‘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

BY K. RAMAKOTISWARA RAU *

The ‘Triveni’ Monthly

I am glad it is now possible to re-issue ‘Triveni’ as a Monthly. This journal of Indian Renaissance was published as a two-monthly for a period of eight years, commencing from January 1928. It was converted into a Monthly in 1936, and continued to appear in that form for four years. But, owing to conditions brought on by the War, we could not bear the strain of a monthly publication. From July 1940 to the end of 1946. ‘Triveni’ has been a Quarterly– the exodus from Madras to Bangalore occurring at the beginning of 1942. The kind friends in Bangalore, to whom ‘Triveni’ is indebted for its regular publication as a Quarterly even during my detention in prison for two years, are now actively co-operating in running the journal afresh as a Monthly. After a chequered career, the journal begins a new chapter. I trust the new ‘Triveni’ Monthly will meet with a cordial welcome throughout India and abroad.

The New Dominions

For India too, this month marks the beginning of a new chapter. With the passing of the Indian Independence Act and the secession of Pakistan, ‘the rest of India’, functioning as ‘the Dominion of India’, is free to pursue fits own policies, unhampered by foreign Imperialism or domestic dissension. The two-nation theory was pursued to such extreme lengths and the spate of violence let loose became so intolerable that, within recent months, even the leaders of the Indian National Congress were content to salvage the greater part of India by accepting the Mountbatten Plan. The movement for the division of the Punjab and Bengal gathered momentum with lightning speed after the holocaust of murder and arson on an unprecedented scale. The ‘direct action’ programme of the Muslim League thus partially recoiled on itself, and, in the result, a ‘truncated and moth-eaten’ Pakistan has emerged.

Born in an atmosphere of distrust, the State of Pakistan may yet play a notable part in Eastern and world-politics. The constructive tasks, and the many problems of day to-day administration in an infant State, may be expected to sober down the fanaticism of the pre-natal period. Brothers who quarrel and split the ancestral domain are known to have settled down as friendly neighbours. And when the representatives of the two States participate in international conferences, or meet as comrades at the embassies of foreign capitals, it is their common Indianness that will assert itself, rather than the rivalries of the recent past. They may pull their weight and stand on the side of progress and peace and international goodwill. There is little to be said for the attitude of mind which starts wishful thinking and hopes that a repentant Pakistan will soon work its way into the Indian Union. Premature expression of such a hope is the surest means of stiffening the of the Pakistanites. Greater wisdom lies in wishing them a career of success instead of one of frustration. Having agreed to divide, let us cease to curse.

The Work Ahead

The restrictions imposed by the Cabinet Mission Plan on the Constituent Assembly must now cease to operate. A weak Centre and compulsory grouping of Provinces, double majorities and separate electorates, are features of an ugly but vanishing dream. The Constitution-makers can settle down to their important work without the perpetual wranglings which might have shattered their well-meant schemes, even as they successfully shattered the working of the Interim Government. The partition of India was a heavy price to pay, but, having paid it, the statesmen of ‘the rest of India’ must so plan that the new Constitution may ensure to the common man those rights of citizenship for which the flower of the nation have striven for sixty long years. Today all is not well with the Congress, as an organization. While the fight for Independence was being carried on, it functioned as a multi- interest organization. Capitalist and worker, landlord and tenant, medievalist and modern, all shared in a high endeavour. But when success is within sight, these divergent elements are falling apart. In an era of limited franchise and finance-controlled party caucuses, office and power sometimes accrue to the opportunist; and office and power are so exercised as to bolster up the exploiter. The prestige the Congress enjoys today is mainly due to the purity of aim and utter dedication of leaders like Maulana Azad, Pandit Nehru and Dr. Rajendra Prasad. But the Congress has hereafter to root itself in the affections of the millions. Hence the need for the Constituent Assembly, dominated by Congressmen, to safeguard the rights of the common citizen. India is not in love with a brown autocracy in place of the white. This then is the first test by which the work of the Consambly will be judged.

The next is the treatment of the minorities, racial, religious or linguistic. A joint committee of the two Constituent Assemblies must be able to arrive at a satisfactory solution of this problem, and frame rules to be applied uniformly in both the States. But even more significant than the framing of rules is the spirit in which they are administered. That, in turn, depends on the choice of the right men for service on committees in the different Units of the two Dominions entrusted with the task of protecting minority rights. Every problem of administration is, in essence, the problem of choosing men who will discharge public functions in a spirit of selflessness. When inter-provincial and inter-communal feuds have become rank growths, more than common honesty is required if the weeding out process is to be accelerated. On the way the minorities are treated in actual practice, will depend the peaceful existence of the citizen in a free India.

There remains the complicated question of the Indian States freed from Paramountcy but unwilling to submit to what Pandit Nehru calls ‘inherent Paramountcy’ but which the eminent Mysore publicist, Sri D. V. Gundappa, prefers to define as ‘Federal Authority’. Independence from external authority for the rulers of Indian States, coupled with absence of internal freedom for the States’ people, must precipitate struggles which, by their very nature, will affect the orderly progress of the whole of India. The Constituent Assembly of the Indian Union must win over contiguous States like Hyderabad and Travancore, and make them participators in the task of building up a new India, wherein the artificial division into Indian India and British India will disappear, and a common federal citizenship will link up the remotest parts of the Indian Union. There is enough of statesmanship in the leading lights of the Constituent Assembly to achieve even this seemingly impossible result.

The Besant Centenary

Devoted admirers and fellow-workers of the late Dr. Annie Besant are planning to celebrate the centenary of her birth on a scale worthy of that bringer of Light. Born within a decade of the accession of Queen Victoria, she grew up in mid-Victorian surroundings. But soon she burst the bonds of convention and stood forth as a fighter for unpopular causes. Agnosticism, Socialism, women’s suffrage, the labour movement, all claimed her allegiance, and to everyone of them she brought an accession of strength. Her powerful pen and her splendid eloquence were always at the service of oppressed humanity.

Her meeting with Madame Blavatsky marked a turning point in her life. From then onwards and right up to the end of an eventful career, she was a leader of the Theosophical Society, working in close co-operation with the Founders and eventually occupying the position of President. India became the land of her adoption, and Benares and Adyar her chief centres of activity. Through education and social uplift, through journalism and the re-orientation of political life, she served India as a dear daughter; and when, at the ripe age of eighty-four, she passed away in her beautiful Adyar home, the people she had nurtured into the dignity of nationhood mourned as for a mother. Such love of a people not one’s own is rare in human history.

What should a nation do which once prized gratitude as a cardinal virtue? The freedom of India for which she gave of her best is near at hand: her Commonwealth of India Bill was the precursor of the Indian Independence Bill of today. Not in Adyar only, but all over this vast continent, memorials should be raised to Dr. Besant in the shape of educational institutions, art-centres, organizations for inter-communal fellowship, and for comradeship between India and Britain. Dr. Besant was a great believer in Indo-British co-operation in the cause of world-peace. Her thesis was that only a free India could deliver the message which, according to her, the world needed and was yearning to hear.

Why English?

If English is no longer the language of the rulers of India, why should an Editor waste further effort in conducting a journal like ‘Triveni’ in English? The question has been posed by well-meaning friends who are convinced that Hindustani will automatically step into the position at present occupied by English. But the fact that English is not imposed by a foreign power must count in favour of its continuance as the language of inter-provincial cultural contact, and as the connecting link between India and the world. It is common ground between divergent schools of thought that, in an India divided into linguistically homogeneous units, the courts, the legislatures and the universities will accord the first place to the regional languages. If these languages are to grow and become the vehicles of the most modern thought, their enthronement in all spheres of public activity must become an article of faith. Despite the lack of adequate text-books, these provincial languages must very soon become the media of instruction even in the highest standards in our universities. When the professors begin to lecture in the languages of the land, they help to evolve the requisite treatises in all branches of learning. Books in European languages will always adorn our libraries and be available for study and reference. But the vehicle of expression in the lecture-room and in examinations must always be the language of the region.

But while all this will soon pass beyond the realm of controversy and become an accepted feature of life in an independent India, the universities ought to make provision,–compulsorily in the colleges and optionally in the later stages of the high school courses–for the study of English. The language has been with us for over a century, and has enabled us to get into the stream of world-thought. Its importance as the language of administration will decrease, but, for that very reason, it will gain added importance as the language of communication between the Units of the Federation, and between the Federation and the rest of the world. In the sphere of all India politics, English will be retained for several years as an alternative to Hindustani. The Central Legislature will employ both Hindustani and English, in the same way as the Canadian Parliament uses French and English and the South African Parliament uses English and Dutch. Members of the Legislature coming from Units of the Federation where Hindustani is not the regional language must be free to choose between Hindustani and English. They might even speak in their provincial language, provided they can get some fellow-member to render their speeches into English or Hindustani.

A free India necessarily implies an India free to assert her position in the domain of Science and Letters. Her creative activity will find fuller expression; and that expression will be predominantly in the Indian languages. But if the world has to become aware of India’s achievement and benefit from it, a medium like English has to be employed for purposes of translation and interpretation. While the future of Indian journalism will in a large measure rest with the Indian languages, the need for English will also be felt. That is my apologia for the publication of ‘Triveni’ in English.

Indian Literatures Conference

A Conference of Indian Literatures–of “literary writers in the various Indian languages”, as the sponsors of the Conference say in their circular–is being convened under the auspices of the Premchand Society, Hyderabad (Deccan), at Delhi from August 30 to September 2, 1947. Its objective is “to establish cultural contacts and to build up a common Indian Culture”. The Conference will be presided over by Dr. Rajendra Prasad, the scholar statesman. While wishing success to the Conference, I must point out that the P. E. N. All-India Centre has been working in this field for the last fourteen years and it was this organization which convened the First All- India Writers’ Conference at Jaipur (Rajputana), in 1945. The second session will be held from October 31 to November 4 at Benares. It would have been in the fitness of things if the sponsors of the Conference had made an acknowledgement of the valuable pioneering work of the P.E.N., for that would have been not only graceful but showing recognition of a fellow-worker in the same field where recognition is due in abundant measure. And pray, further, why not have one consolidated body instead of two separate organizations, when the objective, the audience and the arena of activity identical?

This Special Number

Though the normal size of the ‘Triveni’ Monthly will be 60 pages, we are giving 24 pages extra for August to accommodate the long and authoritative article on the ‘Indian Independence Act, 1947’ by Sri D. V. Gundappa, Founder and Secretary of the Gokhale Institute of Public Affairs, Bangalore. Readers of ‘Triveni’ must be familiar with his previous contributions to the Journal,–‘To End the Deadlock?’ (1942). ‘Simla and After’ (1945), and ‘The Cabinet Mission and After’ (1946). Sri Gundappa’s mastery of the problems of Indian States, in relation to all-India politics, invests the present article with unique importance. My grateful thanks are due to him for having chosen ‘Triveni’ for the expression of his views on the outstanding topics of the hour.

The cover for the new ‘Triveni’ has been designed by Sri Sudhansu Kumar Ray, Rural Arts and Crafts Surveyor of the Calcutta University, now touring South India. Like most of the artists who designed the cover for this journal during the last twenty years, Sudhansu is an ‘old boy’ of the Fine Arts section of the Andhra Jateeya Kalasala, Masulipatam. He stayed with us for two years, 1926 and 1927, when I was Vice-Principal of the Kalasala and Sri Ramendranath Chakravarti, now of the New Delhi polytechnic, was art-teacher. Bapiraju, Ram Mohan Sastri, Ananda Mohan Sastri (who is no more), Kesava Rao, Mallaiah, Vasudevan and Sudhansu–what a goodly fellowship of artists! While the art-centre at the Kalasala is only a precious memory, the artists trained by Sri Promode Kumar Chatterjee and Sri Ramendranath Chakravarti have distinguished themselves as painters sculptors and designers. It was a fortunate accident that brought Sudhansu to Bangalore on his way from Lepakshi in Anantapur District, where he had gone to study the famous frescoes and sculptor in the temple. In a discussion between him and the Associate Editor, it was agreed that the right symbols to represent ‘Triveni’–the Triple Stream of Love, Wisdom and power–were the Lotus (the purity of Love), the Vajra (Indra’s thunderbolt indicating the glory of power), and tongues of Flame (the light of Wisdom). The Vajra is of the type fancied by the late Sister Nivedita, and the Lotus is copied from the sculptures of Barhut.

May the ‘Triveni’ flood the world with Love, Wisdom and power!

* July 20

_________

Success consists in unceasing pursuit of

the Path. And the only failure the idealist
recognises is the failure to stand by Truth.
From ‘The Triple Stream’ (July 1932).