‘Triveni’
is devoted to Art, Literature and History. Its main function is to interpret
the Indian Renaissance in its manifold
aspects.
‘Triveni’
seeks to draw together cultured men and women in all lands and establish a
fellowship of the elect. All movements that make for Idealism in India as well
as elsewhere, receive particular attention in these columns. We count upon the
willing and joyous co-operation of all lovers of the Beautiful and the True.
May
this votive offering prove acceptable to Him who is the source of the
‘Triveni’–the Triple Stream of Love, Wisdom and power!
...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
Mr. Jinnah accepted the long term plan at an
earlier stage of the negotiations with the Cabinet Mission. He withdrew that
acceptance only when he was not permitted to form an interim Government leaving
out the Congress. He detected the germs of Pakistan in the grouping scheme, and
has all along held that compulsory grouping is an essential feature of the
Mission’s plan. But, to Sir Alladi Krishnaswami Aiyar of Madras, the unified
Centre and provincial autonomy are the basic principles of the plan, and
grouping is a matter of lesser significance. Since the Provinces are said to be
“free to form groups”, that freedom can be exercised at any stage. According to
the rules of procedure laid down by the Constituent Assembly, the draft
constitutions will be submitted to the respective provincial legislatures
before assuming a final shape. Since the autonomy of the provincial units is an
overriding consideration, no Province can be forced to accept a constitution
against the declared will of its representatives in the Constituent Assembly or
in the Legislature. Sitting in sections is not the same thing as agreeing to
form a groups. “Settling the provincial constitutions” is the first step, and
the sections then decide, (1) whether or not to form a group, and (2) if a
group constitution is to be framed, what powers should devolve on the group
Government. It is, therefore, clear that any section can disperse after
settling the provincial constitutions, by declining to form a group.
But here is a snag. According to the British
Government’s interpretation of the procedure to be followed in the
sections,–and now accepted by the Congress–a simple majority in an section can
settle the constitutions of all the Provinces in the section; by a similar
majority they can decide in favour of grouping. In that case, provincial units
will have a constitution thrust on them against their will, and, further, they
will be forced to enter an unwanted group. Thus, an apparently simple rule of
procedure regarding voting in sections can be so manipulated as to defeat
completely the fundamental right of provincial autonomy. It is around this
matter of procedure that the battle has raged. Congress was at one stage
prepared to refer the question to the Federal Court; but such reference became
meaningless when the Secretary of State declared in advance his inability to
accept the Court’s decision. With considerable reluctance, and mainly with a
view to bringing the Muslim League into the Constituent Assembly for framing an
agreed constitution for Independent India, the All-India Congress Committee has
accepted the method of voting in sections favored by the Muslim League and the
British Government. The dice have been loaded heavily against Assam, the N. W.
F. Province, and the Sikhs of the Punjab. The only saving feature in the
situation is the assurance in the British Declaration of December 9, that no
constitution will be forced on unwilling parts of the country. This assurance
was meant primarily for the Muslim majorities in Bengal and the Punjab in the
event of the League’s refusal to participate in the work of the Constituent
Assembly. But it must apply equally to the dissenting Provinces and communities
in Groups Band C. It is a nice point whether this right to be saved from the
‘brute majority’ in a section accrues to a Province which agrees to sit in a
section in the initial stages but elects to walk out of it, the moment it
scents danger in the shape of an undesirable constitution for the Province or
the Group. It is arguable that only total abstention can confer this right. If
so, Assam and the N.W.F. Province will be justified in ignoring the mandate of
the A.I.C.C., for the Constitutions may be so framed as to destroy even the
right to opt out of a group after the first provincial elections. For instance,
as the Rev. Nichols Roy of Assam points out, separate electorates may be
imposed on the Nagas, the Ahoms and other sections of the Assamese, to disrupt
Assamese unity.
While ‘opting out’ of a group after the first
elections is a right conferred by the British plan, a ‘walk out’ is a right
inherent in all deliberative assemblies, intended to bring an unreasonable
majority to its senses. If the Congress is obliged to placate the Muslim
League, the League in its turn must placate the minorities in groups B and C.
And for a similar reason. If an agreed all-India constitution cannot be
visualized without the consent of the Muslim League, any constitution for
Groups B or C is not a practical proposition unless the minorities in these
groups are reconciled. The Congress has, by its latest decision, thrown on Mr.
Jinnah and the League the responsibility of negotiating with the component
units, communal or provincial, of Groups B and C and providing the same safeguards
for them that he wants for the Muslims in the all India constitution. From this
point of view, the Congress decision is an important item in its strategy. But
the decision has cost it dear it has already roused the ire of Assam and the
Sikhs. If was, however, the only possible alternative to a prolonged and bitter
fight against the combined forces of British Imperialism and League
obscurantism. A peaceful evolution towards freedom is to be preferred to a
violent revolution with a civil war thrown in.
Far from the centres of Indian public life, and
filled with the longing to restore normal human relations in East Bengal,
Gandhiji is trekking from village to village with a handful of devoted
followers. Less spectacular than the Dandi march of 1930, this lonely
pilgrimage will have a more decisive influence on the future of mankind. Every
step in the march symbolises the change from hate to love, from physical
violence to the peace of the spirit. After the flashing of bright steel and the
flow of rivers of blood, this evangel of peace must make a mighty effort to
repair the mischief and prevent a recurrence of it. States and Governments are
sometimes impotent in the presence of the powers of evil let loose by fanatical
hordes; but a Gandhi or a Nehru can, by a supreme gesture, withstand the
onrush. Once the current of hate is stemmed, the inborn gentleness and
neighbourly feeling of right thinking persons will again assert their power. It
is these virtues, more than the might of the police or the military, that will
enable citizens to live in peace and mutual confidence. When Gandhiji wanted
the good men of one community to guarantee the safety of the other community,
he was calling into play the quality of true love which exceeds itself in an
outpouring of beneficence. Mere statutory guarantees cannot solve the communal
problem. Such guarantees provide only the outer framework of peace. Real safety
lies in the growth of goodwill and in the realisation that “hatred ceaseth by
love.”
In this, the greatest of all his experiments with
Truth, Gandhiji is writing anew chapter in human evolution. Taking up the
thread of the discourse where it was left by Buddha and Christ, he is
demonstrating in a corner of Bengal the immense possibilities of the gospel of
love as an active factor in re-shaping not merely personal but also national
and international affairs. It is a new world that he envisages, where God’s
peace shall prevail despite man’s many errors of outlook and action.
Eloquent
tributes are being paid to the memory of the great composer and saint of South
India on the occasion of the centenary of his passing away. Tyagaraja, like
Purandaradasa, his distinguished predecessor in the Karnatic tradition, made
music the vehicle for reaching out to the Eternal as manifested through the
Avataras. Perfection of technique, beauty of thought and expression, and an
overmastering desire to spread the love of the Lord amongst his fellowmen
contributed to Tyagaraja’s eminence in his own age, even as they have won, for
him the homage of succeeding generations. Born of Telugu parents settled on the
banks of the sacred Kaveri in the Tamil land, Tyagaraja has been a great
unifying force between the peoples of the South. They speak languages closely
allied; they share the memory of common achievement for the preservation of
Hindu culture under the Rayas of Vijayanagara; today they vie with one another
in contributing to the renaissance of art and literature. It is noteworthy
that, while Tyagaraja composed his songs in Telugu, the most devoted effort to
preserve them and to sing them in excellent style has been made by the
musicians of the Tamil country. It is only within recent years that the Telugus
have begun to value this precious heritage, literary and musical. Learned
societies on the banks of the Godavari and the Krishna are seeking to recapture
the memory of Tyagaraja’s life of devotion to music; they are eager to
establish schools of music in honour of Tyagaraja. This is really a continuation
of the work of Sri Ananda Gajapati of Vizianagaram, the cultured prince of an
earlier generation.
In
this high tide of enthusiasm, it is being recognised that Tyagaraja’s
contribution to Telugu literature is not less important than his contribution
to music. In the post-Vijayanagara period, great literature was produced by
Telugu poets at the courts of the Nayaks of Madura and Tanjore. Tyagaraja came
a little later. He was not professedly a writer of Kavyas, but his songs and
operas take rank with the best in Telugu literature. He was an admiring student
of Potana’s Telugu Bhagavatam, and in point of literary excellence,
Tyagaraja’s song is the counter-part of Potana’s verse.
After
a hundred years, Tyagaraja’s fame as poet and composer is undimmed; it is
spreading to new lands and peoples. Since music is a means of international
contacts, his admirers may look forward to the day when, like Valmiki and
Kalidasa, Tyagaraja will be acknowledged as a fine flower of Eastern culture
whose message is universal in its essence–the message of the divinisation of
man through the pursuit of Beauty in sound and word.
Pandit Malaviya in the North and Sir P. S. Sivaswamy Aiyer in the South were representatives of modern Indian culture at its best. Having passed through college soon after British-planned universities started functioning in India, they held fast to the ideals of the East while keeping themselves open to the new influences from the West. As scholars, lawyers and public men, as founders and administrators of educational institutions, they faithfully served the land they loved. Their aims were always pure and their achievement first-rate; they left the impress of their personalities on many spheres of public work. They were gentlemen in the supremest sense of the word,–kindly, courteous, and ever willing to help. They were associates during the early years of the Congress; they were associates once again in the work of the Benares Hindu University. Behind the contrast in outward appearance and in personal habits and tastes, there was a kinship between these patriarchs. In emotional fervour Malaviya was nearer to V. Krishnaswami Aiyar. It was possibly the knowledge of Sivaswamy Aiyer’s well-known affection for Krishnaswami Aiyar which drew Malaviya to the former. These stalwarts of India in transition have left us a legacy of high endeavour for the public good. India of the future will nourish statesmen playing their parts on a wider stage. But even they must look back with pride to the days of Malaviya and Sivaswamy Aiyer as the formative age when India struggled, under adverse conditions, from dependence to freedom.
On
December 21, 1946, the Visva-Bharati,–the International University founded by
the Poet Rabindranath Tagore at Shantiniketan,–will complete twenty-five years
of its sustained efforts in the “realization of different aspects of truth from
diverse points of view”, as envisaged and exemplified by the many-sided Mind of
Man. Indeed, in such a realization, all such distinctions as East and West,
Race and Race, Religion and Religion, Art and Science are dissolved in a common
purpose and pursuit. And who can deny that in the present day, with its warring
visions and viewpoints, there is a need for the multiplication of institutions
like the Visva-Bharati? For, they are a vital, formative factor in the creation
of the Fellowship of Humanity. May the Visva-Bharati, then, continue for long
its service to the cause of world peace through the establishment of free
communication of ideas.” For verily tomorrow belongs to the supernationalism of
the spirit.