Books and Authors

It is rather like the weather, in the words of Mark Twain; almost everybody, who is anybody in public life, seem to talk about peace, all the time, but nobody seems to do anything about it. Maybe for the obvious reason that they are not in a position to do anything tangible. We are, of course, only too familiar with the ubiquitous phenomenon of ideological peace­-mongers, who make a song and dance about it, equipped with bugles and trumpets, Picasso’s doves and all, as though they have come out to make war. There are also the others, whose under­standing of history doesn’t go deeper than the surface prick of hindsight, who choose to look upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki as the West’s onslaught on the East and the white man’s exploit­ation of the yellow man and brown man and all coloured men, in fact!

We are now in the fortieth year after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is time that there is a proper under­standing of world events in their historical perspective, without the aid of calculated anachronism based on national feeling or regional prejudice. It is also the fortieth anniversary of the birth of the United Nations, which has declared the next year as the global year of peace. Not an unsuitable occasion for everyone to think of a stable foundation for the resolution of conflict and the promotion of peace.

One needn’t gloat over the failures of the West in recognizing the ineffectiveness of the old theory of Balance of Power and the newer theory of Balance of Terror for deterrence; nor feel superior about the untapped potentialities of the East. For it is all too easily claimed that Mahatma Gandhi could have answers, where Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and the rest had failed to find them. That the Mahatma himself had proved a magnificent failure in the Indian situation is inadequately realised because it hurts many idol-worshippers to admit to themselves that we have many gods that failed no less than our friends in Europe.

In discussing the problem of peace in its first principles, it would be useful to recognize the fact that Gandhi was not essentially a fighter for peace; he was a peaceful, “non-violent” rather, fighter for freedom and justice. It was significant that he replaced “passive resistance” with “non-violent” struggle in the Indian context; which did not mean that it did not evoke a violent reaction or lead to violent results. His approach was very different from that of the Buddha and Christ. He didn’t merely turn the other cheek to the enemy (or opponent) but flung it at him eager to be smitten and therefore to queer the pitch for him. He had his system powerful undercurrents of violence which he sought to suppress.

While it is possible to talk of a philosophy of Gandhism, in a loose and general way, in relation to the struggle for political freedom, civil rights, economic progress and social change, it would be an overstatement to describe Gandhi as a system-builder in the realm of ideas. He had neither the tools of logic nor the teleological insights for an integrated philosopher of peace.

There was at least one Indian in recent time, not known to fame, who could fill the bill for a “philosopher of peace par excellence.”His name may be familiar only in the limited circles of academic philosophers which only means that he should be better known, at least now in the era of a growing aware­ness of global peace. His name is Basanta Kumar Mallik (1879-­1958) a maverick among the academic philosophers who divided his adult life between India and England.

The general reader in India and the world outside, now has the opportunity of familiarizing himself with the life, work and philosophy of Basanta Kumar Mallik through the, in-depth study provided by Mrs. Madhuri Sondhi. The publication of this substantial book titled The Making of Peace is particularly timely, in view of the fast approaching International Year of Peace, 1986. Topicality apart, it is a significant treatise, which seeks to present a logical and societal framework, according to Basanta Kumar Mallik. By no means an easy task, not only because Mallik’s thought could be as abstruse as it is original, at least for a layman in philosophy like the present reviewer. At any rate, Mallik is no Russell or Radhakrishnan, in the art of exposition. That, of course, is not enough of an alibi for Mrs. Sondhi, who has achieved a happy blend of subtle analysis and close reasoning with lucid presentation and a readable style of sustained elegance.

Mallik had his original perception of vital issues like the place of an individual, the role of society, the meaning of history and the prospect for harmony and the promotion of peace. He classified societies into three categories – groupist, humanist and dualist. But he preferred to concentrate his study on “Individuals-in-relation,” a formulation which cuts across all the three categories, with their attendant limitations. He would base the dynamics of harmony on the ethical principle of “mutual abstention.”

Absolutes of any type, the logical positivism of Comte and the rest or the non-dualist Advaita of Sankara had no attraction for Mallik, whose main prescriptions are: knowledge, especially what he calls thought (i.e., non-absolutist understanding of reality), and austerity or the ethics of mutual abstention. To the question if the world can be changed by just thinking, Mallik’s answer, according to Mrs Sondhi, “has all along been, that thought and practice are inseparable, that on the field of battle, it is not merely the soldier, but also a theory (an idea, perhaps) which is in combat.”

Knowledge, in the Mallikian sense, refers to reality, provides evidence for it, destroys illusions from it, but does not create. He uses the word jnaana(or knowledge in a concentrated form without illusions) as a means of energy for social transformation. He looks upon the present century “as no longer either at once atomic or spiritual in the sense it has hitherto been.”

These ideas have to be imbibed and digested by society, for what they are worth, before one can look forward to the inaugu­ration of the peaceful society in the not too distant future, when conflicts may become irrelevant and harmony real and meaningful.

When anyone of the literary enthusiasts in the regional languages of India go into raptures over one poet or another of his or her language, the others, who happen to be strangers to it have only to take him on trust. We can’t, however, hold it against the poet concerned. It could be anyone, classical or con­temporary – Ilango or Kamban, Bharati or Bharati Dasan; Peddana or Potana, Gurazada or Krishna Sastri; Pampa or Sarvajna, Gundappa or Puttappa; Kumaran Asan or Vallathol, Sankara Kurup or Changampuzha.

The only possible exception to it is Tagore, of whom good translations are available in English and other languages done by himself or other eminent writers, like Edward Thompson and Krishna Kripalani. It is encouraging to see that other poets are also being served likewise in recent times. Subramania Bharati, for instance. It cannot be argued that his work was altogether unfamiliar to readers in English. It was familiar through the efforts of the Tamil Sangham, Calcutta, and the initiative of individual translators, like Prof. P. Mahadevan, Mr. R. A. Padmanabhan and Mrs. Prema Nandakumar. But these were neither comprehensive nor well-co-ordinated.

Now, as a result of the new initiative taken by the all-India Subramania Bharati Celebrations Committee, headed by Mr. Kamalapati Tripathi, a Sub-Committee under the chairmanship of Prof. K. Swaminathan was formed for Bharati Centenary Publications. A substantial volume of his chosen poems and prose have been brought out under this scheme. It includes a wide variety of pieces covering poems and lyrics, prose poems, articles, short stories, notes and comments and letters, besides a small selection of items originally written in English by the poet himself. Besides Prof. Swaminathan, the present list of translators includes: the late Mr. A. Srinivasa Raghavan, Prof. P. S. Sundaram, Mr. K. S, Sundaram (“Andavan”), Mr. M. Ramaswami, Mr. M. Srinivasan, Mr. N. Balasubramanian, and Mrs. Prema Nandakumar. This should provide a fair conspectus of Bharati’s literary achieve­ment–its range and its quality.

As for the Ramayana, the first among our national classics, there are any number of translations, as also transcreations and adaptations in all the Indian languages. It sometimes happens that those who are devoted to one regional language version or another are insufficiently aware, or not at all, of the debt owed by every later poet to Valmlki’s original in Sanskrit. That some, of them had tried to excel him, each in his or her own way, is a different matter. It is also worth-remembering that their success in this attempt cannot be taken for granted, without a comparative study.

In Tamil for instance, scholars and critics have recognized the influence, which was considerable, exercised by Valmiki and Kalidasa on later writers in general, and on Kamban in particular. This could be seen by those who can follow Sanskrit as well as Tamil with equal ease. For the benefit of those, who know only one of the two, or neither of them, a diligent and discriminating student of the Ramayana has now come out with a commendable exercise in comparative study under the attractive title “Ayodhya to Lanka.”

The author of this work, which is a compilation and not a critical study, is Mr. K. Radhakrishnan, a senior member of the Indian Police Service, who could not have put his leisure hours to better use. He has taken over a hundred slokas, or stanzas, from each of the poets, 438 in all, on parallel situations and neatly juxtaposed them for the reader’s benefit. While the original, in Nagari or Tamil and Roman scripts, is given on the left hand side, the translation in English is provided on the right (i. e., facing page) for each reference. The poets are left to speak for themselves, and the reader is left to draw his own conclusions, as the compiler offers no comment, let alone value judgment. Undoubtedly a worth-while attempt, into which had obviously gone a lot of hard work, by way of patient study and careful scrutiny.

When we talk of oral literature also, like folk songs and folk tales, there is generally not enough evidence of comparison and co-ordination. It is assumed that folk songs are sung in a sort of universal idiom, where it should be easy to establish rapport. The regional language barrier could be crossed easily enough.

The Vinjamuri Sisters, as they are popularly known (A. Anasuya Devi and V. Sita Devi) have done more than any two others to popularise the folk songs of Andhra Pradesh, of which they have an extensive repertoire. Of these two, the latter had done research on the subject under the late Prof. P. Sambamurti at the University of Madras and added to her experience by her tenure as Producer of Folk Music at All India Radio, Hyderabad. Her rich collection is soon to see light in several volumes. The introductory volume, called Folk Music of Andhra Pradesh, has just come out. Attractively got up, with apt illustrations by Bujjai, it describes the various categories of folk songs classified according to their theme, and describes the musical aspect, including notations, with the songs printed in the Roman script.

While prose fiction is obviously the most popular and volumi­nous genre in English as in other languages political and literary biography promises to be one of the most significant as well as informative. The amount of research necessary for a useful biography is only to be seen to be believed. While the biographer draws upon some of the material used by the historian, his approach has to be different from that of the latter. So must be his technique; and his style, which must render the account readable as well as reliable.

The Viceroys of India had, in the past, provided a handy subject for the political and general biographer. Two of the most significant of them, because of the impact of their personalities on the political history of the sub-continent, were: Curzon and Mountbatten. Of the latter, contemporary assessments had varied from that of a charismatic leader and a dynamic ruler to that of a vainglorious proconsul and an ingenious intriguer.

Philip Ziegler, the official biographer of Lord Mountbatten, who has produced the heaviest tome on the subject, avoids these two extremes in his assessment. But as a realistic biographer, he does not blink the facts. He spares no pain to establish the point that with all his faults of vanity, haste and imperception, Mountbatten had the good of India at heart, more than any of his predecessors. He wanted to go down in history as a benefactor of India; and he did though there might be some reser­vations among those who are to accept that glorious image. But he deserved to be remembered by Indians for the way in which he clinched the issue of transfer of power.

An Indian leader who deserves to be remembered, especially in the centenary year of the Congress, is the historian of the Congress, Dr. B. Pattabhi Sitaramayya. A many-sided personality and a man of high intellectual calibre, Dr Pattabhi does not seem to have got his real due from the country, which he served with no reservation; or the party, which he followed with no respite. It was Gandhiji who said: “I am the Bania Sutrakaara and Pattabhi is my Brahmin commentator.” Some justice is now done to his life and work in a biography (in the Builders of Modern India Series of the Publications Division) by Mr. M. Pattabhiram (Assistant Editor of “The Hindu”) which is fair and sympathetic as well as incisive and informative.

Among the most significant of political journalists in England during the first half of this century was J. L. Garvin of the Observer, a man of strong views which he expressed, in equally strong language. An authoritative account of his eventful life and work, well-documented and full of insight, is now available, thanks to the earnest effort made by David Ayerst, a competent journalist himself, long associated with the guardian.

If facts can be stranger than fiction, historical fiction can be more compelling than political biography. Gore Vidal, has proved this statement, many times, most recently in his Lincoln– stimulat­ing, brilliant and readable, but memorable because it is authentic and authoritative as well as it is imaginative. Here we see the man Lincoln, behind the mark or solemnity – human, whimsical and intensely lovable with all his faults and foibles.