Ramakotiswara Rau: A Missionary

I beg leave of the readers to express in public my private grief at the death of Kolavennu Ramakotiswara Rau which took place at Narasaraopet on May 19. The seventy-six year old veteran was held in high esteem by the leaders of the country. Gurudeva called him the Ramananda Chatterji of the South and compared his Triveni to the Modern Review. Gandhijee had a soft corner for him; and confessed to N. S. Varadachari that Triveni was on a par with the Indian Review of G. A. Natesan who befriended the Mahatma when he first came to Madras from South Africa.

The Rt. Hon’ble Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru compared the Triveni to the Review of Reviews; Sir C. P. Ramaswami Aiyar called him the W. T. Stead of India, and Sriman S. Srinivasa Aiyangar compared him to H. L. Mencken. The savants applauded him, but he was like a fragile and fragrant flower born to blush unseen and waste its sweetness in the desert air.

A MISSIONARY

When I mentioned his death this morning to a senior colleague he asked me with some asperity who this Rau was, much in the manner of Dhawan wanting to know who was Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar. I murmured that he was the founder of Triveni; but the confrere dismissed the name with a shrug of his shoulders. Anyway, I was thankful that he did not ask whether the departed had anything to do with the Triveni, Hotel near Rani Bagh (in Bombay).

Ramakotiswara Rau was drawn into the vortex of journalism in a missionary and visionary spirit. He did not belong to the class of progressive mercenaries who hide their professional in-competence behind the facade of socialist slogans and communist camouflages. Rightly has Kasu Brahmananda Reddy hailed him as “an editor of a rare kind.” Nothing but the best was good enough for the Triveni, whose contributors used to receive twenty-five reprints of their articles.

Ramakotiswara Rau was among the earliest to join the freedom fight inaugurated by Gandhiji and he suffered for the cause. Meeting me a year or so after the advent of freedom, he complimented me on having refused to become a five-acre Tyagi. (The Madras Government was then offering five acres to freedom fighters and I had refused to accept it.)

When Ramakotiswara Rau decided to start the Triveni, journalism in Madras was much benighted. The Hindu was there, still edited by A. Rangaswami Aiyangar, who used to spin out long-winded sentences which only confused the reader. N. Raghunathan was, of course, writing editorials; but it is a wonder to me how his editorials were so woolly, while his articles in Swatantrawere so crisp and brilliant.

The Madras Mail had got out of the hard-hitting tradition of Scott Bremner and settled down to the oil-and-water editorials of A. A. Hayles. Ramaseshan had ceased to write his stentorian pieces in the Daily Express (next to P. Orr & Sons) which had folded up by that time, good old R. W. Brock having become the editor of the London Daily Express.

THE PARADE

The Swarajyaof Tanguturi Prakasam Pantulu Garu was the sick man of the Fourth Estate; it would neither get well nor vacate the bed. Khasa Subba Rau was still the star attraction in the sheet coming out of Broadway. Others came and went, but Khasa ruled the editorial roost.

Ramakotiswara Rau had already collected around him a bunch of the finest intellectuals: M. Chalapathi Rau (now Editor of the National Herald), Manjeri S. Isvaran (the poet and short story writer), K. R. Srinivasa Aiyangar (who shone as the Vice-Chancellor of the Andhra University) and quite a few others. A. D. Mani used to join the coffee-club discussions occasionally.

Chalapathi Rau was then being wooed by the Justice Ministry with the post of Deputy Superintendent of Police, because he was a B.A., B.L. belonging to the Naidu community. Sometimes, I wonder what would have happened, if Chalapathi had joined the Madras Police; I don’t think he would have lasted a month.

I remember a very provocative article which Chalapathi contributed to Triveni entitled: “Wanted a Fascist Phase for India.”

Sri man S. Srinivasa Aiyangar liked that article. But I wrote a vitriolic rejoinder which was published in Triveni, though the editor pruned some of my verbal excesses.

Well, Ramakotiswara Rau has gone to the bourne from which no traveller returns:

Oft in the stilly night,
Ere slumber’s chain has bound me,
Fond memory brings the light
Of other days around me.
–From ‘Free Press Journal’, Bombay

“I greatly appreciate your self-sacrificing labours for conducting your periodical, Triveni. It is, what you call it, really a journal of Indian Renaissance. It is a fine specimen of our cultural enterprise.”

1932
–Ramananda Chatterjee 

Editor, Modern Review