‘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 spirit. 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
By K. RAMAKOTISWARA RAU*
The Wavell plan was a very reasonable and practical
way out of the Indo-British impasse. It offered a chance to the Congress and
other parties to settle down to administer the land in an atmosphere of
goodwill. While parity between ‘Caste’ Hindus and Muslims is manifestly
unacceptable as permanent feature of our political life, the Congress High
Command accepted the arrangement, hoping thereby to achieve that largest common
measure of agreement needed to put through the Wavell scheme. The omission of
the Hindu Mahasabha from the list of invitees to the Conference was
regrettable. The Congress, however, did not enter a formal protest on this
ground but sought to retrieve this and other errors inherent in the latest British
offer to the Indian people by taking upon itself the duty of representing the
view-point of Nationalist India,–Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, and Christian.
At short notice, and without adequate chance to
consult public opinion, the President and members of the Working Committee of
the Congress were called upon to decide important issues, and to define their
attitude to the new proposals. They played their part with dignity and great
political acumen. They took the Viceroy at his word, relied on his sincerity,
and offered the fullest measure of co-operation consistent with the Congress
role of a national, as distinguished from a communal, organization. The
representation of Nationalist or independent Muslims on the new Executive
Council was thus a demand which could not be given up. Mr. Jinnah’s claim to
represent Muslim India in its entirety, or to nominate all the Muslim members
of the Council, could not be accepted. Mr. Jinnah’s obduracy was well known, as
well as his readiness to wreck any constructive effort by interposing fantastic
claims. But the Congress, the Viceroy, and all optimists in India and abroad
hoped that the League leader might yield to the pressure of events and moderate
his claims. That hope was misplaced, and the Conference failed.
The question arises as to why Lord Wavell did not
arm himself with full powers to implement his plan, despite the intransigence
of Mr. Jinnah. Having very properly turned down the League’s claim to nominate
every Muslim Councillor, why did he not proceed further and form an interim
Government with the co-operation of nearly all the important elements of
India’s public life, leaving the League to come in later if it so chose? The
Wavell plan was the joint handiwork of all the leading British political
parties, and they must have foreseen the possibility of Mr. Jinnah trying to
torpedo the scheme. Were they, in that case, content to vest in Mr. Jinnah the
power to veto all constitutional progress? This is a mystery, which only later
events can clear up.
The Viceroy’s request to the Congress leaders to
continue their present attitude of friendly co-operation, coupled with his
anxiety to take some time to find out how best he could help India, points to
the possibility of a fresh move in August or September. The summoning of all
Provincial Governors to Delhi may be with the object of taking stock of the
situation. Those who lightly dismiss the Simla conference as a British election
stunt or accuse the Viceroy of lack of courage, cannot be credited with much
political insight. The Congress as well as the country must wait in patience
for a few weeks and watch the next move from the British side. Meanwhile, the
Congress, which has emerged from the Conference with added prestige, must
reorganise itself after these years of exile, and give the correct lead to the
nation. And the Nationalist Muslims must organise their forces and emerge as an
all-India entity strong enough to expose the pretensions of the League. Mr.
Jinnah’s veto in Indian politics ought not to become a perpetual one. At Simla
the League overreached itself when its leader urged at the final session of the
Conference that there could be no co-operation from his side, even in the task
of forming an interim Government, unless Pakistan was conceded in advance and
the League strength on the Council was equal to that of all the rest!
Extravagant demands of this type carry within themselves the seeds of decay and
defeat, for they naturally lead to a re-alignment of all nationalist forces
opposed to the League. Their patience has run out, and the one thought
everywhere is, “Why should we put up with Mr. Jinnah and his League?” The last
trump has been played by Mr. Jinnah, and his hand is empty. The others will
begin to score, and score heavily.
When Bankim Chandra addressed the Motherland as
“well-watered, well-fruited, and cool with the Malaya breeze,” he was thinking
primarily of Bengal. A later generation sanskritised Bankim’s song and
transformed it into an invocation to all Bharatavarsha. But there is an
expression which falls soft and sweet on a visitor’s ear as he moves about the
city of Calcutta ‘Sonar Bangla’ (Golden Bengal) is how the sons and daughters
of Bengal describe her. The abundant golden corn of the countryside must have
suggested this appellation. Bengal, the land of plenty, has suffered in recent
years, as indeed few tracts of territory have suffered anywhere in human
history. The scars of that agony are still there. The President of the
Congress, himself a distinguished son of Bengal, is paying special attention to
her problems, and Gandhiji is planning to visit the stricken province.
Despite this widespread suffering and distress, the
cultural life of the people has not received any serious set-back. If anything,
there are evidences of an emotional enrichment which has made even famine and
pestilence the theme of poetry, song and drama. A new vision and a new strength
have sprung out of defeat and frustration. Savants like Suniti Kumar
Chatterjee, Kalidas Nag and Amiya Chakravarty seem determined to keep alive the
flame of learning. From the days of Ram Mohan Roy, Bengal has sustained her
role as cultural leader of India. Long before Rabindranath’s poems and plays
were accessible to non-Bengalis, there were intimate sketches of Bengali life
like Romesh Dutt’s Lake of Palms which, in their English garb, evoked
admiration, admiration of the cultural achievement of Bengal. With the work of
Rabindranath and Abanindranath that achievement reached its culmination.
Meanwhile other linguistic units of India have followed quickly in the
footsteps of Bengal, and the Renaissance of Culture which had its beginnings in
that province has now become, like the song of Bankim, the common possession of
India.
But Bengal is not resting. The generation of poets,
writers and artists that succeeded Rabindranath is full of vitality. New
experiments in diverse fields hold forth a rich promise. Even a casual
acquaintance with the literary magazines of the province reveals the innate
grace and refined taste of the people. There is equal zeal to preserve the old
and to create anew. The university of Calcutta has developed an Asutosh Museum
of Fine Arts, where this mingling of new and old is strikingly displayed.
Specimens of painting, sculpture and artistic handicrafts have been collected
from the remotest corners of Bengal and Bihar. Dr. Devaprasad Ghose, the
Curator, claims Andhra as his second home because his earliest researches were
into the art of Amaravati and Nagarjunakonda. His is the true artist’s vision
which senses the fundamental unity of Indian Culture. He has a passionate faith
in the artistic genius of the common people, and he has assiduously collected
specimens of Bengali folk-art. Along side of this museum, there is a regular
school of sculpture and painting, where young artists have created things of
beauty, drawing inspiration from the great masters of the recent past. Calcutta
and Santiniketan are the centres from which radiates the cultural life of
Bengal. Here is being achieved a cultural synthesis of East and West. The work
is of immense significance, and the rest of India will do well to copy the
example of Golden Bengal.
It is difficult to convey to people outside Andhra
the sense of grief verging on desolation of spirit that has come over the
Telugu-speaking public with the passing away of Sri Mutnuri Krishna Rao, Editor
for forty years of our foremost literary and political weekly, the ‘Krishna
Patrika’ of Masulipatam. He was not merely a great journalist and scholar.
There was something in his personal life and outlook which exercised a profound
influence on successive generations of Andhras. From the days of the great
national upheaval of 1906, Krishna Rao and his paper became the visible symbols
of all that was pure and ennobling in the nationalist movement, very much like
what Tilak and the Kesari were in Maharashtra. He revealed the great
potentialities of Telugu prose as a vehicle for the expression of the best
thought of the modern age; in politics or philosophy, art or literary
criticism. He literally adorned everything he touched, and shaped the life and
thought of millions.
Kopalle Hanumantha Rao, founder of the Andhra
Jatheeya Kalasala, was a man of devotion, Dr. Pattabhi Sitaramayya a man of
unselfish action, and Krishna Rao the man of knowledge. By a fortunate
coincidence they all belonged to Masulipatam and worked together in intimate
comradeship, achieving great things for the Motherland.
While Krishna Rao was a man of few words and
studiously avoided publicity, he was accessible to a group of friends and
admirers who gathered in the evenings at the ‘Krishna Patrika’ office. In that
company he threw off his habitual reserve, and discoursed most eloquently on
all topics, though philosophy and art claimed his special allegiance. It was
when we listened to him that the words “feast of reason and flow of soul”
acquired a new meaning. The hearers felt for the moment that they were in the
presence of an inspired being who scaled the heights as sounded the depths of
the life of the Sprit. One asks in vain, “When comes such another?”
That a prophet is not honoured in his own country
is an old saying. It is said that even Rabindranath Tagore had to wait for the
Nobel award before he got his full measure of recognition and praise from his
own countrymen. But times are rapidly changing. There is greater alacrity in
honouring great poets and literary men among the people of every province than
was witnessed even a decade or two ago. Thus in Tamil Nad, the move to build a
memorial in Ettiyapuram, the native town of Subramania Bharati, the great poet
of Tamil nad, has met with enthusiastic and generous response. Ramalingam
Pillai of Namakkal, who continues the tradition of Subramania Bharati was honoured
the other day in Bangalore, when addresses and a handsome purse were presented
to the Tamil poet, and prominent men from various parts of Tamil Nad paid
tributes to his work and worth.
In the Kannada country also a movement has been set
afoot to present a purse to Bendre, the gifted poet, on his fiftieth
birthday–while the sixtieth birthday of Kailasam, the popular playwright, has
aroused great enthusiasm. All this may be ascribed to the growth of provincial
patriotism in recent years, and the tributes paid on such occasions may sound
somewhat excessive to those who are critically minded. But the desire to
organize such celebrations springs from noble motives and needs to be fostered.
Mr. Kailasam is a literary phenomenon in modern
Karnatak. A nephew of the late Sir T. Sadasivier of Madras, and son of the late
Justice Paramasiva Iyer, Mr. Kailasam spent his early years in Mysore and
graduated from Madras, where he won great fame as sportsman and athlete. He
went over to England and, after a stay of six years, returned with a degree in
Geology from the Royal College of Science. Kailasam participated in the
sporting and social life of England as few Indian students have ever done–and
carried back not merely a foreign scientific degree but abundant material in
the way of artistic and dramatic technique, as a result of his frequent visits
to the theatres and music halls of London. His wonderfully retentive memory and
his abnormal sensibilities enabled him to store these impressions in a manner
such as is not within the reach of those who get their knowledge of things
pertaining to art from books. Ever buoyant, brimful of jokes and stories, he is
the centre of attraction in any group of friends. Over 25 years ago he broke
new ground and produced his first Kannada social play–“Tollugatti” (Literally
Hollow Solid). It may be said that he stumbled into play-writing. This first
play was a sketch of two brothers–one of whom gets a first class, is
self-satisfied and a prig, and the other who fails in the examination but is
the prop of the house. The play proved very popular–and has been followed by
numerous sketches, farces, parodies and social plays full of humour as well as
pathos. Mr. Kailasam has also written plays in English like ‘Purpose’ (or
Ekalavya) and Karna–adopting a classical manner of expression. These plays
reveal his power of visualising the old epic characters in powerful dramatic
setting and a rare power of interpreting them and their interaction against a
loftily conceived ethical background.
We wish Mr. Kailasam many years of useful service
to the cause of Art and Literature.
* July 22.