Reviews

Krishna Menon–A Biography by T. J. S. George. Jonathan Cape, London. Pp. 272. Price Rs. 28.

A Short Life of Sir C. Sankaran Nair by the Rt. Hon. Sri C. Madhavan Nair. Published by the author ‘Lynwood’, 52, Kodambakkam High Road, Madras-34. Pages 227. Unpriced.

There has been no more compelling or controversial figure in Indian politics in recent years than V. K. Krishna Menon. Some are passionately devoted to him, while others are strongly allergic to him, but none can afford to ignore him as a force in world affairs after Indian Independence. He is one of the two most powerful personalities thrown up from the Malabar Coast into the large arena of national affairs, the other being Sir C. Sankaran Nair four decades before him. While the average person from that part of India is known for a certain flair for survival amidst strangers, far from his place of birth, derived from a spirit of accommodation and capacity for adjustment, these two stand out in addition, by their toughness and resilience and the propensity to put up a fight for what they thought right, against any individuals or institutions who might deny them their due.

In the case of Krishna Menon, it is but fair to remember that though the world began to take him into account only some years after India had won her freedom, he had been wearing himself out in her cause for nearly a quarter of a century before that in England where he went as a student and stayed on till his mission was fulfilled. Two or three characteristics stand out in the make up of his personality from his early years. They are: his sharp intellect, seriousness of purpose and utter-sense or dedication. His father, a leading member of the legal profession in Cannanore, was hoping against hope that his worthy son would follow in his footsteps and inherit his extensive practice. But the son had ideas of his own, and ideals too, not always in keeping with parental decree. Two major influences were the deciding factors on the course of his entire life in his youth and early manhood. One was that of Dr. Besant under whose guidance he became a Scout Master, discontinuing his legal studies in Madras, and devoted himself to the task of inculcating discipline in the minds of the youth of his day. The second was that of Prof. Harold J. Laski at the London School of Economics, where he learned his first lessons in socialism, in addition to those of national freedom. The third and final influence, which came to him in the years of his full maturity, was that of Jawaharlal Nehru whom he met closely enough in the early thirties, though they did meet earlier, more than once.

The Nehru–Menon relationship, marked by an admirable steadfastness till the former’s death, was more in the nature of a meeting of like-minds rather than that of master and disciple, mentor and seeker or patron and protege. If Nehru was the first Indian leader in this country to help create a world consciousness in India (along with Subhas Bose in his own way), Menon was certainly the only Indian colleague who shared Nehru’s international outlook in full, and reinforced it with specific data on the actual state of affairs in Europe and the struggle for freedom among the colonial peoples. It is beyond any doubt that they were always en rapport with one another, making due allowance for the possible differences of emphasis in the mode of accent, depending on peculiarities of temperament and early ground in each case. In addition to arranging the publication of Nehru’s books Glimpses of World History, and Unity of India Menon was, for a time, the London Correspondent of the National Herald (a fact which had obviously escaped the biographer’s notice, in spite of the lynx-eyed search for data).

The biographer’s job is by no means easy, in view of the studied indifference with which he is likely to be treated by a man of Menon’s imperious temperament, who tends to look upon all biographies as a terrible waste of time. It is creditable that we learn so much about all the stages of Menon’s career from the author, a journalist of experience, who knows where to go in for his facts and how to set them in their proper perspective. The years in London, full of blood, toil, tears and sweat, make an absorbing chapter in this readable account. A work schedule of 18 hours a day with nothing more than a piece of bun or a couple of biscuits and endless cups of strong tea to sustain oneself was not unusual with Menon, who seems to have been a fiend for work, when once his enthusiasm is aroused. He is also a man who knew no fear (like Nehru) who could go on working in bombed London, with splinters and smashed windows around him, as if nothing had happened. The story of his life in London, devoted to the cause of Indian freedom is one of complete dedication, which was proof against neglect, suspicion and hostility, in addition to the rigours of poverty. He was not quite free from these, when he stayed on in London after his term as India’s first High Commissioner. The author depicts Menon’s vital role in the transition to freedom, when he stayed close to Nehru at every stage. His work as Defence Minister is assessed with sympathy and understanding, including his unsuccessful plan to settle with the aggressor by an exchange of territory. Even his unpopularity in the wake of the Chinese aggression is explained, but on the whole, the book cannot avoid the impression of being an intelligent apology rather than a balanced estimate. But it does give vivid glimpses of a colourful, if baffling, personality.

Publicist and patriot, jurist and administrator, the image of Sir C. Sankaran Nair comes to us as larger than life, in the admiring account of his distinguished nephew; Sri C. Madhavan Nair, still happily with us, to tell the story of a great man, who must needs seem shadowy to the present generation of readers; As Surendranath Bannerjea said about the Amraoti Congress Presidential Address, there is something masculine about the personality of Sankaran Nair. He belonged to a generation for which loyalty to the British crown (Queen Victoria was still firmly established in the Indian pantheon) was not incompatible with the love for one’s own country and the fight for her freedom. Sankaran Nair, like Besant and Salem Vijayaraghavachariar and others of the day, was for a strictly constitutional fight, which stopped short of civil disobedience, non-violent though it be. The entry of Gandhi on the active political scene as the leader of the first civil disobedience in 1921 marks the exit of Sir C. Sankaran Nair from the Indian National Congress. The latter’s book entitled Gandhi and Anarchy got him not only into disfavour with the whole body of congressmen but led to a libel suit from Sir Michael O’Dwyer, which he lost; at heavy cost to himself, for no real fault of his own. He was a man of stubborn independence and unbending integrity who made no compromises with his own self-respect. He resigned from the Viceroy’s Executive Council during the Martial Law Administration in the Punjab, earning the gratitude of whole nation. While he admired the discipline and character of the Englishman, he never truckled to the prejudices of the white-man, claiming the fear and respect of the latter in the long run. As a Judge, he was for a liberal interpretation of the Hindu Law, which was but in keeping with his policy of social reform. The booklet in tribute is well documented, though its obvious tone of veneration, in which any criticism would be sacrilege, detracts from its merit as a political or personal biography.
–D. ANJANEYULU

T. S. Eliot: His Mind and Personality by S. S. Hoskot. Published by the University of Bombay.

This study of the Mind and Personality of T. S. Eliot was submitted to the University of Bombay as a doctoral thesis in 1957, was awarded the doctorate in 1958, and published by the University in 1961 with the help of a grant from the University Grants Commission for the publication of doctorate theses of special merit.

Professor Gokak remarks in his English in India, in the Chapter on ‘Research in English in our Universities’, that but for a few exceptions the doctorate theses of our Universities, professing to be critical interpretations of writers, forms or periods, tend to be collations of various critical points of view rather than original interpretations. There can be no doubt that this thesis on Eliot deserves to be ranked with the exceptions.

It is one of the few studies examining the entire contribution of Eliot to literature, literary criticism and social thought, in the light of clearly formulated critical principles. It is an original and closely reasoned thesis in which the writer examines Eliot’s poetry, drama, and criticism as well as his pronouncements on social, religious and political movements in the context of the author’s milieu and career.

The author in his Preface describes the book as a modest attempt to determine the extent to which the contours of Elliot’s intellectual and emotional outlook have been conditioned by his New England ground and experience; to trace the stages of his spiritual evolution as they are revealed in his writings, in poetry and prose; and assess the relevance and value of his criticism of modern western life and thought.
Eliot passed away recently, in January 1965; for over forty years, ever since the publication of his Waste Land in 1923, he has occupied a position of prominent, prestige and authority among his contemporaries. He was recognised as the most outstanding poet and esteemed as the most influential critic of modern times. From almost the beginning of his career, his impact on the literary world has been dazzling and his conquest of it has been virtually complete.

But, as the author points out in the introduction, there are irreconcilable contradictions, puzzling obscurities and glaring in-consistencies of attitude in his prose as well as poetical writings which baffle the readers. Mr. Hoskot endeavours, by a close study and careful analysis of the writings, and the mind and personality of the author revealed therein, with particular reference to the environment and ground of his career, to establish that the contradictions in his writings are connected with inherent contradictions and conflicts in Eliot’s mind and the way he adopted to attain integrity of being and outlook. It is not quite clear that his diagnosis of the conflict in the mind and personality of Eliot is correct and based on established facts. The references to ‘the experience of love-ecstacy early in his life’ and the burden of a lacerating sense of guilt or inner treachery which his pride prevented him from confessing too plainly’ are laconic and casually introduced, not clearly explained or substantiated; but his elaboration of the spiritual evolution of Eliot, based on the diagnosis, and traced through his writings, is both interesting and instructive. It is no doubt an original interpretation and a valuable contribution to literary criticism.

The criticism is throughout characterised by sympathetic understanding, discriminating insight, originality of interpretation and boldness in presentation. Mr. Hoskot rightly points out that the value of Eliot’s work depends not on the relevance and validity of his argument and doctrine, but on the material of personal feelings and experience of life actually lived, which they rationalise and to which they give emphatic form. He emphasises further that it is the presence of this material, this body of feelings and impulses, intense and conflicting that gives unity to Eliot’s poetry, He accounts for the profound impression Eliot has made on his contemporaries as due to the powerful expression he has given to the feeling of utter emptiness in modern industrial civilisation which is the characteristic mood of sensitive modern men, his extraordinary command over the musical and associational values of words and his mastery of a variety of metrical effects.

Mr. Hoskot does not concede any value to the social criticism in the prose writings of Eliot. “Those who seek in the prose works (of Eliot) any formulable standards, or a clarification of ideals for the future, or a more exact way of defining their discontent with contemporary institutions, will be disappointed…These writings are generally deficient in two important virtues of good prose-sustained logical argument and exhaustive analysis.”

He offers only qualified praise even to the literary criticism in the writings of Eliot. He concedes that ‘Eliot is capable of great depth of penetration within a certain field of experience’ but, he points out, ‘His convictions make for narrowness of outlook….certain orders of experience he cannot understand….certain orders of charity in moral judgment he cannot compass.’

On the whole it is a very interesting volume of literary criticism, a valuable contribution to the critical literature on Eliot, the great modern poet, and a creditable achievement for an Indian writer on English literature. It deserves an honoured place in the section devoted to literary criticism in English in the libraries of all colleges and universities and the respectful attention of all students of modern English literature.
–M. SIVAKAMAYYA

Studies in the Tantras and the Vedas. Pages 146. price Rs. 6

Thoughts of a Sakta. Pages 45. Price Rs. 2. Both by Sri M. P. Pandit. Published by Ganesh & Co. Private Ltd. Madras 17.

The first book is a collection of some reviews of books like Principles of Tantra, Sri Lalita Sahasranama, Gayatri Upasana and the Nivids, and studies on cultural and philosophical subjects like Indian Culture and the Tantras, by Sri M. P. Pandit, a prolific writer on Tantric and Philosophic literature. Each review is not only a digest of the contents of the book reviewed, enriched by the addition of critical observations of the reviewer, but also is an incentive to the reader for a study of the book itself. The other essays on Tantras and Vedas give a fund of useful information and deserve a careful study. The value of the book is enhanced by the addition, in the appendix, of the text of the Nivids which are described as short formulas, used for the invocation of certain important deities to participate and partake in worship and yoga of the Vedic initiate.

In the second book the learned author has presented us with the thoughts of a Sakta, Sri Yogisananda Natha, on various topics like Tantra Sastra, Saki, Mantra etc., in a lucid style. How we wish the author had included in this selection, the good deal of philosophy and profound upasana which he found in the speeches and writings of Sri Yogisananda, but which he admits, is deliberately kept out of this collection by him.
–B. KUTUMBA RAO

TELUGU

Ananda Bhiksuvu (Telugu Poem) by Sri V. V. L. Narasimha Rao. Pages 86. Price Rs. 2. Can be had from Sri Visalakshi Home Library publications, Vadlamudi. (Guntur Dt.)

This charming and sweet Telugu poem written in a mellifluous style has for its theme the love episode of a chandala girl that fell in love with Ananda, a self-restrained and unyielding young sage and disciple of Buddha. The girl tried to win over his love with the help of her mother’s tantric powers. It was a duel between tantric and spiritual powers, wherein at last the latter held their sway, and the girl herself took to the order of Buddhistic Nuns. The poem is full of pretty, appropriate and suggestive descriptions of nature and mental conflicts, expressed in sweet and chaste language, and is a very good feast for the heart and mind. The poet, however, ought to have shown, in a more detailed manner, the gradual transition of love into renunciation, in order to avoid criticism from a fastidious critic.

Appreciations at the beginning of the book by Sri Viswanatha Satyanarayana, Dr. G. V. Krishna Rao and Bhashyam Appalacharyulu point out the merits and the esoteric meaning of the poem are worth studying.
–B. KUTUMBA RAO