Reviews

Mahatma Gandhi–100 Years: Edited by Dr. S. Radhakrishnan. Published by the Gandhi Peace Foundation. Sole Distributors: Orient Longmans Ltd., Madras-2. Price: Rs. 17-50.

Under the auspices of the Gandhi Peace Foundation this volume of homages paid to the Mahatma by about sixty important writers, has been prepared with the editorial supervision of a committee of scholars headed by Dr. S. Radhakrishnan. At the time of the completion of seventy years of the Mahatma, a similar collection of tributes was got up by Dr. Radhakrishnan solely by himself.

The centenary year of the Mahatma’s birth has naturally induced the Gandhi Peace Foundation to usher into the world of readers its own volume to be added to the many other attempts at estimates of the great man’s life and achievements both by similar bodies and individuals of eminence of the East and the West. The admirers of Gandhiji, the world over, must certainly be a legion though only a limited number can have the capacity to express themselves well worthy of preservation in a permanent form. Hence the selection of writers to go in needs enough care before the conspectus of the volume itself has been taken.

Here, therefore, we have a list of prominent persons who either bear the credentials of having been close to Gandhiji or have watched with interest and discernment the Mahatma’s impregnable faith in his doctrines of Ahimsa and Satyagraha. As a person of universal recognition for his services to the cause of humanity, the tributes which adorn these pages bespeak of an earnest endeavour on the part of thinkers everywhere, to estimate Gandhiji’s superior claim to an unsurpassed stature among the great leaders of thought and action.

In his introduction, Dr. Radhakrishnan has, with his usual precision and effective phrasing, characterised the times we are living in as of the lowest ebb in civilization’s march. He says: “There is a fatal imbalance between what man is and what he wishes to be. The discord is responsible for our unrest. We talk like wise men but act like lunatics. We cannot prepare for war and at the same time for a world unity.” Another forceful writer, M. C. Chagla, deplores the evil habit of sentimentalizing over Gandhiji’s memory thus: “The most dishonest, the most dis-reputable and the most corrupt politicians capitalize on his name and everyday he is being assassinated again not in the body but in the spirit.” We feel like crying sabashfor such a candid criticism from one who has held responsible posts in the post- independence era. Louis Fisher, who has to his credit a volume of his own impressions of the Mahatma after having watched him at close quarters, exclaims with pain: “How many Gandhians can be counted in his native country? How much influence do these Gandhians exercise? Is Gandhiji to become a lost Mahatma?” Who can contradict him with any semblance of boldness? Cardinal Gracias stresses the fact that “Mahatma Gandhi saw clearly that without the formal basis of religious belief, there was no possibility of peace among men.” Zakir Husian, one of our honest politicians while alive, says without hesitation that “Today, those who wish to keep Gandhiji’s memory alive need to remember not so much the occasions or the reason for his fasts, but the plain truth that power will corrupt those who are not pure enough to exercise justly and for ends for which it should be exercised.” Homer A. Jack of U. S., while comparing Gandhiji and Martin Luther King, says: “It is in death, if not in life, that Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Martin Luther King met.”

There are reminiscences from the pens of Suniti Kumar Chatterjee and Abdul Gaffar Khan which give vivid portraits of Gandhi as a man. Keisinger, the once Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, accepts the fact that: “We owe it in a large measure to the endeavours of the Mahatma that today politics rest on a moral basis that is respected by the great majority of nations.” Prof. Kathleen Lonsdale remarks, with sufficient penetration of Gandhiji’s actions, that “when he found himself in error in even the smallest detail, he took every possible care to correct that error and to let it be known that he was doing. so.”

From Mira Behn, the Earl of Mountbatten, Hiren Mukherjee, Sushila Nayar, Pyarelal and others, there are brief accounts of intimate points of view of the Mahatma’s character and principles. No less valuable are the impressions of men like U Thant, Arnold Toynbee and of Rajaji; who in his own way has added sagelike the words: “Let us while celebrating Gandhiji’s Birth Centenary, reflect and realize his true teaching and the true lessons of his work, and not look him as a mere inventor of a cheap gadget to displace an old troublesome way. Gandhiji was not an inventor. He was a man of God, and therefore was called Mahatma.” Indeed Rajaji cannot otherwise project his observations into a world, now fast growing indifferent to the many moral codes enunciated by Gandhiji and followed meticulously by him during his life on earth.

This is a volume which requires not only careful perusal but possession of copies of it in our public libraries not excluding those of colleges and schools.
–K. CHANDRASEKHARAN

The Press in India: By M. Chalapathi Rau. Allied Publishers Private Ltd., Bombay-1. Pages 145. Price Rs. 17.

Journalists And The Law: By K. D. Umrigar. Law Book Co., Sardar Patel Marg, Allahabad-1. Price Rs. 12-50.

The Working Press–Special to The New York Times: Edited by Ruth Adlers. Foreword by Theodore M. Bernstein. Lalvani Publishing House, Dr. D. N. Road, Bombay-1. Price Rs. 6.

News Editing: By Bruce Westley. University of Wisconsin Oxford and I. B. H. Publishing Co., 36, Chowringhee Road, Calcutta-16. Pages 433. Price Rs. 10.

Not all the journalists are terribly interested in the problems of the Press. Not even the well-known editors of the larger newspapers. More often than not, they have their own personal problems, and quite pressing ones too, that demand immediate attention. As for other things, they seem to have neither the time nor the inclination, nor even the intellectual equipment, to grapple with them. It is given only to a very limited few of the Indian editors to identify themselves with the problems of the profession. Even among those few, the striving to maintain professional standards is not always found together with the anxiety to improve the lot of the working journalist. An intelligent understanding of the basic tasks of journalism does not necessarily go with an aggressive preoccupation with the mechanics of collective bargaining and the other aspects of the overall strategy of the trade union movement.

Luckily for Indian journalism, we have in the person of Mr. Chalapathi Rau (no stranger to the pages of the Triveni Quarterly, as readers of its old files would know) a first-rate intellectual, who is also a forward-looking leader of men. While he was the first by natural endowment and ceaseless striving, he had strenuously to fit himself for the role of the second by the compulsion of circumstances. Ample evidence of both these faculties at work could be had in the articles contributed by him to his own paper (The National Herald) and to others, collected in the volume entitled The Press in India.

Mr. Chalapathi Rau’s emphasis, in outlining the role of the Indian Press, is on a clear sense of social purpose and on the prime need for self-regulation, apart from a fair deal for the working journalist in the functioning of the industry. His observations on the future of the Indian Press are worth pondering over by the journalists and others alike. He says:

“The future of the Indian Press means essentially the future of the Indian languages Press, though the circulations of English language newspapers will take a long time yet to reach the saturation point. There are several newspapers in the Indian languages maintaining high standards even now, but with increasing circulations, the appeal of vulgarity and spurious sensationalism may increase. There are many warnings from the Press of advanced countries. The principle of self-regulation is thus specially important in India, and it has been accepted, however experimentally, before it is too late.....”

In discussing the power of the Press (which could be a “magnificent illusion”) and the freedom of the Press (more often the Proprietor’s than the Editor’s), the author, with his acute powers of analysis, cuts beneath the surface and helps to explode many of the popular myths. Not all the essays are about these and such other impersonal issues, though a large majority. cannot help dealing with them. There are a few with the personal touch, which are the most readable of the lot. One of them provides an intimate glimpse of Jawaharlal Nehru in the role of a journalist, including that of a mofussil correspondent, in covering some of his own speeches in a district town and its neighbourhood. Another pays a high, but well-deserved, tribute to Gandhi, who knew, the economy of words and whose total impact was the product of an integrated personality. Vivid light is thrown on the giants of old like Chintamani, in another article.

From this book to the other one, on Journalists and the Law, by Mr. K. D. Umrigar, is indeed a far cry. The author, who is introduced as a journalist of over 45 years’ experience in the profession, could have more aptly called his book “All and sundry about the World Press, as I could gather it.” It is pure “scissors-and-paste” all through, from the synopsis to the conclusion. It is written, rather the material unsifted is presented, in such a way as to eliminate the distinction between the chapters of the text and the appendices. There is, however, a lot of useful raw material for the student of journalism, provided he knows to pick and choose.

            The New York Times is to America what The Times (London) is to England. An insight into the working of this paper could be obtained from The Working Press, which brings together some of the articles originally contributed to the house magazine, called Times Talk. Here we get the story behind the story, through the horse’s mouth, as it were. The reporters and the correspondents, as also the columnists and editorial writers, take the reader into confidence. The result is quite satisfying indeed, for the sense of occasional humour and the nose for news. News Editing is an admirable compendium of practical knowledge for the sub-editor. It is extremely comprehensive, covering all aspects of the work from copy-editing and re-writing to page make-up and proof-reading. Its sense of accuracy and wealth of detail should render it helpful to the teacher, as well as the student of journalism. Evidently a standard book of American journalism, it is made available, for the first time, in an Indian edition at a popular price.
–D. ANJANEYULU

Women in Indian Folklore–A Short Survey of Their Social Status and Position.Editor: Sankar Sen Gupta. Indian Publications, Calcutta. Pages 327. Price: Rs. 45.

Woman is said to be the gate-keeper of family which is the nucleus of any society. Hence, it is of profound importance to understand the position held and status enjoyed by women in a society if we wish to understand its social structure. The book under review helps us in understanding the status of Women of India in different cultural regions and therefore is a valuable addition to the scanty literature in the field.

The book is an anthology of the scholastic and stimulating contributions made by twenty-six research-scholars representing different linguistic regions of India. Despite the overt divergency in the area and topics covered, there is an element of uniformity in all articles included in the volume. Almost all of them describe the folk-sayings or songs as related to different phases of the life cycle of the woman.

The editor’s first article makes a valuable introduction to the succeeding chapters. Unlike others, the three authors, M. Bhatnagar of “Women in Rajasthani Folklore” (pp. 58-78), A. K. Kayal of “Women in the Folk-lore of West Bengal” (pp. l77-200) and Radha Krishna Murti of “Women in Folk-sayings of Andhra Pradesh” (pp. 223-230) have made exceptionally valuable contributions to the field of sociology by their effective and impressive presentation of the originals and translations of the folk-sayings in English.

In any society, the sacred lore and the folklore interact and thus have an impact on the actual societal behaviour. Unfortunately in India there is a tendency to emphasize the Vedic literature and other scriptures to the exclusion of the folk thought. The book, it is hoped, rectifies this gap. The quality of the book has been further enhanced by the addition of the concluding article of S. Ghosal in which the position of Hindu woman as related to witchcraft, striachar and some other social customs and superstitions has been carefully analysed.

The book is brought up very attractively and elegantly; yet it could have been still better had the large number of printer’s mistakes been avoided by a careful proof-reading. The reviewer personally feels that reading of the book is indispensable especially for those who are concerned with the subjects of Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work. The editor and the publishers need to be congratulated for undertaking this type of a fruitful activity.
–C. VIJAYAKUMAR

Classical Samkhya: A Critical Study by Dr. Anima Sen Gupta, Reader in Philosophy, Patna University. Published by M. Sen Gour Ashram, A. P. Sen Road, Lucknow (U. P.) Price Rs. 15.

Samkhya in its early phases is perhaps the only true and scientific philosophy developed in India. It is not a set of loose speculations but a system attempting to answer–and perhaps successfully–practically every question which can be legitimately put to philosophy. Throughout the centuries the unmistakable Samkhya leanings of the Upanishads were deliberately suppressed by the Sutrakaras and Bhashyakaras.

Dr. Anima Sen Gupta of Patna University is well known in the philosophic world: she has engaged herself in the task of what might be called the resurrection of Samkhya. Earlier she had brought out three pioneering works on Samkhya, namely, “The Evolution of Samkhya school of thought”, “Chandogya Upanishad: Samkhya point of view”, and “Katha Upanishad; Samkhya point of view.”

We are impressed by the deep scholarship and originality of thought evinced in the present brilliant study of the Samkhya philosophy under review. This has surpassed her former writings on this school of Indian philosophy: though they too have made remarkable contributions to the systematic exposition of the Samkhya thought in its evolution and also in its intimate relation to the Upanishadic philosophy.

The main feature of the book under review is that the philosophy of Samkhya is fully constructed on textual basis and in a logical manner. Epistemological and metaphysical topics which are generally hinted at in the original texts are elucidated well so as to enable the students of Samkhya philosophy to have a full grasp of all the aspects of the said school; No epistemological text of Samkhya like the Vedanta Paribhasha has been written before by any scholar. Her approach to the subject is clear, penetrating and critical.
–R. A. GUPTA

Virgin Bouquet: By Arthur S. Nathaniel. Copies available with the author, at “Diamond Cottage”, Charachira, Trivandrum-I.

An anthology of verses written over four decades, Virgin Bouquet smells many a fragrance. The verses, indeed, are amazingly varied, so far so that the poet who sings most warmly of his motherland and addresses her as “my darling Ma, thou queen of heavenly seed” also wishes, “Ah had I been an English lad. In freedom’s sacred isle!” (And curiously, both the poems are written during the same period; the first one in 1926 and the second one in 1927.)

But it is not the reviewer’s contention that the poet was unsteady in his inspiration. (The second poem referred to is, of course, written in a lighter vein.) Not so. To be faithful to the fanciful calls of the muse is by no means unsteadiness. A feeling–may be of a moment–has its poetic validity, or at least a personal validity, however strange it may seem when other maxims are applied to it. Thus, To My Sovereign, a poem hailing the “Throne of Travancore” may sound anachronistic to most, but it has its own nostalgic value to the poet and a certain generation, and has a value as the record of a characteristic sentiment for a detached critic.

But the anthology abounds in sweet and flowing verses, happy romantic ones like Fair Helen and With Thee and sad and yet charming pieces like The Soldier’s Farewell. The poet has a good grasp over English verse orders (only, too many apostrophes play a jarring role) and a capacity to cover a wide range of themes
–MANOJDAS
We Shall Unite: Edited by Dr. P. D. Saggi. Sole Distributors: Indian Publications Trading Corporation, 64 Regal Building, New Delhi-1 Price: Rs. 25.

Even after twenty years of independence, the great menace which our country faces today is that of communalism. The second menace is that of provincialism or regionalism or parochialism. Another serious danger to national integration and perhaps one of the causes of other menaces is the persistence of inequalities. If we really want to achieve the national goal of socialistic pattern of society, all of us, irrespective of differences, will have to work unitedly. As proud inheritors of the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi and Pandit Nehru all of us should strive to promote the unity among all sections of population and put down the forces that may lead to the disruption or disintegration of the country.

Containing as it does articles by eminent men, the book under review highlights the need for focussing the attention of the people on the imperative necessity of achieving national integration. The articles include those of Indira Gandhi, Morarji Desai, Y. B. Chavan, Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajendra Prasad, Vinoba Bhave, Radhakamal Mukherjee, and many other important leaders of thought.

The recommendations made in the report of the National Integration Committee, the report of the Emotional Integration Committee, and the recommendations of the Committee appointed by the University Grants Commission to suggest concrete steps to be taken by the universities in the implementation of the suggestions of the Seminar on National Integration are appended, which enhance the value of the book. We commend the book to all those individuals and institutions interested in the promotion of national integration.
–BHAVARAJU

Hindu Astrology For All by S. S. Chari. Copies can be had from the Author, Type IV/5,49, V. M. Street, Madras-14 and at 81/4, Western Railway Quarters, Bombay-19. Price: Rs. 10.

This book on Hindu Astrology is avowedly, for the benefit of the English knowing layman, novice, amateur and practitioner. In 38 chapters the author has covered a wide range of the subject from the theoretical as well as practical standpoints. The quotations from Western and Eastern authors, the useful tables, charts and instant-reckoners provided, enhance the value of the book.

The information given on pages 236 and 237, is not acceptable. Bhishma fell on the battlefield on the 9th day of the war, that is in the month of Margasira. The Gita was first revealed to Dhritarashtra by Sanjaya on Margasira Sukla Dasami at the request of the former who was greatly concerned at the disquieting news. That is why Gita Jayanti is celebrated in Kurukshetra and all over India on the three days, Margasira Suddha Dasami, Ekadasi and Dwadasi. Bhishma, however, endowed with power to put off and invoke Death whenever he wished to die, prolonged the day to Magha Suddha Ekadasi or Bhishma Ekadasi till after the advent of the propitious Uttaraayanam.

The book is warmly commended to every reader, whatever be his grade, who wishes to have Hindu Astrological information in simple English. It is a very useful and handy guide containing, together with over a hundred illustrative example horoscopes, much of the valuable traditional subject matter.
–Y. N.

TELUGU

SahiteevaallabhyamuPart I–Published by Sri Narendranatha Sahitya Mandali, Tanuku, Andhra Pradesh. Price Rs. 30.

It was an age-old tradition in India that languages and fine arts flourished under the benign patronage of learned kings. Even after the advent of the British rule, the Maharajas and Zamindars continued the great tradition and patronised the fine arts and poets. But after the abolition of the princely states and zamindaris, the Government has taken the responsibility and they have been encouraging the writers in different language groups of India. At the same time it is noteworthy that some business magnates and landlords have been taking great interest in the matter. To this galaxy of patrons belongs Sri Mullapudi Thimmaraju, the sponsor of the volume under review. Thimmaraju may not be a writer himself. But he has a large heart which overflows with sympathy for the writers and research scholars. He is very much interested in history, research of the Telugu language and literature. He has a passion for collecting rare books and unpublished works and publish them for the benefit of the posterity. He has in his possession a number of such rare collections, besides a personal library of thousands of valuable books.

The present volume which contains nearly a thousand pages is replete with contributions both in prose and verse of great scholars in Andhra Pradesh. They cover a wide range of subjects–“Indian Culture” by Dr. C. Narayana Reddi, “Who is the hero of the Mahabharata?” by Dr. K. V. Ramakoti Sastri, “The Message of Kadambari” by Dr. S. V. Joga Rao, “Kutubshahis and Telugu Literature” by A. Virabhadra Rao, “Buddhism in South India” by S. Hanumantha Rao–to mention only a few. It is not possible to enumerate the brilliance of the several articles me in a review. Suffice it to say that it is the only compilation of its kind in Telugu language. It is an encyclopaedia on Telugu the literature. However, one cannot but help observing that the proof reading is far from satisfactory.

Sri Thimmaraju and his son Sri Harischandra Prasad deserve all praise for the trouble they have taken and for the interest they have evinced in placing this veritable mine of gems before the lovers of Telugu literature. It is earnestly hoped that the second volume also would be published soon.
–BHAVARAJU

TAMIL

Gnaghi Vazhkai Kathaigal. Edited by K. R. Kalyanaraman. Published by Tamil Nadu Gandhi Memorial Fund. Madurai-13. PaperRs. 7-50. Library edition Rs. 10.

The book under review is a timely publication to commemorate the Gandhi Centenary Year. It contains fifty short stories written by eminent short story writers such as ‘Kalki,’ Pudumaippittan, ‘Mayavi,’ Akilan, Narana Duraikannan. T. N. Kumaraswami, ‘Anutama,’ P. S. Ramaiah, S. Ranganayaki, Na. Parthasarathi, P. Thooran, ‘Somu,’ Kovai Manisekaran, Rajaji and others. All the stories are based on the Gandhian Philosophy of life. The style adopted by the learned authors is simple, idiomatic and chaste, to suit the taste of common readers and the student population.

The stories illustrate the views of Gandhiji on Temperance, Untouchability, Village uplift, Prayer, Ahimsa, Hindu-Muslim unity etc.

Every one, especially our student population, should read these stories for pleasure and profit. The book deserves to be in every school and college library.
–M. V. V. PILLAI