Sir P. S. Sivaswami Aiyer

Sir P. S. SIVASWAMI AIYER *

Among the stalwarts of the Indian political scene in South India in the earlier decades of the century was the great P. S. Sivaswami Aiyer, the subject of this short biography by Sri K. Chandrasekharan. Sivaswami Aiyer was a legal luminary in the high tradition of Sir Muthusami Aiyer. Sir V. Bhashyam Iyengar and Sir S. Subrahmanya Aiyer. (He became a “Sir” himself in later years.) Unlike these illustrious predecessors, however, he and his personal friend and fellow advocate, V. Krishnaswami Aiyer, added to their importance by active participation in public affairs. Krishnaswami Aiyer achieved more spectacular distinction than Sivaswami Aiyer but died too soon. Sivaswami Aiyer lived much longer and worked till almost the end for the great causes which had received his earnest devotion in the heyday of his powers.
It is difficult for this generation of our people to realise the atmosphere of the times in which Sivaswami Aiyer and his fellow patriots worked. An earlier generation had accepted alien rule as a state ordained by Providence. Sivaswami Aiyer belonged to the next generation which wished the foreign ruler to understand that the Indian intelligentia should be received as partners in the service of the country. This generation believed that persuasion and argument would yield the result that it had in view. It was patriotism of this kind that inspired the Indian National Congress in the earlier years. A later generation and a few men like Tilak even of this generation felt that this was mere mendicancy. Indians, they thought, should fight for their rights. Sivaswami Aiyer and his type came out of the Congress when the extremists led by Tilak gained prominence in the organisation to form themselves into a separate party. This was the Liberal party counting among its shining figures V. S. Srinivasa Sastry, disciple of Gokhale, and later President of the Servants of India Society, Poona. The opponents of the Liberals, and the alien Government possibly, called these people Moderates. The word when used by the “extremists” had no doubt an overtone of a little malice and a little contempt. That is inevitable in politics. Gandhiji came on the scene about this time and the civil disobedience which he adopted as the weapon tofight the foreign ruler led on to the claim for Purna Swaraj made later by his disciple and successor Jawaharlal Nehru. The Moderates now became even more moderate and looked almost like supporters of alien rule. That this was not the case appeared clearly when P. S. Sivaswami Aiyer condemned the Jalianwala Bagh massacre and described the Simon Commission’s report as intended to make India “safe for British Imperialism”. Sri Srinivasa Sastry spoke in righteous indignation of an unfair settlement of the problem of Indians in Kenya and said that “The Indian people are no longer equal partners in the British Empire but unredeemed helots in a Boer Empire.” But statements in this sense were rare and the Liberal politicians continued to co-operate with the Government of India hoping for better days. They feared the liability of violence implicit in disobedience of the laws however civil in intent and the danger of Chous if England should quit India as demanded by the Congress under the guidance of Mahatma Gandhi.

Sivaswami Aiyer was a Moderate by temperament and conviction. He did notaccept the Mahatma-ship of Gandhiji and showed this by referring to him always as Mr. Gandhi. He disliked the idea of India becoming independent of Britain because he feared that she would not be able to defend, herself from inimical neighbours. He predicted that the civil disobedience movement would result in making it a habit to break laws. He held on to his faith to the end and served the country loyally in his own way.

That in his own way he was a great man appears fromthis biography. He was a most successful practitioner of the law. He became Government’s Advocate-General for one term. He was offered a judgeship of the High Court but refused the place. It would bring prestige but he would lose his large income; he needed the income. He became a member of the Governor’s Executive Council in 1912 and created a great impression of capacity and fairness in the minds of those who knew his work. He became Vice-Chancellor of the Madras University, and later of the Benares Hindu University, a member of the Imperial Legislative Assembly under the reforms of 1920, and a member of the Assembly of the League of Nations in 1922. He worked on various Commissions of the Government and was noted as contributing on every occasion views born of sound and deep thinking and a true love of our country and our culture. He made a special study of the problems connected with the country’s defence and became an authority on the subject. This record of public life was one of which any one could be justly proud.

But this was not all. Sivaswami Aiyer’s personal life would seem to have been equally great and even more beautiful. It was in the main a simple and unostentatious life. It followed the good principles prescribed by tradition meticulously. The simplicity went so far that Sivaswami Aiyer was accused by some people of parsimony. Perhaps he was parsimonious in small things. He saved all he could in this way and founded schools and charities and made monthly payments to a number of helpless people ranging up to a hundred rupees per person. Altogether the man was a type by himself and the type was rare.

Sivaswami Aiyer’s physical presence matched his intellectual eminence. I have heard that when he became Chairman of a Board or Court of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, it was found that the chair that his predecessor had used with comfort was not big enough for him. They had to get a new chair made. He dressed neatly and produced an excellent impression even at first sight. He read widely and was up-to-date in all modern knowledge. He loved art. He was devout and was specially attached to the Bhagavata Purana. He was very particular that “Aiyer” in his name should have ‘er’ and not ‘ar’: a detail carefully noted by Sri Chandrasekharan as indicating character.

This book by Sri Chandrasekharan is an excellent piece of writing and is very pleasant reading. One may wish a word omitted here and another altered there, and an occasional sentence rewritten, but as a whole the writing is beautiful and the material well-marshalled. It gives a very good picture of the great man. It sets out to describe and that, in a biography, is a cardinal virtue. Not the least beautiful part of the book is the preface in which Chandrasekharan states in touching words his qualifications for writing about his hero: Sivaswami Aiyer compelled love and respect by his qualities and achievement but had for our author the additional claims of having been his father’s close personal friend.

* P. S. Sivaswami Aiyer: by K. Chandrasekharan (Builders of Modern India Series) Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, New Delhi. Pages 158. Price: Rs. 2.75.