……he that laboureth right for
love of Me
Shall finally attain! But, if in
this
Thy faint heart fails, bring Me
thy failure!
–THE SONG CELESTIAL
I am glad it is now possible to re-issue ‘Triveni’
as a Monthly. This journal of Indian Renaissance was published as a two-monthly
for a period of eight years, commencing from January 1928. It was converted
into a Monthly in 1936, and continued to appear in that form for four years.
But, owing to conditions brought on by the War, we could not bear the strain of
a monthly publication. From July 1940 to the end of 1946. ‘Triveni’ has been a
Quarterly– the exodus from Madras to Bangalore occurring at the beginning of
1942. The kind friends in Bangalore, to whom ‘Triveni’ is indebted for its
regular publication as a Quarterly even during my detention in prison for two
years, are now actively co-operating in running the journal afresh as a
Monthly. After a chequered career, the journal begins a new chapter. I trust
the new ‘Triveni’ Monthly will meet with a cordial welcome throughout India and
abroad.
For India too, this month marks the beginning of a
new chapter. With the passing of the Indian Independence Act and the secession
of Pakistan, ‘the rest of India’, functioning as ‘the Dominion of India’, is
free to pursue fits own policies, unhampered by foreign Imperialism or domestic
dissension. The two-nation theory was pursued to such extreme lengths and the
spate of violence let loose became so intolerable that, within recent months,
even the leaders of the Indian National Congress were content to salvage the
greater part of India by accepting the Mountbatten Plan. The movement for the
division of the Punjab and Bengal gathered momentum with lightning speed after
the holocaust of murder and arson on an unprecedented scale. The ‘direct
action’ programme of the Muslim League thus partially recoiled on itself, and,
in the result, a ‘truncated and moth-eaten’ Pakistan has emerged.
Born in an atmosphere of distrust, the State of
Pakistan may yet play a notable part in Eastern and world-politics. The
constructive tasks, and the many problems of day to-day administration in an
infant State, may be expected to sober down the fanaticism of the pre-natal
period. Brothers who quarrel and split the ancestral domain are known to have
settled down as friendly neighbours. And when the representatives of the two
States participate in international conferences, or meet as comrades at the
embassies of foreign capitals, it is their common Indianness that will assert
itself, rather than the rivalries of the recent past. They may pull their
weight and stand on the side of progress and peace and international goodwill.
There is little to be said for the attitude of mind which starts wishful
thinking and hopes that a repentant Pakistan will soon work its way back into
the Indian Union. Premature expression of such a hope is the surest means of
stiffening the back of the Pakistanites. Greater wisdom lies in wishing them a
career of success instead of one of frustration. Having agreed to divide, let
us cease to curse.
The restrictions imposed by the Cabinet Mission
Plan on the Constituent Assembly must now cease to operate. A weak Centre and
compulsory grouping of Provinces, double majorities and separate electorates,
are features of an ugly but vanishing dream. The Constitution-makers can settle
down to their important work without the perpetual wranglings which might have
shattered their well-meant schemes, even as they successfully shattered the
working of the Interim Government. The partition of India was a heavy price to
pay, but, having paid it, the statesmen of ‘the rest of India’ must so plan
that the new Constitution may ensure to the common man those rights of
citizenship for which the flower of the nation have striven for sixty long
years. Today all is not well with the Congress, as an organization. While the
fight for Independence was being carried on, it functioned as a multi- interest
organization. Capitalist and worker, landlord and tenant, medievalist and
modern, all shared in a high endeavour. But when success is within sight, these
divergent elements are falling apart. In an era of limited franchise and
finance-controlled party caucuses, office and power sometimes accrue to the
opportunist; and office and power are so exercised as to bolster up the
exploiter. The prestige the Congress enjoys today is mainly due to the purity
of aim and utter dedication of leaders like Maulana Azad, Pandit Nehru and Dr.
Rajendra Prasad. But the Congress has hereafter to root itself in the
affections of the millions. Hence the need for the Constituent Assembly,
dominated by Congressmen, to safeguard the rights of the common citizen. India
is not in love with a brown autocracy in place of the white. This then is the
first test by which the work of the Consambly will be judged.
The next is the treatment of the minorities,
racial, religious or linguistic. A joint committee of the two Constituent
Assemblies must be able to arrive at a satisfactory solution of this problem,
and frame rules to be applied uniformly in both the States. But even more
significant than the framing of rules is the spirit in which they are
administered. That, in turn, depends on the choice of the right men for service
on committees in the different Units of the two Dominions entrusted with the
task of protecting minority rights. Every problem of administration is, in
essence, the problem of choosing men who will discharge public functions in a
spirit of selflessness. When inter-provincial and inter-communal feuds have
become rank growths, more than common honesty is required if the weeding out
process is to be accelerated. On the way the minorities are treated in actual
practice, will depend the peaceful existence of the citizen in a free India.
There remains the complicated question of the
Indian States freed from Paramountcy but unwilling to submit to what Pandit
Nehru calls ‘inherent Paramountcy’ but which the eminent Mysore publicist, Sri
D. V. Gundappa, prefers to define as ‘Federal Authority’. Independence from
external authority for the rulers of Indian States, coupled with absence of
internal freedom for the States’ people, must precipitate struggles which, by
their very nature, will affect the orderly progress of the whole of India. The
Constituent Assembly of the Indian Union must win over contiguous States like
Hyderabad and Travancore, and make them participators in the task of building
up a new India, wherein the artificial division into Indian India and British
India will disappear, and a common federal citizenship will link up the
remotest parts of the Indian Union. There is enough of statesmanship in the
leading lights of the Constituent Assembly to achieve even this seemingly
impossible result.
Devoted admirers and fellow-workers of the late Dr.
Annie Besant are planning to celebrate the centenary of her birth on a scale
worthy of that bringer of Light. Born within a decade of the accession of Queen
Victoria, she grew up in mid-Victorian surroundings. But soon she burst the
bonds of convention and stood forth as a fighter for unpopular causes.
Agnosticism, Socialism, women’s suffrage, the labour movement, all claimed her
allegiance, and to everyone of them she brought an accession of strength. Her
powerful pen and her splendid eloquence were always at the service of oppressed
humanity.
Her meeting with Madame Blavatsky marked a turning
point in her life. From then onwards and right up to the end of an eventful
career, she was a leader of the Theosophical Society, working in close
co-operation with the Founders and eventually occupying the position of
President. India became the land of her adoption, and Benares and Adyar her
chief centres of activity. Through education and social uplift, through
journalism and the re-orientation of political life, she served India as a dear
daughter; and when, at the ripe age of eighty-four, she passed away in her
beautiful Adyar home, the people she had nurtured into the dignity of
nationhood mourned as for a mother. Such love of a people not one’s own is rare
in human history.
What should a nation do which once prized gratitude
as a cardinal virtue? The freedom of India for which she gave of her best is
near at hand: her Commonwealth of India Bill was the precursor of the Indian
Independence Bill of today. Not in Adyar only, but all over this vast
continent, memorials should be raised to Dr. Besant in the shape of educational
institutions, art-centres, organizations for inter-communal fellowship, and for
comradeship between India and Britain. Dr. Besant was a great believer in
Indo-British co-operation in the cause of world-peace. Her thesis was that only
a free India could deliver the message which, according to her, the world
needed and was yearning to hear.
But while all this will soon pass beyond the realm
of controversy and become an accepted feature of life in an independent India,
the universities ought to make provision,–compulsorily in the colleges and
optionally in the later stages of the high school courses–for the study of
English. The language has been with us for over a century, and has enabled us
to get into the stream of world-thought. Its importance as the language of
administration will decrease, but, for that very reason, it will gain added
importance as the language of communication between the Units of the
Federation, and between the Federation and the rest of the world. In the sphere
of all India politics, English will be retained for several years as an
alternative to Hindustani. The Central Legislature will employ both Hindustani
and English, in the same way as the Canadian Parliament uses French and English
and the South African Parliament uses English and Dutch. Members of the
Legislature coming from Units of the Federation where Hindustani is not the
regional language must be free to choose between Hindustani and English. They
might even speak in their provincial language, provided they can get some
fellow-member to render their speeches into English or Hindustani.
A free India necessarily implies an India free to
assert her position in the domain of Science and Letters. Her creative activity
will find fuller expression; and that expression will be predominantly in the
Indian languages. But if the world has to become aware of India’s achievement
and benefit from it, a medium like English has to be employed for purposes of
translation and interpretation. While the future of Indian journalism will in a
large measure rest with the Indian languages, the need for English will also be
felt. That is my apologia for the publication of ‘Triveni’ in English.
A Conference of Indian Literatures–of “literary writers in the various Indian languages”, as the sponsors of the Conference say in their circular–is being convened under the auspices of the Premchand Society, Hyderabad (Deccan), at Delhi from August 30 to September 2, 1947. Its objective is “to establish cultural contacts and to build up a common Indian Culture”. The Conference will be presided over by Dr. Rajendra Prasad, the scholar statesman. While wishing success to the Conference, I must point out that the P. E. N. All-India Centre has been working in this field for the last fourteen years and it was this organization which convened the First All- India Writers’ Conference at Jaipur (Rajputana), in 1945. The second session will be held from October 31 to November 4 at Benares. It would have been in the fitness of things if the sponsors of the Conference had made an acknowledgement of the valuable pioneering work of the P.E.N., for that would have been not only graceful but showing recognition of a fellow-worker in the same field where recognition is due in abundant measure. And pray, further, why not have one consolidated body instead of two separate organizations, when the objective, the audience and the arena of activity identical?
Though the normal size of the ‘Triveni’ Monthly
will be 60 pages, we are giving 24 pages extra for August to accommodate the
long and authoritative article on the ‘Indian Independence Act, 1947’ by Sri D.
V. Gundappa, Founder and Secretary of the Gokhale Institute of Public Affairs,
Bangalore. Readers of ‘Triveni’ must be familiar with his previous
contributions to the Journal,–‘To End the Deadlock?’ (1942). ‘Simla and After’
(1945), and ‘The Cabinet Mission and After’ (1946). Sri Gundappa’s mastery of
the problems of Indian States, in relation to all-India politics, invests the
present article with unique importance. My grateful thanks are due to him for
having chosen ‘Triveni’ for the expression of his views on the outstanding
topics of the hour.
The cover for the new ‘Triveni’ has been designed
by Sri Sudhansu Kumar Ray, Rural Arts and Crafts Surveyor of the Calcutta
University, now touring South India. Like most of the artists who designed the
cover for this journal during the last twenty years, Sudhansu is an ‘old boy’
of the Fine Arts section of the Andhra Jateeya Kalasala, Masulipatam. He stayed
with us for two years, 1926 and 1927, when I was Vice-Principal of the Kalasala
and Sri Ramendranath Chakravarti, now of the New Delhi polytechnic, was
art-teacher. Bapiraju, Ram Mohan Sastri, Ananda Mohan Sastri (who is no more),
Kesava Rao, Mallaiah, Vasudevan and Sudhansu–what a goodly fellowship of
artists! While the art-centre at the Kalasala is only a precious memory, the
artists trained by Sri Promode Kumar Chatterjee and Sri Ramendranath
Chakravarti have distinguished themselves as painters sculptors and designers.
It was a fortunate accident that brought Sudhansu to Bangalore on his way back
from Lepakshi in Anantapur District, where he had gone to study the famous
frescoes and sculptor in the temple. In a discussion between him and the
Associate Editor, it was agreed that the right symbols to represent
‘Triveni’–the Triple Stream of Love, Wisdom and power–were the Lotus (the
purity of Love), the Vajra (Indra’s thunderbolt indicating the glory of power),
and tongues of Flame (the light of Wisdom). The Vajra is of the type fancied by
the late Sister Nivedita, and the Lotus is copied from the sculptures of
Barhut.
May the ‘Triveni’ flood the world with Love, Wisdom
and power!
* July 20
_________
the Path. And the only failure the idealist
recognises is the failure to stand by Truth.
From ‘The Triple Stream’ (July
1932).