Current Topics

Current Topics ¹

THE IMPASSE

When the Editor of a bi-monthly journal begins to comment on current topics, he invariably finds that most topics have ceased to be current. And in the case of the Triveni whose delays have become more vexatious than the Law's delays, the comments must necessarily relate to events that happened many months ago. Since December last, the relations between India and England have undergone a tragic change. The era of goodwill ushered in by the Gandhi-Irwin pact came to a sudden close when the present Viceroy refused to discuss the Ordinances with Gandhiji. All these months, the atmosphere has been surcharged with suspicion and distrust. There is, apparently, no near prospect of a return to normal conditions. We are passing through a crisis of the first magnitude–the gravest since 1857. If, as is rumoured, the Conservatives asked for just a couple of months to crush the Congress, their calculations have gone all wrong. Their time-table has proved as illusory as that of the British Government when the Boer War was declared, or that of the Kaiser during the German advance on Paris at the commencement of the Great War. With the full support of the ‘National’ Government, the authorities in India, Central and Provincial, armed themselves with the widest powers to combat the Congress. They called upon the law-abiding sections of the public to rally round the cause of ordered constitutional progress. But curiously enough, these sections have not taken the arena kept clear for them. By this time, it must be obvious that either they have not the prestige and the following that the Government credits them with, or the very measures taken by the Government and the way they administered them have alienated these sober and staid advocates of constitutional methods. You cannot in the same breath inaugurate an Ordinance regime and invite the co-operation of men who are fundamentally opposed to all extra-constitutional action, whether by the Congress or the Government.

As always happens, the non-combatants who advocate peace are at a disadvantage. Their number, however; is steadily growing, and in the coming months, their influence may begin to be felt. The Ordinances are due to expire; the Round Table Committees will soon finish their labours; nobody believes that any constitution can be worked without the support of the Congress. The opinion is slowly gaining ground that now is the time to ‘reverse the engines’ and enter into parleys. Government must either crush the Congress or conciliate it. It does not look as if they have crushed it, Government Communiques and Parliamentary pronouncements notwithstanding: an organisation that is crushed does not stage on open session at Imperial Delhi. The only alternative is to conciliate the leaders who have admittedly the largest and the most effective following. Now, if ever, the path of peace is the path of honour.

THE ‘POLITICAL OBSESSION.’

Englishmen, as a rule, fail to understand why the political problem in India should assume such oppressive prominence as to colour the outlook of even those Indians who are primarily poets and artists. "Indian writers today suffer from the political obsession," complains the leader writer of The Times Literary Supplement, an obsession which, according to him, "mars even the fine quarterly Triveni . . . which, in general, is a model of catholic editing." While we appreciate the compliment implied in the closing words, we must reply very briefly to the charge leveled against Indian writers in general and the Editor of the Triveni in particular.

The comment betrays a plentiful lack of imagination. Art and Letters are never divorced from life. A writer always reacts to his environment, though in a certain measure he shapes it himself. The outstanding fact in Modern India is the many-sided upheaval we are witnessing; we might even call it a rebirth or a Renaissance. The phenomenal growth of a new type of literature in the various Indian languages is one sign of it. The revival of painting, sculpture and dance is yet another. But these and many more are inevitably subservient to the greatest need of the Nation–the winning of political freedom. Foreigners can have no conception of the intensity of the Indian hunger and thirst for liberty. We are in the flood-tide; we are caught in it; we are swayed by it. And, what is more to the point, we are glad that we are so swayed, because, in this process, the fine arts acquire the power that enriches them and brings them into vital contact with the main currents of national life.

Swaraj, in our view, is not the crown and fulfillment of the Indian Renaissance. It is but the beginning of nobler achievement in the realm of the spirit. But Swaraj will create the atmosphere in which the arts will blossom and bear fruit; it will lead us into the spacious sphere of unfettered play of the mind and the emotions. Every intelligent Indian senses this almost intuitively. If Rabindranath Tagore throws up his knighthood for political reasons, and Sarojini Devi raids Darasana, the same impulse finds expression in young Kanu Desai's noble picture of Gandhiji–‘In Search of Truth’–or Venkataramani's ‘Kandan, the Patriot.’ Thus the leading intellectuals in every province are either behind the prison bars or expressing their hearts’ longings in line and colour, in story and song. It is futile to seek to interpret the India of today without realizing all that this means. The political problem is like a running sore. When it is healed, every activity will fall into its right place. Meanwhile it is up to the best amongst Indians and Englishmen to hasten the cure.

"THE DAWN OF INDIAN FREEDOM."

In this connection, extraordinary interest attaches to the book by Messrs Elwin and Winslow of the Christa Seva Sangha, Poona! published a little prior to the resumption of hostilities between the Government and the Congress. Christians and worshippers of Truth, they perceive in Satyagraha the promise of a splendid victory for the cause of peace and goodwill among men. To them, Gandhiji is not simply an Indian patriot seeking to free his nation, but the harbinger of a new era in human history. Beginning with the Gandhi-Irwin Pact, they trace the course of events wards, and give a vivid account of the struggle of 1930 and the idealism that informed it. It is marvellous how the authors have entered into the workings of the Indian mind, and transformed themselves so completely as to think and feel like Indians. But to those that are filled with God-vision, this must be comparatively easy. With so much of anti-Indian propaganda by foreign correspondents and adventurers, a book of this nature is most welcome. We particularly commend the portions on the future of the Indian Church and the attitude of Christians to the nationalist movement in India.²

A LITERARY HERCULES

When a great literary undertaking is completed after strenuous endeavours extending over a quarter of a century, the nation that profits by it has reason to rejoice. If, in addition, the individual that planned it is happily alive, to receive the grateful homage of his countrymen, the work is doubly blessed. Such indeed is the colossal translation of the Mahabharata into Tamil prose by Pandit M. V. Ramanujacharya, assisted by a galaxy of eminent scholars. The Samskrita Academy of Madras honoured itself by presenting a congratulatory address to the Pandit and conferring on him the title of Bhasha Bharata Dhurandhara, in recognition of his valuable services to the cause of learning. As one witnessed the proceedings of that memorable evening, it was not merely a sigh of relief that escaped, but one of sadness that these are not the days of Mahendravarman, the Pallava, or of Raja Raja Chola. For, who in our day, can adequately reward a truly Herculean task of this kind? The cultured aristocracy of South India might at least enable Mr. Ramanujacharya to rest in affluence after the labours of a lifetime.

1 19th May 1932.

2 The Dawn of Indian Freedom, (George Allen and Unwin Ltd., London).