Vavilala The man and his mission

VAVILALA - THE MAN AND HIS MISSION

SRI B. P. R. VITTAL, I.A.S.

It is a privilege to be able to pay homage to one like Sri Vavilala Gopalakrishnayya. I however propose paying my homage in a somewhat unconventional and sometimes controversial man­ner which I am sure he will appreciate. I shall endeavour to identify certain aspects of his personality and use these aspects as a pretext for delineating some themes which I feel may provide a basis for further studies which the Trust which Sri Vavilala has set up may like to pursue. I am not trying to ex­pound a single theme and as such they will not necessarily logi­cally follow each other. They are only theses inspired by Vavilala’s own character and interests. I also only touch upon some points and do not elaborate on them to save time. Cynic that I am, I stand by no position stated hereafter. If it is found worthwhile I shall take the credit, but if it is found ill-conceived I shall be willing to promptly retreat. If I am found original I shall acknowledge the compliment, but if I am discovered in veiled plagiarism I shall quote it as proof of my wide and perceptive reading. Like the typical Andhra I am, I believe they also serve who sit and shout; not stand and shout, for then you may be counted; but sit on the pial and shout; the classic posture and pastime of the Andhra.

Like his clothes Vavilal’a’s personality has never been bleached by the detergence of modern dissimilation or worldly ambition. He is a combination of the influence of Marx and Gandhi that I was always looking for. No doubt, it can be said there were others who had felt both these influences, Nehru himself for instance. But Gandhi’s influence on Nehru remained, what I might call, vicarious. By Gandhi’s influence I refer to the anchoring in Indian tradition, essentially roots in India’s peasantry. In that sense, Nehru was always a sandal tree, his roots tagged on to Gandhi’s and in that manner drew sustenance from the Indian peasant tradition, but he himself remained a prince among them; for them, not of them. The peasant tradition need not be romanticised; it can be coarse, but it is nevertheless sustain­ing. Civilisations have always fallen due to an excess of refine­ment, not due to coarseness; in fact it is the coarse and the vulgar who have inherited the earth and then got refined them­selves. Then there have been those on whom the influence of Gandhi and Marx was successive, the one wiping out the other, like J. P., the “Darkness at Noon” phenomenon. What I mean by the influence of Marx and Gandhi, in a case like Vavilala’s, is a syncretic influence; the head influenced by the rational social view of Marx, the heart sensitised and strengthened by the Indian tradition, of which the highest flowering was Gandhi the head in the twentieth century, the roots in the hoary past. An Indianisation of Marx which unfortunately has never taken place in our political tradition. It was this of which Vavilala is an example.

Mao’s service to China was precisely this. He is criticised for having Sinicised Marx, for being more Chinese than Marxist. I don’t think this is a contradiction or a betrayal. This was in fact his greatest contribution and our greatest lack. Mao shared with Gandhi that ability to feel the pulse of his people; to be recognisably one of them and yet sufficiently ahead of them to be able to inspire, guide and lead them. But he was also a Marxist and, therefore, had a picture of what kind of society could and ought to be created in the Twentieth Century given the leap his country had to make over centuries of deprivation. Gandhi was not so influenced. His influences were Tolstoy and Emerson. They were sufficient to create communes but not com­munities, and so perforce independent modern India had to abandon him at the very moment, of its emergence. There was also, an immortal component to Gandhi’s message which has been picked up even by more advanced societies now in the shadow of nuclear extinction. But that was his moral message, not his economic one, and the moral message required an eco­nomic base of contentment that his economic philosophy could not in today’s circumstances build. For Mao, Marxism supplied this missing component. His own contribution to its remoulding to suit China’s circumstances, like the idea of communes, was tremendous, but basically he had a reliable compass in Marxism. Of course, now it can be said that his country has betrayed him even more grievously than we have done Gandhi; that depends upon whether one considers lip service better than removing photographs. No doubt, China may be going away from or beyond Mao in a more real sense. But this is after a period when his indelible mark on new China had already been imprinted. It was not Gandhi’s martyrdom that prevented this. It would have happened even had he lived; he was himself aware of this when he chose Nehru as his successor and not Vinobha. In the absence of this Marxist influence in our picture of new India, the Western Liberal or at best Fabian tradition filled the vacuum through the personality of Nehru. I am aware that, from a Marxist point of view, I am putting the cart before the horse. The state of Indian society and the nature of the leadership dictated the Fabian succession and it was not Nehru that chose it. But since I am today looking at it from the point of view of personalities I may be pardoned this mirror image mistake. But coming to my basic point, Vavilala, to me, represents what could have been had we succeeded in continuing the Marxist and Indian tradition in a dynamic sense of interaction and not a geological overlay.

Sacrifice, rationalism and humanism are the three important facets of Vavilala’s personality; the first the result of the Gandhian tradition, the second of the Marxist influence and the third a product of both these influences. It was one of Gandhi’s great contribution to make sacrifice an instrument of action and of popular mobilisation. He built on the Indian tradition of venera­tion more for sacrifice than even for achievement. Whether it is Sri Rama or the Buddha, the image was one of leaving the palace to go to the forest in pursuit of dharma or jnana or moksha. This was the opposite of the American popular myth of the man who makes it from the log cabin to the White House. Here such a one would not be an authentic hero or role model. Immediately questions would be raised about how exactly he could have made it merit generally not being accepted as the sole reason – and if all other explanations fail to detract from the achievement, it would be put down to merit stored by sacrifice in a previous life. It is to such a tradition of sacrifice that Gandhi awoke men like Vavilala. But it is a species in danger of extinction. There are not enough specimens even in captivity, and like all endangered species they do not breed in captivity and, of course, in Sri Vavilal’a’s case for quite well - known reasons! Even if they had progeny the characteristic is not inheritable. It is born out of struggle and cannot be bred at will or to order. Even today there are undoub­tedly many causes that can inspire men to sacrifice in the course of struggle, but the response is poor in the cynical society we are building and, where there is response, perhaps future generations will be able to see its shining example, but not we, who have been blinded for our life-time by petty ambitions and treacherous temptations.

The Trust that Vavilala has formed is the culmination of a life-time sacrifice; it is neither another way of holding one’s acquisitions nor an old age recompense fm a life-time’s ag­grandisement. It is necessary to say this, because we seen now to be concerned only where money goes and not whence it comes. In morality there are no double negatives; illgotten money ill-collected does not become good money. But then in capitalism money is always colourless. Money is what money does, not how it comes. Then there is no difference between a Bodhisattva and Robin Hood; between one who gives away his own merit to save others and one who relieves others of their surplus, albiet to help the more deserving. Sacrifice and the sanctity of means are the two most important components of Gandhiji’s teaching which the life of one like Vavilala exemplifies and that need repetition and resuscitation now.

To say that rationalism is the result of Marxist influence is neither to assert that it is the origin of it nor to deny that there may be entirely indigenous traditions that could also have encouraged a rationalist approach. Rationalism, even in the West, has had both emperical and non-emperical streams in it. Non-emperical, self-contained, rationalism very often led to idealism and while it initially did serve the purpose of liberating man from the incubs of dogma and superstition and appeal to supernratural sources of authority, it later also thwarted genuine scientific enquiry. Early Indian tradition has been rich in this kind of self-contained rationalism – rationalism: which pursued truth without seeking higher authority-and has had its noblest expression in the Upanishads, the “Buddha and later Sankara. In a corresponding phase to Western civilisation also, Aristotle, in the beginning, and St. Thomas Acquinas later served a similar purpose. But emperical rationalism could come only much later, after the Renaissance and the, Copernican revolution etc. This phase never occurred in our history till the later part of the British rule, when a kind of renaissance took place here in the second half of the Nineteenth century. The inspiration for this was however Western enlightenment transmitted to us through the British themselves, though in the broader context of national assertion this was sought to be linked with the earlier indigenous traditions by men like Vivekenanda.

We are however concerned with raticinaligm in the more narrow sense of the rational approach applied to social pro­blems. It is here that the great tradition of Marx comes in, for it was Marx who brought to bear rational enquiry on social problems. Whatever may be the controversy in regard to Marxian economics in general, or to the labour theory of surplus value in particular, the fact remains that he brought about an irrever­sible revolution in our approach to social issues in two aspects at least, viz. to concede the economic factor in social issues and to identify and analyse the problem of alienation which arises with capitalist industrialisation. Gandhi identified alienation with industrialisation itself, or more particularly with its scale, Marx’s analysis of alienation in a capitalist society cannot be refuted. All that a critic can raise is the question whether the alienation does not continue even in non-capitalist forms of industrial development. Marx did not concern himself at that stage with post-capitalist problems. It may be that the problem of alienation even in post-capitalist societies requires further analysis. It may be that Gandhi also was not entirely correct in assuming that aliena­tion is inseparable from industrialisation. The Cybernatic revolution is said to make it possible to now organise even industry at a much higher technological level in social situations which can avoid alienation. Work and education can be brought into the home through the computer and television. Whether this can be done within the capitalist system or the abolition of the capitalist system is a pre-requisite for exploiting the full potentialities of this new revolution is another matter. But, these are all issues that are arising only because, for the first time, Marx gave a framework in which such an approach to social problems became possible. Here again, the manner in which the tool of Marxism can be used to unravel social issues in a society such as ours has not been fully worked out. While pedantic answers have been offered, none has stood the test of real science, namely, the test of either prediction or successful application.

The third aspect which I mentioned was humanism. The briefest definition of humanism can be that in humanism man is the end and man is the means. In humanism the ultimate purpose of all human action is the creation of circumstances in which the human potential can flower to the fullest extent – can flower and not be exploited. With this purpose must go the faith or conviction that such circumstances can be created by human endeavour alone and no appeal to extra human resources is necessary. In this sense Marxism is again essentially the solid basis for genuine humanism. Gandhiji’s ideals could also be expressed in the same terms when we take concepts like Daridranarayana. So long as we deal with man as a social being and with the social circumstances necessary for man to reach his highest achievement, there would be no difference of opinion. Differences of opinion occur only when we go further and the question arises whether human happiness – in whatever sense that word may be defined – is only the sum total of economic contentment, social justice and intellectual fulfilment, or whether, while these are undoubtedly pre-requisites, there is a kind of fourth inner dimension which can be neither explained nor pur­sued in this three-dimensional framework. In a country like ours where the basic economic and social pre-requisites either for intellectual fulfilment or for human happiness have not yet been provided, it would be undoubtedly diversionary to raise such issue at this stage. We need not deny them, but we can conveniently postpone or shelve them till we have done our duty in respect of the economic and social aspects.

I have mentioned the three aspects of sacrifice, rationalism and humanism and delineated in a very broad sense some of the issues related to these three factors, because I feel that in all these aspects the Indian context, like any other context, is unique to itself and we must be able to find our own solutions to some of these issues. However much we may raise ourselves on other traditions, learn from them and draw inspiration from them, ultimately that solution will survive which can strike roots in this soil. This was what one was looking forward to when India became free and there was hope so long as men of that first generation, men like Vavilala, were available. But one generation has gone by. We have gone down other alleys, many dead-ends, and a new generation not in touch with its own traditions and deriving inspiration from a West that is itself in acute intellectual crisis, has to face these problems. Who among them will be upto this task and how do, we prepare them for such a task? This I think is the great intellectual problem today.

Vavilala has always been greatly interested in problems of development both of the country and of his own State which he loves dearly, viz. Andhra Pradesh. Let me, therefore, raise two general issues about development – one relevant at the national level and the other at the State level. The Club of Rome first raised the controversial issue of the finite availability of resources in the world acting as a constraint on development objectives. This thesis has countered by several other authorities, not merely on the basis of different economic· projections, but essentially on the basis of a faith in technology being able to continuously solve the problems it throws up. But, whatever may be the validity of this thesis for the world as a whole, there is no doubt that for some societies such as ours and the Chinese, the size of population is such that, in the long range, a resources constraint can be very real issue. It is unrealistic to expect that resources will be shared on a global basis when even their exchange has not been so far organised on any rational basis. One has, therefore, to take a national view of this matter with only a marginal outlet from an autarchic system in terms of aid or trade. If that is conceded, it would become im­mediately evident that the long-range goal of our planning has to be completely different from the goals of planning in other countries, which have either already, reached a higher level due to past exploitation of others or which are fortunate in having a better ratio of resources to population. Whether we consciously admit it or not, the long-range objective in our minds has always been that at some day in the future everyone in this country will enjoy the kind of standard of living that a developed nation has today, i.e. in future century India should be at least what the United States is in 1981. This might appear absurd when put in this crude fashion, but I am afraid sub­consciously this, in fact, has been behind our thinking when setting the directions of planned development. My submission is that this has now to be accepted as an impossible goal.

Our whole objective has to be different. Our very basket of goods and services, not only now but in any perspective plan of any span, has also to be conceived of quite differently. To this end the horizons of desires of men and their motivations will have to be reoriented. We have to stop thinking in terms of a car for a family, or if this is not possible for every five families or ten families or hundred families, and start thinking of a society where easy and comfortable public transport would be available to everybody, because even in the longest possible perspective that is all we may be able to afford. But the type of consumerism we are encouraging, the sophisticated advertis­ing world that has been built up, the glossy magazines that we are producing, are already generating dreams of a different kind. It is this basic contradiction and the consequent inability to adjust ourselves to what in fact are our realities, that is gene­rating crisis after crisis in the society even when real progress it taking place. It is here that one of the basic thoughts of Gandhiji is so relevant today, namely, that economic activity must be designed for the satisfaction of needs no doubt, but needs should not be constantly generated or created. In the Western type consumer-cum-advertising world we are building, new needs are already being created for a few, while for the vast majority even old needs have not yet been satisfied. What wonder then if, as a result, we become a crisis - ridden society despite achievement.

Theoretically two approaches are possible to this problem. One is the straightforward egalitarian approach where the limited resources available are equitably distributed. It used to be a common joke, in our elite circles, against the socialists that if all the wealth of the Big Houses together were distributed among the six hundred million Indians each Indian would after all get a few rupees and that was not going to make any substantial change to his position. These statements ignore elementary human psychology. In a period of deprivation the next solution to satisfaction is in fact equal distribution of deprivation. To share deprivation is to make its burden light or at least more tolerable. The appeal for simplicity and austerity, therefore, is not because of the resources that would be thereby saved, but because of the greater solace that it gives to those who in any case have to be austere. The egalitarian approach was the approach that China adopted to begin with. No doubt this generates problems of its own, particularly problems of incentive and motivation after a certain level of uniform satisfaction has been achieved. But I do not think that the only answer, even at that stage, is the restoration of hitherto well-known economic incentives.

Socialism in one sense is not merely a question of the forces of production, but also of relations of production and arising from this a certain view of human nature itself. Four centuries of capitalism has made us believe that man is basically acquisitive and aggressive, and that, therefore, he cannot be made to work except by appealing to either of these incentives ­more pay or an external enemy. We forget that before capitalism, both in the feudal and pastoral societies or even in tribal societies, man was essentially a co-operative being. He lived and survived as a member of a group and was capable of sacrificing himself for the good of the group. There, is no such thing, therefore, as basic human nature. Circumstances can be created in which he can evolve either as a co-operative being or as an acquisitive one. So far all Marxists will agree, but thereafter there is a parting of ways. Some would emphasise that the forces of production should change first to ensure abundance, since only in abundance can co-operative man thrive. The Lither view would have it that the infrastructure and the superstructure are mutually interactive and changes in either cannot be permanently post­poned while the other is being attended to. Just as you cannot have a society based on a mere appeal to altruism with no effort being made to improve the physical circumstances of life, you cannot also have a society where we are so busy in creating and catering to evergrowing needs of life, that altruism is stifled as not being conducive to production and hoping that, at some later stage, it can be revived or injected.

The other approach would be that an egalitarian socialist solution is perhaps not possible for a society like ours with a population problem and, therefore, an ultimate constraint of resources. But the sharp differences that capitalist development would normally result in, can, it is suggested, be mitigated by creating a dual economy existing at different levels of develop­ment – a majority contributing their labour and mostly concentrated in a primary sector using labour intensive technologies and another sector at a high level of sophistication based on capital and skill intensive industries. Naturally, there will be exchanges between the two sectors in physical terms and there will always be what one might call human leakages. The highly motivated cannot remain in the primary sector because their motivation cannot be satisfied with the rewards of that sector and if they are allowed to remain there, they would be a source of trouble. They are, therefore, allowed to ascend to the second sector where their motivation would be an asset. They perform the role of migrants between these two sectors. Similarly, the second sector also will be based on such high levels of motiva­tion and sophistication, that some will be dissatisfied even with the level of that sector, though that itself would be very high compared to the first sector. They would then be allowed to leak out of the country itself by way of what is called the Brain Drain. The brain drain can thus be a safety valve to get rid of highly motivated persons who otherwise would be a source of problems. Incidentally they could be foreign exchange earners also.

The question however is whether given our resources and population, a model can be built which strikes the right balance between the two sectors and whether the political institutions will enable a certain degree of separation between the two sectors which the model assumes. If the motivations or stan­dards of living and of aspirations of the second sector invade the first sector through means such as the television, the whole arrangement would break down. But to start with, it would be interesting to see whether even the mathematics will come out correctly in a model of this type. Whatever the feasibility, it is difficult to see what third way is possible. One possibility could be what one might call, an alternating phase approach. You have an egalitarian phase; then you have an uneven growth phase. When this creates too many problems you revert to the egalitarian phase. In fact this is a modification of the dual eco­nomy approach but spread over time; that is, while the dual economy model divides society into two sectors at one time, the alternating phase approach adopts the approaches of the two sectors for the whole society over successive alternating periods of time.

And finally, we come to Andhra – the native soil so dear to Vavilala and to me. A soil so fertile in talent, yet like all fertile soils also prolific in weeds, with the result that Khasa was to say that “The Andhra is like the rice plant, he thrives only when he is transplanted.” And unfortunately, neither Vavilala nor I have ever been transplanted with what results I shall not dwell upon. In several respects Andhra is the country in micro­cosm. It is near the country’s averages in several indicators, but as in the case of the country these averages conceal a wide regional fluctuation in the levels of development. Just as the nation has some parts whose levels of development and infrastructure may compare with much better developed countries andother parts whose low levels of development bring down the national average, so also Andhra Pradesh has some parts which can perhaps compare with Punjab and Haryana, while there are other parts whose condition would approximate more to the conditions in other ward States in the country. Inthat sense, it is truly a bridge between the ward Hindi States to its North and the more developed South. Again, it is, like the country, well endowed with both natural and human resources and yet has not been able to make a break-through even in terms of the average performance of the country itself. And of course I need not mention that we are very avid practitioners of the national pastime of belittling our own achievements and pulling each other down. The problems of Andhra Pradesh there­fore will, in many respects, reflects the national problems and in that sense Andhra Pradesh provides a very fruitful field for research and study of the problems of development in general and of regional imbalances and ward areas in particular. The most imporrant problem is why we are not able to make a breakthrough despite our human and individual endowment; not a spectacular one, but at least one beyond the national average. Is it the incubs of the social structure not having been sufficiently changed? If so how does one go about it given our political institutions and situation? These are issues that could be of national relevance too.

Vavilala is at the head of a generation of which perhaps my age group represents the humble tail – a generation that saw Colossus stride this world. But it is also a generation that saw them either betrayed or dragged down from their pedestal. We are therefore, the generation of Fallen Idols. We are told that this is as it should be, that it is what reason demands, the age of the Anti - Hero. I refuse to believe it. I would rather believe with Carlyle that “in times of unbelief” we see “in this indestructability of Hero­-worship the everlasting adamant lower than which the confused wreck of revolutionary things cannot fall.” Reason cannot and ought not to light every comer of the human mind. Beauty is a matter of contrast; art of light and shade, not a monochrome. What have we achieved thereby? A generation where Tolkien is a best-seller for adult and Exorcist is a big draw. Had we been allowed our hobgoblins and our friendly witches on broom­sticks, these absurd or terrible substitutes would not have been necessary. May be, psycho histories are true. May be that Lenin’s Russia is not worthy of him, that Gandhi died a dis­illusioned man, Nehru a saddened one and that Mao after 1956 - or is it 1966? – was wrong. So what? What does it prove retrospectively? Human assessment is like our old ex­amination system, no one gets hundred per cent as in the objective tests. Mao’s assessment of Stalin’s contribution was 80: 20, 80 good, 20 bad. Mao’s successor gave the same score to Mao. Yes, no man is infallible. Yes; they had feet of clay. To the Hindu that disproves nothing. That an Avatar has a human vehicle with all its failings does not deny his Divine Descent. We are not monophysites. All Idols are of clay we make Ganesha out of mud, worship it and throw it away in water ­though nowadays we seem to be hesitating to do that – does that deny its function? Myths, legends, and heroes, who are undoubtedly part myth, are necessary for nations and individuals at one stage of development and one should be careful in removing such crutches. Man is still psychologically handi­capped, he is still a mixed being and therefore a mixed up being.

A being darkly wise, rudely great
Chaos of thought and passion, all confused;
Still by himself abused or disabused;
Created half to rise, and half to fall;
Great Lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole Judge of truth, in endless error hurled;
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!
(Pope.)

Nevertheless this is rationalisation. The fact remains that our generation has felt the crushing blow of falling idols. Our subconscious is now full, not of idols but, of debris and we do not know how to reconstruct it or even clear it. That makes misfits of us all. I do not have Vavilala’s concurrence to say this, but I would like to believe he would join me in being described as a misfit in today’s world which

Gives too late
What’s not believed in, or if still believed,
In memory only, reconsidered passion.

where

Unnatural vices
Are fathered by our heroism. Virtues
Are forced upon us by our impudent crimes.

So
I have lost my passion: why should I needto keep it
Since what is kept must be adulterated?
(Eliot.)

Let me, therefore, conclude by trying to put down what I would call a charter for Misfits.

We are opt –outs, not drop-outs. We are misfits, not failures.

The test for a misfit is that in today’s society if he is successful he is discontented for having succeeded in such a world, and if he is contented he is, in the eyes of others, un­successful.

Nevertheless we believe it is not for us to fit, but for us to change things so that those with our ideals can fit.

But we have reached a stage of life when we realise that to fit requires not merely external reconstruction but internal search also. We have to work out the external implications of what the internal search reveals; that

What you thought you came for
Is only a shell, a husk of only when it is fulfilled
If at all. Either you had no purpose
Or the purpose is beyond the end you figured
And is altered in fulfillment.       
(Eliot.)

We have to restore confidence in our original faith that ultimate purpose which does not so break or cannot be so broken is

To follow knowledge, like a sinking star
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
(Tennyson.)

To that quest I am sure the Trust that Sri Vavilala Gopalakrishnayya has constituted, will make a significant contribution.