'The Triple Stream'

...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

‘The Triple Stream’

CONGRESS CABINETS

A first-class political issue was raised at Calcutta during the recent sittings of the Working Committee and the All India Congress Committee. In seven out of the eleven Provinces of India, Congress Ministries are functioning. In the eye of the law, they derive their power from the majority of the legislature, and, ultimately, of the electorate. Their continuance in office depends on their ability to retain the confidence of that majority. But at the same time, they are responsible to an all-India organisation, the Indian National Congress, in whose name they went before the electorate, and the manifesto of which august body they adopted in its entirety. They were pledged to carry out a particular programme, and it was on that understanding that the mass of the voters returned them to the legislature. But, in between one general election and another, the pressure of public opinion can be neither strong nor effective. The Congress legislators in each Province, no doubt, are in constant touch with the Ministry on the one hand and the constituencies on the other. The ‘private’ members are, however, mostly -benchers, and their voice is rarely heard on the floor of the legislature. At party meetings, they have to yield to the dominant section which forms the Government. Thus, apart from public meetings and writings in the Press, the only control over the Congress Ministries is that of the central executive of the Congress. Its position is analogous to that of the executive of a British political party which controls the party machinery in and outside Parliament. But in the peculiar circumstances of India, the Congress is much more than a mere party organisation. Having played a notable part in the struggle for freedom for more than half-a- century, and having evolved its own philosophy and technique of action, it represents the nation in a way that political parties in self-governing countries seldom do. Besides being in power in many Provinces, the Congress is continuing to mobilise its strength so that the nation may achieve complete freedom. The conditions are somewhat different from those obtaining in countries which already enjoy such freedom, and the canons of conduct laid down for party leaders in those countries cannot be applied wholesale to Congress Ministers here.

Except in matters of day to day administration where large and vital issues are not involved, the All India Congress Committee and its Working Committee must function as revising and co-ordinating authorities. They must lay down the general lines of policy to be followed allover India, with adequate provision for local variations to suit local conditions. And criticism from the Congress bodies must be welcomed, provided it is not carping and destructive. Congress Ministers have no right to complain that their allegiance is being divided between the provincial legislature and the All India Congress Committee. Where clear directions have been given by the A. I. C. C. on major problems like the separation of the Judiciary and the Executive, or the carving of new Provinces on the basis of language, it is not open to Congress Ministers to air their individual views. They can certainly plead for time for the fulfillment of a particular programme which the A. I. C. C. has endorsed, but they cannot question the wisdom of such a programme or the need for it.

MORE INDIAN PROVINCES

During recent months the movement in favour of linguistic Provinces has gathered fresh strength, and Andhra and Karnataka are insistent in their demands. On the motion of Dr. Pattabhi Sitaramayya, President of the Andhra Provincial Congress Committee, the A. I. C. C. expressed itself emphatically in favour of such new Provinces. The Congress made a beginning in December 1917 by creating a Province for Andhra for purposes of Congress organisation and propaganda. Other Provinces came in quick succession till at last in December 1920, at Nagpur, the A. I. C. C. appointed a small sub-committee consisting of Gandhiji. Dr. Pattabhi, and the late lamented A. Rangaswami Iyengar. During an all-night sitting, they divided the whole of India into Congress Provinces according to the dominant language of each area. This change facilitated the use of the provincial languages for all political work within each Province, and gave an impetus to the growth and enrichment of the different languages. It developed a healthy sub-national consciousness, as a result of which every linguistic area is keen on making itself a well-knit and compact unit of India under Swaraj.

Now that the Congress is in power, it is its duty to implement this programme of re-distribution into linguistic Provinces for purposes of official administration. It will not do to brush aside this demand as the outcome of a narrow, sectional feeling. No one need be apologetic about such a feeling or seek to put off the formation of Provinces as a matter of minor importance. When we visualise a condition of things wherein the legislature, the courts of justice, the departments of government, and the educational institutions will employ the provincial language as the main vehicle of expression within the Province–so that Swaraj becomes the Swaraj of the common man–we cannot resist the conclusion that this reform is an inevitable prelude to self-government and the only means by which the cultural individuality of the different language areas can be preserved and fostered.

It is well to remember that the number of Provinces will increase only from eleven to fifteen, and that the new Provinces excepting Kerala will be able to pay their way without subventions from the Central Government. This is not a question affecting only Andhra and Karnataka, though their need is the greatest. This is indeed an all-India question. And no genuine Andhra or Kannadiga can rest content unless the change is effected right through the land, and the formation of linguistic Provinces becomes an accomplished fact in Maharashtra and Gujarat too. It is of happy augury that Dr. Pattabhi, who has been prominently associated with the movement for linguistic Provinces, is once again taking the lead. Under his wise guidance, the movement will be kept at a high level of idealism and there will be no conflict–as there need never be–between provincial and all-India loyalties.

MR. COULDREY ON AJANTA

"Here, as never in sculpture, I saw the poetry of Kalidasa made visible; and was persuaded, beyond the current opinion, that no great interval of time or place divided the poet from the painter." Thus writes Mr. Oswald Couldrey in the Autumn number of The Geographical Magazine of London. The intimate relation between Indian art and Indian literature was never more eloquently expressed. The present article on ‘Ajanta’ is a chapter from Mr. Couldrey’s forthcoming volume on the Deccan Paintings, and, judging from the splendour of the art-plates and the eminently original interpretation of some of the frescoes, Mr. Couldrey’s contribution to the literature on Ajanta is likely to be epoch-making.

But I am here concerned with those vivid personal touches which reveal Couldrey the man. For many years he was Principal of the Government College at Rajahmundry. He loved Indian students as few professors from England have loved them; he inspired in them a passion for the arts and crafts of India; he nursed the infant genius of Damerla Rama Rao and Adivi Bapiraju who have since made their contribution to the artistic and literary renaissance in South India. Whenever he visited Ajanta, Ellora, Sanchi and other shrines of Indian art, his students invariably accompanied him, and, together, they admired the glory that was Ind, and dreamed of the India of the future. All too soon, Mr. Couldrey had to retire from the Indian Educational Service owing to an unfortunate physical malady in the shape of deafness. He has never re-visited India all these years, but the memory of his Principalship is fresh in people’s memory, and, year after year, the ‘Couldrey Day’ is celebrated at Rajahmundry with affectionate enthusiasm. I was not privileged to be his student; in fact, I have never met him in the flesh. Yet, to me, as to many others, his is a name to conjure with. I am always deeply moved when Bapiraju–after me, Principal of the Andhra Jateeya Kalasala of Masulipatam–speaks of his ‘beloved Guru’ Couldrey. Only last month, he wrote in a reminiscent vein in the special Dasara number of the Andhra Patrika Weekly, and referred to his travels to Ajanta with his Guru, to their many discussions on poetry and painting, to the long boat journeys on the Godavari where the mighty river rushes through deep forests and mountain gorges. It is a welcome coincidence that even while Bapiraju was thus giving expression to his devotion to his Guru, the Guru was referring to ‘the young Indian poet’ who shared the perils and adventures of the pilgrimage to Ajanta.