‘THE TRIPLE STREAM’

The Civil Power

With Army men seizing the supreme power in neighbouring lands, it becomes the duty of all lovers of democracy in India to re-affirm their faith in the democratic process and in democracy as a way of life. Our new won freedom from British colonialism can mean nothing to us unless it is accompanied by a growing sense of the value of the individual citizen, fulfilling himself as a vital unit in a free, co-operative commonwealth, and governed by a Constitution broadbased on the will of the people. India gave herself such a Constitution and, under the leadership of a great democrat like Nehru, she has strived to safeguard human dignity while insisting on the duty of men and women throughout the Indian Union to be loyal to the Gandhian ideals of truth and non-violence.

Doubts have been cast from time to time on the ability of an ‘under-developed’ country like India to achieve rapid industrialisation and a balanced economy without resorting to totalitarian methods. The Indian experiment is being watched with interest by observers from abroad, and the consensus of opinion among them is that the country is progressing on the right lines, though the pace of that progress is not commensurate with the expenditure involved and the huge official hierarchy recruited in recent years for working the Plans. Regimentation of the people, conscription of labour, and the forcing of reforms on large masses of citizens unprepared for them, are all ruled out in our infant democracy. The examples of Russia and China are before us and we are not anxious to copy their methods, even to attain desirable ends. We have to depend largely on the co-operation of the public, and the chief means of enlisting that co-operation is peaceful persuasion through a widespread campaign of publicity. Ultimately, publicity tells, provided the activities publicised are genuine efforts to build a new India, not in the cities only but also in the tens of thousands of our villages. There must be a new awareness of our needs and of the means of satisfying them. It is through the co-ordination of the activities of officials and non-officials that our plans will become fruitful.

Economic re-construction through democratic methods is, however, a partial fulfilment of the dreams of our prophets and seers. It is but the outer framework, which needs to be ensou1ed by what are usually termed the things of the mind and the spirit. These ‘more excellent’ things find expression through Art, Literature and Philosophy. A failure to properly assess the value of the humanities in enriching a nation’s life, and an undue emphasis on industrial and technological advance, will gradually lead to an all-round lowering of standards in education, in public life, and in the purity and efficiency of the administration. A touch of idealism will transform the outlook of workers in any field of activity and promote that element of un-selfishness which lies at the root of all right endeavour, whether national or individual. The last decade in India has witnessed a definite set-back in the matter of action which ennobles the doer because of the devotion behind it. Till we can recapture something of the emotional fervour of the pre-Independence era and realise that, even in a prosaic work-a-day world, purity of aim and loftiness of sentiment can be allied to a high level of efficiency, out best-laid plans may not yield the best of results. In addition to the material and mental attributes usually associated with every institution for the achievement of public welfare, there is an intangible, yet very real, moral element whose power for good is inestimable. This moral element, which is indeed a reflection of the supreme Goodness overshadowing all existence, has to be awakened, through the proper education of the young, and even more by the personal example of those who are at the helm of a nation’s affairs. A recognition of this need is the first step in the march towards a nobler life. It is not enough if a few individuals are idealists. Their idealism must leaven the mass. The race among public men for office and power, for wealth and luxury, is improper at any time. It is particularly so in the present condition of India. Day after day we hear of efforts to cleanse our political parties and to make them more effective instruments of service to the nation. It is not the organisational methods that are faulty, but the emotional make-up of the people who run the party machines at various levels. It is a cleansing of hearts that is needed. This applies to every one of our parties. If all of them function in the public interest, Governments and Oppositions everywhere in India will reflect in varying degrees the popular feeling. And if every party, without exception, offers whole-hearted allegiance to the Constitution and to constitutional and peaceful methods for the working of their programmes, the foundations of Indian democracy will have been truly laid. The spectre of dictatorships and of Army coups will be exorcised, and the Army chiefs will continue to function in loyal subordination to the Civil Power and the Constitution.

Our Universities

Among the major problems claiming the attention of our public men and of leading scholars associated with our Universities, is that of a re-orientation of our educational system in the light of a rapidly changing environment. The Senates and Syndicates, the Ministries of Education, the University Grants Commission, and the various ad hoc bodies set up by the Government of India to report on specific issues like the reform of the Banaras Hindu University, make pronouncements on certain aspects of the problem. There are, in addition, the convocation addresses delivered year after year exhorting the young graduates to conduct themselves in a manner worthy of their Alma Mater. The impression which emerges from a study of this vast mass of material is that of an ever-widening gulf between the old and the young, that is to say, between those who guide our educational policies and those for whose benefit such policies are being shaped. An indifference to studies and an unwillingness to submit to discipline are the main features of student life on which the nation’s attention is being focussed. In a place like Banaras, the evils seem to have been accentuated by the staff of the University using different sections of the students for the furtherance of their own group activities. And the political parties are not disinterested spectators. In every University there are as many politically minded student groups as there are political parties in the country. Each party is anxious that the youth of the country should align themselves behind their particular party and become the mainstay of political agitation for party purposes. This evil is as widespread in the ranks of students as in the ranks of labour, and the results are even more disastrous. The springs of our national life are being poisoned at the very source and incalculable harm is being done to the generation now at school and college. The students grow up in an atmosphere of disorder and discontent, and the main work of equipping them for the great tasks ahead is neglected.

One hears of the enormous growth in the number of under-graduates and the resulting inability of the staff to pay individual attention to their young charges. One hears also of widespread un-employment among the educated youth of the land, of frustration of spirit, of emotional distempers. These are evils which may be successfully tackled by the application of stringent rules for admission, by diversified courses of study suited to different temperaments, and by schemes calculated to decentralise industry and to permit agriculture and the small-scale and cottage industries to play an important role in our national economy. All this is a matter of framing regulations, remodelling our educational institutions and finding new avenues of employment. It does not, however, go to the root of the problem, which is the achievement of emotional integration as between the older generation and the younger. A bridge has to be built between them, and our main hope lies in the age-group consisting of persons between thirty-five and forty-five. These have watched the unselfish labours of the national leaders, and sat at the feet of the eminent thinkers of an earlier generation. They are young enough to establish friendly contacts with the younger generation now at college and to understand their point of view on most questions which are vital to the nation’s growth. From this particular age-group should be drawn the lecturers and professors in our colleges. They should discipline themselves and interpret the mind of the generation that is fast passing out of active public life to the rising generation which contains the builders of tomorrow. This linking of the generations,–one to another, through bonds of sympathy and understanding, is work of the highest importance.

A side-issue which has assumed prominence in recent years is that of the medium of instruction in our colleges. The change-over to the regional languages has to be phased properly, but an early beginning has to be made in that direction. While the regional languages must eventually become the media of instruction, there is need for fostering a sound knowledge of English and Hindi in all our educational institutions. For an indefinite period, both these languages may be used for purposes of Central administration and for inter-State contacts. And for contacts with the rest of the world, English must always be taught compulsorily to our students.

There is now a tendency to control the Universities through governmental action, and the latest move is the scrapping of the method of election of the Vice-Chancellor by the Senate. The Government of Andhra Pradesh favours the Delhi University’s mode of nomination of the Vice-Chancellor by the Chancellor, out of a panel of names submitted by a special committee, which is itself nominated partly by the Syndicate and partly by the Chancellor. If direct election by the Senate is ruled out as likely to lead to undesirable factions in the administration of our Universities, a reasonable alternative seems to be the procedure adopted by the University of Madras, by which the Senate elects a panel and the Chancellor nominates one out of that panel. It is hoped that this system will be adopted on a uniform basis, so as to combine the advantages of the methods of election and nomination. The Vice-Chancellor is really the key-stone of the University arch, and his dignity and independence have to be safeguarded for the proper functioning of our Universities.

B. P. Wadia: Friend of Humanity

“We labour in beautiful Bangalore, but our Institute radiates its bright influence, as a little candle throws its beams afar:” so said Sri B. P. Wadia on the 11th of August this year, delivering the Fourteenth Foundation Day Address of the Indian Institute of World Culture, of which he was the Founder-President. He had a premonition that his address that day was “perhaps the last of such addresses from me, for this body is getting old.” Nine days later he passed away from the scene of his labours, leaving behind him the example of a great gentleman, generous, high-souled, and wise beyond words.

In the days of the Indian Home Rule Movement, Sri Wadia and the late Dr. G. S. Arundale were the foremost lieutenants of Dr. Besant, and they were interned along with her at Ootacamund by the Government of Lord Pentland. Those were exciting days, and student Home Rule Leaguers like me listened with admiration to Sri Wadia’s eloquent and well-informed speeches at the Gokhale Hall in Madras. Sri Wadia used to come to the Hall straight from the offices of the New India, carrying with him a neatly folded copy of the evening’s paper. Tall and dignified, and dressed in immaculate Parsi costume, he gripped the attention of the audience by his array of facts and his sallies of wit and humour.

Sri Wadia was interested in many movements for the nation’s uplift. In 1918, he started the first Labour Organisation in India. A little earlier, he had sponsored the first exhibition in Madras of the paintings of the Indian School of Oriental Art and made South India familiar with the work of Abanindranath Tagore and Nandalal Bose. He helped in the publication of books like Dr. Ananda K. Coomaraswamy’s Introduction to Indian Art.

But his life was in the main dedicated to Theosophy and the service of the Masters. He was steeped in the Blavatsky tradition, and when he felt that Dr. Besant and her colleagues had deviated from that tradition, he parted from them with great regret. He then allied himself with the United Lodge of Theosophists and spent several years in America lecturing on Theosophy. In the course of his Theosophical work in America, he came into contact with and married a gifted Spanish-American lady. In 1929, Sri Wadia and Srimathi Sophia Wadia settled in Bombay and started that fine journal of Philosophy and religion–The Aryan Path. Srimathi Wadia became the Founder of the P. E. N. India Centre and Editor of the Indian P. E. N. with the help of a band of devoted workers gathered from East and West, the Wadias enlisted the co-operation of poets, scholars and thinkers, and made their homes in Bombay and Bangalore great centres of refinement and culture. The foundation of the Indian Institute of World Culture in 1945 was the crowning glory of a life of unselfish service to humanity.

To Triveni and its Editor, the journals and the institutions founded by the Wadias are very dear. Triveni had come into being a few years earlier, and when The Aryan Path first appeared and was soon followed by the Indian P. E. N., I realised that here were kindred spirits doing work akin to mine, but with greater ability and organisational skill. My own effort in the cause of culture commended itself to the Wadias, and Triveni always found a warm welcome at ‘Maitri Bhavan’. In the years during which Triveni was published from Bangalore our kinship became closer.

The world of scholarship and research has gained a powerful ally in the Institute founded by Sri Wadia. It is a visible symbol of the Founder’s international outlook and love of universal brotherhood. Srimathi Sophia Wadia and her colleagues are today charged with the responsibility of carrying on this good work. They were privileged to share his vision. May strength be vouchsafed to them to sustain his ideals!

Iswara Dutt is Sixty

In the central hall of Parliament at New Delhi, and under the chairmanship of the Home Minister, Govind Ballabh Pant, the friends and admirers of Iswara Dutt met to felicitate him on the completion of sixty years of a noble, strenuous life. That was on the 28th of September. Events have moved fast since then, and Dutt is laying down his office as Secretary of the National Book Trust. What a bewildering variety of roles has been played by this worthy son of Andhra, acclimatised in Allahabad and Delhi like the idol of his youth, the great Chintamani. Clerk in a University office, underpaid sub-editor in Swarajya, valued Assistant in The Hindu of Madras and The Leader of Allahabad, Founder-Editor of The Twentieth Century, Public Relations Officer in Jaipur and Hyderabad, joint Editor, The Hindustan Times, Editor of The Leader, Radio Commentator, Secretary of a Book Trust–all this in addition to being a fluent speaker, and an accomplished writer of essays and biographical sketches, scintillating with humour and marked by a rare insight.

Iswara Dutt is, by instinct and early association, a votary of the Liberal school in Indian politics. Subba Rau Pantulu of Rajahmundry and Chintamani of Allahabad shaped him and Tej Bahdur Sapru gave the finishing touches. In the years when men of his generation were drawn into the whirlpools of non-co-operation and civil disobedience, Dutt worked steadily at his desk and built up a reputation for sanity and balance. This did not, however, prevent him from moving on terms of intimacy with the leaders of the Congress, including top-ranking individuals like Rajaji and Jawaharlal Nehru. The secret of Dutt’s success as a journalist and man of letters lies’ in this attitude of friendliness towards men of all schools of thought, and an understanding of the ‘inner being’ of individuals, bared of mere external traits. His genius for friendship stems from this sunny nature, shared by his devoted wife. And he overwhelms his friends by a wealth of affection, which expresses itself in delightful conversation and equally delightful letters.

The commemoration volume presented to him on this happy occasion is a thing of beauty–in form and content–and brings together messages and tributes from the leading personalities in the public life of the country. But to an early friend like me, the most moving of the tributes are those from K. Rama Rao and M. V. Ramana Rao, who were college mates of his at Rajahmundry. They recall Iswara Dutt in his teens, dreaming and planning for the future and disciplining himself under the guidance of his father, the late Venkataratnam Garu,–a humble schoolmaster and yet among the foremost men of the day by reason of his idealism and unbending rectitude.

Dutt, possibly, has no regrets. But my regret on his behalf is that he could not keep up The Twentieth Century. Regrets apart, and though Dutt is already sixty, I have a feeling that, in his case, “the best is yet to be!”

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