Andhra Liberals: The Famous Trinity

Andhra Liberals:

The Famous Trinity

Dewan Bahadur M. Ramachandra Rao

I

There were generals before Agamemnon, and there were public workers in Andhradesa before Mr. N. Subbarau Pantulu, but Andhra public life began to beat with a mighty throb only since this veteran appeared on the stage. His figure seems to be divided from the rest by a long span of years, for "they are all of Today and Yesterday, while he comes into our midst from the remote past" with the tread of a pioneer and the message of a prophet. He belongs to a generation which is, alas! fast vanishing, but to a type of public workers which has left an indelible impression on the history of a nation.

If for a contented life, a successful academic career in those far-off days was almost a sure passport, the conditions for carving out a career of all-India recognition were not at all propitious for persons who lived far beyond the metropolis and in the less favoured areas of the Presidency. The Telugus then were nowhere, while the very term ‘Andhra’ which has now gained an almost universal currency, was quite unheard of. It was in such conditions that Subbarau Pantulu built up his reputation as a famous lawyer and a distinguished public man. With the inauguration of the Marquis of Ripon's Reforms in the mid-eighties of the last century, he found his level in public life as the representative of the northern group of districts in the Madras Council for three consecutive terms. The spirit of fairness and careful enquiry with which he approached public questions, and the sound judgment and great tact with which he treated them, marked him out as one of the foremost legislators of the day. From the Provincial to the Imperial Council, it was an easy step for a man of his standing and reputation. It was only for three years that he sat in that House, but the part he played in that brief period was memorable not merely in his own life but in that of the Indian Legislatures. The resolution he moved, urging the appointment of a commission of enquiry into the Public Services of India was on one of the most momentous issues, while the speech he delivered on that occasion was among the classics. He ceased to be a provincial figure; he was an all-India man.

The services he rendered to the Congress added to his stature as a politician and status as a leader. One of the first Andhra public men to worship at the shrine of the Congress, it was in the year 1898, when the Madras Session was presided by Ananda Mohan Bose of illustrious memory, that Subbarau Pantulu had the unique honour and privilege of being elected as the Chairman of the Reception Committee. The conspicuous ability and undoubted patriotism with which he later identified himself with the Congress as its General Secretary from 1913 to 1919, made him a tower of strength in that great national institution and a power in Andhradesa.

But Andhradesa itself had not become then, perhaps has not become even now, a power in the land, and its lack of self-assertiveness is nowhere else better symbolised than in Subbarau Pantulu's failure to ascend the throne of the Congress. In his busy life as a wide-awake legislator and as the vigilant Secretary of the Congress, he was not indifferent to the immediate issues of Andhradesa which vitally affected its public life. The lead he gave it in the years 1906-7, when the wave of Nationalism swept the land from the Ganges to the Cooum, was of great importance and momentous consequences. While the elements of uncertainty and peril in the new cult of politics alarmed him and brought into play his sense of moderation and temperateness, its fervour and idealism engendered in him a spirit which conflicted with conventional political methods and revolted against the existing order of things. The speech he delivered in 1907 from the chair of the Provincial Conference held at Vizag, was "unparalleled in the history of the Presidency for a refreshing originality of thought and a stimulating vigour of expression, for intensity of feeling and courage of conviction, for true political insight and a statesmanlike realisation of the actualities of the time." Six years later when a Renaissance animated the whole of Andhradesa and when there was a demand for the re-organisation of provinces on a linguistic basis, Subbarau Pantulu earned the lasting gratitude of the Andhras as one of the chief advocates of the movement.

Indeed, there was no department of public life in Andhradesa, perhaps no progressive movement in India, to which he did not make a handsome contribution. He was a champion of political rights, an advocate of social reform, a lover of spiritual revival, a patron of art and letters, and above all, a friend .of humanity. His pulse quickens with a tale of woe. Whether it is the Jallianwallah bagh tragedy or the Sradhananda murder, a starving institution or a suffering individual, the loss caused by a decimating famine or the havoc done by a disastrous flood, his heart is touched to the core. He does not stop with mere academic sympathy; he rushes to give benevolent support.

Mr. Subbarau Pantulu still speaks with conviction, writes with deftness, and argues with passion. An attack on him–be it vitriolic in utterance and vehement in method, leaves him for the nonce unruffled. He waits for a favourable opportunity, manipulates resourcefully, and mangles the opponent without much ado. The slow but sure process in which his mind works leaves his opponent first in the lurch and then in the ditch. But this is an aspect of life which must be left to the study of the psychologist. To the layman, however, he is the very picture of geniality which springs out of the happy combination of a robust spirit and worldly success.

The supreme characteristic of Subbarau Pantulu's life is the clash between his impulses and temperament. It may look paradoxical, but this is at once the weakness as well as the strength of his character. In his earlier years, he was a co-adjutor of reformer Viresalingam; later, he drifted towards the Hindu Sabha; but all along he has been catholic and not bigoted, in his views. In politics, he is a liberal, but his liberalism never degenerated into an unholy alliance with bureaucracy or political mendicancy. When he was in no way connected with the Congress, he stretched his shaking hand to ply the spinning-wheel. And the greatest triumph in his life was that he escaped the humiliation of passing into the ranks of political reactionaries and titled magnates. He spurned the "honors" which would have led to a knight-hood, the glitter of badges, and the glamour of ribbons.

To his many friends and admirers, it is a source of happiness to find that age has not left him with "the frayed cloak of former reputation." In his twenties he founded (with five compatriots of the South) "The Hindu"–because it was the right thing; and in his seventies he is fighting for the Andhra University headquarters–because, in his view, it is located at the wrong place. One may differ from him, but one cannot withhold one's admiration for his strenuous and indefatigable labours, which remind us of the vitality of an indomitable old Lord Halsbury, of whom it is said that he treats Time's "visiting cards" on him with scorn and goes along like a gay young fellow who has all his days before him.

A man of naive simplicity and warm impulses, wide experience and ripe wisdom, and broad-minded views and cheery optimism, he has grown grey in the service of the Motherland and secured a place for himself in the pantheon of Indian nation-builders. He is familiarly known as the Grand Old Man of Andhradesa and fondly called by Dr. Pattabhi as the Andhra Nestor. No matter by what name he is known, it is certain that good old Subbarau Pantulu–the doyen of our public life, will leave behind .him his footprints on the sands of Time.

II

The most unostentatious but useful, the most promising but unlucky politician in Andhradesa is undoubtedly Dewan Bahadur M. Ramachandra Rao. He rendered equally meritorious services to the crown and the country and commands the respect of both the Government and the people in a corresponding measure. But ironically enough, he missed alike official recognition and popular adoration–the former, as he does not stoop to conquer, and the latter, as he does not pander to the tastes of the crowd. But of one thing we may be confident, if not certain. Whatever he might miss, he does not miss the page of history.

If Subbarau Pantulu began his career at a time when there was little more than a glimmer of political consciousness, Ramachandra Rao had to rise amidst the flutters of political awakening. His success in distinguishing himself among rivals, who were many as well as formidable, illustrates his incontestable capacity. He has been in public life for above three decades and refuses to retire from the field as long as there is a call for his contribution to the solution of the nation's problems. An easy success at the bar and wide experience in the spheres of Local Self-Government–he did work of enduring merit as the Municipal Chairman of two such important places as Rajahmundry and Ellore and as the President of the District Board of Kistna–led to his great electoral triumph in 1908 for a seat in the Madras Legislative Council of the Minto-Morleyan era. The spirit of public service was so much ingrained in Ramachandra Rao, that, though he did not make a bonfire of his briefs, as several did in response to Gandhi's trumpet call, he has been always surrendering his professional to public work.

In the realms of Indian legislatures, Ramachandra Rao occupied a position of unchallenged supremacy. In a Council in which giants like Krishnaswami Iyer, Subrahmania Iyer, and K. Srinivasa Iyengar, among the dead, and Sivaswami Iyer, Vijiaraghavachari and Srinivasa Sastri among the living, established their reputation, Ramachandra Rao had, to his lasting credit, a record of work which reached the highest water-mark of legislative eminence. Oratory contributed little to this magnificent achievement, for Ramachandra Rao had none of the gifts of eloquence which characterised the utterances of a Srinivasa Sastri. Leadership of the Bar at the metropolis which a Srinivasa Iyengar (K or S) enjoyed, was not given to him. Then what was Mr. Ramachandra Rao's forte? The following excerpt from a scathing editorial in "New India" of December 13, 1920, written under the caption of "Lord Willingdon's blunder" when Ramachandra Rao was overlooked for the vacant place in the Madras Executive Council, partly furnishes the answer. "If fitness, equipment, knowledge, public spirit, and strenuous work are a guide, then there can be absolutely no doubt that the claims of Dewan Bahadur M. Ramachandra Rao to the place are greatly superior to those of Mr. K. Srinivasa Iyengar, and far above those of any man who could be thought of for the place . . . His experience of administrative matters, his ability, his temperament, his character, and his careful training in public affairs, indeed, mark him out as the best man for the place." "The Hindu" too was simply surprised why and how Mr. Ramachandra Rao was overlooked –a sure proof that Mr. Ramachandra Rao's claims rested on indisputable merit. Digression apart, Ramachandra Rao's Supremacy as a legislator was due to his vast information, sobriety of judgment, high dignity and unimpeachable decorum. He had something to say on every subject that came up for discussion and he was equally well conversant with local and municipal affairs, irrigation questions, financial problems, educational topics, prohibition issues, military matters, and constitutional developments. His work in the Assembly in the last term the Vice-President of the Independent Party marked him out as one of the best committee men in India and "one of our most thoughtful and capable leaders." It is not in the Assembly in the heat and hurry of party conflicts but in the committee stages that solid and substantial legislative work could be done; and it is in such committees that Ramachandra Rao is found to be one of India's indispensables. Of that enduring work he gave a foretaste in England when he went there in 1919 on behalf of the Liberal Party to give evidence before the Joint Committee. "Only last night," wrote St. Nihal Singh from London to the Indian press, "I was having my farewell talk with Mr. Ramachandra Rao at dinner. I doubt if any of the Indian leaders have worked harder than he has done, or if there is anyone whose work is likely to prove of greater service to the Motherland. He has gone about interviewing eminent Britons, many of whom he has invited to lunch or dine with him, and has used these luncheons and dinners as opportunities for bringing Indians in touch with them. Through such intercourse he has been able to impress upon them, what India really wants and what India really is." He does not force down his opinions on you with gusto: he calmly influences your decisions. He does not dictate his views: he merely wins you over to his side by stating the case in "unattractive but sensible," halting but convincing way, and at times expressing extreme views (in Mr. J. A. Spender's, vein) in moderate language.

Mr. Ramachandra Rao has all the elements of statesmanship and none of the qualities of generalship. If he had dash, gift of speech, and initiative he would have gone far–rather, much farther. The tragedy of his career is, what Mr, A. G. Gardiner would call, temperamental indecision. "The one fatal defect in a leader is indecision. To hesitate is to be lost–to doubt is to fail." Owing to this disastrous combination of ill-luck and indecision just when he was expected, and when he expected himself, to reach the Happy Isles, the gulfs washed him down.

But work is greater than office. The Council and Assembly owed not a little of their success in good legislation to this gentleman of statesmanlike stature and cabinet timber. Sir Harold Stuart hailed him as "the Gokhale of Madras" a sobriquet which is enough to make a man immortal. Ramachandra Rao's defeat in the last elections under exceptional circumstances saw the break of a long career of useful activity and reminded us of the defeat of Asquith at Paisley. Yes, it is Asquith whom he reminds both by what he lacks and what he possesses. Asquith's powers of quick decision and unrivalled eloquence are denied to him. But if Parliament is to Asquith as the water is to the fish, so is the Councilor Assembly to Ramachandra Rao. Like Asquith, he is inclined to "wait and see," to care little for large, vague, speculations, and to act as a man of affairs–and of to-day's affairs. In private life too, he is, like Asquith, a "friendly, family, very human man." And again, like Asquith, Ramachandra Rao's supreme claim to the nation's gratitude is that "he has never placed his own personality in the light of national interests. He is himself the least experimental and adventurous of men, but he has brought to the schemes of his colleagues a disinterested criticism, and a powerful judgment, governed by a high sense of public duty." In a free country he would have risen to Asquith's height; in a free India he may yet play that part. But now he is content to do his bit for the nation–it is solid, not spectacular-and leave the limelight to others. The enduring work of this esteemed gentleman and eminent statesman will rise above the dust and din of present day controversies and conflicts, and catch the eye of the future chronicler of events.

III

The success of Subbarau Pantulu and Ramachandra Rao in life does not startle us as it is something like a sum in mathematics or a syllogism in logic. But C. Y. Chintamani's success has all the glorious uncertainty and marvelous luck of a Derby sweep. His life is, indeed, one of the romances of Modern India and would be a fit theme for an Indian Smiles. From an obscure reporter on Rs 35, he rose, by dint of sheer merit, to the editorship of a daily, the ministership of a province, and the leadership of a party. He was not a product of University education. He stepped into the College class only to step out of it, but by that time he acquired a command of English, which, allied to a strong memory, created a sensation in circles in which he was known. With a spirit of glorious adventure and reckless heroism, he embarked upon the high seas of Journalism. It was quite recently that he had occasion to write how he went to the Lahore Congress of 1900 in his twentieth year. "I was an unknown and a penniless youngman," he recorded, "to whom it was almost a reckless adventure to journey to cold and distant Lahore (from Vizianagaram) with the help of borrowed money". But it was his good fortune to be "taken in hand with great sympathy by persons of eminence like Bhupendranath Basu and Surendranath Bannerjee, and affectionately looked after by G. Subramania Iyer". An young man who could reel out finished sentences with an amazing fecundity and write on Indian problems with a sort of Jovian authority naturally passed for a prodigy and all great leaders who happened to come across Chintamani welcomed him with open arms.

His was, however, an up-hill task and arduous struggle. It was not in his Presidency that he could find a career but in distant U. P. At Madras, whither he went in 1901 with nothing to rest on but his innate worth and stout heart, he learnt the rudiments of journalism first on the weekly "United India" for a few weeks, and then on "The Madras Standard" for ten and a half months, under that distinguished publicist, the late lamented G. Subrahmania Iyer. "It was against his advice" Chintamani says, "that I left Madras for Allahabad at the end of 1901. But on several occasions when we subsequently met, he nearly always made a point of congratulating me on my ‘wisdom’ in rejecting his advice and coming away from the southern capital to the city of Allahabad which I have since learnt to love with a love that can with difficulty be exceeded by one's love for one's birth-place."

Speaking at Partabgarh on Feb. 20, 1925 at the Gokhale Anniversary celebration, Mr.Chintamani was reported to have said that India's national aspirations to attain Swaraj could only be realised by the "political methods of India's greatest patriot, Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji; of her greatest thinker, Mr. Mahadev Govinda Ranade; of her greatest leader, Sir Pherozeshah Mehta; of her greatest agitator, Sir Surendranath Bannerjee; and of her greatest statesman, Mr. Gopala Krishna Gokhale." Chintamani was exceedingly lucky in his associations. Itwas given to him to come into contact with and under the influence of Some of India's greatest sons whose names he mentioned above, and on Chintamani who was a great believer in political apprenticeship, his association with such master-minds had a lasting effect. An element of hero-worship is indispensable to become a hero. And the man who yesterday regaled and even to-day regales his listeners with numerous quotations from their pronouncements and also passages from the speeches and writings of British politicians, chiefly of the school of mid-Victorian liberals, is himself reproducing much of the vanishing tradition of dignified speech that is called Gladstonian.

The United Provinces of Agra and Oudh where the prizes of public life invariably went to outsiders offered young Chintamani Opportunities for his extraordinary equipment. The ‘Leader’ which came into existence under the auspices of men like Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya and Mr. (now Sir) Tej Bahadur Sapru, was entrusted to Chintamani. Except for two brief interruptions, once when he became a Minister and next when he went to Bombay to edit the "Indian Daily Mail" at Mr. Jehangir Petit's invitation, he has so identified himself with the paper that Chintamani and the "Leader" are spoken of as "one inseparable entity." He made it the "official organ" of the Liberal Party, a great power in the United Provinces, and a journal to whose columns men of all shades of opinion and the Government as well turned for well-informed, weighty, and vigorous articles. Chintamani was not merely a Journalist but a politician. In the U. P. Council he was a force to be reckoned with. When he spoke, they listened to an orator. When he was not a Minister, he was the Leader of the Opposition. He achieved a personal position of influence which was so powerful in the public life of the United Provinces that Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, while unveiling at Madras on Oct 7, the busts of Messrs. G. Subrahmania Iyer and S. Kasturi Ranga Iyengar, referred to Chintamani" as a person who had helped us in building up public life in the U. P. during the last 20 years" and said, ‘If Madras’–(really speaking, it is Andhradesa) "has reason to feel proud of him as one born within its territory, we of the U.P. are prouder still in having adopted him as one of ourselves."

Chintamani was an old Congressman, and at present, the chief intellectual asset of the Liberal Party. His position cannot be better described than in his own words. On the first day (July 3, 1925) on which he edited the "Indian Daily Mail" he wrote over his name in the course of a leader, "I was a Congressman from 1898 to 1918 and have been a Liberal during the last seven years, which is to say that I have been, continuously and consistently, an adherent of the political creed of the fathers and founders of Indian Nationalism, which in a word is self-government to be attained by constitutional means. It is my conviction that no other policy has done, or will in the near future do, any substantial good to the country. Constitutional agitation is misunderstood by not a few and misrepresented by many, as moderation is, as being an euphemism for imbecility and mendicancy. I absolutely deny this. Moderation is not weakness; it can be ‘strong’ as in Cobden, it can be ‘animated’ as in Sir Pherozishah Mehta."

In Chintamani, it is both strong and animated. He blew up the whole case for Dyarchy in his masterly evidence before the Muddiman Committee. In the last few months of his Ministership he used to carry a resignation letter in his pocket. And on a point of principle he –a moderate of moderates! –resigned the job. His spirit was restless and he soon seized the tattered flag of Moderation from a stricken field and went about trumpeting the policy of Liberals. Again on principle, he resigned the editorship of the "Indian Daily Mail" about three weeks after he took it up amidst almost lyrical appreciations. As his thickset and massive features indicate, Mr. Chintamani is combative. He has the courage of his convictions. To rout the N. C. O. movement which stunk in his nostrils he advocated repression and started in U. P. the notorious Aman Sabhas. He had the boldness to proclaim that every vote given to the Swarajist was but a vote given to the bureaucracy. I once heard from him that when everyone was in raptures over the "Satyagraha" –he told Mahatma Gandhi (in May, 1919) –"You alone will retain the Satya; all your disciples derive the Agraha." In opposition to any man or any party he is a tough bit of cold flesh, and today he prefers to lose a Governorship to giving evidence before the Simon Commission. When once he arrives at a decision, he refuses to budge an inch. Like Sir William Harcourt, he is a fighting Liberal who gives and takes no quarter from the enemy. His worst enemies must concede that in a public controversy he is a formidable factor, and that many a political opponent and bureaucrat who could afford to sneer at other public men has had his armour pierced and his shield battered by Chintamani's onslaughts.

As a speaker he reminds us of "the old-fashioned historian of the Gibbon school," to whom the sonorous sweep of rhetorical sentences is an intoxicating music. In defence, he can prove, like Mr. St. Leo Strachey, at inordinate length that everything he has done has been quite refined and gentlemanly, while, on the war path, he can discharge inconvenient facts and figures like a naval gun to the destruction of the enemy.

To compare him with men nearer home, Chintamani lacks Subbarau Pantulu's ripe wisdom, Ramachandra Rao's sweet reasonableness, Pattabhi's keenness, and Ramalinga Reddy's polish of expression, but all of them combined have not his phenomenal memory. B. C. Pal called him a moving encyclopedia. The "Bombay Chronicle" wrote years that "he has a strong memory, with a rectangular finish for every new idea in his head." Mahomed Ali, who has an unusual gift of phrase described his memory as the card-index system of Indian politics. A friend of mine who received his journalistic training under him referred to it as a small secretariat in itself–luckily with none of its voluminousness and mustiness. Whether he writes a letter or a leader, or speaks on the platform or at tea table, he performs those feats of memory which have almost gained a legendary reputation. If he wills, a Niagara of facts and figures, statements and statistics, quotations and passages shoots out, submerges you, and sweeps you off. It is partly because of this dominating influence of memory, that his epistle is like an essay, his conversation is like a lecture, and his lecture like a page from history. It is a positive good luck to find him in reminiscent mood when he is embedded in clouds of smoke at tea table. You will receive what I venture to call "liberal education."

In politics a confirmed liberal, in social matters a whole–hogging rebel, in journalism a born craftsman, in public life a formidable figure, and in private life an amiable gentleman, he has played no small part in the history of Modern India. But for his incorrigible admiration for the West, and what matters more, his intense disregard for native culture, and his stubborn opposition to the ruthless march of new forces, Mr. Chintamani would have achieved an almost epic fame. As he is, he will be a classic example of a self-made man. I am tempted to close this sketch in the words with which Lord Birkenhead closed his sketch of Mr. T. M. Healy. "His reminiscences," said his Lordship, "are a joy, and he ought, while he still retains so much of vigour and a memory so unimpaired, to collect them, in the interests of those who love good stories; a vivid pen; a stirring and brilliant career."