Reviews

My Public Life: Recollections and Reflections: by Sir Mirza Ismail, (Published by George; Allen & Unwin Ltd., London. Sh. 18)

The task of writing a biography, particularly an autobiography, is a difficult and delicate one which only the most gifted can accomplish with any measure of success. Sir Mirza Ismail may well derive an authors proud satisfaction over the success that has attended his fine effort. It is indeed a happy idea that prompted him, in response to the wish of numerous friends, not only in India but scattered over three continents, to record some phases of his long and eventful career in the form of a book, which, both for its charm and contents, must rank high in the biographical (and autobiographical) literature of India. There is however one regret which every reader would feel, namely that it is not longer than it is. But Sir Mirza chose otherwise, desiring that his readers should wish for more rather than less. And thus we have what is a model of a short autobiography which affords not only intellectual pleasure but something also of political education. It certainly makes no small “contribution to the history of the sub-continent in the momentous first half of the twentieth century”.

Sir Mirza’s name is associated with several administrative achievements in the States of Mysore and Jaipur. It is the fortune of few men to have a career so prolonged, so active and so uniformly successful as that given to this distinguished statesman. In the conduct of the administration of these two States he enjoyed almost plenary power. Persian by descent and Mysorean by birth, he had the unique advantage of having been brought up and educated along with the Prince who was later to be Ruler of the State and of winning alike his friendship and confidence in an unusual degree.

With the active support of the Maharaja always assured, he carried out those brilliant reforms which contributed so much to the glory and prosperity of the State. There is perhaps no other instance of such splendid collaboration or the good of a State in the whole of India than that between Maharaja Sri Krishnaraja Wadiyar and Dewan Sir Mirza Ismail. “Whatever success I may have had as Dewan, I owe to the confidence, sympathy and guidance of him whom we all revered so profoundly, and who till the other day was striving with us in the difficult task of raising the status of our country–I refer, of course, to His Late Highness,” wrote Sir Mirza to the present reviewer sometime after the demise of the great Ruler, who to him was an object of sacred veneration and whose death was the greatest sorrow he had known in life.

During the fifteen years of his Dewanship, Mysore made phenomenal progress in all directions. Within less than five years of his taking charge, Mysore had come to be regarded as industrially the most advanced, and politically the most progressive, State in all India, and a pattern even for British India to copy. So prosperous indeed was Mysore in 1940 that a visitor return from the State remarked to the writer that politically he could wish for nothing more than that India should become an enlarged Mysore, and added, “Sir Mirza Ismail is an incomparable statesman who can give lessons in statecraft even to the best brains of England and Europe.” It was about this time that Viscount Samuel, no mean judge of men, hailed him as the finest statesman of the British Empire. When some months later Sir Mirza suddenly resigned his high position, there was a chorus of tributes from every quarter of the country. “He leaves behind,” wrote one. “not only a model of an Indian State but also an example of Indian statesmanship,” and very feelingly added, “Mysore may have many a Dewan in the future as it had in the past, but it will not have a Sir Mirza Ismail again.”

So rich an experience and such high gifts as Sir Mirza’s could not naturally remain neglected for long. A pressing invitation came to him from the young Maharaja of Jaipur to accept the Prime-Ministership of his State. At Jaipur, during the four years of his stay, Sir Mirza almost did wonders. His active mind and boundless zeal would not allow a day to be lost and he applied himself to the task before him at once. Reconstruction, new parks, new buildings, restorations and improvements of all kinds, besides the overhauling of the entire administration, were carried on at an amazing speed, so much so, the city of Jaipur fast changed its appearance and began to pulsate with a new life. In spite of his numerous activities, Sir Mirza found time to inaugurate constitutional reforms and to formulate a scheme for the establishment of the Rajputana University which was later to come into being. In the words of Cecil Beaton his plans were as numerous as his inspirations. The Maharaja had Sir Mirza’s great aims in mind when he gave expression to the hope, in one of his speeches, that by whatever alchemy it may be, what were then but arid wastes would ere long change into smiling greens of plenty. Sir Mirza was working for this end. But before all that he wanted could happen, he received a call from the Nizam, who was then facing a crisis, to help him in his administration. It was by no means easy to refuse the offer, for it was not for the first time that it was made. Twice before–the first time eighteen years previously–he had a similar offer from the Nizam, but he declined it without hesitation because his single-minded devotion to the Maharaja (Sri Krishnaraja Wadiyar) would not permit him even to consider it. Sir Mirza was singularly free from that ambition which is often the spur of lesser men. At every stage he subordinated his personal advantage to the claims of public duty. And so, while the Maharaja was anxious that he should stay, and the public equally so, he chose to say goodbye to Jaipur with the conviction that one should say enough to oneself before others said it. Even more important than to know when to catch an opportunity is to know when to forego an advantage.

There can be no two opinions about the appropriateness of Sir Mirza’s appointment to the Prime-Ministership of Hyderabad. He went there with great hopes and ambitions, and in a spirit of dedication. He was anxious, among other things, to make Hyderabad “a centre of Eastern culture and civilisation, of intellectual activity and of common harmony,” and “to achieve for it that moral and material pre-eminence which is her due.” It is indeed highly interesting to know something of the good work done, as told by the author himself. Writes Sir Mirza:

“When at the Headquarters, I set apart two mornings in the week for interviews with all and su:ndry, as I had done in Mysore, also in Jaipur. It was a very taxing duty, as can easily be imagined–seeing dozens of people, each with his request or grievance. But it was worthwhile. It satisfied the public as nothing else could, and I know of no better method of checking corruption among officials. In Mysore, while I was at the head of the administration, corruption was practically non-existent. In Jaipur, too, it had come under control. In Hyderabad, people began to feel that a new freedom had dawned upon them, and officials were much morecourteous and considerate to the public than before. All this was a direct result of the Head of the administration being so easily accessible to the public. I saw from two to three hundred people on each of the twomornings. A report reached the Nizam’s ears that his Prime Minister was busy holding ‘durbars’ twice a week in his office! I assured him that I was not seeking self-aggrandisement out was toiling for him and his people.”

But the great hopes of Sir Mirza were not destined to be fulfilled, and after the withdrawal of the British control he found it impossible to stay any longer in Hyderabad, on account of the vigorous and “calculated campaign of vilification” against him by the Ittihad-ul-Mussulmeen which had the ing and financial support of even some members of the Cabinet. On returning to Bangalore for the summer recess, and acting on a certain intuition that is always his strength, he tendered his resignation to the Nizam in a letter which he addressed him on May 15, 1947 wherein he uttered the first warning of the deepening crisis. “The intrigues and agitations to which I refer,” wrote Sir Mirza, “are, I firmly believe, directed as much against the interests of Your Exalted Highness as against myself. But, while a word from you would have stopped the campaign at once, you have maintained silence, and the agitators have given the impression that they enjoy Your Exalted Highness’s goodwill and patronage.”

It must be mentioned here that Mr. Jinnah was vehemently opposed to the appointment of Sir Mirza as Prime Minister of Hyderabad, for the only possible reason that the latter, in spite of several approaches, refused to join the Muslim League. Jinnah moved earth and heaven to prevent his appointment. He first telegraphed to the Nizam, “exhorting him not to appoint Sir Mirza and threatening him with dire consequences if he disregarded his advice.” And later, when the appointment was about to be made, he rushed to Hyderabad to see the Nizam himself and make a determined effort to stop him from proceeding further. The account ofthe fateful interview that took place between the Nizam and Jinnah is vividly set forth in the pages of the autobiography and should be read in its entirety, alike for its exciting interest and its dramatic effect.

Even after his retirement Sir Mirza continued his endeavors to find a solution to the Hyderabad problem. Finding the situation becoming worse, he wrote to the Nizam urging him in strong terms to come to a settlement with the Indian Government before it was too late, and offered to mediate in his behalf, and even went to Delhi on that mission. In this connection, in the words of Sri C. Rajagopalachari, the then Governor-General, he “played a noble part and it will go down in history.” But the Nizam, who was at the time “more or less a prisoner in his palace and unable to act independently,” allowed the supreme opportunity to be lost, thus making the police action a compelling necessity to put down the growing Razakar menace. The conclusion is irresistible that Sir Mirza went to Hyderabad perhaps too late to be able to save the Nizam. Had he gone there a few years earlier, he would have had a personal hand in the shaping of some of the most momentous developments in contemporary Indian history.

With his return from Hyderabad, Sir Mirza may be said to have virtually retired from public life, the short time which he spent in Jakarta as United Nations Technical Adviser to Indonesia being a sort of epilogue. Great as Sir Mirza is as statesman, he is not less great as a man. A meticulous sense of honour governs all his actions, and he has set to himself a high standard of public duty and personal exactitude which be never even once compromised. In the ranks of Indian public men there are few who are more deservedly esteemed for culture, character and public service. He is an Indian first and last. A great apostle of Hindu-Muslim unity, he has throughout been strongly opposed to the Muslim League and resolutely kept himself away from it, unmindful of Jinnah’s serious displeasure, and the consequences of that displeasure. As an example of moral courage there is not, in the political literature of recent times, anything comparable to Sir Mirza’s letter to Jinnah, the all-powerful leader of Muslim India, written when the latter urged him to join the Muslim League:

“You invite me to join the Muslim League. You will no doubt realise my life-long association with a Hindu Maharaja and my long service in a Hindu State, where I have received the most loyal co-operation from my Hindu fellow citizens throughout my official career, prevent me from identifying myself with a political organisation which is avowedly anti-Hindu in its aims and objects.”

In the early thirties, Sir Mirza played an outstanding part at the Round Table Conference which he attended as the representative of Mysore and the South Indian States of Travancore, Cochin and Pudukottah. He was a proponent of Federation and exerted his undoubted influence to persuade the more conservative States too to agree to the scheme. He had even hopes that there might one day be a vast Federation consisting of India, Burma, Nepal and even Ceylon. “But this sub-continent,” says he, “was destined to meet with a sadly different fate.”

“Life without industry is a guilt, and industry without art is brutality,” runs a Ruskinian maxim. Sir Mirza has both the passion for industry and an extraordinary taste for art. He is, as is well known, a great builder with an abiding love for construction, renovation and beautification. Fountains and flowers are his delight. The myriad-lighted fountain at Bangalore which he constructed out of a donation given by the Maharani of Bhajanj is said to be one of the most wonderful in the East. Gardening is his recreation and he allows himself to be completely absorbed in it. “I can contrive to make myself happy within my house,” he naively replied to a correspondent who ventured to refer to a current rumour about a high appointment offered to him–which shows the great yet modest man he is.

The book, which has both charm and balance, is of sustained interest. Written in a racy and luminous style, it abounds in fine anecdotes, rich observations and wise reflections. His estimates of men are equally interesting. These for instance. His Late Highness the Maharaja of Mysore he considers to be among the greatest in Indian history, Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, the finest type of an Indian and a model for young India to copy, and the Rt. Hon. Srinivasa Sastri, the most polished of Indian speakers. Mr. Jinnah, according to him, was in agreement with no one, not even with his own Muslim delegation. He had his own views and obstinately stuck to them.

The regret is keenly felt in some quarters, and widely shared by many in India, that the services of so gifted a statesman and so great an administrator are not harnessed to the service of the country. Some have been even puzzled at this absurdity. The clue to this is to be found partly in Sir Mirza’s own reluctance to hold any office, having once for all retired from active public life, and partly in a very revealing passage in the book. “In an article I contributed to The Times in May, 1949,” says Sir Mirza, “I had criticised Sardar Patel for his policy towards the States, which I characterised as ‘ruthless’. He seems to have resented this very much. Democratic autocrats are hard to please. I do not suppose the other members of the Cabinet relished my remarks, either. I do not remember exactly what I said in certain letters to my friends, but I must have given expression to my views in a manner too frank to please them. I have in my life practised very few economies of truth in the expression of my opinion, and this habit has got me into trouble sometimes, both with the British Government of India and the present Government in Delhi.”

But if there is any one person who least regrets this attitude of apathy on the part of the Government of India, it is Sir Mirza himself. He neither entertains any ill-will nor withholds his admiration where it is due, and the book contains no finer tribute than that which Sir Mirza so whole-heartedly pays to Sri Jawaharlal Nehru, who according to him, is “by every test one of the greatest men of his country. The directing Head of by far the largest numerical unit in the ‘free world’ he has rached heights of responsible statesmanship and world influence without parallel in modern history...He is the architect of the influential position his Motherland occupies in world affairs, and has used it to promote and ensure peace.”

K. KAMESWARI PRASAD

The Vidushaka: Theory and Practice: By J. T. Parikh (Sarvajanik Education Society, Surat. Pages 50; Price Re. I)

If Drama is but a “representation of the play of human feelings and emotions,” the Vidushaka, the boon companion of the hero in love, stands for all that is comic and farcical in human nature, and is the main source of comic relief in Samskrit dramas with Sringara for the dominant sentiment. It was even believed by some that this feature of the Samskrit Drama influenced European dramatists in their representation of fools and jesters. Says Pischel, “the Vidushaka is the original of the buffoon who appears in the plays of Medieval Europe.”

Sri Parikh in this paper describes almost all the aspects of the Vidushaka’s character in theory and practice, after making a critical study of all the available Samskrit dramas and books on dramaturgy, such as Bharata’s ‘Natyasastra’ and Saradatanaya’s ‘Bhavaprakasa’.

According to the author the Vidushaka, in practice, is a degraded young Brahmana and his monkey-like appearance and crowfooted head (Kakapada sirsha) are not germane to him but only the results of make-up and masks. The crooked staff he carries with him is a branch of a tree. He employs obscene language and is usually confronted by a maid in repartee. A comic character to start with, the Vidushaka developed into a full-fledged hero of the farcical episode in the later popular stage drama.

The author agrees generally with Dr. Keith, to whose remarks in his “Samskrit Drama” about the Vidhshaka, this book forms an elucidatve commentary. He profusely quotes from all Samskrit texts to illustrate his points and in the Appendix are given theoretical texts on the Vidushaka.

Here is this essay, for the first time, all the available material pertaining to the Vidushaka is presented in an interesting and critical manner, with some fresh problems raised for future study.

B. KUTUMBA RAO

The Saugar University Journal 1953-54; Vol. I, No. 3. Part I: Arts Section.

The Saugar University is one of the youngest of the Indian Universities. It is no doubt one of the chief functions of a University to promote, organise and carry on independent investigation. But a University should be a centre of learning in which different branches of learning are pursued by specialists in them with equal zest, and a University journal should reflect the intellectual atmosphere in which all the branches of knowledge in it are adequately represented.

Moreover, in the journal of a residential University with well-organised Post-Graduate and Research Departments in various subjects, one naturally expects evidence of association of the students of the advanced classes with their professors in their original work, and of an attempt at independent investigation on their part, though perhaps under the guidance and with the inspiration of their professors.

It is remarkable that the 100 pages of this volume should be cornered by half a dozen articles, all by the members of the staff of the University, and as many as four of them of the English Department and devoted mostly to literary criticism in English, and only one or two to historical studies and none to philosophy or any social science.

But this one defect apart, the selection of the subjects, the scholarship and critical acumen brought to bear upon them, and the spirit of genuine appreciation and sympathetic interpretation and independent investigation revealed in the criticism of the Odes of Keats and Meredith and the Analysis of Aesthetic Experience deserve unqualified commendation and lift the journal far above the level of University and College magazines.
M. S. K.

TELUGU

Andhra Puranamu: By Madhunapantula Satyanarayana Sastry. (Publisher: M. Suraya Sastri, Pallipalem (via) Yanam, East Godavari Dt., P. 215, Price Rs. 3)

This is a novel type of literary composition, presenting the history of the Andhras in a poetic form. The title constitutes a claim, worthy of the consideration of modern historians, that our Puranas of old were designed to serve, and as a matter of fact actually served, the national purpose of presenting the significant events in the history of the race in a poetic and popular form. The present volume, as it has taken shape, consists practically of a series of poems, each dealing with a significant event or crisis in the history of the Andhras, taking the word ‘history’ in a wide sense to include authoritative tradition as well as authentic history.

Or the poetic merits and literary excellence of the composition no less a judge than the fastidious poet, Sri Viswanatha Satyanarayana, expresses enthusiastic appreciation in his Foreword. Of the faithfulness of the presentation to the facts of history as ascertained and accepted by modern historians, the approving review in the Introduction by the renowned research scholar in South Indian History, Sri Mallampalli Somasekhara Sarma, constitutes an equally authoritative encomium. The author’s attempt to popularise the history of the Andhras and impress on the general reading public the lessons and significance of the past, seems quite well-timed at this juncture of the inauguration of a separate state for the Andhras in the Indian Union in which they hope to find scope for full and rapid realisation of their potentialities and destiny. The value of the volume to the lay public, especially those unacquainted with the English language and denied regular instruction in History in the schools and colleges, is unquestionable. Even to the educated, its value is bound to be considerable, as an authoritative and continuous history of the Andhras through the ages is yet to be constructed. The present volume brings the history down to the Kakatiya period only. Readers will natural look forward with eagerness to the companion volume dealing with the subsequent history of the Andhras up-to-date.
M. SIVAKAMAYYA