style of her book, which is eminently readable. But it does distort her vision which shows the accursed, caste-ridden Hindus as the villains of the piece, in many of the tragic events of mob fury. Through the success story of a brilliant, ambitious woman could be had the softer gleams of a loving wife, a fond mother and a warm-hearted friend, the latter-day acerbities of communal politics notwithstanding.

The Plough and the Stars (Stories from Tamil Nad): Edited by K. Swaminathan and others. Asia Publishing House, Bombay. Pp. 205. Price Rs. 12.

That there is a rich and growing literature in all the 14 and more of the main Indian languages is obviously undoubted, for there are signs of unceasing activity in each one of them. But more often than not, the claims of one have to be taken on trust by the others because of the language barrier. Bi-lingualism and multi-lingualism are yet to make a serious- beginning at the intellectual and emotional levels. “Why don’t you learn our language to appreciate our literature?” is a facile and popular query, but this kind of thing is more easily said than done. A lifetime is hardly enough to attain a passable proficiency in all the major Indian languages and then there will be no time left to enjoy their literatures–contemporary or classical! There seems, therefore, no easy or practical alternative to their translation into a common language–the endless disputations about the link language not withstanding.

At the present moment, at any rate, and possibly for some decades to comle, English could serve the purpose, especially in prose, leaving poetry out as being ‘untranslatable.’ The Sahitya Akademi had brought out, some years ago, a slim volume of contemporary Indian short-stories in their English translation and a second volume is announced for publication. An anthology of modern stories and poems from Bengal, under the inspiration of Prof. Humayun Kabir, was published by Asia Publishing House, with the picturesque title Green and Gold. The second publication in this series, under an equally vivid and imaginative title, presents the stories from Tamil Nad. The ‘plough’ is perhaps meant to stand for a lasting, time-honoured link with the soil and a rugged sense of realism, while the’ stars’ may indicate the poetry of a life and a touch of lofty idealism, without which, the hardheaded realist might well degenerate into a dyspeptic cynic. The volume was sponsored by the Madras Government, under the joint editorship of Messrs K. Swaminathan, Periaswami Thooran and M. R. Perumal Mudaliar.

The 26 stories brought together in this anthology are prefaced by a comprehensive and well-informed introduction in which P. N. Appuswami makes a competent survey of Tamil literature, from its remote beginnings, mentioning V. V. S. Iyer, Madhavaiah and Bharati among the pioneers of the short-story in Tamil. It is not difficult to quarrel with the best anthology in the world, for as the editors rightly point out, the only satisfactory anthology is the one to be made by every reader for himself. The present, however, serves to give a fairly representative cross-section of contemporary work from Rajaji and K. Santhanam to Jayakanthan and Rajam Krishnan. There is good variety here, including the traditional (K. V. Jagannathan) and the unorthodox (Akilan), stark-realism as well as tender sentimentality and stary-eyed idealism. Rajaji’s story entitled, “Minister Sitarama Ayyar” is less of a parable than could be expected by the reader, used to his fables. It is actually quite a realistic story, against the background of the freedom struggle and office acceptance by the Congress, and convincing enough, in spite of the didacticism, which, however, is not too obtrusive here. Somu’s ‘Udayakumari’ is marked by his sense of form and good workmanship. It depicts the problem of conscience faced by a youthful woman member of a Buddhist vihara, solving it by a clever twist at the end. The pangs of a paternal heart are effectively brought in a family anecdote by K. Chandrasekharan and the father’s exultation in a different context is sought to be captured in Janakiraman’s story. ‘Bridegroom again!’ by Balakrishnan works out a touching theme, the death of a wife and the coming of another. The translation is adequate enough, big and large, but it could be more crisp and communicative in places.

On the whole, the volume marks a good beginning, in spite of its shortcomings (which one has not?), and sets an example, which could well be emulated by the powers that be in Andhra Pradesh and elsewhere.

–D. ANJANEYULU

TELUGU

Ritu Ghosha: Pp. 60. Price Rs. 2.00.

Narudu Nakshatralu: Pp. 174. Price Rs. 2-50. Both by Sri Gunturu Seshendrasarma, Ongole, Guntur District.

Ritu Ghosha is an enchanting poem devoted mainly to the description of the six Indian seasons. All the previous poets who took these seasons for their theme described the influence of these seasons on the aristocratic and the blessed few only, and presented to us only one side of the picture of nature and society, the gay and gleeful. This poet on the other hand has an eye for the other side also, and presents to us with feeling and vigour, in an eloquent style, the pitiable sufferings of the poor and unfortunate. Here we breathe in a fragrant breeze of fresh fancies and imagination, that won laurels for the poet from such eminent poets as Sri Visvanatha and Puttaparti whose prefaces, pieces of creative criticism, clearly bring out the merits of the work. Six small poems, mostly the laments of a love-lorn heart, added to the text are also pleasing and in no way inferior to the main poem.

Narudu Nakshatralu is a collection of 14 essays in Telugu, previously published in the daily journal Andhra Prabha. These essays, which provide food for thought, deal with literary cultural and scientific subjects. The author is sure to impress the reader as an original thinker. His essays on literature especially deserve careful study.

Urdu Sahirya Charitra : Translated from Hindi original by Sri N. Sadasiv M.A. Pp. 350. Price Rs. 6.

Urdu Kathanikalu: Translator: Sri Bellamkonda Chandramauli Sastry. Pp. 328. Price Rs. 5. Andhra Pradesh Sahitya Akadami, Tilak Road, Hyderabad.

The publication of these two books at a time, when national and emotional integration has become the cry of the day, augurs well for the country, in that such books as these, serve the purpose of emotional integration in the literary field.

The first of these two books is a good translation of a Hindi book Urdu Sahitya-ka-Itihas by Dr. S. E. Hussain of the Lucknow University. Urdu, according to the author, was evolved out of Khadiboli, which in its turn evolved out of one of the Sauraseni apabhramsas, spoken languages in and around Delhi and Punjab. Thus Urdu is not a foreign language to India. The author then describes in a succinct manner the origin and development of Urdu literature from the 15th century down to the present times. South India, Delhi, Oudh and Lucknow were once centres of Urdu literature. The author gives us short biographical sketches of all the eminent poets and writers after describing the historical and political background thereof. Quotations from the works of great Urdu poets like Vali, the first great Urdu poet of the Deccan, Sauda, Mir, Fauza and Dag form the cream and the most interesting part of the work, after reading which a reader will surely be tempted to request the Akadami to publish an anthology of the best Urdu poetry for a proper estimate and appreciation of it. The latter half of the work is devoted to the study of modern literature in all its branches.

Faiz described Hindu festivals and compares a place in Delhi to the court of Indra. Nazir another great poet refers to Krishna. Amanat wrote a drama entitled Indrasabha. Sheik was very catholic in his outlook. Atish definitely proclaims. “When once hatred is removed from our hearts, quarrels between Muslims and non-Muslims will vanish.” Many Hindus earned for themselves name and fame as poets and writers in Urdu. Hindu-Muslim riots were

condemned both by Muslim and Hindu writers. Reading of sublime literature, of whatsoever language, can reduce the hatred, and foster friendship between man and man, irrespective of their race and religion.

The second book is a bunch of 15 Urdu stories, different shades and colours, translated into spoken Telugu. All these stories depict the society around us, the ways of life and thought of modern men and women of different status, the revelries of the rich, the sufferings of the poor, the lazy life of the idlers and so many other aspects of society are all brought into relief. Though some of the stories are too long and dreary, the short-stories are interesting.

–B. KUTUMBA RAO

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