I Counted Coins with Rajaji

An autobiographical fragment

S. DURAL RAJA SINGAM

Very early in life I fell in love with Rajaji. In our time, (in Jaffna) no leader other than Gandhiji had such a dazzling attraction so instantaneous and with an immense following. In most respects, both Gandhiji and Rajaji went together. The year was 1923. Rajaji shot like a meteor battling with Chittaranjan Das and Motilal Nehru. A special session of the Congress was to consider the question of boycott of the Legislative Councils. The Constructive Programme was vigorously preached and popularised by Rajaji, Rajendra Prasad, Seth Jamanlal Bajaj and Devadas Gandhi as they toured the country. The annual session of the Congress followed at Kakinada. Rajaji was in the forefront opposing Council-Entry. With Gandhiji behind prison walls the battle for the no-changers was won by Rajaji at the Gaya Congress.

At this point, it is appropriate to digress and bring in another scene. It is an account of the ‘sham’ Indian National Congress staged by the brotherhood, the literary association of Jaffna College. I took the part of Rajaji. I was now approaching my nineteenth birthday. The class was ready for the English lesson, the first period of the afternoon session by our Vice-Principal, J. V. Chelliah. But a few minutes before his arrival there was the glorious music of a song in praise of Gandhiji (composed by a classmate) accompanied by tapping on the desks. Our Vice-Principal took his seat, with a smile–he must have heard our song–and asked me as to when the annual brotherhood celebrations were to be held. “Very soon, Sir", I replied. We then heard him say, “We shall, then, stage a sham Indian National Congress.” The whole class was jubilant. I was to take the part of Rajaji. Phrases like “Persistent, insistent, consistent” opposition which we learnt from our history teacher on our lips, and Gandhi caps were tailored in abundance. The whole show was a grand success, so much so that the Principal of a neighbouring college asked us to repeat the performance and complimented me saying: “You have acted the part of Rajaji well, even without his dark spectacles.” Our college was now in the throes of a Gandhian awakening.

My first meeting with Rajaji himself was in Madras in the home of Srinivasa Iyengar. I had gone to Madras to have a darshan of Gandhiji when he came to Madras after his visit to Vykom. The approach was easy. I met Rajaji and told him that I had come all the way from Jaffna and added that I had played his role at a sham Indian National Congress staged by students. He took the remarks light-heartedly and took me to Gandhiji, saying, “Here is a student from Ceylon.” Gandhiji then greeted me saying, “O, Ceylon, where every prospect pleases and man alone is vile.” My next and last meeting with Rajaji was during Gandhiji’s visit to Ceylon in 1927.

Gandhiji had said in a speech when he was with students in Jaffna, “Though I receive, and receive with thankfulness, money from millionaires, it is a source of much greater pleasure to me to receive small gifts, no matter how small they may be, from boys and girls who are still making their lives.” He cited two reasons. One, the gifts from innocent boys and girls fructify much more. Secondly, these gifts give him a keener sense of responsibility. Sovereigns and coins poured in magnificently. There were only Rs. 12.12½ bad coins. Collections at Jaffna, the Jaffna colleges, Chunnakam, Chavakacheri, Manipay, Vaddukoddai, Vavuniya, Karainagar and several other places raised the Jaffna collection to Rs. 18,291.05½ cts. We from Malaysia sent in our amounts through the Hindu Organ, Jaffna. I was in a team of volunteers of the Students’ Congress assigned to do the work of counting the coins with Rajaji or someone from Gandhiji’s party. It was a pleasure to find Rajaji joining us in the counting of the coins. Sometimes it took several hours late in the night when meetings were over. On many occasions Rajaji would come to my place and join me in counting the heap of coins before me. I once heard Gandhiji make a witty remark to Rajaji who usually was the auctioneer and interpreter at the meetings in Jaffna. At one meeting, Rajaji was hesitant to come forward to interpret the speech of Gandhiji into Tamil. Gandhiji, then said, “Yes, I know, I know that Tamil in Jaffna is in its purer form than the Tamil spoken in South India.” This was said at a meeting at the Ramanathan Girls’ College. I wonder who told Gandhiji of this. At another meeting at Moorai, Gandhiji was garlanded by a small girl and Gandhiji looking at Rajaji said, “This is my Jaffna sweetheart.”

Fifty years ago, I changed the spelling of my name, Thurai Raja Singam to Durai Raja Singam. Some of us Jaffna Tamils do not follow phonetics in the spelling of our names. Rajaji once wrote to me that the correct phonetic way to spell my name was with a D and not with TH. Facing a few difficulties such as making changes in my birth certificate (still not done), I accepted his advice and became D. R. Singam. Much to the amusement of my children and friends, I would say, that the DR was awarded to me by Rajaji. Thus he is linked with the spelling of my name, a change which I have cherished. I once discussed this change with the late Dr. Suniti Kumar Chatterjee, and he also approved of this change. Of his own name Rajaji wrote, “My name if properly written would be ‘Rajagopalacharya’. When I was at college in Bangalore it was spelt ‘Rajagopalachar’ in accordance with the Kannada style. This is how I even now sign my name.”

In a letter to me once, Rajaji remarked that he did not know his date of birth. Perhaps he did not have much curiosity about the subject, for, as he wrote to me on another occasion, he did not wish to have his biography written.

For me Rajaji’s letters are full of interest and value. He concluded his letters with such words as “Once again warm thanks and affectionate regards;” “You are a wonderful person. God bless you;” “You are doing very good work. Congratulations;” “My best wishes to Gandhi-ki-jai Singam.” Of his letters included in a booklet of mine Letters to Remember, he said, “What a delight­ful book! The contents most interesting, even my own letters; for they are just reading matter to me, having gone completely out of my memory.” His foreword to my book India and Malaysia – their Cultural Connections, begins with self-effacing remarks “I am no scholar, no historian, no anything. I saw him fifty years ago as a school-boy. Ever since then he has been an ardent worshipper at the altar of Gandhiji and his way of life and thought.” Another letter runs, “Enclosed is from a book I am reading – The Way and the Mountain – a book on Tibet by a friend of mine, Marco Pallis. It is a little bit about your great hero A. K. Coomaraswamy.” When I sent him a copy of Coomaraswamy’s Time and Eternity, he remarked, “An erudite piece of work which I can never hope to understand.” I asked him once to translate Coomaraswamy’s Dance of Siva into Tamil. When I sent him a copy of my Coomaraswamy Reader he wrote, “What a splendid book from beginning to end!” He trusted me with the only copy of his notes written for Gandhiji’s benefit on Francis Thompson’s The Hound of Heaven, which I duly returned with 25 typed copies. Thanks to my friend, Sri A. Ranganathan, I have been able to get a copy of Rajaji’s letter to Sri T. K. Chidambaranatha Mudaliar on the “Dance of Siva”. I am inclined to think that Rajaji’s interest in Coomaraswamy was renewed by my sending him almost all of my Coomaraswamy publications, so much so that he wrote to me, “You are veritable Hanuman and Valmiki combined.” In fact he told Sri A. Ranganathan to get in touch with me and referred to me in affectionate terms. The last look I had of Rajnji was when I saw Gandhiji and Rajaji at the railway station in Jaffna more than 50 years ago. Standing between my mother and grand-mother we emptied our pockets for the Harijan Fund. The train moved slowly as we bade farewell. The smiling faces of Gandhiji and Rajaji were never seen again.

APPENDIX

An extract from a letter written by Rajaji in Tamil to Shri T. K. Chidambaranatha Mudaliar. This letter dated September 15, 1949, was published in the October 22, 1978, issue of the Tamil weekly ‘Kalki’. Translated into English by Dr. (Miss) S. Sri Bala, for the writer.

New Delhi
Sept. 15, 1949

Dear T. K. C.

How beautiful is the word ‘koothu’ (dance in Tamil). This ‘koothu’ (dance) is performed on ‘Muyalakan’ (the dwarf). The sculptor has not made the ‘Muyalakan’ suffer due to the weight and the swift movement of the dancer. With what ease does the leg stand on the ‘Muyalakan’ during this great dance depicting the creation, destruction and the general course of life! The dance of Shiva, without any support as depicted by the sculptor depicts the supreme state of self-existence of the cosmic dancer. This dance, in its universal form, differs from Krishna’s dance in the wake of the destruction of the serpent as well as St. George’s destruction of the Dragon. The artist must have found it extremely perplexing to determine a suitable pedestal for the dance. He circumvented the difficulty by placing a small creation under the divine foot which does not suffer any harm. How elegantly this state without any support is manifested in the sculpture? Is there any sign of suffering expressed in the face of the being which supports the dancer? A profoundly subtle aesthetic imagination indeed! However, the later artists have altered the concept of the ‘Muyalakan’ without grasping the significance of the aesthetic imagination in this setting. In fact, I feel that their aesthetic imagination has greatly deteriorated over the centuries. Indeed, ‘Kaalingamardanam’, ‘Narasimhavataram’ and ‘St. George and the Dragon’ are but a few examples of this deterioration. I have written this piece with the hope that you will comment on my point of view. This icon of Nataraja–at once grand and new–unveils cosmic vistas. And its aesthetic significance must be cherished by us.

Affectionately,
(Sd.) C RAJAGOPALACHARI