I OFTEN think of him these days! I don’t know why!
I often thought of him in the past. He had made himself an immortal in my mind;
and, I believe, he is so even to hundreds who had known him in the correct light.
He was a great Andhra, a greater gentleman, and perhaps one of the greatest
matter-of-fact patriots we had in South India.
Sir Mocherla Ramachandra Rao died in his
sixty-eighth year, and that was just twelve years ago. Many of his
contemporaries who shared his political ideologies and philosophies of public
life are also now dead, with the exception of perhaps Sri T. R. Venkatrama
Sastri. But we ought to remember Sir Mocherla for his varied public services.
His life ought to inspire the youth of this country, who are at present
somewhat groping in the dark to find the correct principles of public life.
“Sir Mocherla devoted himself to public service for
a period of over thirty years. A great and sobre patriot with a due sense of
responsibility, he set an example to the younger generation. Men of his stamp
are an invaluable asset to public life….A man of high character and sterling
worth,” said Sir P. S. Sivaswami Aiyer on hearing the death of Sir Mocherla in
May 1936.
“He was the Gokhale of South India,” said the Rt.
Hon’ble V. S. Srinivasa Sastri, in the course of a moving speech he delivered
in the Ranade Hall, Mylapore. These were but two opinions about this great
public servant who hailed from Andhra Desh and who belonged to a period
different from ours today.
Sixteen years ago I first met him one day at the
Rt. Hon’ble Sastri’s residence, Swagatam, and from that day onwards a
sort of acquaintance developed between us. I often met him at his residence in
Elliot Road and at the Cosmopolitan Club. We talked of men and matters and we
devoted considerable time in those days to discuss the politics of the day. He
made a great impression on me, which urged me to develop the highest esteem for
a political Acharya of his type. He talked quietly, logically, sweetly,
and without bitterness against any. The fine aroma of dignity around him and
his way of impressing a point on you, not through the force of words or violent
gestures but by his calm, sweet reasonableness, was something characteristic of
Sir Mocherla, and, once he told you something, you found no room to refute him.
Then I take a look into my album wherein I have
treasured the pictures of the great I have met, I take a deep glance at the
photograph of Sir Mocherla, and my right hand almost automatically rises to
salute it, with a depth of feeling. I don’t know why! Though my acquaintance
with him was very short, I was so very fond of him, and cherish his memory
today. He did not play to the gallery nor did he seek the rewards of political
life by sacrificing his long-cherished political faiths and principles, so dear
to his heart. Referring to this point, the Rt. Hon’ble Sastri in a speech cited
Sir Mocherla’s example, as worthy of following. Said he:
“Both he (Sir Mocherla) and I are of the belief
that public life should be so constituted in country, that there is room in it
for good men, for true and proved men, no matter of what party, to find a
suitable sphere for their own labours.”
Sir Mocherla had a crowded public life. He was
connected with scores of activities befitting his sphere, but he never rose to
a position where he had chances to reap any rewards for his public services and
undoubted merit. Indeed, at the close of the first World War, he was nearest to
becoming an Executive Councillor of the Government of Madras. But the rise of
the Justice Party knocked off his chances to enjoy the plum of public office.
Again, with the growth of the Indian National Congress, the right place in
public life for a man of Sir Mocherla’s calibre was denied, but he did not mind
these new developments in the country. He quietly went about doing what he
thought was his duty and what he considered was real service of a kind that he
believed in. But when you sit to assess the worth of his work, you cannot deny
him his greatness as a true public servant, and, indeed, a word of gratitude
for his selfless services in the interests of the people and the country is
always due to him.
Sir Mocherla was born in Badampudi village in the
West Godavari district. The year was 1868. He came down to Madras when he was a
lad of twelve, because a brother-in-law of his happened to be then in the City.
He joined the Hindu High School in Triplicane and matriculated in his
seventeenth year. When he was twenty-one, he graduated, and two years later he
was out of the Law College as a fully qualified lawyer.
When he was about to set up practice in the City of
Madras itself, Sir Mocherla’s father died in the village in West Godavari. So
he had to go back to his own district. Then he went about practising in
Rajamundry from 1894 to 1905, just eleven years! Before he began to frequent
courtrooms, he had also apprenticed himself under Andrew Laing, a famous
British lawyer in Madras at that time.
In Rajamundry he built up a very lucrative practice
handling a great volume of Zamindari litigation. He throve well and made money,
but when the Godavari district was bifurcated, he went over to Ellore where he
was leader of the Bar for over fifteen years, and the first elected Chairman of
the Municipality for ten years. Even today, we find a town-area in Ellore named
after him as ‘Ramachandraraopet’, as an affectionate tribute to his services,
from the citizens of the place. Ramachandra Rao was responsible for having
Ellore as the Head-quarters of the District instead of Nidadavol. He also
served as the President of the combined District Boards of Kistna and West
Godavari for a time.
In 1910 Sir Mocherla was elected to the Madras
Legislative Council from the Godavari, Kistna and Guntur combined constituency.
With him sat in the Council stalwarts like the Rt. Hon. Sastri, the late Sir B.
N. Sarma, also Sir M. Krishnan Nair, all of them now no more. Sir P. S.
Sivaswamy Aiyer and Mr. V. Krishnaswamy Aiyer were then Members of the
Executive Council. Sir Mocherla’s career as a legislator in Madras continued
even during the Montford Reform days, and, in 1924, he was elected to the
Central Assembly in Delhi. In the Assembly he made his mark as a well-informed
and impressive speaker. He championed peasants’ problems and he had also
specialised in subjects such as land revenue, local self-government and
agriculture.
“In 1919 Sir Mocherla went to England to give
evidence before the Joint Parliamentary Committee, but he had met Samuel
Montagu earlier in Government House, Madras, and had talks with him. When he
went to England he went round Gibraltar, since cross-country travel through
France was forbidden in those days. Arriving in London, he stayed in the
National Liberal Club and picked up the acquaintance of every great English
statesman of those days. In particular, he came very close to Mr. Winston
Churchill and Mr. George Lansbury. He continued to stay in England for several
months, until the time the India Bill was finally passed through the House of
Commons.
Once he returned to India, he was again sought
after with a fresh assignment, this time to go on a mission to England, to be a
Member of the Lytton Commission on Indian Students in British Universities. It
was said that in those days our students had particular difficulties in getting
admission in London’s schools and colleges. It was also stated that they did
not have the proper type of life during their scholastic career. An inquiry was
therefore ordered by Government and Sir Mocherla was chosen a member of the
Inquiry Commission, of which Lord Lytton, the then Under-Secretary of State for
India, was the Chairman. Sir Mocherla’s colleagues on the Commission then were
Aftab Ahmed, Sir Devaprasad Sarvadhikari, Mr. Hemmitt and the great Christian
patriot Dr. Datta of Lahore. The House of Commons carefully considered their
report at a later stage.
Then, on return to India, Sir Mocherla was busy in
the Central Legislature. He sat on the Skeen Committee along with Mr. Jinnah,
Pandit Motilal Nehru and Sir Phiroze Sethna. The Committee was considering how
best the Indianisation of the Army could be speedily effected. The conclusions
then arrived at showed that it would take at least twenty-six years for half
the Indian army personnel to be Indianised! But, what is it today!
In 1927, the Butler Committee on Indian States was
functioning. It did not however pay much attention to the representations of
the States’ peoples. So the people organised a conference of their own at
Bombay in September of that year, and had Sir Mocherla to preside over it. The
Conference decided to send a deputation to England to represent its views and
it was led by Sir Mocherla himself. He presented a memorandum to the Butler
Committee. As a result of that, several modifications were effected in the
Butler Report.
A year earlier, Sir Mocherla had a very peculiar
situation to face in his own place. In the 1926 general elections to the
Central Legislature, the question was whether he should face his electorates or
not! The important people of his locality first approached him with the
Congress pledge for his signature, but Sir Mocherla refused. In consequence,
the other candidate, Sri Tangaturi Prakasam, was proposed and elected, instead.
Sir Mocherla was an enthusiast in the cause of Prohibition, and, in 1927, he
started what was known as the Prohibition League of India, which functioned on
the lines of the American Anti-Saloon League. The Prohibition enthusiasts had a
congress organised to hold a session in Delhi and, if I remember aright, a
magazine of their League was also started for propagating the ideals of a Dry
India. Besides all these, the greatest monument to crown Sir Mocherla’s public
services, was his work in connection with the creation of the Land Mortgage
Bank in Madras and for furthering the cause of cooperation in South India.
Sir Mocherla had always the courage of his
convictions. He would not sign the Congress pledge because he did not believe
in the Congress programme of work. A seat in the legislature was not more attractive
in his eyes than a principle that he held sacred at heart. Even so, during his
early political career as Chairman of the Rajamundry and Ellore municipalities,
he found a new menace sweeping Andhra Desh and he had to fight it all alone
with rare courage and tenacity of purpose. In those days, a number of Death
Fund associations had cropped up to dupe the poor and unsuspecting people,
under the promise of extraordinarily impossible later-benefits! Sir Mocherla,
coming to know of such schemes, discovered the mathematical impossibility of
their soundness and thereafter declared that these associations were fraudulent
in nature and were clearly bent upon defrauding poor widows and other peoples
of their money. Of course, there was a small group of people who went on
fighting these associations, supporting Sir Mocherla, and the existence of
these organisations was questioned even before the Court, where a declaration
was finally obtained that they were improper. But the first steps to save the
public from this fraudulent menace was taken by none else than Sir Mocherla.
Twelve years have passed by since this great Andhra
departed from our midst. To the best of his ability, and true to his conscience
he strove hard in his own way in the field of public service. He served the
ideals he considered proper, just and fitting in the interests of the people.
He is not much remembered these days, because he did not belong to any or the
popular political groups or parties, but, for that reason alone, we could hardly
fail to revere the memory of this great man. A dispassionate student of history
could always find that the quiet, solid and selfless work Sir Mocherla rendered
to Andhra Desh, South India, and India, is something very valuable and his
conduct as a public servant altogether above reproach. Here is a man for our
younger generation to draw inspiration from, because he had correct ideals of
public service with the loftiest of motives always pulsating in him.