A Reddy Fan Reminisces

A. S. RAMAN

In the post-independence years education in India has been devalued and debased beyond recognition. The result is that the student’s umbilical cord with his mentors has snapped. He has no historical perspective. Not even a sense of belonging. He finds himself totally unconcerned with men and matters of the past in general–and in particular with those whose impact on his formative years was immense. He does not care who lived when and did what. Indeed, history has been the worst casualty of the present system of politicised education. The so-called educational reforms have a thrust that is more political than intellectual. Text-books are heavily slanted in favour of the party in favour, the emphasis being on highly coloured projections and perspectives. As a result, the student community, left to its own judgement, chooses to stay uninvolved in the pursuit of excellence for its own sake on which naturally depends ultimately the quality of the national ethos. By and large our students seem to remain untouched by the time-tested value system which the overtly politicised educational order of today no longer represents. Their indifference to, if not alienation from, the code of conduct they have inherited from their forbears is complete. They are not literate. They are not even illiterate. They are half-literate. They have all the arrogance of the neo-literate and none of the innocence of the illiterate. Ask an average student about Churchill, Stalin or Roosevelt. He will say: “How would I know? They lived and died before I was born.” Once I tried to draw a researcher in history into a discussion on the relevance of Marxism to the Indian situation but failed. He excused himself saying: “Since India has banned all works by Marx, I have had no opportunity of studying them.”

I’ll not be surprised if the present-day students ask: “Who was Dr. C. R. Reddy? Never heard of him.” Even Gandhiji had been put on the shelf. So why should Dr. Reddy be an exception? When I was a student of the Andhra University at Waltair in the late ’30s and early ’40s, my contemporaries knew more about Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya and Sir Asutosh Mookherjee than the present-day students know about Dr Reddy and Dr Radhakrishnan. With the proliferation of universities and the increasing emphasis on diversification and specialisation, education today means so little to so many. Quantity has outpaced quality with alarming speed.

Even in his lifetime how many people knew Dr Reddy? And those who did, never understood him. It was no doubt difficult to understand him. Not that he was an enigma. But he was too abrasive and his rough exterior protected him from crooks, fools and bores. Also he was too independent and imperious to make himself understood by men of straw. Naturally he failed in politics and almost failed in education. He was a benevolent despot with a lot of colour and flavour in whatever he said or did. He was unique by any test. He was a politician among politicians. But, since he did not pretend to be a saint, he failed. He was an administrator among administrators. But, since he did not bureaucratise his style which was too sophisticated, he failed in administration. He was an intellectual among intellectuals. But, since he relied more on his own insights, perceptions and intuitions than on books for his responses and assessments, he failed even as an intellectual. He wrote so little because he thought so much and he thought so much because of the quality and range of his reading which might have simply paralysed inferior minds. The total impact of his life and work on his contemporaries was that of a dazzling failure, a failure which was much more telling and significant than many widely acclaimed successes.

Dr. Cattamanchi Ramalinga Reddy was his full name. Once Rajaji described him as “an extraordinary Vice-Chancellor.” Indeed Dr. Reddy was an outstanding educationist, judged even by the stiff pre-independence yardstick. He was “extraordinary” not only as a Vice-Chancellor but as a man too. As I have already said, he was not an enigma. But he was an eccentric and what an eccentric! He represented the style and spirit of the 19th and 20th centuries at their very best. He was a Victorian who was eager to stay ahead of the Georgians, bypassing the Edwardians. He was scholarly without being stuffy, original without being perverse, emotional without being sentimental, cynical without being malicious, patriotic without being jingoistic and autocratic without being tyrannical. Intellectually he was too refined and exacting to accept copybook democracy.

In what sense was Dr. Reddy eccentric? In the sense that he often changed his political affiliations, not in the style of the latter-day floor-crossers but according to his own whimsical thinking and reasoning. Whatever political decisions he made, he made on the basis of his own principles and convictions and not in the hope of advancing himself socially or politically. He was too fearless, forthright and freedom-loving to do anything just to please others, Gandhiji included. When Maulana Azad, as Education Minister, wrote to him offering him the secretaryship of the Ministry, Dr. Reddy replied testily: “There cannot be two Ministers.” Dr Reddy was a dyed in the wool conservative. He believed in the graces and constraints of the old world value system. In economics he was a Keynes, in politics a Burke and in personal ethics a Bertrand Russell. In India his greatest mentor was Gopalkrishna Gokhale but for whose gentle persuasion he would have ended up as a barrister. Dr. Reddy almost joined Gokhale’s Servants of India Society. He wanted to serve the country through education or politics, or, if possible, through both. Sir John Squire once said: “At Cambridge, Reddy had both the wisdom and eloquence of Burke.”

Cattamanchi Ramalinga Reddy, who was the first Indian Vice-President of the Cambridge Union, was an unrecognised genius and unloved teacher because of certain rough edges to his character and personality. During his brilliant career as an educationist he held many posts with distinction but each more briefly than the other, till he really discovered himself as the Foundation Vice-Chancellor of the Andhra University from 1926 to 1931 and again from 1936 to 1949. He had a bitter sweet affair with politics from 1931 to 1936. During this period another distinguished teacher, Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, worked as the Vice-Chancellor of the five-year old university which needed the gentle and gracious touch of a true savant. Dr. Reddy had been a rolling stone all his life, gathering a lot of moss. He had the distinction of being Sri Aurobindo’s successor as Vice-Principal of the Baroda College. Dr. Reddy had his own philosophy of education to which he gave concrete shape when he had a free hand as the greatest Vice-Chancellor of the Andhra University. The objects of education, according to him, were: “Increase of knowledge by original research, popularisation of knowledge among the masses and directing our energies into the fruitful channels of practical arts and industries.” At the Baroda College, I believe, he had among his students K. M. Munshi.

Dr. Reddy was basically a Victorian in the sense that he championed the cause of unfashionable integrity in every discipline. He thus pleaded fervently for conformity in literature, conservatism in politics and creativity in education. But he was not a prig or a prude. He had an open mind. Though an advocate of democratic norms and basic freedoms, he had great admiration for the Russian experiment in socialism which he tried to reconcile to the Gandhian philosophy. He used to say: “Though as history has gone so far, the ideal of the fun life has not been consistent with the moral ideal of egalitarian co-operation, the great Russian experiment has shown that material prosperity and human equality could go together and the asceticism is not the indispensable basis of socialism, Its new social and economic order, its marvellous powers in education and the broad-basing of the amenities of civilisation, and its five-year plans demonstrate the possibility of the community’s achievement of the perfect life, where light, love and joy will in the widest commonality be spread. Meanwhile until this consummation is reached by the world Mahatma Gandhi, as the great man of action, the reviver and inspirer of our jaded national will and the organiser of mass action on a scale almost miraculous, will rightly hold the primacy in our affections as well as admiration. He is will; he is action; he is life.”

Dr Reddy often achieved unrecognised excellence in whatever he said or did. He never advocated innovation for its own sake. But he was ready for its challenges when the situation demanded it. He at once recognised merit when he saw it. He neither upheld classicism nor denounced modernism dogmatically. He was aware that both could be genuine or spurious. What mattered most to him were, not fads or fashions, but virtues and values. He admired both classicism and modernism, though, naturally, for different reasons. He maintained that without self-sustaining and self-renewing power neither had any relevance or durability. No wonder that he was very critical of almost all ancient and medieval Telugu poets, except Thikkana and Pingali Soorana who he thought deserved international attention. Also he condemned the so-called New Wave in Telugu poetry, known as Bhavakavitvam, though he had many friends among the exponents of this imported genre which came to the Andhras via Keats, Shelley, Tagore, the Sufi mystics and Brahmosamaj. Rightly he considered the New Wave alien to the Andhra genius and sensibility. He had nothing but naked contempt for cliches, formulas and shortcuts which he thought politics under the flabby Congress leadership raised to the level of fine art! He constituted an elitist one-man establishment. But there was no malice behind his aloofness or arrogance. In fact he had an infectious sense of humour in any crisis. He ridiculed the so-called stalwarts with feet of clay. There was no doubt a streak of authoritarianism in him. But he was a despot who would cheerfully submit himself to the refined and selfless tyranny of the superior minds committed to democratic culture, He didn’t have many enemies. The only enemies he had were: stupidity, lethargy, dishonesty, clumsiness and indiscipline.

I had known of Dr Reddy and respected him from a distance long before I actually met him. In fact I inherited my enthusiasm for him from my father, another incorrigible eccentric who was among his closest friends and most ardent admire. Dr. Reddy used to say: “We are both lunatics becausewe believe in perfectibility. Butyour father has the additional merit of proneness to violence which I envy. He should have been born a Reddy and I a Brahmin.” Dr. Reddy’s amazing tour de force, that last word in literary criticism, Kavitvatattvavicharamu, whose first draft he prepared when he was a student at the Madras Christian College, had been my staple literary diet for many years. What I admired most in this formidable work was, not what he said, but how he said it. He was a great stylist. The values he stated so crisply and so elegantly and the perspective he defined so sharply and so authoritatively gave me a new insight into the essential elanof classicism. The fervour, finesse and forthrightness with which he said what he wanted to say reminded me of the Victorian writing at its elegant and perceptive best. It came as a revelation to me that his Grandhikabhashawas more spontaneous, virile and crisp than the Vyaavaharikabhashaof the moderns.

I came into personal contact with him only in 1938. I saw him with a note of introduction from my father who was keen that I do Economics Honours at the Andhra University. Dr Reddy was then the Vice-Chancellor for the second term which began in 1936 and extended up to 1949 when he left for Mysore to take on a new assignment. He died two years later. My father sent me to Waltair because his friend, who was at the helm, was reputed to be a stern disciplinarian–Dr Reddy’s colleagues used to refer to him as “a lovable Hitler.” My father, like all good fathers, thought that his son was too wayward to be left alone. By the way, Reddy then was just Reddy and not Dr. Reddy. In fact Reddy at the time meant only C. R. Reddy though there were a number of other Reddys who had distinguished themselves in different areas of specialisation including education. Everyone knew only one Reddy and that was C. R. Reddy.

He received me coldly but correctly and directed me to see Professor M. Venkatarangaiya who was the Head of the Department of History, Economics and Politics. I don’t know what happened in the mean time. But I soon found myself being treated like a spoilt child. During my meeting with Professor Venkatarangaiya he had made many promises to me and he later kept all of them. Of course I knew that the unseen hand which gave away so much tome unasked belonged to the Vice-Chancellor. Why? Dr. Reddy himself gave the answer much later. He said: “You got what you got because you deserved it on the basis of your marks-sheet.”

My three years at Waltair were stormy. Of these more later. But for the Vice-Chancellor’s paternal interest in me, my career would have taken a different turn. I learnt so much from him from a distance because of my total rapport with him. His tragedy was that many students misunderstood and maligned him because of his style of functioning. Seemingly aloof and distant, he actually nearer and dearer to them than any other Vice-Chancellor. But the students at Waltair thought that their Vice-Chancellor being a willing stooge of the British imperialism was an enemy of all nationalists and democrats. The fact was that he was their own man deeply committed to their future careers. He was ready to lavish on them unbounded love and affection–on all of them in equal (measure-provided they co-operated with him in his endeavours to enrich the quality of higher education and the sanctity of the campus. He had no favourites. He was partial only to brilliance, enterprise and integrity. As for his defence of the British imperialism, he had his good reasons. But, on the whole, he was more patriotic and democratic than the loud-mouthed windbags of the national movement whose basic weaknesses and vices were to surface years later–with the dawn of Independence.

To return to my Waltair years. They were stormy because of my involvement in the aggressive postures and violent polemics of the student leadership. I was one of the active participants is the student movement at the district level. I was always in trouble with the police, but somehow I managed to get out of it without any effort on my part. I sensed the protective hand of Dr. Reddy behind it all. Once, as President of the Vizag District Students’ Federation, I addressed a mammoth audience at Vizianagaram, using intemperate language against the Governmemt. When I returned to Waltair, I found myself being interrogated by a policeman outside the main gate–the police had no authority to enter the campus because in Reddy’s time the university had rightly become a state within a state. The constable looked and sounded more coarse and brutal than he had been trained to be. There was tension all around. The area had already been cordoned off by the police. Only the marked men could enter it, just to be pushed into the van parked nearby. Inside the van I was comforted to see many familiar faces. We were all herded together and dumped at the police station. An hour later all except me were put behind the bars under the Defence of India Regulations. “Why not me?” I asked the officer on duty who explained: “We have been instructed to drive you to the hostel with proper escort.” I was embarrassed, even discomfited. But being young, timid and career-conscious, I preferred not to court arrest. By accepting the offer of the police I became a contemptible traitor in the eyes my friends.

Later, on December 10, 1940, the entire student community boycotted the C. R. Reddy Shashtipoorthi celebrations in which I was the only student-participant. A moment which should have been the happiest in his life was, as he confessed to me later with tears in his eyes, the saddest and most poignant because of the students’ violent anti-Reddy demonstrations. The function had drawn a glittering galaxy of eminence, glamour and brilliance represented by such august personages as Sir C. V. Raman who presided and Sir Arthur Hope, the Governor of the Madras Presidency, who inaugurated. All the speakers made touching references to Dr Reddy’s deep, unself-conscious, irreversible involvement in activities strictly academic, educational and cultural. But his Shashtipoorthi, on the whole, gave Dr Reddy more sorrow than joy because of the ill-tempered boycott by the students whom he loved so much.

To revert to my own arrest and release. Hardly had I returned to my room before I received a message from the Vice-Chancellor who wanted to see me at once. When I met him, he spoke to me in the anguished tone of a betrayed parent. He laid “No more of this nonsense. Understand? I have an image of you. Don’t destroy it. I want to be proud of you. You may go.” My dilemma: Go where? To be among my friends as a repentant sinner? Or to be on the side of the Vice-Chancellor as a confirmed renegade? I made my decision: I was with the Vice-Chancellor.

From that moment onwards I found myself being moulded by him in so many ways, though only from a distance. Physically the distance between him and me, a mere student, was enormous, because of our respective situations. But slowly I began to feel that there was no one else–not even my father–to whom I owed as much as I owed to him for whatever I learnt–and unlearnt–and on which, as I was to realise many years later, my entire career rested. I had been a good Ekalavya to his Dronacharya. But he was a Dronacharya with a difference. He never demanded gurudakshinafrom me because he had no Arjuna to appease. In fact he had only Ekalavyas, even among his detractors, and no Arjunas. For he had equal love, warmth and concern for all students and they realised it too late in the privacy of their emotions and sentiments.

I can recall many incidents from which Dr Reddy, a confirmed bachelor, emerges as a Vice-Chancellor whose only children were his students, his magnificent obsession. It was a mistake to identify him, as the students then did, with the Government, though, just to embarrass the Congress leadership, which he didn’t accept intellectually, he vigorously supported the War effort. He sincerely felt convinced that Britain, a great democracy, supported by the USSR, a genuine peoples’ democracy, deserved to be strengthened against the menacing forces of Fascism. He was fiercely idealistic and uncompromisingly humanistic where the basic interests of the students were concerned. He was easily accessible to them whenever they cared to meet him. The choice was theirs. But he knew from a distance what was good for them and spared no effort to achieve it for them. I just mention two incidents which emphasise his total dedication to the cause of the student community.

Once, as President of the History, Economics and Politics Association, I requested him to preside over the mock World Court being set up to try the accused. Science in the person of Dr. S. Bhagavantam. He wanted to know how long the trial would go on. I said: “Roughly about three hours, Sir.” He agreed. He arrived punctually at 9-30 a. m. It was an august gathering. Dr. Bhagavantam was the defendant and Professor M. Venkatarangaiya was the complainant. There were many witnesses on  either side and the arguments and counter-arguments were put forward with professiona1 expertise. The prosecution was conducted by Mr. Ratnam, the Senior Public Prosecutor of Vizag. The recording of evidence and other legal formalities were gone through in strict conformity with the established legal norms and practices. It was indeed a marathon trial, but the Chief Justice, Dr. Reddy, showed no evidence of wear and tear. At last, pronouncing his judgement at 9 p. m. he acquitted Science honourably, remarking good-humouredly that he had been on trial and not Science.

On another occasion the Students’ Union organised a Mock Parliament. Mr. Y. P. Rao, who recently retired as Director-General of Observatories, was the Prime Minister and I was the Minister for Education. Mrs. Durgabai was the Leader of the Opposition. We wanted to make it an exclusively students’ affair. So we didn’t invite any member of the staff. But Dr. Reddy was not the one who could be ignored though we didn’t invite him. I introduced a Bill which was rejected by the House. The Rao ministry fell. When the President invited the Leader of the Opposition to form an alternative Government, Mrs. Durgabai said: “No, we’ll continue to be in Opposition.” Reacting sharply, a voice from the last bench was heard to comment: “Those born to fight don’t form governments” Of course, it was the voice of the Vice-Chancellor. We were surprised that he somehow managed to sneak in, just to watch the proceedings unnoticed.

Dr. Reddy failed in many fields, including, according to his illiterate critics, even education. He failed in politics because he pursued it as the art of, not the undesirable possible, but of the idealistic impossible. If at all he failed in education, he failed because he was determined to keep it untainted by politics. If he failed in literature because, as I have already stated elsewhere, he was more a thinker than a writer. He failed socially because of his Shavian cynicism. Whenever he was asked about his single-blessedness, he used to say that he was not a bachelor but an unmarried man. He was fond of quoting Samuel Butler who said that it was cheaper to buy milk than to maintain a cow. One wonders why Reddy’s life was a succession of deliberately contrived failures.

Dr. Reddy was equally formidable both as a writer and speaker. In his diction and delivery there was something at once stately and sensual. He was almost Churchillian in his poise, passion and phrasing. And his sarcasm was lethal. He was indeed a master of the written and spoken word both in English and Telugu. His prose was rich, robust and radiant and had its own succulent rhythms and cadences. Full of wit and wisdom, his sentence had the sharpness of shafts. His speeches sounded unscripted and unrehearsed. But there was intense preparation behind them. His sallies and repartees had an electrifying effect on the audience. Here are a few Reddy samplers:

On Political Defections: “Appointments result in attachments and disappointments lead to detachments.”

On the Christian Virtue of Humility: “They say, the meek shall inherit the earth, but it is usually some feet below the surface of the earth...”

On Socialism: “Socialism attempts a way out of religious antagonisms by instilling class warfare as a diversion.”

On the Reddys: “I’m proud of my community. The Reddys are very brave and enterprising. They are all over the world. But they feel most at home in the Andamans!”

On India’s Basic Problems: “Our basic problems are two: (1) The social senilities of an ancient country and (2) the political immaturities of a young democracy.”

On the Mixed Feelings with which all Indians, with the exception of Mr. Jinnah and the Muslim League responded to Independence: “This is not a case of the cloud having a silver lining but a silver lining having a cloud.”

On the Need for Character-building: “England gets on without a constitution because of its character. Character can prevail with or without constitution or even in spite of it. No constitution can prevail without character.”

On Indian Assessments: “In India the test is: Are you better this year than what you were last year, and by what percentage? International standards are irrelevant.”

On the British Government’s Idea of Efficiency: “The government promotcs efficiency only in subordination.”

Dr. Reddy was superb in his epigrams which were crisp and crushing in their impact on those to whom they were addressed. Here are a few examples.

Once he was addressing a meeting at Egmore in Madras. It was against the Justice party. Suddenly stones rained on the audience. Dr. Reddy’s comment: “This is the Justice party ushering in the Stone Age in politics.”

To a politician friend engaged in fighting a bye-election: “Are you contesting a bye-election? “Yes.” “I wish you a good bye-election.”

He described the freedom struggle, in the lofty style of Carlyle, as a series of biographies–of Tilak, Gandbi, Nehru, Patel, Subbash Chandra Bose and so on.

Dr. Reddy, a nominated member of the Madras Legislative Council, used to annoy the Prime Minister, C. Rajagopalachari, with his most inconvenient questions and supplementaries. Exasperated, C. R. asked angrily: “May I know, Sir, which constituency the Hon’ble Member represents? Dr. Reddy’s prompt reply: “The whole of Andhradesa including Rayalaseema.”

Once the Raja of Panagal and Dr. Reddy, who had been great friends, fell out. Dr Reddy, supporting a no-confidence motion against the Raja who was then the Prime Minister, mounted a savage attack on his former friend and confidant. Interrupting his speech in sheer despair, the Raja said: “I have in my pocket a letter written by Mr Reddy only last week, and when I read it out, you will know why he is attacking me and my Government. I propose to read it out.” Unruffled, Cattamanchi said disarmingly: “When lovers quarrel, their letters are returned.” Like a gentleman, the Raja went over to Cattamanchi and returned the letter to him.

Dr Reddy literally drifted into tducation under the hypnotic spell of Gokhale. From Baroda he moved down to Mysore where under the leadership of M. Visweswarayya he worked as Inspector-General of Education. Again in 1949 he found himself in Mysore restructuring the local educational system in a manner consistent with the temper of the times. In 1926, when the Andhra University was formed largely through his own efforts, he became its first and greatest Vice-Chancellor. But in less than five fears he resigned in protest against the Simon Commission. Eight years later–in 1939, paradoxically enough–he emerged as one of the greatest supporters of the British War effort. Politics didn’t take him very far. So he returned to education in 1936. As a politician he was bound to fail because of his own inbuilt strengths and weaknesses such as his pursuit of excellence, his contempt for personality cult, his abhorrance of inanities, his intellectual sophistication, his unshakable faith in the liberal and enlightened British style of democracy with the emphasis on the right to dissent and, above all, the sheer thrust of his own character and personality. He was not an adapter. On the contrary, he was a great dissenter. He was more than a match even for Rajaji on the intellectual plane. But he was too lazy to produce anything solid and significant. If at all he had any respect for a Congress leader, it was for Rajaji. Not for Nehru, the dreamer, not for Subbash Bose, a rebel without responsibility, not even for Gandhiji, a leader without a genuine following. He used to say that the only true and dedicated Gandhian was Gandhi himself. Dr Reddy was indeed a giant among giants. But he was a giant whom no one either feared or loved because of his defensive cynicism which was actually inverted defeatism. His forte was his style in whatever he said or did, a style that made people admire him from a distance. He was too acerbic and aggressive to draw his admirers close to him: They were not afraid of him. Only they discreetly avoided him. His prose was precise, pointed and picturesque. He never used two words where one would do and splendidly at that. He was original, incisive and perceptive even in his casual utterances. He was never stale or banal. Why didn’t he then produce something monumental and memorable? He didn’t because he just couldn’t, being a perfectionist. A perfectionist who was unfortunately lazy. However, as Gray will be remembered forever by the future generations for his Elegy, Dr. Reddy has been immortalised by his Kavitvatattvavicharamu.

After writing my Final Honours exam. I called on him just to take leave of him. He was in a refreshingly relaxed and communicative mood. He said: “Raman, sit down. So the ordeal is over. What next?” I said: “I want to sit for the ICS.” He said: “You will fail. They have a dossier on you. What else do you propose to do? I said in despair: “I don’t know, Sir. Please guide me.” He replied: “You will never succeed in business or service.” “Why do you think so, Sir?” “Because you are impractical.” “What about teaching, Sir?” “You will fail, because you will teach blasphemies.” “What shall I do then, Sir? Perhaps I shall succeed as a journalist.” “That’s it”, he endorsed promptly. “You will do well as a journalist. Raman, my ambition was to be the Voltaire of this country. I think I have failed. But the attempt was worth-making, wasn’t it?” I replied: “Sir, my ambition is to become another C. R. Reddy and I’m sure I’ll fail too, But the attempt is worth-making, isn’t it, Sir?” He laughed, and patting me on the said: “Good luck, my boy! May God protect you from bores, fools, cranks and pseudo-heroes!” Giving me a testimonial under the noncommittal heading “To Whomsoever It May Concern” he said: “Take it with you. It may help you some day.” This happened in April, 1941.

I never saw him again. He died in February, 1951. I was then in Delhi. But from 1941 to 1951 he used to send me his crisp, breezy, elegantly written one-sentence letters on post-cards.