...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.
IN offering respectful, and most affectionate,
greetings to the President-elect of the Jaipur session of the Indian National
Congress, I pride myself on the fact that he is a senior member of the Advisory
Board of Triveni. But, long before Triveni came into being, Dr.
Pattabhi–Sri Bhogaraju Pattabhi Sitaramayya Pantulu Garu, to give him his full
Andhra name–was my chief: I served in the Andhra Jateeya Kalasala, Masulipatam,
of which he was one of the founders. By a strange chance, I am now back in his
home-town of Masulipatam, to edit the Telugu Weekly Krishna Patrika along
with my poet-friend, Sri Katuri Venkateswara Rao. Dr. Pattabhi and the late Sri
Mutnuri Krishna Rao, Editor of the Patrika for forty years, were
life-long friends, and associates in many worthy ventures in the cause of
Indian freedom and India’s cultural advance.
But, apart from the personal aspect of the matter,
the great Congress organisation itself deserves to be congratulated on having
chosen as its Head a veteran Congressman who has shaped the thought and outlook
of two generations of Indians and interpreted the Gandhian doctrine with
unrivalled clarity. He has been a member of the All-India Congress Committee
continuously since 1914 and of the High Command almost continuously for twenty
years. This doughty champion of freedom won his laurels at Calcutta in 1917, by
sponsoring the reorganisation of Indian Provinces for purposes of Congress work
and the immediate carving out of a Congress Committee for Andhra. At Nagpur in
1920, he sat with Gandhiji and the late Sri A. Rangaswami Iyengar and mapped
out Congress Provinces on the basis of language and integrated harmony. But the
peak of his achievement at Nagpur was the historic reply he gave to Commander
Wedgewood in the Subjects Committee; he upheld the Gandhian programme of Non-co-operation
with rare eloquence and turned the tide in its favour when stalwarts like
Desabandhu C. R. Das were still hesitant. In recent years, his greatest
contribution to national reconstruction has been the bringing of the States
into line with the Provinces. An honour long overdue has come to one who is
eminently worthy of it.
The Congress is still the leading political
organisation in Free India, and its President holds a position equaled only by
the Head of the State. The new Rashtrapati may be trusted to enhance the
dignity of the office and to make it serve as a vital link between the Nation
and the National Government.
While a Commission appointed by the President of
the Constituent Assembly is touring the country and collecting evidence about
the proposed linguistic Provinces, it is hardly fair that persons in authority,
including the Deputy Prime Minister of India and the Premier of Madras, should
express themselves strongly against the entire scheme of re-distribution
accepted by the Congress more than a quarter of a century ago. Ingenuity is
being expended in trying to make out that the demand for linguistic Provinces
is on a par with that for Pakistan. Vague fears are being entertained that the
ideal of Indian unity may be submerged by the flood of linguistic fanaticism.
But it is elementary knowledge that neither Andhra, nor Karnataka, nor
Maharashtra is seeking to set up an independent sovereign State, cut off from
the Indian Union. Linguistic Provinces are the prime requisite in a scheme of
re- integration; homogeneous linguistic and cultural units will emerge as
convenient administrative areas, sharing the common life of the Unions and
contributing to it the rich variety of a multi-lingual existence. Here is the
perfection of unity in diversity. Here too is the chance for the common people
to participate in the daily tasks of government, and for the regional languages
to be enthroned as the chief media of instruction, administration, and
legislation. The dozen or more principal tongues of India are not mere
dialects; they are centuries-old languages with great literatures of their own.
Hindustani is but one of them, and though it may function as a lingua franca
for certain limited purposes, the regional
literatures must grow in the atmosphere of Free India and become the
vehicles of the most advanced thought. All these points were argued and
re-argued thirty-five years ago, and the best minds of the nation accepted them
as almost axiomatic truths. The temporary aberrations of provincial feeling
have, however, led even well-intentioned individuals like Pandit Nehru to call
for a postponement of the question. But postponement will not solve the
difficulties created by provincial antagonisms. Problems like the future of
bi-lingual cities, and the rights of linguistic minorities all over India, must
be faced and solved on an all India basis. It is only thus that a better
atmosphere will prevail–not by side-tracking the issue and branding particular
linguistic groups as narrow-minded, fanatical, and unpatriotic.
The Constituent Assembly has to come to a decision
in the light of the report of the Dhar Commission. Unless the names of the new
Provinces are included in the Schedule, they cannot function in the wake of the
new Constitution. The advocates of linguistic Provinces have an uphill task. If
they wish to overcome the prejudices of powerful opponents, they must learn in
the first instance to moderate their respective claims and to refrain from
virulent attacks against neighbours who are equally interested in the cause.
Here, as everywhere, friendliness and neighbourly goodwill will lead to a saner
outlook and a more correct perspective. It is not wise to spoil a good case by
bad advocacy.
Pandit Nehru’s return from England, after attending
the Conference of Commonwealth Prime Ministers invests the question of
Indo-British relations with supreme interest. Every effort seems to have been
made to evolve a formula by which Republics like Eire and India might find it
possible to remain members of the Commonwealth–no longer ‘British’–without
owing allegiance to the Crown. The Anglo-Saxon is far-famed for his spirit of
accommodation to changing conditions, and even more for the ingenuity with
which he manages to retain the substance while parting with the shadow. If, as
is almost certain, the Indian Constituent Assembly stands by its original
resolve to declare India a Republic, the statesmen of the Commonwealth–Canadian
or Australian–will have no quarrel about it. The citizens of those Dominions
are inheritors of the Anglo-Saxon tradition; to them, devotion to the Crown
comes natural. But, being realists, they will not insist on similar devotion
being displayed by what were once ‘lesser breeds’ outside the charmed circle of
cousinhood. Nevertheless, in the new alignment of world-forces, the
Anglo-American cum West European combine would like to retain not merely
the goodwill and friendly neutrality of a pivotal country like India. Vibrant
with her new-born freedom, India is a desirable partner, however loosely
linked, of the group that must be marshaled against the Soviet. In between the
Nation-State and the United Nations Organisation must be interposed another
compact body wedded to formal Democracy and the maintenance of individual
freedom against the onslaughts of Communist totalitarianism.
What should be India’s reactions to this new move?
Sentiment can play but a slight part in this context. We are just now ceasing
to look upon the British as the oppressors who drained our country of its
immense wealth and kept us for over a century under the iron heel of
Imperialism. The interplay of cultures and the memory of the nobler type of
Englishman who loved India and worked for its progress to nation hood may incline
us to treat Britain as a ‘favoured’ nation. But membership of the Commonwealth
is a different matter. While such membership might not involve subjection to an
outside power, it might land us into complications in the sphere of
international relations. An alliance as between independent nations will secure
to India all the advantages of a friendly association with the Commonwealth,
without committing us to courses of action likely to impair our relations with
Powers which are not actually hostile to us. India can playa more decisive role
as the bringer of peace among nations by declining to walk into any particular
combination of nations whose definite, though undeclared, aim is to mass its
forces against a rival group.
The Police action in Hyderabad was both quick and
effective. The reign of terror inaugurated by Kasim Razvi and Mir Laik Ali has
now ended. A Constituent Assembly elected on adult franchise will function
within the next few months, and the future of the State decided in accordance
with the will of the citizens.
All this looks very simple. But the problem of
Hyderabad’s future is complicated by the existence of three different
linguistic units, seeking re-absorption in contiguous areas of the Indian
Union. Even the elections to the Constituent Assembly will be contested on this
issue. While such re-absorption is perfectly logical and likely to meet with
the approval of large sections of the people concerned, it involves the
immediate dismemberment of the Nizam’s State and the end of the Asaf Jahi rule,
even as a constitutional monarchy like Mysore or Baroda. The linguistic units
of Hyderabad may eventually agree to function as a well-knit confederation with
the Nizam as hereditary leader. While cultural contacts can always be kept up
with the corresponding areas of the Indian Union, the State of Hyderabad can
maintain its political integrity. A few years ago, Dr. C. R. Reddy envisaged a
scheme on these lines. In any case, the formation of linguistic Provinces under
the new Indian Constitution need not wait for the break-up of the Nizam’s
State. Such a break-up is not inevitable, and there is no need to postpone the
issue of linguistic Provinces in view of a contingency which may not arise for
several years.
Of more immediate urgency are the problems related
to the transfer of power from the present Military Administration to a popular
Government, the liquidation of the Jaghirs and other features of a feudal
regime, and the training of the personnel needed for a modern State in its
administrative and industrial sphere. The State Congress, which played a
notable role in the struggle for freedom, today stands divided, and doubts are
being expressed about its fitness for running the administration under altered
conditions. The Communists are still abroad, especially in the districts of
Warangal and Nalgonda. The peculiar geographical situation of Hyderabad, right
in the Centre of India, makes it imperative that the transition from autocracy
to responsible government should be watched with care. The Government of India
have a special responsibility in this matter. The State Congress will step into
power, because large numbers of Muslims and other groups who had previously
held aloof are planning to join its ranks. In Swami Ramananda Thirth, the State
Congress has a leader of ability and integrity. But it takes time to achieve a
high standard of efficiency in a newly set up democratic regime. It will take
even more time in Hyderabad than in the rest India which has had contact with
democratic forms. So, even when complete peace is restored and the Military
regime goes out, the presence of a few veteran statesmen, in an advisory
capacity, would conduce to stability of administration. This has also been the
experience in some of the Unions of States which have emerged as a result of
Sardar Patel’s efforts. Good government need not be despised even in an
atmosphere of self-government.
Kerala celebrated with enthusiasm the seventieth
birthday of its foremost poet, Sri Vallathol Narayana Menon. In places like
Bangalore, non-Keralites joined in the celebrations and paid warm tributes to
the poet. This is as it should be, for, while Vallathol writes only in
Malayalam, the influence of his work for art and literature has spread to
distant parts of India. Like Tagore, Vallathol is a leading figure in the
cultural renaissance of India. He loves the Motherland and dreams beautiful
dreams of her destiny; and, happily, he has witnessed the birth of a free
India, sovereign within her borders and eager to spread peace and goodwill
abroad. His eminence in the realm of Malayalam literature entitles him to rank
with the tallest among the makers of modern Indian literature in the different
Provinces and States of India. The beautiful blend of Sanskrit and the native
Malayalam idiom in his writings points to the essential oneness of all Indian
literatures, arising out of their close affiliation with Sanskrit. Rooted in
the culture of the ancients, Vallathol has nevertheless kept himself open to
the influences of the modern age. His sympathies are worldwide, and he sings
with equal zest of the devotion of Akrura to Sri Krishna and of Mary Magdalene
to Jesus.
Through the Kerala Kalamandalam, Vallathol has
laboured unceasingly for the promotion of the fine arts and more particularly
of the Kathakali, the famous dance-drama of Kerala. He has travelled widely
with his troupe of artistes and brought the Kathakali into prominence as an
art-form; he has done for Kathakali what Tagore did for the Manipuri dance.
Vallathol is an exceeding gentle and affectionate
person, loved and honoured wherever his beneficent presence is felt. Long may
he be spared to serve the world of art and letters!