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The Making of an Indian MP

A tap at my study door. By its timidity I recognized the person who had made it. It was the “slavey” employed by the landlady from whom my wife and I rented the apartment in the heart of London and who cooked the victuals we bought and served them. The girl who was thus designated in democratic England even then – January 1910 – was perhaps fourteen or fifteen years of age. She had a thin, stunted figure, pale cheeks and eyes that often looked red, through weeping, we surmised.

“Come in,” I called out.

As she opened the door with a hesitant hand and came up to the chair where I was sitting near the fire blazing cheerily in the gate that she kept neatly black-leaded, I wondered at the cause of that disturbance. She had been in only a few moments before to draw the curtains, light the gas and put coal on the fire. A murky cloud had prematurely blotted out light and, a little late, it had begun to drizzle, making the evening damp and dismal.

“Two gentlemen to see you sir,” she said, in her whisper of a voice, from the other side of the small table upon which I was writing, fear, no doubt, gripping her heart that I would take it out of her for that interruption to my work.

No cards had been sent up – no names given. I, therefore, concluded that they must be Indians and asked the little maid to bring them up to our sitting room.

Only one of the callers – Mr. Bepin Chandra Pal – was known to me and I had met him but a few days before. He forthwith introduced his companion as Mr. Shapurji Saklatvala, who, I was told, had been eager to meet me.

I thanked the gentleman for his wish, helped him and Mr. Pal to divest themselves of their damp outer garments, drew easy chairs for them near the fire and put aside my writing, not without an inward sigh, for the work interested me and was of topical importance, so that I would have to resume it after they have left and would no doubt be kept up half the night in consequence.

Bipin Chandra Pal

Who could the stranger be? What did he do? Why did not Mr. Pal say anything about him that would give me a hint to his calling and his interests? Was there anything to say? Did silence mean that the Bengali leader had wished to have company on the way from his flat in Kensington, miles away from my apartment, and had brought one of his admirers along?

Who could the stranger be? What did he do? Why did not Mr. Pal say anything about him that would give me a hint to his calling and his interests? Was there anything to say? Did silence mean that the Bengali leader had wished to have company on the way from his flat in Kensington, miles away from my apartment, and had brought one of his admirers along?

Questions of that kind ran through my mind.

Not for long, however. Polite nothings did not interest Saklatvala. After a little more time he tired of playing second-fiddle to Mr. Pal, whose personality and eloquence he greatly admired, as he, at the very outset of the conversation, had taken care to inform me. Within a few minutes the conviction was forced upon my mind that he was an ambitious man, determined to make his mark in life.

He was, I judged, in the middle thirties. He had a trick of running his fingers through his black hair, rumpling it. The way it was brushed back gave him an immense forehead, which, in any case, would have been broad and high. Under the black, arched brows, his eyes were alive – afire – ever astir. The cheek bones stood out prominently. Between them was a long, firm nose. The way he screwed up his mouth reinforced the impression that his features in general conveyed of strength of character and fixity of intention.

In time I discovered that Saklatvala’s ambition and avocation were not as mine, luckily, were. He was in business and wished to be in Parliament.

An accident had placed him in the City – a term that Britons use to indicate the square mile or so of London where the Bank of England, the head offices of other banking institutions and insurance companies, the Stock Exchange and financial organs of various descriptions are huddled together. Consanguinity had caused that accident.

His father, who had built up an important business in Manchester, where Shapurji spent some of his early years, had a sister. This aunt was married to Jamshedji Nusserwanji Tata, who, by innate genius and personal exertion, had acquired considerable wealth and established mercantile houses in many places which he bequeathed to his sons Dorab and Ratan. Shapurji was sucked into this organization like a piece of paper in an eddy and might easily have been carried to the summit of financial success had his own weight (some persons would call it his perversity) not pulled him down.

Shapurji Saklatvala

As we talked I was impressed with my Parsi caller’s political ambition. His thoughts revolved round it. It was a wonder to me that it did not set his body on fire – consume it to ashes.

I welcomed his longing to get into Parliament. I felt that through carefully framed questions put to the Secretary of State for India and statements made in the course of Indian debates, an Indian in the Commons would be able to draw attention to matters connected with the administration. As matters were, it was necessary to seek the good offices of some sympathetic British M.P. whenever an Indian difficulty or grievance had to be aired in Parliament.

His father, who had built up an important business in Manchester, where Shapurji spent some of his early years, had a sister. This aunt was married to Jamshedji Nusserwanji Tata, who, by innate genius and personal exertion, had acquired considerable wealth and established mercantile houses in many places which he bequeathed to his sons Dorab and Ratan. Shapurji was sucked into this organization like a piece of paper in an eddy and might easily have been carried to the summit of financial success had his own weight (some persons would call it his perversity) not pulled him down.

II

How was Saklatvala to project himself into the House of Commons? Had he the means and the influence?

Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji, the first Indian to get into that chamber, had an easy mind in respect of finance. So, at least, I understood. During the many decades he was in England he had assiduously courted the Liberal Party; but the British constituency he sought to woo gave him the cold shoulder and he was never able to enter the Commons a second time.

Sir Mancherjee M. Bhownaggree, who, for several years, sat on the Conservative benches in that House, was, if anything, wealthier and certainly no less shrewd than Dadabhai Naoroji. He was believed to be in intimate touch with the men who dominated the Tory Party: but it was obvious that they had not exerted themselves, otherwise he, too, would not have been out of Parliament at that time.

I reminded Saklatvala that he himself had given me to understand that he was not cumbered with a superfluity of this world’s goods. I feared, in fact, from what he said, that his means were narrow and he had a growing family.

But the situation did not perplex him at all. He had discovered a ladder by which he could climb into Parliament. Keir Hardie and Ramsay MacDonald had gone up it into the Commons. Why not he?

I reminded Saklatvala that he himself had given me to understand that he was not cumbered with a superfluity of this world’s goods… But… He had discovered a ladder by which he could climb into Parliament. Keir Hardie and Ramsay MacDonald had gone up it into the Commons. Why not he?

III

I had my doubts about British Labour permitting an Indian to climb into Parliament over its shoulders. Not so very long before I had come up against the Trades Unions in Canada and found them far from friendly towards our people, whose interests I had been trying to protect.

The trouble our immigrants were having in the Dominion, as also south of the border in the United States of America, had, in fact, been engineered by organized labour in those countries. White workmen looked upon our fellows as intruders.

I had my doubts about British Labour permitting an Indian to climb into Parliament… The trouble our immigrants were having in the Dominion, as also south of the border in the United States of America, had, in fact, been engineered by organized labour in those countries. White workmen looked upon our fellows as intruders.

Our immigrants might have won their title to pin service-medals against their breasts by valour on the battlefields across the Frontier and even beyond the seas. But that title was not recognized when it came to settling in an integral part of the British Empire and obtaining work on the railways or in the timber-yards. It certainly could not secure them free homesteads in the manless wilderness that stretched from almost the margin of the Pacific Ocean to the Great Lakes. Working men of European descent regarded them with hostility and, being closely united, had been able to move the administration to exclude our people all but in name.

IV

Saklatvala was sorry to hear my plaint. He launched into a tirade against the capitalistic system. In the last analysis, he said, that system was responsible for setting one labourer against another. Workers were exploited everywhere – a little more in one country, a little less in another – but exploited everywhere – “even here in England.” Their interests were, therefore, the same everywhere. Their objective should be the same. But for the capitalistic machinations, the wage-earners would fraternize, despite differences of race, colour and creed.

These assertions were made with a vehemence that sprang from inner conviction. It displayed to me something of the quality that would endear him to Socialists.

I might, of course, have said that some day the workers in Canada may realize that Indian labourers were in the same boat as themselves and fraternize with them: but, unless I was mistaken, that day was distant. Such a remark would not, however, have carried us any farther. So I contented myself with asking him how matters stood in England, which I was then visiting for the first time.

His experience, he assured me, had been of the pleasantest. He had, for years, been a member of the Independent Labour Party and had come in intimate contact with the leaders of that movement, whom he had found most sympathetic and helpful. He had met the workers and Trades-Union officials in various parts of Britain. They did not know very much about the Indian situation: but he had no doubt that, in their hearts, they were with the common people in India and not with those who lorded over them. Of that he was certain. I could test the accuracy of his statement any day I liked.

He had, for years, been a member of the Independent Labour Party… He had met the workers and Trades-Union officials in various parts of Britain. They did not know very much about the Indian situation: but he had no doubt that, in their hearts, they were with the common people in India and not with those who lorded over them.

V

Before Saklatvala departed that evening, I gleaned from his talk that he had taken great pains to cultivate the British Labourites. He was, in fact, devoting practically all his leisure – most of the evenings and week-ends – to that purpose. He would travel great distances and, if I remember aright, pay his own expenses, to address Labour audiences.

It was evident from his manner of speech that these peregrinations had done him much good. They had given him confidence in himself and a remarkable ability to marshal facts in a way that, I judged, must have made an irresistible appeal to Britons of the working classes.

Even in my study, he showed an inclination to indulge in monologues. The words poured out of his mouth with the rapidity of shot from a quick-firing Maxim gun. They seemed, moreover, to be charged with fire. They must have scorched any one against whom they were directed.

Before Saklatvala departed that evening, I gleaned from his talk that he had taken great pains to cultivate the British Labourites. He was, in fact, devoting practically all his leisure – most of the evenings and week-ends – to that purpose. He would travel great distances and, if I remember aright, pay his own expenses, to address Labour audiences.

His propensity for prolixity and “tub-thumping” amused me. So did his inclination to repeat the Socialist catch phrases. I was, however, struck with his earnestness and fixity of purpose. He had an objective to strive for and plenty of grit and industry to enable him to reach it.

For all his international outlook, he was at heart an Indian patriot. That fact was plain to me long before Mr. Pal and he bade me goodbye and departed for their respective homes. I hoped that he would soon obtain his heart’s desire and, from his seat in the House of Commons, trounce wrong-doers in India and secure redress for their victims.

I hoped that he would soon obtain his heart’s desire and, from his seat in the House of Commons, trounce wrong-doers in India and secure redress for their victims.

VI

In later years, as I got to know Saklatvala better and came in contact with some of the members of his immediate circle, I realized that he was paying a heavy price for his ambition. By concentrating his thoughts upon politics and doing more or less mechanically the work that gave him his living, he was not only sacrificing his future in the City but also was getting into the bad books of his wealthy kinsmen in India and the men whom they had placed in positions of responsibility at Capel House, Old Broad Street – the London headquarters of Messrs. Tata, Limited.

A worldly-wise person would, on the contrary, have considered himself fortunate in having any kind of footing in a powerful commercial concern with connections spread over three continents. By putting his back as well as his brain into the work allotted to him and winning the approbation of the “higher-ups” he would have pushed his way towards – if not to – the top.

I have known persons with no acuter brain and no greater capacity for application than Shapurji Saklatvala possessed to make great commercial careers for themselves and to acquire considerable wealth and even titles of nobility. Few of them had, in fact, been born and brought up in an atmosphere charged with business as he was, or had quite so good a start as he did.

His inclination, however, lay, at least at that time, in a wholly different direction. So much so, indeed, that business actually bored him. But for undeniable necessity he would have gone away from the City and devoted all his time and talents to politics, which engrossed his mind.

A worldly-wise person would… have considered himself fortunate in having any kind of footing in a powerful commercial concern with connections spread over three continents… I have known persons with no acuter brain and no greater capacity for application than Shapurji Saklatvala possessed to make great commercial careers for themselves and to acquire considerable wealth… His inclination, however, lay… in a wholly different direction.

VII

I recall a conversation in this connection that we had when, yielding to pressure, I dropped in upon him in his office in Capel House soon after I settled down in London in the summer of 1911, after an eleven months’ tour of India. He looked the picture of misery as he sat at his desk in a small room that, if my memory has not played me false, he shared with Mr. Kaiko Mehta, Sir Pherozshah Mehta’s son; or possibly the latter may have just happened to be there at the time of my visit.

Sir Pherozeshah Mehta

I remember, in any case, making Mr. Mehta’s acquaintance. He seemed to be the antithesis of Saklatvala – quiet and unobtrusive – not interested in politics, for which his father possessed a genius that elevated him to a dizzy height. There nevertheless seemed to be a perfect understanding between Shapurji and Kaiko and no small degree of affection.

The more I discussed matters with Saklatvala in that office, the more I was convinced that his heart was not in his work there. Instead of dealing with dry-as-dust affairs in that bee-hive of commerce, he would have liked to be out in the open air, addressing workers whom he understood and who understood him.

It appeared to me that he was not doing justice either to the firm that held him in fee or to himself. He was not unlike a man who was hacking away with a sharp axe at the very limb upon which he was seated. The only difference was that Saklatvala, in his spare moments, was attacking the capitalistic system which gave him and his family bread and butter, and not any particular unit of that system, much less Messrs. Tata, Limited.

He took my chaffing – or was it chiding? – quite coolly. Nearly everyone in the Socialist movement, he declared, suffered from a similar disability. He had to live, like everyone else. So long as society rested upon a capitalistic basis, he must inevitably draw his – and his family’s – support from capitalism. There was no help for it. I liked Saklatvala’s candidness.

Nearly everyone in the Socialist movement, he declared, suffered from a similar disability. He had to live, like everyone else. So long as society rested upon a capitalistic basis, he must inevitably draw his – and his family’s – support from capitalism.

VIII

The hard-headed men who conducted, from Capel House, business operations upon a scale regarded as respectable even in the City of London, must have looked upon Saklatvala as queer. Except on some occasion when, owing to his thoughts being occupied with socialist propaganda instead of with his work, there was a lapse that got him into trouble, as I have reason to believe sometimes happened, they tolerated him, more for his family’s than for his own sake.

I must hasten to add that if, in the eyes of practical men of the world, Saklatvala, in those days, was a species of lunatic, he was, to say the least, a mild one. They thought that the maggot of socialism had burrowed into his head and honey-combed the grey matter in his brain so that it could not function normally.

But they knew that he harmed no one except himself and his dependents by making it impossible for him to get on in the only way that the work-a-day world appreciates.

IX

Even persons who were not in sympathy with Saklatvala found him likable. When his jaw was not set like a trap and he was not chewing red hot steel in smiles. Possessed of a keen sense of humour, his eyes would beam with delight whenever something tickled his fancy. He had a great capacity for laughter and his laughter set others to laughing.

He was fond of visiting his acquaintances and friends, sometimes to the point of making a nuisance of himself. He was generally “packing” one or another of his children along with him.

I recall my wife remonstrating with him on one occasion. The boy he had brought to our house late in the evening was quite small and fractious with sleepiness. She told Saklatvala that it was long past the hour when a child should be in bed. What sort of love was it, she asked, that made him lose sight of his son’s comfort and his future welfare?

“That is just it, Mrs. Singh,” was his ready reply, a smile playing upon his lips and his eyes gleaming with mischief. “You have hit the nail square on the head. I am thinking of the child’s future, otherwise I should not bring him to your house. Some words from your or your husband’s lips might fall upon his ears and prove the making of him. The making of him.”

That reply was as clever as it was sincere. It disarmed wrath. Mrs. Singh got out of her chair, carried the child in her arms to the sofa in the corner of the drawing room where we were sitting, and laid him there to sleep until his sire was ready to jump to catch a late (or was it the last?) train for the night that would carry him to his home in Twickenham, several miles distant from our house.

X

Of Saklatvala’s sociability I cannot speak too highly. He was particularly keen upon Indians away from the Motherland meeting other Indians likewise exiled. I have a re-collection (rather a dim one) that he had a hand in the establishment of the Indian Social Club, of which Sir Mancherjee M. Bhownaggree, who, in politics, was diametrically opposed to Saklatvala, was for years the President. He was, in any case, conspicuous at all the functions of that organization which I was invited to attend.

While he loved to talk in Gujarati whenever he got the opportunity, there was not a trace of sectionalism in him. A Parsi meant no more to him than an Indian who professed Hinduism, Sikhism, Islam or Christianity. He fraternized with all Indians, irrespective of their race, religion or rank.

The hospitable instinct used, in fact, to run away with him. Eating a meal by himself at a restaurant, even during the brief luncheon hour that businessmen in the City allow themselves, was a misery to him. He would invite friends and even chance acquaintances to meals in town. I doubt if there was ever a Sunday or a holiday when he was not attending or addressing a labour meeting, that he did not insist upon someone having luncheon or tea, usually both, at his home. In this way he frittered away a good deal of money that a less emotional person would have conserved.

He also caused no end of work for his wife – an English girl, nicely brought up, gentle-mannered and true as steel. They employed only a general servant – often not a very efficient one, I fear – and entertaining involved back-breaking work for Sehri Saklatvala.

The hospitable instinct used, in fact, to run away with him. Eating a meal by himself at a restaurant, even during the brief luncheon hour that businessmen in the City allow themselves, was a misery to him. He would invite friends and even chance acquaintances to meals in town. I doubt if there was ever a Sunday or a holiday when he was not attending or addressing a labour meeting, that he did not insist upon someone having luncheon or tea, usually both, at his home.

She, too, had very strongly developed social gifts. Whenever my wife or I tried to commiserate with her she made light of the trouble and spoke of the pleasure entertaining gave her. I must say that this was no mere make-believe upon her part.

XI

Nor did this social socialist lack in aesthetic instinct. That side of his nature was revealed to me on one occasion when he took me from his hometown in Twickenham, after a hearty luncheon at his home, to Richmond, where his millionaire cousin Sir Ratan Tata, to whom he was deeply attached, had, some years earlier, bought an estate and spent immense sums upon improving the grounds and enlarging, beautifying and furnishing the mansion. As he leisurely conducted me over the house, vacant at the time, his eye lingered over the silk curtains, tapestried chairs and sofas and soft pile carpets. The richness of the stuff and the exquisite blending of one tone with another delighted him. He spoke in warm terms of Lady Tata’s artistic taste, which had found unfettered expression there. He also told me of Sir Ratan’s interest in archaeology and of his quiet but discriminating charities.

Sir Ratan Tata

Under the hard crust of realism I discovered there was in Saklatvala love of the beautiful. Had he possessed ampler resources, I felt, he might have created a wholly different environment for himself and may even have not been such a “hot-gospeller” of socialism. Such was not meant to be the case, however, by the Fates that control the destinies of men.

Sir Ratan Tata was the last private owner of York House, in Richmond Road, Twickenham

XII

Shapurji must have been born with a combative faculty that, as he grew older, developed and, in time, dominated his whole nature. I recall his once confiding in me that while he was studying, I believe at St. Xavier’s College in Bombay, Mrs. Annie Besant visited that city and delivered an address. Something in her manner or message made him wroth. With the aid of some companions bent upon mischief, he tried to raise an uproar in the meeting.

Saklatvala never got over his dislike of Mrs. Besant. He found her socialism “as weak as water” – questioned the genuineness of her interest in Indian workers’ welfare – poked fun at her politics. His ideas had become so fixed in his mind that reasoning was of no avail.

Annie Besant

He found fault also with Mahatma Gandhi, chiefly because the Mahatma refused to quarrel with mill-owners while seeking to befriend the workers. Still greater hatred was reserved by him for the men who managed Congress affairs in London. He tried more than once to storm the citadel of the British Committee, but without success.

Saklatvala never got over his dislike of Mrs. Besant. He found her socialism “as weak as water” – questioned the genuineness of her interest in Indian workers’ welfare – poked fun at her politics… He found fault also with Mahatma Gandhi, chiefly because the Mahatma refused to quarrel with mill-owners while seeking to befriend the workers. Still greater hatred was reserved by him for the men who managed Congress affairs in London. He tried more than once to storm the citadel of the British Committee, but without success.

Mahatma Gandhi

XIII

Saklatvala had started an organization of his own. He called it the “Workers’ Welfare League of India.” It advocated the making of provision in India for the welfare of the working population “equivalent to if not identical with that granted to the working people of Great Britain”.

No one with a spark of humanity could help but admire the ideal. It was, however, beyond the realm of practicability. Conditions in India differed from those in Britain so widely that only a visionary could ask factory owners in Bombay, Ahmedabad and other Indian centres to approximate to British standards either in respect of hours or wages.

Our industrial workers came mostly from the countryside and did not stick to the mill or the factory throughout the year, let alone throughout their lives. They sprang from stock that, for generations, had been under-fed. What little physical strength they possessed when they entered the city was drained out of them by the work to which they were unused and by the insanitary conditions in which they were compelled to live and the temptations to which many of them succumbed. Their minds were steeped in ignorance and they lacked discipline of any description. How could anyone with any sense expect these men and women to produce as much yarn or fabric as a “hand” in Britain?

Saklatvala would not see this aspect of the case. Whenever it was brought to his notice, he would merely assert that even with the low per capita output, the mill-owners in India were battening on the toil of the wage-workers and that they could well afford to raise conditions to the British level.

Saklatvala had started an organization of his own. He called it the “Workers’ Welfare League of India.” It advocated the making of provision in India for the welfare of the working population “equivalent to if not identical with that granted to the working people of Great Britain”.

XIV

Again and again Saklatvala pressed me to join the League he had started. Each time I refused to have anything to do with it. He was impatient, sometimes to the point of rudeness, he did not part company with me, however.

He kept on coming to our house as before – oftener, if anything. At the back of his brain he had an idea that one day he would convert me to his doctrine and I would cease to regard the political as the dominating factor in India.

In the summer of 1919, I remember, he sent one of his British colleagues to reinforce him in the campaign to capture my support. One of his “very common man friends,” he called him in the letter that he sent to introduce him to me. Always in a hurry, he wished me to see his friend “now.”

“You,” he wrote in this letter, “might again charge me with attempting to force Economic Reform before Political Reforms. It is not you or I that decide it (that matter). The world has decided that the Political Reforms that are mere Class advances are of no value to human happiness.” On the contrary, he argued, “the world’s progress demands Mass Political Reforms, and these can only be achieved through and within Economic Reforms.”

XV

Saklatvala’s appeal to the “democratic circles of Great Britain” to see to it that the hours of work in India were scaled down while wages were raised, aroused interest in the minds of organized Labour in that Island. This was particularly the case in Lancashire and other counties that looked with a jealous eye upon the expansion of power industries in Bombay, Nagpur, Ahmedabad and other Indian centres. The higher the costs of production in these centres, they argued, the less the Indian competition to be feared.

The “general principle that Orientals have a claim to human rights similar to those of Occidentals” had, therefore, a dual fascination for the Britons with whom Saklatvala associated. It appealed to their humanitarian instincts and at the same time conserved their economic interests. It provided unction for the soul and cream for the body.

To suggest that this truth had never dawned upon Saklatvala would be to underrate his intelligence. Even persons who regarded him as wayward could not take him for a fool.

I will not say, or even imply, however, that he adopted that line of agitation merely because he knew it would make him solid with the British wage-workers who were becoming increasingly alarmed at India’s industrialization.

My contact with him was intimate enough to make me feel that, in this matter, as in others, he acted from inner conviction. No man – Indian or non-Indian – I have met had the welfare of Indian labourers – and of Indians in general – more at heart than he did.

The “general principle that Orientals have a claim to human rights similar to those of Occidentals” had, therefore, a dual fascination for the Britons with whom Saklatvala associated. It appealed to their humanitarian instincts and at the same time conserved their economic interests… I will not say, or even imply, however, that he adopted that line of agitation merely because he knew it would make him solid with the British wage-worker… No man – Indian or non-Indian – I have met had the welfare of Indian labourers – and of Indians in general – more at heart than he did.

XVI

Through the years of our lengthy acquaintance Saklatvala was becoming more and more vocal – more and more radical. This was particularly the case after the revolution in Russia. The break-down of the capitalistic system in that country he regarded as the beginning of the end of that system all over the world.

His drift towards Communism might have been tolerated by Messrs. Tata, had he not been so vocal. The men in command there did not like being associated in the public mind with such doctrines.

The day of parting came. It would have gone hard against Saklatvala and his family had provision for the future not been made. It enabled him to continue to live as he had been doing.

He had hoped that the Labour movement in the land where he had pitched his camp would go communist the way he did. He spoke to me, on more than one occasion, as if his wish were being realized.

He soon found out his mistake. Many of the Britons whom he had regarded as radical proved to be conservative, from his point of view, and refused to plunge into the uncharted ocean of Communism.

Even after his break with life-long associates in the Labour Party, Saklatvala did not lose out with the British workers. To thousands of them he remained the “Good Old Sak” that he was before the great upheaval. They continued to believe in his devotion to the cause of the submerged classes – in his genuine and undying hatred of all economic forms of exploitation.

The Labour element in North Battersea, across the Thames from Westminster, enabled Saklatvala to realize his life’s ambition in 1923 by sending him to the Commons. His faith in the British working-man was justified. Re-elected the following year, he remained in that House until the dissolution in 1929.

His drift towards Communism might have been tolerated by Messrs. Tata, had he not been so vocal… The day of parting came… The Labour element in North Battersea, across the Thames from Westminster, enabled Saklatvala to realize his life’s ambition in 1923 by sending him to the Commons. His faith in the British working-man was justified. Re-elected the following year, he remained in that House until the dissolution in 1929.

I cannot speak, from personal knowledge, of the work he did during those years, for they were spent by me away from Britain. I am sure, however, that he used every opportunity he could make to advance India’s cause, which, without question, was dear to his heart.

March 1936

ABOUT ‘THE MODERN REVIEW’:

 The Modern Review was founded in 1907 by Ramananda Chatterjee, who also founded and edited the Bengali magazine, Prabasi and the Hindi magazine, Vishal Bharat. All three periodicals can be best described as journals of opinion.

The Modern Review published essays by practically every well-known leader of the Indian nationalist movement, along with the views of foreign sympathisers. It also carried rousing editorials from Ramananda Babu himself. After his demise in 1943, his son Kedarnath carried on the good work until he passed away in 1965. The magazine also published fiction, book and art reviews, travelogues, etc., including essays by pioneers like the anthropologist Verrier Elwin and historian, Jadunath Sarkar.

Ramananda Babu allowed his contributors to present every shade of opinion and argue their cases, while ensuring the magazine itself maintained an impartial editorial stance. He was happy to publish long multi-issue arguments between luminaries like Tagore-Gandhi and Subhas Bose-Sardar Patel about the shape and direction of the nationalist movement. Contemporary opinions about topics such as education, women’s rights, the relations between religions and castes, electoral politics, India’s place in the world, and international relations can be accessed and contextualised by leafing through the archives of this journal of record.  

—Devangshu Datta

To read a select anthology of articles, interviews, poetry and fiction published from 1907-1947 in the Modern Review, you can buy‘Patriots, Poets and Prisoners’ here.

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In the 1936 Allahabad Municipal Elections, the Congress had “dared to nominate” a Dalit candidate. Ranjit Sitaram Pandit wrote a succinct and scathing piece that exposed how the scourge of caste – a scourge that we’re still very much dealing with – was entrenched in our attitudes and therefore in our local governments. The article, though brief, is masterfully written and says more than many longer academic papers can hope to, on the subject.

 

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Some of the circumstances will seem strange to a 21^st century reader. Some will not. 

 

A lower-caste candidate – a “chamar” (leather-worker) referred to only as “Hari” (short for “Harijan”) – is inducted as a candidate in an Allahabad municipal election in 1936. Although he is an educated and capable man, he loses. Indeed, he stands little chance. A coalition of the bigoted – comprising upper caste Hindus, those offended by this audacious individual from a ‘low’ caste background, those whose economic interests may be affected, etc. – aligns against him. 

 

That scenario would be easily understood by a 21^st century social scientist. A similar dynamic to the one that operated in Civil Lines, Allahabad in the United Provinces in 1936, continues to operate today in Civil Lines, Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh. Anybody acquainted with UP politics in 2020 will intuit the prejudices a Dalit candidate would have to confront if he stood for elections in Civil Lines. 

 

What will be unfamiliar is the nuts and bolts of the electoral system during the latter days of the British Raj. Elections began in the 1920s with municipal bodies. The Government of India Act (1935) copy-pasted the British bicameral structure with an Upper Chamber that contained the nominated, and an elected Lower Chamber. Provincial elections occurred in 1936-37 in six provinces. 

 

But the structural elements, such as the demarcation of constituencies and seats, and the lists of eligible voters, were very different in 1936. There were reserved constituencies, for Muslims, Christians, “Europeans”, Sikhs and Scheduled Castes. In these, candidates and voters had to belong to the concerned community. This was supposed to ensure that the interests of various communities were represented. There was a very public argument between Gandhi and Ambedkar on the subject of caste-based reservations for the ‘low’ caste. Ambedkar won. 

 

There were also general seats where anybody could stand, and seek the vote of the eligible voter. But this wasn’t a universal franchise by any means. The right to vote depended on qualifications like ownership of property, payment of income tax, payment of municipal tax, the holding of land, etc. In practice only the creamy layer – perhaps 5 percent of Indians, or even less, had the vote. 

 

It was considered a daring experiment when the new Indian republic decided on universal franchise – giving the vote to every citizen. The General Elections of 1951-52 saw over 170 million voters (India had a population of about 360 million according to the 1951 Census) exercise their right in what was by far, the largest democratic exercise ever undertaken. The voting lasted for almost six months. 

 

The new republic also eliminated the concept of the reserved constituency though it introduced the concept of the reserved seat where only an SC/ST candidate could stand although everybody could vote. Much later, the concept of gender reservation has been introduced at the Panchayat level, where up to one-third of seats are reserved for women candidates. 

 

Does this work better than the old system with reserved seats for specific communities? Perhaps. But it certainly hasn’t led to an elimination of caste bigotry. Indeed, that appears to have been successfully exported, going by the ongoing legal battle between Cisco and the State of California.

 

—Devangshu Datta 

 

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How a “Harijan” Candidate was Defeated

 

December 3rd – polling day – was approaching and Prayag Dutt, the canvasser, tried to speed up the delivery of the candidate’s cards. “Who is this Hari,” enquired the Brahman elector, an Advocate of the High Court, “and what is his caste?” Prayag Dutt canvassing on behalf of the Harijan candidate replied that the candidate was a Chamar by caste.

 

Thereupon the Advocate spoke in his persuasive manner: “Why don’t you Chamars stick to the ancestral work of shoe-making? It should pay well. Why do you want to stand for the Municipal Election- what can a Chamar do in the Municipal Corporation?”

 

Prayag Dutt agreed that shoe-making would be profitable work. But he said: “We pure Chamars would never have given up the shoe trade but for the fact that in this city there are now a number of mongrel Chamars.”

 

“Who are these mongrel Chamars?” asked the Advocate, and Prayag Dutt replied: “A number of Brahmans, Khatris, and Baniyas have set up shops of imported boots and shoes and are making profits by underselling the hard-working Chamar in the shoe business.”

 

 

“Why don’t you Chamars stick to the ancestral work of shoe-making? It should pay well. Why do you want to stand for the Municipal Election- what can a Chamar do in the Municipal Corporation?” 

 

 

The Allahabad Municipal Corporation building

 

 

The elector felt disconcerted and perhaps in order to get rid of the canvasser expressed his willingness to vote for the Harijan candidate.

 

The local Congress Committee had decided to help the poor to win a seat during the recent Municipal Election at Allahabad from the Civil Lines, which includes a number of Bastis with hundreds of voters who are for the most part poor manual workers. With its modern roads, which serve the houses of the high and mighty, surrounded by gardens and lit with electricity, the Civil Lines area is a contrast to the Bastis of the poor whose hubs are taxed by the Municipality, which has, however, never shown any anxiety to make a road or provide the poor with water or even oil lamps. During the rains water collects in pits in the dust tracks and little children die by drowning in the very midst of the Bastis.

 

The nomination of a Harijan candidate from the Civil Lines caused a flutter in the dove-cotes of orthodoxy. While some of the educated and respected middle-class voters took this as a personal affront to their intellectual attainments, others regarded it as a challenge to caste superiority and the sacred principle of private property. The Advocates’ Association sensed the coming danger instinctively and some of the learned fraternity asked the writer to explain why the Congress had dared to nominate a Chamar for a seat from the Civil Lines. A Kashmiri Pandit asserted with vehemence that he would never tolerate a Harijan candidate. His attention was drawn to the fact that caste was immaterial; the candidate was a Kashtkar (farmer), literate and a nationalist and was chosen by the local Congress committee as a straightforward and incorruptible man. Indeed, he was personally known to many as a faithful servant of the late Pandit Motilal Nehru. But the learned Counsel was adamant. He said he would be prepared to vote for a Chamar or even a Mehtar if the latter were “reformed” by Islam or Christianity!

 

The issue was thus side-tracked. It was not one of religion or of caste. It was purely secular. The poor knew where the shoe pinched and it was their right, if they so chose, to elect as a representative from among themselves one who would bring the grievances of the poor and needy before the Municipal Commutes and get them redressed as far as possible. The reactions of the so-called high castes and the intellectuals revealed that they were either unconscious of the sufferings of large numbers of the so-called depressed classes or that they refused to act justly towards masses of the poor born within the fold of Hinduism who were perpetually on the anvil under the blows of a hundred hammers.

 

 

A Kashmiri Pandit asserted with vehemence that he would never tolerate a Harijan candidate. His attention was drawn to the fact that caste was immaterial; the candidate was a Kashtkar (farmer), literate and a nationalist and was chosen by the local Congress committee as a straightforward and incorruptible man. Indeed, he was personally known to many as a faithful servant of the late Pandit Motilal Nehru. But the learned Counsel was adamant. He said he would be prepared to vote for a Chamar or even a Mehtar if the latter were “reformed” by Islam or Christianity!

 

 

The issue involved in Hari’s candidature was thus misinterpreted. Hari’s canvassers included enthusiastic students and some Advocates who had volunteered their services. When they presented his card and appealed to the high-caste voters they found many of them forgot, in their anger, that the candidate was set up by the Congress. One of the Brahman Advocates was amazed that he should have been asked to vote for a Chamar. He tore up the card and threw it in the face of the Advocate canvasser.

 

At first in the Indian Clubs it was considered a joke, but when the canvassing in favour of Hari, the representative of the working class, became increasingly successful the menace was considered too grave for the high castes to ignore it. The tension ended in a storm of opposition in the Civil Lines against the very idea of the candidature of a Chamar.

 

 

Ranjit Sitaram Pandit

 

 

In the Civil Lines there are two seats for the Non-Muslim constituency, which is a joint constituency for Europeans and Indians, Hindus, Christians, Parsees and others. With one solitary exception, about nineteen years ago when a Hindu was returned, the Civil Lines area has been represented heretofore only by Europeans, Anglo-Indians or Christians. The Congress Committee had set up a candidate to contest one out of the two seats with the bonafide desire to train the voters among the poor and manual workers to exercise their rights. Two Hindu candidates were in the field this year, besides three Christians, for the two seats. Municipal elections had heretofore evoked no enthusiasm in the Civil Lines, but this was a dangerous departure.

 

At first in the Indian Clubs it was considered a joke, but when the canvassing in favour of Hari, the representative of the working class, became increasingly successful the menace was considered too grave for the high castes to ignore it.

 

Every house now discussed the pros and cons of this problem and opinion was sharply divided until the orthodox of all kinds combined and determined to reduce the support Hari had already gained by a vigorous campaign of counter canvassing. Single voting for the high-caste candidates was resorted to to secure the defeat of Hari. The substantial support already secured among all classes of voters, including Europeans, Parsees, Professors, Doctors, Advocates, Theosophists, Christians and others was thus  neutralised.

 

The working classes, such as the Kashtkar, the carpenter, the mason, the dhobi, the petty shop-keepers at street corners were easily divided by the agents of the high-castes. The poor lacked organization and their support was undermined, without much difficulty, by methods commonly employed in elections. The orthodox and respectable of all sections had combined to save religion and respectability from the menace of the Harijan. And they won.

 

ABOUT ‘THE MODERN REVIEW’:

 

The Modern Review was founded in 1907 by Ramananda Chatterjee, who also founded and edited the Bengali magazine, Prabasi and the Hindi magazine, Vishal Bharat. All three periodicals can be best described as journals of opinion.

 

The Modern Review published essays by practically every well-known leader of the Indian nationalist movement, along with the views of foreign sympathisers. It also carried rousing editorials from Ramananda Babu himself. After his demise in 1943, his son Kedarnath carried on the good work until he passed away in 1965. The magazine also published fiction, book and art reviews, travelogues, etc., including essays by pioneers like the anthropologist Verrier Elwin and historian, Jadunath Sarkar

 

Ramananda Babu allowed his contributors to present every shade of opinion and argue their cases, while ensuring the magazine itself maintained an impartial editorial stance. He was happy to publish long multi-issue arguments between luminaries like Tagore-Gandhi and Subhas Bose-Sardar Patel about the shape and direction of the nationalist movement. Contemporary opinions about topics such as education, women’s rights, the relations between religions and castes, electoral politics, India’s place in the world, and international relations can be accessed and contextualised by leafing through the archives of this journal of record. 

 

 

—Devangshu Datta

 

To read a select anthology of articles, interviews, poetry and fiction published from 1907-1947 in the Modern Review, you can buy‘Patriots, Poets and Prisoners’ here.

 

 

 

ARCHIVE

On 14 July, 1930, Rabindranath Tagore visited Albert Einstein’s house in Caputh, near Berlin. The conversation between them – on how to understand truth and reality – was recorded and subsequently published in the January 1931 issue of Modern Review.

 

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Almost exactly 90 years ago, Albert Einstein and Rabindranath Tagore had a long conversation faithfully recorded in The Modern Review. An unbiased observer reading that, without context, might assume that the two intellectual giants were essentially talking past each other, as they discussed truth, beauty and the divine.

 

They may well have had some communication issues since neither spoke English as a first language. But this actually serves as a wonderful illustration of two different ways of looking at the universe. And, no, it wasn’t a dialogue that can simply be glibly characterised as East meets West.

 

A quick look at their backgrounds may be helpful. Einstein was a secular Jew. He never took religion very seriously. If he believed in God at all, it was not in the patriarchal Yahweh of the Torah, who laid down the law to Moses and appeared in a burning bush.

 

That’s very clear from other statements Einstein made, starting with the off-the-cuff, “Does the Old Man play dice with the Universe?” That was when he was discussing quantum action, with Nils Bohr who responded with the classic: “Don’t tell Him what to do!”

 

Einstein also said, “I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this, but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.”

 

Tagore on the other hand, was brought up in the Brahmo tradition by a great preacher, his father, Maharishi Debendranath. Brahmoism can be described as a Unitarian religion. It acknowledges one Advaita Param Brahma, a formless, eternal creator. The religion is focused on the Vedas, while rejecting caste, food fads, other later Sanatan Hindu writing and customs.

 

Tagore however broke out of the rather puritanical perspective imposed by his father. He embraced a broader mysticism, some of which he tries to articulate in this conversation. In his play Achalayatan, Tagore created a character, Dadathakur, who may have encapsulated his attitude to religion. Dadathakur is a free spirit who has a joyous, untrammelled direct relationship with the divine, rejecting a narrow rule-and-ritual-bound existence.   

 

The poet set up Santiniketan in Birbhum District, which has a strong baul tradition reaching back to the Bhakti cult with its philosophy of building personal connections to the divine. Birbhum District also has its fair share of tribals who are animists, not mainstream Hindus. Some of that – Bhakti certainly, quite possibly the animistic worship of the divine in the natural – exerted influence on the poet.

 

But insofar as one can analyse a free-flowing conversation of this nature, the best framework is perhaps provided by a look at the anthropic principle (AP).  Although the AP was only defined and articulated from the 1960s onwards, long after the demise of these two, it provides a context that actually allows us to make sense of the conversation.

 

Tagore was a believer in the Strong Anthropic Principle: The Universe was created the way it was, with natural laws that led to the emergence of sapient life because it could only be observed and appreciated if there was life. According to this philosophical stance, truth and beauty cannot exist in the absence of sentient observers.

 

There is also a Weak Anthropic Principle which can be defined as a belief that life can only appreciate the wonders of a universe which happens, by some statistical chance, to have natural laws that support life.

 

Going by this conversation Einstein was not a believer in the Anthropic Principle at all: His position is that the laws of nature are the laws of nature. They exist and they create their own beauty and harmony, regardless of observers.

 

I hope this helps provide some context for the conversation. Now take a deep breath and dive in!

 

 

—Devangshu Datta

 

 

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TAGORE: You have been busy, hunting down with mathematics, the two ancient entities, time and space, while I have been lecturing in this country on the eternal world of man, the universe of reality.

 

EINSTEIN: Do you believe in the divine isolated from the world?

 

TAGORE: Not isolated. The infinite personality of man comprehends the universe. There cannot be anything that cannot be subsumed by the human personality, and this proves that the truth of the universe is human truth.

 

EINSTEIN: There are two different conceptions about the nature of the universe — the world as a unity dependent on humanity, and the world as reality independent of the human factor.

 

TAGORE: When our universe is in harmony with man, the eternal, we know it as truth, we feel it as beauty.

 

EINSTEIN: This is a purely human conception of the universe.

 

TAGORE: The world is a human world — the scientific view of it is also that of the scientific man. Therefore, the world apart from us does not exist; it is a relative world, depending for its reality upon our consciousness. There is some standard of reason and enjoyment which gives it truth, the standard of the eternal man whose experiences are made possible through our experiences.

 

EINSTEIN: This is a realization of the human entity.

 

TAGORE: Yes, one eternal entity. We have to realize it through our emotions and activities. We realize the supreme man, who has no individual limitations, through our limitations. Science is concerned with that which is not confined to individuals; it is the impersonal human world of truths. Religion realizes these truths and links them up with our deeper needs. Our individual consciousness of truth gains universal significance. Religion applies values to truth, and we know truth as good through our own harmony with it.

 

EINSTEIN: Truth, then, or beauty, is not independent of man?

 

TAGORE: No, I do not say so.

 

EINSTEIN: If there were no human beings any more, the Apollo Belvedere no longer would be beautiful?

 

TAGORE: No!

 

 

A self-portrait by Rabindranath Tagore.

EINSTEIN: I agree with this conception of beauty, but not with regard to truth.

 

TAGORE: Why not? Truth is realized through men.

 

EINSTEIN: I cannot prove my conception is right, but that is my religion.

 

TAGORE: Beauty is in the ideal of perfect harmony, which is in the universal being; truth is the perfect comprehension of the universal mind. We individuals approach it through our own mistakes and blunders, through our accumulated experience, through our illumined consciousness. How otherwise can we know truth?

 

EINSTEIN: I cannot prove, but I believe in the Pythagorean argument, that the truth is independent of human beings. It is the problem of the logic of continuity.

 

TAGORE: Truth, which is one with the universal being, must be essentially human; otherwise, whatever we individuals realize as true, never can be called truth. At least, the truth which is described as scientific and which only can be reached through the process of logic—in other words, by an organ of thought which is human. According to the Indian philosophy there is Brahman, the absolute truth, which cannot be conceived by the isolation of the individual mind or described by words, but can be realized only by merging the individual in its infinity. But such a truth cannot belong to science. The nature of truth which we are discussing is an appearance; that is to say, what appears to be true to the human mind, and therefore is human, and may be called maya, or illusion.

 

EINSTEIN: It is no illusion of the individual, but of the species.

 

TAGORE: The species also belongs to a unity, to humanity. Therefore the entire human mind realizes truth; the Indian and the European mind meet in a common realization.

 

A portrait of Albert Einstein by post-impressionist painter Leonid Pasternak. 1924.

 

EINSTEIN: The word species is used in German for all human beings; as a matter of fact, even the apes and the frogs would belong to it. The problem is whether truth is independent of our consciousness.

 

TAGORE: What we call truth lies in the rational harmony between the subjective and objective aspects of reality, both of which belong to the superpersonal man.

 

EINSTEIN: We do things with our mind, even in our everyday life, for which we are not responsible. The mind acknowledges realities outside of it, independent of it. For instance, nobody may be in this house, yet that table remains where it is.

 

TAGORE: Yes, it remains outside the individual mind, but not the universal mind. The table is that which is perceptible by some kind of consciousness we possess.

 

EINSTEIN: If nobody were in the house the table would exist all the same, but this is already illegitimate from your point of view, because we cannot explain what it means, that the table is there, independently of us. Our natural point of view in regard to the existence of truth apart from humanity cannot be explained or proved, but it is a belief which nobody can lack—not even primitive beings. We attribute to truth a superhuman objectivity. It is indispensable for us—this reality which is independent of our existence and our experience and our mind—though we cannot say what it means.

 

TAGORE: In any case, if there be any truth absolutely unrelated to humanity, then for us it is absolutely non-existing.

 

EINSTEIN: Then I am more religious than you are!

 

TAGORE: My religion is in the reconciliation of the superpersonal man, the universal spirit, in my own individual being.

 

ABOUT ‘THE MODERN REVIEW’:

 

The Modern Review was founded in 1907 by Ramananda Chatterjee, who also founded and edited the Bengali magazine, Prabasi and the Hindi magazine, Vishal Bharat. All three periodicals can be best described as journals of opinion.

The Modern Review published essays by practically every well-known leader of the Indian nationalist movement, along with the views of foreign sympathisers. It also carried rousing editorials from Ramananda Babu himself. After his demise in 1943, his son Kedarnath carried on the good work until he passed away in 1965. The magazine also published fiction, book and art reviews, travelogues, etc., including essays by pioneers like the anthropologist Verrier Elwin and historian, Jadunath Sarkar.

Ramananda Babu allowed his contributors to present every shade of opinion and argue their cases, while ensuring the magazine itself maintained an impartial editorial stance. He was happy to publish long multi-issue arguments between luminaries like Tagore-Gandhi and Subhas Bose-Sardar Patel about the shape and direction of the nationalist movement. Contemporary opinions about topics such as education, women’s rights, the relations between religions and castes, electoral politics, India’s place in the world, and international relations can be accessed and contextualised by leafing through the archives of this journal of record. 

 

—Devangshu Datta

 

 

To read a select anthology of articles, interviews, poetry and fiction published from 1907-1947 in the Modern Review, you can buy‘Patriots, Poets and Prisoners’ here.

 

ARCHIVE

The second in a series of articles from The Modern Review (1907-1965). In September, 1935, Jawaharlal Nehru wrote this essay for The Modern Review from Almora District Jail (now in Uttarakhand, then in the United Provinces). The essay, while delving deep into its subject, grows beyond this mandate to act as a window to the times and raises questions – on the use of force and violence by the state – that remain relevant today.

 

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Some 85 years ago, sitting in Almora Jail, Jawaharlal Nehru penned some thoughts on the Indian justice system. Although he called it The Mind of a Judge, his essay ranged across the nature of the justice system and also touched upon the state’s use of violence to maintain law and order and prevent “smaller violences” as he termed it.

 

 It is important to note that Nehru was a barrister, and the son of a famous barrister, and also that he had spent many years in jail by this period. He knew the justice system inside out and this lends an air of authenticity to the essay.

 

 It is also worth noting that, by 1935, the Indian Imperial Police Service was largely staffed by Indians, and so was the Indian Civil Service. There were plenty of Indians officiating in the judiciary as well. The “other ranks” of the Raj’s justice system, policemen, prison staff, were entirely Indian in composition.

 

Reading this essay in 2020, one might be driven to despair because the abuses that Nehru so eloquently rails against are still very much in evidence nine decades later. But that continuity offers us a historical perspective that helps, to some extent, to make this explicable. Independence made little difference to the contours of the justice system. Exactly the same people, trained in the same Imperial Macaulay-ite tradition, continued to run it in 1947 and their successors inherited their mind-set too.

 

Nehru speaks of the gulf between the class of the typical judge and the typical criminal and how there is this utter lack of empathy between the one who passes down a sentence and the prisoner who serves it. That gulf remains.

 

He speaks of the fact that “a harsh penal code does not improve the social morals of a group, nor a harsh sentence those of an individual who has lapsed from grace.” This was hardly the prevailing opinion when the Indian Penal Code was imposed in the 1860s and it was an unpopular point of view in 1935. The deterrent value of harsh punishment was considered the best policy. Unfortunately the IPC remains stuck in 1861 and so apparently does the mindset of those who manage the justice system.   

 

In addition, there was the shambolic mismanagement and lack of capacity which led, in 1935, to thousands of petty accused sitting in jail for years while awaiting trial. That situation is even worse in 2020. There were also the absurd charges where a criminal who stole one rupee (about Rs 75 in 2020 purchasing power) was sentenced to serve three years. A similar situation prevails today when somebody accused of stealing a light bulb spends years in jail.

 

 It is when Nehru speaks of the treatment of political prisoners that the resonances are the strongest and most bitter. 

 

“The usual political sentence now for a speech or a song or a poem which offends the Government is two years rigorous imprisonment (in the Frontier Province it is three years) and a lavish use of this is being made from day to day; but even this seems trivial when compared with the cases of large numbers of those people who are kept confined for four or five years or more, indefinitely, without conviction or sentence.”

 

“It is also well known that many people, who are considered politically undesirable by the police, are proceeded against under the bad livelihood or similar sections of the code and clapped in prison as bad characters with no special offence being brought up against them.”

 

Sundry anti-terrorism acts have been patched onto the IPC to make this an even more common situation circa 2020. Political prisoners are eliminated by encounters, or routinely incarcerated without bail for speaking up. The Bhima Koregaon case, the incarceration of a pregnant woman and of barely legal teens for expressing opinions that the government doesn’t like, are occurrences that barely make it to the mainstream news.

 

At the extreme limit of libertarian philosophy, one of the definitions of a state is that it has the right to collect taxes and that it has a monopoly on lawful violence. Nehru acknowledges that when he says state violence may be preferable to “numerous petty private violences”.

 

But as he adds that “when a State goes off the rails completely and begins to indulge in disorderly violence, then indeed it is a terrible thing, and no private or individual effort can compete with it in horror and brutality”.

 

Those of us who have witnessed the engineered pogroms that started in the 1980s – and have since been raised to an art-form – will concur wholeheartedly with this sentiment. Ditto for those who have witnessed the policing methods commonly used to combat left wing insurgencies and separatists in the North East and Kashmir.  

 

Nehru offered few policy prescriptions beyond the Utopian: those who run the Justice system should voluntarily spend some time in prison.

 

It is a sad, sad commentary on our justice system and on our ritualistic observances of the forms of parliamentary democracy that Nehru’s essay could have been written yesterday.

 

—Devangshu Datta

 

 

The days when I practiced at the Bar are distant and far-off, and I find it a little difficult now to recapture the moods that must have possessed me. And yet it was only sixteen years ago that I walked out of the web of the law in more ways than one. Sometimes when I look back on those days, for in prison one grows retrospective and, as the present is dull and monotonous and full of unhappiness, the past stands out, vivid and inviting. There was little that was inviting in that legal past of mine and at no time have I felt the urge to revert to it. But still my mind played with the ifs and possibilities of that past – a foolish but an entertaining pastime when inaction is thrust on one – and I wondered how life would have treated me if I had stuck to my original profession. That was not an unlikely contingency, though it seems odd enough now: a slight twist in the thread of life might have changed my whole future. I suppose I would have done tolerably well at the Bar and I would have had a much more peaceful, a duller, and physically a more comfortable existence than I have so far had. Perhaps I might even have developed into a highly respectable and solemn-looking judge with wig and gown, as quite a number of my old friends and colleagues must have done.

 

How would I have felt as a judge? I have wondered. How does a judge feel or think? This second question used to occupy my mind to some extent even when I was in practice conducting or watching criminal cases, lost in wonder at the speed and apparent unconcern with which the judge sent men to the scaffold or long terms of imprisonment. That question, in a more personal form, has always faced me when I have stood in the prisoner’s dock and awaited sentence, or attended a friend’s trial for political offences. That question is almost always with me in prison, surrounded as I am with hundreds or thousands of persons whom judges have sent there. (I am not concerned for the moment with political offenders; I am only referring to the ordinary prisoners.) The judge had considered the evil deed that was done and he had meted out justice and punishment as he had been told to do by the penal code. Sometimes he had added a sermon of his own, probably to justify a particularly heavy sentence. He had not given a thought to the upbringing, environment, education (or want of it) of the prisoner before him. He had paid no heed to the psychological background that led to the deed, or to the mental conflict that had raged within that dumb, frightened creature who stands in the dock. He had no notion that perhaps society, of which he considers himself a pillar and an ornament might be partly responsible for the crime he is judging.

 

He is, let us presume, a conscientious judge, and he weighs the evidence carefully before pronouncing sentence. He may even give the benefit of the doubt to the accused, though our judges are not given to doubting very much. But, almost invariably, the prisoner and he belong to different worlds with very little in common between them and incapable of understanding each other. There may sometimes be an intellectual appreciation of the other’s outlook and background, though that is rare enough, but there is no emotional awareness of it, and without the latter there can never be true understanding of another person.

 

 

How would I have felt as a judge? I have wondered. How does a judge feel or think? This second question used to occupy my mind to some extent even when I was in practice conducting or watching criminal cases, lost in wonder at the speed and apparent unconcern with which the judge sent men to the scaffold or long terms of imprisonment. That question, in a more personal form, has always faced me when I have stood in the prisoner’s dock and awaited sentence, or attended a friend’s trial for political offences.

 

Sentence follows, and these sentences are remarkable. As the realization comes that crime is not decreasing, and may even be increasing, the sentences become more savage in the hope that this may frighten the evil-doer. The judge and the power behind the judge have not grasped the fact that crime may be due to special reasons, which might be investigated, and that some of these may be capable of control; and further that in any event a harsh penal code does not improve the social morals of a group, or a harsh sentence those of an individual who has lapsed from grace. The only remedy they know, both for political and non-political offences, is punishment and an attempt to terrorise the offender by what are called deterrent sentences. The usual political sentence now for a speech or a song or a poem which offends the Government is two years rigorous imprisonment (in the Frontier Province it is three years) and a lavish use of this is being made from day to day; but even this seems trivial when compared with the cases of large numbers of those people who are kept confined for four or five years or more, indefinitely, without conviction or sentence.

 

Political cases, however, depend greatly on the moods of Government and a changing situation, and do not help us in considering the ordinary administration of the criminal law. To some extent the two overlap and affect each other, for instance, many agrarian and labour cases in courts are often definitely political in origin. It is also well known that many people, who are considered politically undesirable by the police, are proceeded against under the bad livelihood or similar sections of the code and clapped in prison as bad characters with no special offence being brought up against them. Ignoring such cases and considering what might be called the unadulterated crimes, two facts stand out: both the numbers of convictions and the length of sentences are growing. Every year the various provincial prison reports complain of the increasing number of prisoners and the necessity of additional accommodation. The peak years, when the civil disobedience movement sent its scores of thousands to prison, become the normal years even without this special influx of political. Occasionally the difficult is overcome by discharging a few thousand short timers before their time, but the strain continues.

 

The usual political sentence now for a speech or a song or a poem which offends the Government is two years rigorous imprisonment (in the Frontier Province it is three years) and a lavish use of this is being made from day to day; but even this seems trivial when compared with the cases of large numbers of those people who are kept confined for four or five years or more, indefinitely, without conviction or sentence.

 

The Central Prisons are full of ‘lifers’, prisoners sentenced for life, and others sentenced to long terms. Most of these ‘lifers’ come in huge bunches in dacoity cases and probably a fair proportion are guilty, though I am inclined to think that many innocent people are involved also, as the evidence is entirely one of identification. It is obvious that the growing number of dacoities are due to the increasing unemployment and poverty of the masses as well as the lower middle classes. Most of the other criminal offences involving property are also due to this terrible prospect of want and starvation that faces the vast majority of our people.

 

Do our judges ever realise this or give thought to the despair that the sight of a starving wife or children might produce even in a normal human being? Is a man to sit helplessly by and see his dear ones sicken and die for want of the simplest human necessities? He slips and offends against the law, and the law and the judge then see to it that he can never again become a normal person with a socially beneficial job of work. They help to produce the criminal type, so-called, and then are surprised to find that such types exist and multiply.

 

The major offences lead to a life sentence of ten years or so. But the petty offences and the way they are treated by judges are even more instructive. The vast majority of these are buried in court files and get no publicity: only rarely do the papers mention such a case. Three such cases, taken almost at random from recent issues of newspapers, are given below:

 

Rahman was an old offender with 12 previous convictions, the first of which dated back to 1913. The present offence was one of theft of clothes valued at a few rupees. Rahman pleaded guilty and requested the court to send him to a reformatory or some such place from where he could emerge thoroughly reformed. The judge, who was the Judicial Commissioner in Sind, refused this request and sentenced him to seven years, adding: “If this seven-year sentence of hard labour does not reform you, God alone must come to your aid.” (Karachi: May 23, 1935.)

 

Badri who had four previous convictions, was sentenced to two years’ rigorous imprisonment under Sections 411/75 IPC for having dishonestly received a stolen cheddar (cloth sheet). (Lucknow: July 3, 1935.)

 

Ghulam Mohammad, an old offender, was sentenced to three years’ rigorous imprisonment for stealing one rupee by picking the pocket of a man. (Sialkot: July 15, 1935.)

 

These and similar sentences may be perfectly correct from the point of view of the Indian Penal Code but it does seem to me astonishing that any judge should imagine that by inflicting such sentences he is reforming the offender. Evidently the Judicial Commissioner in Sind had himself some doubts about the efficacy of his treatment for he hinted that God might be given a chance on the next occasion.

Badri who had four previous convictions, was sentenced to two years’ rigorous imprisonment under Sections 411/75 IPC for having dishonestly received a stolen cheddar (cloth sheet)… Ghulam Mohammad, an old offender, was sentenced to three years’ rigorous imprisonment for stealing one rupee by picking the pocket of a man… These and similar sentences may be perfectly correct from the point of view of the Indian Penal Code but it does seem to me astonishing that any judge should imagine that by inflicting such sentences he is reforming the offender.

 

There they sit, these judges, in their courts, and a procession of unfortunates passes before them – some go to the scaffold, some to be whipped, some to imprisonment, to which may be added solitary confinement. They are doing their duty according to their abstract ideas of justice and punishment; they must consider themselves as the protectors of society from anti-social criminal elements. Do their thoughts ever go beyond these set ideas and take human shape considering the miserable offender as a human being with parents, wife, children, friends? They punish the individual but at the same time they punish a group also, for the ripples of suffering spread out and go far. Those who have to die at least die swiftly, the agony is brief. But the agony is long for those who enter prison.

 

 

 

 

“Behind the door, within the wall
Locked, they sit the numbered ones…”

 

Two years, three years, seven years stolen from life’s brief span – each year of twelve months, each month of thirty days, each day of twenty-four hours – how terribly long it all seems to the prisoner, how wearily time passes!

 

All this is very sad and deplorable no doubt, but what is the poor judge to do? Is he to wallow in a sea of sentimentality and give up sentencing offenders against the laws? If he is so soft and sensitive he is not much good as a judge and will have to give place to another. No, no one expects the judge to embrace every offender and invite him to dinner, but a human element in a trial and sentence would certainly improve matters. The judges are too impersonal, distant, and too little aware of the consequences of the sentences they award. If their awareness could be increased, as well as a sense of fellow-feeling with the prisoner, it would be a great gain. This can only come when the two belong to more or less the same class. A financier who has embezzled vast sums of public money will have every sympathy from the judge, not so the poor wretch who has picked up a rupee or stolen a sheet to satisfy an urgent need. For the judge and the average offender to belong to the same class means a fundamental change in social structure, as indeed every great reform does. But even apart from and in anticipation of that, something could certainly be done.

 

It was Bernard Shaw, I think, who suggested that every judge and magistrate, as well as every prison official, should spend a period in prison, living like ordinary prisoners. Only then would they be justified in sentencing people to imprisonment, or to governing them there. The suggestion is an excellent one although it may be difficult to give effect to it. I ventured to suggest it once to the Home Member and the Inspector-General of Prisons of the U.P. Government for their personal adoption, but they did not seem to favour it. At least one well-known prison official, however, has adopted it. This was Thomas Mott Osborne of the famous Sing Sing prison in New York. He trained himself by undergoing a term of voluntary imprisonment and, as a result of this, he introduced later on many remarkable improvements in the social rehabilitation and education of the prisoners.

 

It was Bernard Shaw, I think, who suggested that every judge and magistrate, as well as every prison official, should spend a period in prison, living like ordinary prisoners. Only then would they be justified in sentencing people to imprisonment, or to governing them there. The suggestion is an excellent one although it may be difficult to give effect to it. I ventured to suggest it once to the Home Member and the Inspector-General of Prisons of the U.P. Government for their personal adoption, but they did not seem to favour it.

 

Such a term of voluntary imprisonment will do a world of good to the bodies and souls of our judges, magistrates and prison officials. It will also give them a greater insight into prison life. But obviously no such voluntary effort can ever approach the real thing. The sting of imprisonment will be absent as well as the peculiarly helpless and broken feeling before the armed and walled power of the State, which a prisoner experiences. Nor will the voluntary prisoner ever have to face bad treatment from the staff. The essence of prison is a psychological background of having been cast off from society like a diseased limb. That will necessarily be absent. But with all these drawbacks the experience will be worthwhile and will help in making the administration of the criminal law more human and beneficial. The great invasions of our prisons by middle-class people during the non-co-operation and civil disobedience movements had indirectly a marked effect. As the prison-goers did not become judges or prison officials the direct effect was little. But a knowledge of prison conditions and a sympathy for the prisoner’s lot became wide-spread, and public opinion and the crusading efforts of some Congressmen bore substantial results.

 

I do not know whether I am over soft but I do not think I err on the musky and sentimental side. Other people and even many of my close colleagues have considered me rather hard. Mr. C. R. Dass once referred to me at a meeting of the All-India Congress Committee as being “cold-blooded”. Perhaps it all depends on the standard of comparison as well as on the fact that some display their emotions more than others. However that may be, I do hate the idea of punishment and especially “deterrent” punishment and all the suffering, deliberately caused, that it involves. Perhaps it cannot be done away with completely in this present-day world of ours, but it can certainly be minimized, toned down and almost humanized.

 

The great invasions of our prisons by middle-class people during the non-co-operation and civil disobedience movements had indirectly a marked effect… a knowledge of prison conditions and a sympathy for the prisoner’s lot became wide-spread, and public opinion and the crusading efforts of some Congressmen bore substantial results.

 

At one time I was strongly opposed to the death penalty and, in theory, my opposition still continues. But I have come to realize that there are many things far worse than death, and if the choice had to be made, and I was given it, I would probably accept a death sentence rather than one of imprisonment for life. But I would not like to be hung; I would prefer being shot or guillotined or even electrocuted; most of all other methods I would like to be given, as Socrates was of old, the cup of poison which would send me to sleep from which there was no awaking. This last method seems to me to be by far the most civilized and humane. But in India we favour hangings, and last year the official mind showed us the texture of which it was made by organizing public hangings in Karachi or somewhere else in Sind. This was meant to terrify would-be evil-doers. It turned out to be a huge mela where thousands gathered to witness the ghastly spectacle. I suppose the mentality behind such public exhibitions bears a family resemblance to that which prompted the autos-da-fé of the Spanish Inquisition.

 

A friend of mine who became a High Court Judge had a ‘crisis of conscience’ when he had first to sentence a man to death. The idea seemed hateful to him. He overcame his repugnance, however, (he had to or else he would not have long continued in his job) and I suppose he soon got used to sending people to the scaffold without turning a hair. He was an exception and I doubt if many others in his position have ever had such scruples. It is probably easier to sentence a man to death than to see the sentence carried out. And yet even sensitive people get used to this painful sight. A young English member of the Indian Civil Service had to attend hangings in the local gaol. At his first hanging, he told me, he was thoroughly sick and felt bad all day. But very soon the sight had no unusual effect on him whatever and he used to go straight from the execution to his breakfast table and have a hearty meal.

 

I have never seen a death sentence being carried out. In most of the gaols where I have lived as a prisoner executions did not take place, but on three or four occasions there were hangings in my gaol. These took place in a special enclosure, cut off from the rest of the prison, but the whole gaol population knew of it, perhaps because the unlocking of the various barracks and cells took place at a later hour on those mornings. I experienced a peculiar feeling on those days, an ominous stillness and a tendency for people to talk in low voices. It is possible that all this was the product of my own imagination.

 

And yet with all my repugnance for executions, I feel that some method of eliminating utterly undesirable human beings will have to be adopted and used with discretion. The real objection to the infliction of capital punishment as well as other punishments is of course not so much the resultant suffering of the person punished, as the brutalization of the community that authorizes such punishment, and more particularly of the individuals who carry it out. This is especially noticeable in the case of whipping, which is widely prevalent in India. The official defence for the punishment of whipping is that it is meant for horrible crimes, like rape with violence. In practice it has a much wider range and in 1932 (as was stated in the British House of Commons) five hundred civil disobedience prisoners were whipped. This was the official figure, unofficial jail beatings not being included. These political prisoners were whipped either for purely political offences or for breaches of gaol discipline. No violence or crime was involved. It has now been laid down officially that in serious cases of hunger-strikes in gaol whipping may be resorted to. We thus have it that in the opinion of the British Government in India a hunger-strike or breaches of gaol discipline stand on the same level as rape with violence.  

 

The official defence for the punishment of whipping is that it is meant for horrible crimes, like rape with violence. In practice it has a much wider range and in 1932… five hundred civil disobedience prisoners were whipped. This was the official figure, unofficial jail beatings not being included. These political prisoners were whipped either for purely political offences or for breaches of gaol discipline. No violence or crime was involved. It has now been laid down officially that in serious cases of hunger-strikes in gaol whipping may be resorted to.

 

Whipping is usually administered in prisons by some low caste prisoner. No prisoner likes the job but he has little choice in the matter. The higher caste prisoners would in any event refuse to whip, and even the warders are reluctant to do so. A case came to my notice once when a warder was asked to whip. He refused absolutely and was punished for this contumacy. It is interesting to compare the sensitiveness to whipping of the prisoners and warders with that of our judges and prison officials who order it and our Government which authorizes and defends it.

 

I was reading the other day about the film censorship in Britain. It was stated that one of the grounds for censorship was the avoidance of cruelty scenes. In animal films no kill was to be shown. Films “showing pain or suffering on the part of an animal, whether such pain is caused by accident or intention” are not allowed as these are supposed to have a bad effect on spectators, especially children, and “undermine moral character.”

 

We also in India have our film censorships and an active Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Unfortunately human beings are not included in the category of animals and so they cannot benefit by the activities of the Society. And our film censorship justifies itself by banning films dealing with “Quetta Earthquake Topical” or “National Congress Scenes” or “Departure of Mahatma Gandhi for the Round Table Conference” and similar dangerous topics.

 

Sentences of death and whipping impress us and pain us, but, after all, they affect only a very small number of the scores of thousands who are sentenced by our courts. The vast majority of these go to prison, mostly for long periods over which their punishment is spread out. It is a continuing torture, a never-ceasing pain, till mind itself grows dull and the body is blunted to sensation. The criminal type develops, the ugly fruit of our gaols and our criminal law, and there is no fitting him in then with the social machine outside. He is the square peg everywhere, with no roots, no home, suspicious of everybody, being suspected everywhere, till at last he comes back to his only true resting-place, the prison, and takes up again the tin or iron bowl which is his faithful companion there. Do our judges ever trouble to think of cause and effect, of the inevitable consequences of an act or decision? Do they realize that their courts and the prisons are the principal factories for the production and stamping of the criminal type?

 

Do our judges ever trouble to think of cause and effect, of the inevitable consequences of an act or decision? Do they realize that their courts and the prisons are the principal factories for the production and stamping of the criminal type?

 

In prison one comes to realize more than anywhere else the basic nature of the State; it is the force, the compulsion, the violence of the governing group. “Government”, George Washington is reported to have said, “is not reason, it is not eloquence – it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.” It is true that civilization has been built up on co-operation and forbearance and mutual collaboration in a thousand ways. But when a crisis comes and the State is afraid of some danger then the superstructure goes or, at any rate, is subordinated to the primary function of the State – self-protection by force and violence. The army, the police, the prison come into greater prominence then, and of the three the prison is perhaps the nakedest form of a State in miniature.

 

Must the State always be based on force and violence, or will the day come when this element of compulsion is reduced to a minimum and almost fades away? That day, if it ever comes, is still far off. Meanwhile, the violence of the governing group produces the violence of other groups that seek to oust it. It is a vicious circle, violence breeding violence, and on ethical grounds there is little to choose between the two violences. It always seems curious to me how the governing group in a State, basing itself on an extremity of violence, objects on moral or ethical grounds to the force or violence of others. On practical grounds of self-protection they have reason to object but why drag in morality and ethics? State violence is preferable to private violence in many ways, for one major violence is far better than numerous petty private violences. State violence is also likely to be a more or less ordered violence and thus preferable to the disorderly violence of private groups and individuals, for even in violence order is better than disorder, except that this makes the State more efficient in its violence and powers of compulsion. But when a State goes off the rails completely and begins to indulge in disorderly violence, then indeed it is a terrible thing, and no private or individual effort can compete with it in horror and brutality.

 

It is true that civilization has been built up on co-operation and forbearance and mutual collaboration in a thousand ways. But when a crisis comes and the State is afraid of some danger then the superstructure goes or, at any rate, is subordinated to the primary function of the State – self-protection by force and violence. The army, the police, the prison come into greater prominence then, and of the three the prison is perhaps the nakedest form of a State in miniature.

 

 

 

 

“You must live in a chaos if you would give birth to a dancing star,” says Nietzsche. Must it be so? Is there no other way? The old difficulty of the humanist is ever cropping up, his disgust at force and violence and cruelty, and yet his inability to overcome these by merely standing by and looking on. That is the recurring theme of Ernst Toller’s plays:
“The sword, as ever, is a shift of fools
To hide their folly.”
“By force, the smoky torch of violence.
We shall not find the way.”
Yet force and violence reign triumphant today everywhere. Only in our country has a noble effort been made to combat them by means other than those of force. The inspiration of that effort, and of the leader who lifted us out of our petty selves by his matchless purity of outlook, still remains, though the ultimate outcome be shrouded in darkness.

 

Yet force and violence reign triumphant today everywhere. Only in our country has a noble effort been made to combat them by means other than those of force. The inspiration of that effort, and of the leader who lifted us out of our petty selves by his matchless purity of outlook, still remains, though the ultimate outcome be shrouded in darkness.

 

But these are big questions beyond the power even of judges. We may not perhaps be able to find an answer to them in our time, or, finding an answer, be unable to impress it on wayward humanity. Meanwhile, the smaller questions and problems pursue us and we cannot ignore them. We come back to the job of the judge and the prison governor and we can say this, at least, with certainty: that the deliberate infliction of punishment or torture of the mind or body is not the way to reform anyone, that (though this may break or twist the victim) it will not mend him, that it is much more likely to brutalize and deform him who inflicts it. For the inevitable effect of cruelty and torture is to degrade both the sufferer and the person who causes the suffering.

 

Almora District Jail 1-9-1935.

 

ABOUT ‘THE MODERN REVIEW’:

 

 The Modern Review was founded in 1907 by Ramananda Chatterjee, who also founded and edited the Bengali magazine, Prabasi and the Hindi magazine, Vishal Bharat. All three periodicals can be best described as journals of opinion.

The Modern Review published essays by practically every well-known leader of the Indian nationalist movement, along with the views of foreign sympathisers. It also carried rousing editorials from Ramananda Babu himself. After his demise in 1943, his son Kedarnath carried on the good work until he passed away in 1965. The magazine also published fiction, book and art reviews, travelogues, etc., including essays by pioneers like the anthropologist Verrier Elwin and historian, Jadunath Sarkar.

Ramananda Babu allowed his contributors to present every shade of opinion and argue their cases, while ensuring the magazine itself maintained an impartial editorial stance. He was happy to publish long multi-issue arguments between luminaries like Tagore-Gandhi and Subhas Bose-Sardar Patel about the shape and direction of the nationalist movement. Contemporary opinions about topics such as education, women’s rights, the relations between religions and castes, electoral politics, India’s place in the world, and international relations can be accessed and contextualised by leafing through the archives of this journal of record.  

 

—Devangshu Datta

 

To read a select anthology of articles, interviews, poetry and fiction published from 1907-1947 in the Modern Review, you can buy‘Patriots, Poets and Prisoners’ here.

 

ARCHIVE

This is our first in a series of articles from The Modern Review (1907-1965). In November 1937, The Modern Review published an essay which critiqued Jawaharlal Nehru, warning against his continuing as president of the Indian National Congress for a third time. The writer of the essay adopted a pseudonym: Chanakya. Everyone wondered who Chanakya was.

 

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In 1937, Jawaharlal Nehru was elected president of the Indian National Congress a third time. A scathing essay appeared in ‘The Modern Review’ – one of the most prominent (if not the most prominent) intellectual journals of its time, edited by Ramananda Chatterjee – which cautioned against Nehru’s ever-increasing importance in the party and in national politics, as well as his attitude, potentially paving the path to Caesarism and dictatorship.

 

The prominence of ‘The Modern Review’ ensured this essay was widely read, in the most influential circles. And everyone was curious about who ‘Chanakya’ was. “It appeared to be a critic of the Congress president, possibly a critic of the Congress party as well,” writes Ramchandra Guha.

 

It was only later that it was revealed that ‘Chanakya’ was none other than Nehru himself.

 

Nehru’s flair with stylistic prose is well known and well appreciated. “English made the Empire,” Sunil Khilnani writes in an essay titled ‘Gandhi and Nehru: The Uses of English’. “But (Gandhi and Nehru) showed how it could be used to unmake it – how the language could be a tool of insubordination and, ultimately, freedom.” But this auto-critique goes beyond good prose. It speaks to Nehru’s keen self-awareness, even as he stood at the centre of the whirlwind of political events that 1937 must have surely brought with it. The year also saw the provincial elections in which large numbers of Indians were participating for the first time. But it also speaks to Nehru’s vision of what India needed – then and in the future – as a never-ending quest, one which can never be taken for granted. ‘The Quest’ was also the title he gave to the chapter towards the beginning of ‘The Discovery of India’, where he narrated some of his experiences and learnings from 1937.

—Devangshu Datta

 

 

 

 

Rashtrapati Jawaharlal ki Jai. The Rashtrapati looked up as he passed swiftly through the waiting crowds, his hands went up and were joined together in salute, and his pale hard face was lit up by a smile. It was a warm personal smile and the people who saw it responded to it immediately and smiled and cheered in return.

 

The smile passed away and again the face became stern and sad, impassive in the midst of the emotion that it had roused in the multitude. Almost it seemed that the smile and the gesture accompanying it had little reality behind them; they were just tricks of the trade to gain the goodwill of the crowds whose darling he had become. Was it so?

 

Watch him again. There is a great procession and tens of thousands of persons surround his car and cheer him in an ecstasy of abandonment. He stands on the seat of the car, balancing himself rather well, straight and seemingly tall, like a god, serene and unmoved by the seething multitude. Suddenly there is that smile again, or even a merry laugh, and the tension seems to break and the crowd laughs with him, not knowing what it is laughing at. He is godlike no longer but a human being claiming kinship and comradeship with the thousands who surround him and the crowd feels happy and friendly and takes him to its heart. But the smile is gone and the pale stern face is there again.

 

Is all this natural or the carefully thought cut trickery of the public man? Perhaps it is both and long habit has become second nature now. The most effective pose is one in which there seems to be least of posing, and Jawaharlal has learnt well to act without the paint and powder of the actor. With his seeming carelessness and insouciance, he performs on the public stage with consummate artistry. Whither is this going to lead him and the country? What is he aiming at with all his apparent want of aim? What lies behind that mask of his, what desires, what will to power, what insatiate longings?

 

These questions would be interesting in any event, for Jawaharlal is a personality which compels interest and attention. But they have a vital significance for us, for he is bound up with the present in India, and probably the future, and he has the power in him to do great good to India or great injury. We must therefore seek answers to these questions.

 

“With his seeming carelessness and insouciance, he performs on the public stage with consummate artistry. Whither is this going to lead him and the country? What is he aiming at with all his apparent want of aim? What lies behind that mask of his, what desires, what will to power, what insatiate longings?”

 

For nearly two years now he has been President of the Congress and some people imagine that he is just a camp-follower in the Working Committee of the Congress, suppressed or kept in check by others. And yet steadily and persistently he goes on increasing his personal prestige and influence both with the masses and with all manner of groups and people. He goes to the peasant and the worker, to the zamindar and the capitalist, to the merchant and the peddler, to the Brahmin and the untouchable, to the Muslim, the Sikh, the Christian and the Jew, to all who make up the great variety of Indian life. To all these he speaks in a slightly different language, ever seeking to win them over to his side. With an energy that is astonishing at his age, he has rushed about across this vast land of India, and everywhere he has received the most extraordinary of popular welcomes. From the far north to Cape Comorin he has gone like some triumphant Caesar passing by, leaving a trail of glory and a legend behind him. Is all this for him just a passing fancy which amuses him, or some deep design, or the play of some force which he himself does not know? Is it his will to power, of which he speaks in his Autobiography, that is driving him from crowd to crowd and making him whisper to himself:

 

“I drew these tides of men into my hands

and wrote my will across the sky in stars.”

 

What if the fancy turn? Men like Jawaharlal, with all their capacity for great and good work, are unsafe in democracy. He calls himself a democrat and a socialist, and no doubt he does so in all earnestness, but every psychologist knows that the mind is ultimately a slave to the heart and logic can always be made to fit in with the desires and irrepressible urges of a person. A little twist and Jawaharlal might turn a dictator sweeping aside the paraphernalia of a slow-moving democracy. He might still use the language and slogans of democracy and socialism, but we all know how fascism has fattened on this language and then cast it away as useless lumber.

 

“He might still use the language and slogans of democracy and socialism, but we all know how fascism has fattened on this language and then cast it away as useless lumber.”

 

Jawaharlal is certainly not a fascist, not only by conviction but by temperament. He is far too much of an aristocrat for the crudity and vulgarity of fascism. His very face and voice tell us that:

 

“Private faces in public places

are better and nicer than

public faces in private places.”

 

The fascist face is a public face and it is not a pleasant face in public or private. Jawaharlal’s face as well as his voice are definitely private. There is no mistaking that even in a crowd, and his voice at public meetings is an intimate voice which seems to speak to individuals separately in a matter-of-fact homely way. One wonders as one hears it or sees that sensitive face what lies behind them, what thoughts and desires, what strange complexes and repressions, what passions suppressed and turned to energy, what longings which he dare not acknowledge even to himself. The train of thought holds him in public speech, but at other times his looks betray him, for his mind wanders away to strange fields and fancies, and he forgets for a moment his companion and holds inaudible converse with the creatures of his brain. Does he think of the human contacts he has missed in his life’s journey, hard and tempestuous as it has been; does he long for them? Or does he dream of the future of his fashioning and of the conflicts and triumphs that he would fain have? He must know well that there is no resting by the way in the path he has chosen, and even triumph itself means greater burdens. As Lawrence said to the Arabs: “There could be no rest-houses for revolt, no dividend of joy paid out.” Joy may not be for him, but something greater than joy may be his, if fate and fortune are kind—the fulfilment of a life purpose.

 

Jawaharlal cannot become a fascist. And yet he has all the makings of a dictator in him—vast popularity, a strong will directed to a well-defined purpose, energy, pride, organisational capacity, ability, hardness, and, with all his love of the crowd, an intolerance of others and a certain contempt for the weak and the inefficient. His flashes of temper are well known and even when they are controlled, the curling of the lips betrays him. His over-mastering desire to get things done, to sweep away what he dislikes and build anew, will hardly brook for long the slow processes of democracy. He may keep the husk but he will see to it that it bends to his will. In normal times he would be just an efficient and successful executive, but in this revolutionary epoch, Caesarism is always at the door, and is it not possible that Jawaharlal might fancy himself as a Caesar?

 

“And yet he has all the makings of a dictator in him—vast popularity, a strong will directed to a well-defined purpose, energy, pride, organisational capacity, ability, hardness, and, with all his love of the crowd, an intolerance of others and a certain contempt for the weak and the inefficient… His over-mastering desire to get things done, to sweep away what he dislikes and build anew, will hardly brook for long the slow processes of democracy. He may keep the husk but he will see to it that it bends to his will.”

 

Therein lies danger for Jawaharlal and for India. For it is not through Caesarism that India will attain freedom, and though she may prosper a little under a benevolent and efficient despotism, she will remain stunted and the day of the emancipation of her people will be delayed.

 

(Image courtesy – Archives New Zealand)

                                                                                                              

 

For two consecutive years Jawaharlal has been President of the Congress and in some ways he has made himself so indispensable that there are many who suggest that he should be elected for a third term. But a greater disservice to India and even to Jawaharlal can hardly be done. By electing him a third time we shall exalt one man at the cost of the Congress and make the people think in terms of Caesarism. We shall encourage in Jawaharlal the wrong tendencies and increase his conceit and pride. He will become convinced that only he can bear this burden or tackle India’s problems. Let us remember that, in spite of his apparent indifference to office, he has managed to hold important offices in the Congress for the last seventeen years. He must imagine that he is indispensable, and no man must be allowed to think so. India cannot afford to have him as President of the Congress for a third year in succession.

 

“it is not through Caesarism that India will attain freedom, and though she may prosper a little under a benevolent and efficient despotism, she will remain stunted and the day of the emancipation of her people will be delayed… By electing him a third time we shall exalt one man at the cost of the Congress and make the people think in terms of Caesarism.”

 

There is a personal reason also for this. In spite of his brave talk, Jawaharlal is obviously tired and stale and he will progressively deteriorate if he continues as President. He cannot rest, for he who rides a tiger cannot dismount. But we can at least prevent him from going astray and from mental deterioration under too heavy burdens and responsibilities. We have a right to expect good work from him in the future. Let us not spoil that and spoil him by too much adulation and praise. His conceit is already formidable. It must be checked. We want no Caesars.

 

 

Nehru himself added the following note to this article later:

 

5 October 1937. J.N. Papers, N.M.M.L

 

“This article was written by Jawaharlal Nehru, but it was published anonymously in The Modern Review of Calcutta, November 1937. ‘Rashtrapati’ is a Sanskrit word meaning Head of the State. The title is popularly used for President of the Indian National Congress. Chanakya was a famous Minister of Chandragupta, who built an empire in north India in the fourth century B.C., soon after Alexander’s raid on India. Chanakya is the prototype of Machiavelli.”

 

 

ABOUT ‘THE MODERN REVIEW’:

The Modern Review was founded in 1907 by Ramananda Chatterjee, who also founded and edited the Bengali magazine, Prabasi and the Hindi magazine, Vishal Bharat. All three periodicals can be best described as journals of opinion.

The Modern Review published essays by practically every well-known leader of the Indian nationalist movement, along with the views of foreign sympathisers. It also carried rousing editorials from Ramananda Babu himself. After his demise in 1943, his son Kedarnath carried on the good work until he passed away in 1965. The magazine also published fiction, book and art reviews, travelogues, etc., including essays by pioneers like the anthropologist Verrier Elwin and historian, Jadunath Sarkar.

Ramananda Babu allowed his contributors to present every shade of opinion and argue their cases, while ensuring the magazine itself maintained an impartial editorial stance. He was happy to publish long multi-issue arguments between luminaries like Tagore-Gandhi and Subhas Bose-Sardar Patel about the shape and direction of the nationalist movement. Contemporary opinions about topics such as education, women’s rights, the relations between religions and castes, electoral politics, India’s place in the world, and international relations can be accessed and contextualised by leafing through the archives of this journal of record.

 

—Devangshu Datta

 

 

To read a select anthology of articles, interviews, poetry and fiction published from 1907-1947 in the Modern Review, you can buy ‘Patriots, Poets and Prisoners’ here.

 

COLLECTIONAll ArticlesModern Review YEARAll Years2500 B.C.2200 B.C.400 B.C.600CE-1200CE 700 - 1400800 CE1100–1199 CE11921200 - 185015001530-18581575157916001600 CE-1900 CE16011630172418181828-184318311855185618571858 - 1976188318871893, 1935, 194618971910-19501913 - 19161916191719181920 - 194719211921 - 2018192419251925, 19261928193019321933193519361937193819421943-19451944194619471947-1951194819491950195119671970197319751977198420042008200920202021 AUTHORAll AuthorsAakash Singh RathoreAditya Mukherjee, Mridula Mukherjee, Sucheta MahajanAfsar MohammadAlbert Einstein, Rabindranath Tagore, Devangshu DattaAmjad Ali KhanAnandibai Joshi, Bankim Chandra ChatterjeeAnirudh Kanisetti Appu Esthose Suresh and Priyanka KotamrajuB.D. Ganapathy

1950-1951

Panikkar’s 1950 Ordeal: China’s Moves, Family Crisis, and Diplomatic Distrust

In this excerpt by Narayani Basu, explore K. M. Panikkar’s 1950–51 ordeal as India’s ambassador to China, marked by personal turmoil, diplomatic isolation, and ignored warnings amid rising Cold War tensions.

Narayani Basu

__

1828-1843

Scandal of Manners: ‘Urinating Standing Up’

Families despaired, newspapers railed, and society ridiculed a generation of young men who refused to accept inherited custom and ritual in 1830s Calcutta. What was at stake in these scandals of manners? Read Rosinka Chaudhuri’s excerpt to find out.

Rosinka Chaudhuri

__

1100–1199 CE

Topography as History: Reading Kashmir through Rajatarangini

Read this excerpt from Kalhana’s Rajatarangini, where history unfolds through a precise mapping of medieval Kashmir’s towns, rivers, and sacred sites.

Kalhana

__

1910-1950

Forging Unity: Vallabhbhai Patel and the Politics of Nationalism

An analysis of the romanticised narrative of Indian nationalism by examining Vallabhbhai Patel's political journey as a case study.

Rani Dhavan Shankardass

__

1943-1945

Origin Of The Azad Hind Fauj

An excerpt from the book My Memories of I.N.A. and Its Netaji by Major General Shahnawaz Khan, where he documents how Bose formed the INA, inspired disillusioned Indian soldiers to revolt, and challenged British rule with Axis support.

Major General Shahnawaz Khan

__

1900-1950

Gazing at the Woman’s Body: Historicising Patriarchal Lechery

In the colonial period, the fear of the male gaze was used by the new patriarchy to restrict women’s access to work and public space, reinforcing a patriarchal division of labour. Read more in our latest excerpt.

Saurav Kumar Rai

__

1865-1928

Understanding Lajpat Rai’s Hindu Politics and Secularism

Was Lala Lajpat Rai's Hindu nationalism congruent with the principles of secularism? Explore our latest excerpt from Vanya Vaidehi Bhargav's fresh off-the-press book - Being Hindu, Being Indian: Lala Lajpat Rai's Ideas of Nation for more.

Vanya Vaidehi Bhargav

__

1947-1951

Ambedkar Cartoons: The Joke’s On Us

Popularly, we think that political cartoons question the powerful but what if this was not the case? What if political cartoons, replicated structures of the socially dominant? Read how in our new excerpt on political cartoons featuring Dr. Ambedkar.

Unnamati Syama Sundar

__

1948

“My Father, Do Not Rest”

On Martyrs' day 2024, read the poet Sarojini Naidu's tribute to Gandhi given over All India Radio two days after his assassination.

Sarojini Naidu

__

1950

Illustrations from the constitution

On Republic Day, the Indian History Collective presents you, twenty-two illustrations from the first illustrated manuscript (1954) of our Constitution.

Indian History Collective

__

1200 - 1850

Temples, deities, and the law.

One of the key petitioners in the Ayodhya title dispute was Bhagwan Sri Ram Virajman. This petitioner was no mortal, but God Ram himself. How did Ram find his way from heaven to the Supreme Court of India to plead his case? Read further to find out.

Richard H Davis

__

1940-1960

Integration Myth: A Silenced History of Hyderabad

Labelled "one of the shortest, happiest wars ever seen", the integration of the princely state of Hyderabad in 1948 was anything but that. Read about the truth behind the creation of an Indian Union, the fault lines left behind, and what they signify

Afsar Mohammad

__

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COLLECTIONAll ArticlesModern Review YEARAll Years2500 B.C.2200 B.C.400 B.C.600CE-1200CE 700 - 1400800 CE1100–1199 CE11921200 - 185015001530-18581575157916001600 CE-1900 CE16011630172418181828-184318311855185618571858 - 1976188318871893, 1935, 194618971910-19501913 - 19161916191719181920 - 194719211921 - 2018192419251925, 19261928193019321933193519361937193819421943-19451944194619471947-1951194819491950195119671970197319751977198420042008200920202021 AUTHORAll AuthorsAakash Singh RathoreAditya Mukherjee, Mridula Mukherjee, Sucheta MahajanAfsar MohammadAlbert Einstein, Rabindranath Tagore, Devangshu DattaAmjad Ali KhanAnandibai Joshi, Bankim Chandra ChatterjeeAnirudh Kanisetti Appu Esthose Suresh and Priyanka KotamrajuB.D. GanapathyBhagat SinghBrajadulal ChattopadhyayaChanakya, Devangshu DattaCharu GuptaDr. Bhimrao Ramji AmbedkarGovind PansareGyan PrakashHenry Louis Vivian DerozioIndian History CollectiveIndian History Collective Ira MukhotyIrfan HabibJadunath SarkarJaipal Singh MundaJawaharlal Nehru and Muhammad Ali JinnahJawaharlal Nehru, Devangshu DattaKalhanaKidambi Srinivasa SanthaMahadev DesaiMajor General Shahnawaz KhanManan Ahmed AsifMani Rao, Priya Sarukkai Chabria & Ravi ShankarMark Tully, Satish JacobMohandas Karamchand GandhiMonobina GuptaMulk Raj AnandMunshi PremchandNarayani BasuNariman KarkariaParvati SharmaPralay KanungoPramod Kapoor Rabindranath TagoreRabindranath Tagore, Mohandas Karamchand GandhiRabindranath Tagore; Mohandas Karamchand GandhiRakesh AnkitRamesh Chandra MajumdarRana SafviRani Dhavan ShankardassRanjit Sitaram Pandit, Devangshu DattaRavi Khangai, Laxman D. SatyaRichard Eaton Richard H DavisRobert ElgoodRomila ThaparRosinka Chaudhuri Sant Nihal Singh, Devangshu DattaSarojini NaiduSatyendra Chandra Mitra, Devangshu DattaSaurav Kumar RaiShafaat Ahmad KhanShahid AminShailaja PaikShraddha KumbhojkarSiddharth Chandra and Eva Kassens-NoorSomnath HoreSujay BiswasSumanta BanerjeeTCA RaghavanTripurdaman SinghUnnamati Syama SundarUpinder SinghValay SinghVanya Vaidehi BhargavVeena Talwar OldenburgYogesh Maitreya

• 2500 BC - Present
  	2500 BC - Present
  Tribal History: Looking for the Origins of the Kodavas 2500 BC - Present Tribal History: Looking for the Origins of the Kodavas As part of our series on ‘Tribal history’, we bring to you the origin of the Kodavas from the region of Kodagu in Karnataka, as studied by BD Ganapathy Read More..

• 2200 BC to 600 AD
  	2200 BC to 600 AD
  War, Political Violence and Rebellion in Ancient India 2200 BC to 600 AD War, Political Violence and Rebellion in Ancient India An excerpt from Upinder Singh's recent ‘Ancient India: Culture of Contradictions’ where she deals with political violence and non-violence in ancient India Read More..

• 400 BC to 1001 AD
  	400 BC to 1001 AD
  The Dissent of the ‘Nastika’ in Early India 400 BC to 1001 AD The Dissent of the ‘Nastika’ in Early India An excerpt from Romila Thapar’s ‘Voices of Dissent: An Essay’ that examines what impact the 'Nastika' - the name Brahmanical texts tended to give to a range of non-Brahmanical belief systems - had both outside of and within the Brahmanical religion Read More..

• 600CE-1200CE
  	600CE-1200CE
  The Other Side of the Vindhyas: An Alternative History of Power 600CE-1200CE The Other Side of the Vindhyas: An Alternative History of Power An excerpt from Anirudh Kanisetti’s ‘Lords of the Deccan’ that explores how modern day Hinduism originated not merely out of devotion but also out of the political necessity of providing a firm footing to rulers with imperial ambitions Read More..

• c. 700 - 1400 AD
  	c. 700 - 1400 AD
  A Historian Recommends: Representing the ‘Other’ in Indian History c. 700 - 1400 AD A Historian Recommends: Representing the ‘Other’ in Indian History Suchandra Ghosh recommends a chapter from Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya’s book which is an inquiry into how the ‘other’ has been perceived by historians and how sources have been read, particularly with regard to Islam and Sanskrit sources Read More..

• c. 800 - 900 CE
  	c. 800 - 900 CE
  ‘Drape me in his scent’: Female Sexuality and Devotion in Andal, the Goddess c. 800 - 900 CE ‘Drape me in his scent’: Female Sexuality and Devotion in Andal, the Goddess Excerpts from ‘Andal: Autobiography of a Goddess,’ providing a historical and literary background to the celebrated Bhakti Poet-Saint Read More..

• 1100–1199 CE
  	1100–1199 CE
  Topography as History: Reading Kashmir through Rajatarangini 1100–1199 CE Topography as History: Reading Kashmir through Rajatarangini Read this excerpt from Kalhana’s Rajatarangini, where history unfolds through a precise mapping of medieval Kashmir’s towns, rivers, and sacred sites. Read More..

• 1192
  	1192
  Sufi Silsilahs: The Mystic Orders in India 1192 Sufi Silsilahs: The Mystic Orders in India What is Sufism? Read this chapter by Rana Safvi to understand the role of Sufi Mystic Orders to help spread Sufism in India Read More..

• 1200 - 1850
  	1200 - 1850
  Temples, deities, and the law. 1200 - 1850 Temples, deities, and the law. One of the key petitioners in the Ayodhya title dispute was Bhagwan Sri Ram Virajman. This petitioner was no mortal, but God Ram himself. How did Ram find his way from heaven to the Supreme Court of India to plead his case? Read further to find out. Read More..

• c. 1500 - 1600 AD
  	c. 1500 - 1600 AD
  A Historian Recommends: Religion in Mughal India c. 1500 - 1600 AD A Historian Recommends: Religion in Mughal India Shireen Moosvi recommends a chapter on religion, from Irfan Habib's book which examines the evolution of different religions, considering it to be, in her words, “topical for the present” Read More..

• 1200-2020
  	1200-2020
  Policing Untouchables and Producing Tamasha in Maharashtra 1200-2020 Policing Untouchables and Producing Tamasha in Maharashtra An excerpt from Shailaija Paik's new book 'Vulgarity of Caste' that documents the pivotal role Tamasha (the popular art form) has played in reinforcing and producing caste dynamics in Marathi society. Read More..

• 1530-1858
  	1530-1858
  Rajputs, Mughals and the Handguns of Hindustan 1530-1858 Rajputs, Mughals and the Handguns of Hindustan A chapter from Robert Elgood’s 'The Maharaja of Jodhpur’s Guns' - "the first book to be written specifically on historic Indian firearms" - compares Rajput and Mughal attitudes to firearms, particularly the matchlock handguns Read More..

• 1575
  	1575
  Abdul Qadir Badauni & Abul Fazl: Two Mughal Intellectuals in King Akbar‘s Court 1575 Abdul Qadir Badauni & Abul Fazl: Two Mughal Intellectuals in King Akbar‘s Court An excerpt from Parvati Sharma’s ‘Akbar of Hindustan’, which revisits the lives and times of two remarkable Mughal scholars: Abul Fazl and Abdul Qadir Badauni Read More..

• 1579
  	1579
  Padshah-i Islam 1579 Padshah-i Islam A chapter from Mughal Emperor Akbar’s biography by Ira Mukhoty that delves into his approach towards religion Read More..

• 1550-1800
  	1550-1800
  Who are the Bengal Muslims? : Conversion and Islamisation in Bengal 1550-1800 Who are the Bengal Muslims? : Conversion and Islamisation in Bengal How did Bengal get a large Muslim population? Was it conversion by ruling elites was there something deeper at play? Read Dr. Eaton's classic essay to find out. Read More..

• c. 1600 CE-1900 CE
  	c. 1600 CE-1900 CE
  The Birth of a Community: UP’s Ghazi Miyan and Narratives of ‘Conquest’ c. 1600 CE-1900 CE The Birth of a Community: UP’s Ghazi Miyan and Narratives of ‘Conquest’ An excerpt from Shahid Amin’s book ‘Conquest and Community: The afterlife of Saint Ghazi Miyan’ that unpacks the historical and contemporary remembrance of a conquering ‘warrior saint’ by a heterogeneous community Read More..

• 1553 - 1900
  	1553 - 1900
  What Happened to ‘Hindustan’? 1553 - 1900 What Happened to ‘Hindustan’? How ‘Hindustan’ became ‘India’. How the European (particularly British) geography of the subcontinent was divisive, faulty and an instrument of colonisation. And how it plagues us to this day Read More..

• 1630-1680
  	1630-1680
  Shivaji: Hindutva Icon or Secular Nationalist? 1630-1680 Shivaji: Hindutva Icon or Secular Nationalist? A chapter from Govind Pansare’s provocative and insightful book Who Was Shivaji? which examines his attitude towards the Hindu and Muslim religions Read More..

• 1630 -1680
  	1630 -1680
  Shivaji: His Legacy & His Times 1630 -1680 Shivaji: His Legacy & His Times Jadunath Sarkar analyses Shivaji’s personality and legacy in the context of Maratha society, institutions and foreign policy in the seventeenth century Read More..

• c. 1724 – 1857 A.D.
  	c. 1724 – 1857 A.D.
  Bahu Begum and the Gendered Struggle for Power c. 1724 – 1857 A.D. Bahu Begum and the Gendered Struggle for Power This extract from The Begums of Awadh by KS Santha reconstructs the life history of Bahu Begum, the third Begum of Awadh, and provides an illuminating example of the political role that the Begums of Awadh occupied in the 18th and 19th centuries Read More..

• 1818 - Present
  	1818 - Present
  The Contesting Memories of Bhima-Koregaon 1818 - Present The Contesting Memories of Bhima-Koregaon Examining continuity and change in the commemorative history of the Bhima-Koregaon memorial, this paper shows that the contestations for hegemony in the present often take the form of contestations about memories. Read More..

• 1828-1843
  	1828-1843
  Scandal of Manners: ‘Urinating Standing Up’ 1828-1843 Scandal of Manners: ‘Urinating Standing Up’ Families despaired, newspapers railed, and society ridiculed a generation of young men who refused to accept inherited custom and ritual in 1830s Calcutta. What was at stake in these scandals of manners? Read Rosinka Chaudhuri’s excerpt to find out. Read More..

• 1831
  	1831
  The Derozians’ India 1831 The Derozians’ India On Henry Louis Vivian Derozio, his work and values, and his freethinking students who would become 'Young Bengal' Read More..

• 1855
  	1855
  Ayodhya 1855 1855 Ayodhya 1855 Similar violence. Similar conflict. But it was not about a temple in a mosque. It was about a mosque in a temple. And the games people played Read More..

• 1856
  	1856
  “Worshipping the dead is not an auspicious thing” — Ghalib 1856 “Worshipping the dead is not an auspicious thing” — Ghalib Mirza Ghalib’s chastisement of Syed Ahmad Khan for writing a new edition of Ai’n-e Akbari, via a poem Read More..

• 1857
  	1857
  A Subaltern speaks: Dalit women’s counter-history of 1857 1857 A Subaltern speaks: Dalit women’s counter-history of 1857 In this essay, Charu Gupta examines the ways in which Dalit literature has dealt with the role of Dalit women in the revolt of 1857 Read More..

• 1858 - 1976
  	1858 - 1976
  Lifestyle as Resistance: The Curious Case of the Courtesans of Lucknow 1858 - 1976 Lifestyle as Resistance: The Curious Case of the Courtesans of Lucknow A fascinating essay that explores the ‘resistance’ of the courtesans of Lucknow, towards the changing patterns of the society after the arrival of the British Read More..

• 1883 - 1894
  	1883 - 1894
  The Sea Voyage Question: A Nineteenth century Debate 1883 - 1894 The Sea Voyage Question: A Nineteenth century Debate 19th-century upper-caste Hindus (Anandibai Joshi, Bankim Chattopadhyay) debate against the idea of being outcasted after crossing the sea Read More..

• 1887
  	1887
  The Great Debaters: Tilak Vs. Agarkar 1887 The Great Debaters: Tilak Vs. Agarkar A debate between tradition and reform in 19th Century Maharashtra that retains its relevance today Read More..

• 1893-1946
  	1893-1946
  A Historian Recommends: Gandhi Vs. Caste 1893-1946 A Historian Recommends: Gandhi Vs. Caste Aditya Mukherjee recommends Sujay Biswas’s paper that traces and evaluates Gandhi’s differing positions on caste at different points of time Read More..

• 1897
  	1897
  Queen Empress vs. Bal Gangadhar Tilak: An Autopsy 1897 Queen Empress vs. Bal Gangadhar Tilak: An Autopsy A post-mortem of India's first sedition conviction. Read More..

• 1910-1950
  	1910-1950
  Forging Unity: Vallabhbhai Patel and the Politics of Nationalism 1910-1950 Forging Unity: Vallabhbhai Patel and the Politics of Nationalism An analysis of the romanticised narrative of Indian nationalism by examining Vallabhbhai Patel's political journey as a case study. Read More..

• 1913 - 1916 Modern Review
  	1913 - 1916
  A Young Ambedkar in New York 1913 - 1916 A Young Ambedkar in New York How did Ambedkar's formative years in New York and Columbia University shape his later life and legacy? Read More..

• 1916
  	1916
  A Rare Account of World War I by an Indian Soldier 1916 A Rare Account of World War I by an Indian Soldier A rare first-hand account of the iconic Battle of Somme, one of the most important battles of the First World War, through the eyes of an Indian-Parsi soldier who fought in it. Read More..

• 1917
  	1917
  On Nationalism, by Tagore 1917 On Nationalism, by Tagore An essay and a poem by Rabindranath Tagore tells us all we need to know about nationalism, and more Read More..

• 1918 - 1919
  	1918 - 1919
  What Happened to the Virus That Caused the World’s Deadliest Pandemic? 1918 - 1919 What Happened to the Virus That Caused the World’s Deadliest Pandemic? Economist Siddharth Chandra's pioneering work traces the spread of the Spanish Flu in India, in 1918 Read More..

• 1920 - 1947
  	1920 - 1947
  How One Should Celebrate Diwali, According to Gandhi 1920 - 1947 How One Should Celebrate Diwali, According to Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi's statements on Diwali, Rama, Ravana and Ramarajya, from three different years Read More..

• 1921
  	1921
  Great Debates: Tagore Vs. Gandhi (1921) 1921 Great Debates: Tagore Vs. Gandhi (1921) An exchange of open letters between Rabindranath Tagore and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, in which they argue for 'Cooperation' and 'Non-Cooperation', respectively, with a focus on the idea of ‘Soul-force’ (as opposed to ‘Brute-force’) Read More..

• 1921 - 2015
  	1921 - 2015
  A History of Caste Politics and Elections in Bihar 1921 - 2015 A History of Caste Politics and Elections in Bihar A chronicling of the history of caste politics in Bihar, from the Janeyu Movement of the 1920s and the Triveni Sangh, through Ram Manohar Lohia, the JP Movement and Karpoori Thakur to the making of Lalu Prasad Yadav Read More..

• 1915-1921
  	1915-1921
  The Satirical Genius of Gaganendranath Tagore 1915-1921 The Satirical Genius of Gaganendranath Tagore The audaciously brilliant caricatures, art and life of Gaganendranath Tagore, as explored by writer Mulk Raj Anand Read More..

• 1924-1937
  	1924-1937
  What were Gandhi’s Views on Religious Conversion? 1924-1937 What were Gandhi’s Views on Religious Conversion? In his own words, read Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi's views on the proselytising efforts taken on by the organisations such as Arya Samaj, Tabhligi Jamaat, and the Church Missionary Society of England. Read More..

• 1900-1950
  	1900-1950
  Gazing at the Woman’s Body: Historicising Patriarchal Lechery 1900-1950 Gazing at the Woman’s Body: Historicising Patriarchal Lechery In the colonial period, the fear of the male gaze was used by the new patriarchy to restrict women’s access to work and public space, reinforcing a patriarchal division of labour. Read more in our latest excerpt. Read More..

• 1925, 1926
  	1925, 1926
  Great Debates: Tagore vs Gandhi (1925-1926) 1925, 1926 Great Debates: Tagore vs Gandhi (1925-1926) Tagore raises questions about Gandhi’s ‘Cult of the Charkha’ in an essay, following it up with another essay that further stirs things up. Gandhi responds in an essay published in ‘Young India’ and then a postscript, of sorts, to the entire controversy Read More..

• 1928
  	1928
  Bhagat Singh’s dilemma: Nehru or Bose? 1928 Bhagat Singh’s dilemma: Nehru or Bose? Read this article from 1928, where Bhagat Singh underlines the reasons why he envisions Nehru's idea of India more than Netaji Bose's Read More..

• 1930 Modern Review
  	1930
  The Modern Review Special: On the Nature of Reality 1930 The Modern Review Special: On the Nature of Reality Albert Einstein in Conversation with Rabindranath Tagore Read More..

• 1932
  	1932
  Caste, Gandhi and the Man Beside Gandhi 1932 Caste, Gandhi and the Man Beside Gandhi Why did Gandhi go on a fast unto death to protest separate electorates for Dalits? An intimate glimpse into the days leading up to this decision from the diary of his personal secretary Mahadev Desai Read More..

• 1933 - 1991
  	1933 - 1991
  Raghubir Sinh: The Prince Who Would Be Historian 1933 - 1991 Raghubir Sinh: The Prince Who Would Be Historian An intellectual portrait of Raghubir Sinh — known to most as a prince and a politician rather than a scholar — told mostly through the lens of his relationships with his mentors, pioneering historians Jadunath Sarkar and GS Sardesai Read More..

• 1935
  	1935
  A Historian Recommends: SA Khan’s Timeless Presidential Address 1935 A Historian Recommends: SA Khan’s Timeless Presidential Address Manan Ahmed Asif recommends Shafaat Ahmad Khan’s presidential address at the birth of the Indian History Congress in 1935, which elaborated on the Indian historiographical landscape, challenges ahead and possible solutions Read More..

• 1865-1928
  	1865-1928
  Understanding Lajpat Rai’s Hindu Politics and Secularism 1865-1928 Understanding Lajpat Rai’s Hindu Politics and Secularism Was Lala Lajpat Rai's Hindu nationalism congruent with the principles of secularism? Explore our latest excerpt from Vanya Vaidehi Bhargav's fresh off-the-press book - Being Hindu, Being Indian: Lala Lajpat Rai's Ideas of Nation for more. Read More..

• 1935 Modern Review
  	1935
  The Modern Review Special: The Mind of a Judge 1935 The Modern Review Special: The Mind of a Judge A window to a time we can learn from, this essay raises questions of state force & violence that remain relevant today Read More..

• 1936 Modern Review
  	1936
  The Modern Review Special: When Netaji Subhas Bose Was Wrongfully Detained for ‘Terrorism’ 1936 The Modern Review Special: When Netaji Subhas Bose Was Wrongfully Detained for ‘Terrorism’ The story of the draconian law that was used to detain Subhas Chandra Bose and other freedom fighters like him without trial Read More..

• 1936
  	1936
  Annihilation of Caste: Part 1 1936 Annihilation of Caste: Part 1 ‘Annihilation of Caste’ by BR Ambedkar needs to be read and reread Read More..

• 1936 Modern Review
  	1936
  The Modern Review Special: An Indian MP in the British Parliament 1936 The Modern Review Special: An Indian MP in the British Parliament A profile of Shapurji Saklatvala, a man of paradoxes from India and Britain Read More..

• 1936
  	1936
  Annihilation of Caste: Part 2 1936 Annihilation of Caste: Part 2 The second and most crucial part of ‘Annihilation of Caste’ followed by a Gandhi-Ambedkar debate Read More..

• 1936
  	1936
  A Reflection of His Age: Munshi Premchand on the True Purpose of Literature 1936 A Reflection of His Age: Munshi Premchand on the True Purpose of Literature Munshi Premchand, one of modern India's most influential writers, addresses the first conference of the Progressive Writers’ Association in 1936, on the nature and purpose of literature Read More..

• 1936 Modern Review
  	1936
  The Modern Review Special: The Defeat of a Dalit Candidate in a 1936 Municipal Election 1936 The Modern Review Special: The Defeat of a Dalit Candidate in a 1936 Municipal Election A piece that illustrates the workings of caste on ground and in politics that, tragically, is still relevant today Read More..

• 1937 Modern Review
  	1937
  The Modern Review Special: Rashtrapati 1937 The Modern Review Special: Rashtrapati That critique of Nehru which said: “We want no Caesars”, from The Modern Review Read More..

• 1938
  	1938
  Great Debates: Nehru Vs. Jinnah (1938) 1938 Great Debates: Nehru Vs. Jinnah (1938) Nehru and Jinnah may have been spokespersons for different political bodies, but their often heated interactions were marked by consistent civility. Read this exchange discussing the question of Muslim representation and the communal question Read More..

• 1942 Modern Review
  	1942
  IHC Uncovers: A Parallel Government In British India (Part 1) 1942 IHC Uncovers: A Parallel Government In British India (Part 1) In 1942, five years before India was independent, two sub-divisions in Bengal not only declared their independence— they also instituted a parallel government. The first in a new series. Read More..

• 1943-1945
  	1943-1945
  Origin Of The Azad Hind Fauj 1943-1945 Origin Of The Azad Hind Fauj An excerpt from the book My Memories of I.N.A. and Its Netaji by Major General Shahnawaz Khan, where he documents how Bose formed the INA, inspired disillusioned Indian soldiers to revolt, and challenged British rule with Axis support. Read More..

• 1942-1945
  	1942-1945
  IHC Uncovers: A Parallel Government in British India (Part 2) 1942-1945 IHC Uncovers: A Parallel Government in British India (Part 2) In 1942, two sub-districts in Bengal declared independence and set up a parallel government. The second part of our story brings you archival papers in the form of letters, newspaper reports, and judicial records documenting this remarkable movement. Read More..

• 1946
  	1946
  Our Last War of Independence: The Royal Indian Navy Mutiny of 1946 1946 Our Last War of Independence: The Royal Indian Navy Mutiny of 1946 An excerpt from Pramod Kapoor’s book ‘1946 Royal Indian Navy Mutiny: Last War of Independence’ examines the different reasons for the RIN Mutiny as put forward by the British and Indian witnesses in the Commission of Enquiry proceedings Read More..

• 1946
  	1946
  An Artist’s Account of the Tebhaga Movement in Pictures And Prose 1946 An Artist’s Account of the Tebhaga Movement in Pictures And Prose In December, 1946, one of India’s major artists travelled to North Bengal to document India’s “first consciously attempted revolt by a politicized peasantry”. Here are his sketches, art and diary entries on the Tebhaga Movement Read More..

• 1946 – 1947
  	1946 – 1947
  “The Most Democratic People on Earth” : An Adivasi Voice in the Constituent Assembly 1946 – 1947 “The Most Democratic People on Earth” : An Adivasi Voice in the Constituent Assembly Three powerful speeches from one of the few Adivasi representatives in the Constituent Assembly – Jaipal Singh Munda, vocalising the community’s long history of exploitation and their expectations from India an independent nation Read More..

• 1946-1947
  	1946-1947
  VP Menon and the Birth of Independent India 1946-1947 VP Menon and the Birth of Independent India A bold behind-the-scenes account of how V. P. Menon worked to effect the princely states' accession to the Indian Union Read More..

• 1916 - 1947
  	1916 - 1947
  8 @ 75: 8 Speeches Independent Indians Must Read 1916 - 1947 8 @ 75: 8 Speeches Independent Indians Must Read On the 75th anniversary of Indian independence, here are eight speeches from the Indian freedom struggle, and around Indian independence, from leaders and thinkers who still have lots to say Read More..

• 1947-1951
  	1947-1951
  Ambedkar Cartoons: The Joke’s On Us 1947-1951 Ambedkar Cartoons: The Joke’s On Us Popularly, we think that political cartoons question the powerful but what if this was not the case? What if political cartoons, replicated structures of the socially dominant? Read how in our new excerpt on political cartoons featuring Dr. Ambedkar. Read More..

• 1948
  	1948
  “My Father, Do Not Rest” 1948 “My Father, Do Not Rest” On Martyrs' day 2024, read the poet Sarojini Naidu's tribute to Gandhi given over All India Radio two days after his assassination. Read More..

• 1940-1960
  	1940-1960
  Integration Myth: A Silenced History of Hyderabad 1940-1960 Integration Myth: A Silenced History of Hyderabad Labelled "one of the shortest, happiest wars ever seen", the integration of the princely state of Hyderabad in 1948 was anything but that. Read about the truth behind the creation of an Indian Union, the fault lines left behind, and what they signify Read More..

• 1948
  	1948
  The Assassination of a Mahatma, the Princely States and the ‘Hindu’ Nation 1948 The Assassination of a Mahatma, the Princely States and the ‘Hindu’ Nation Was anti-Gandhi rhetoric echoing only within the Hindu Mahasabha, or were princely states involved too? Read a telling excerpt from A E Suresh and P Kotamraju's book, presenting fresh research on Gandhi's assassination Read More..

• 1949
  	1949
  Ambedkar warns against India becoming a ‘Democracy in Form, Dictatorship in Fact’ 1949 Ambedkar warns against India becoming a ‘Democracy in Form, Dictatorship in Fact’ Before enacting the Constitution into law, Babasaheb told us how to guard against dangers to the same Read More..

• 1950
  	1950
  Illustrations from the constitution 1950 Illustrations from the constitution On Republic Day, the Indian History Collective presents you, twenty-two illustrations from the first illustrated manuscript (1954) of our Constitution. Read More..

• 1951
  	1951
  How the First Amendment to the Indian Constitution Circumscribed Our Freedoms & How it was Passed 1951 How the First Amendment to the Indian Constitution Circumscribed Our Freedoms & How it was Passed The story of how a provisional parliament elected on a limited franchise passed the first amendment to our Constitution that continues to restrict key Indian liberties Read More..

• 1950-1951
  	1950-1951
  Panikkar’s 1950 Ordeal: China’s Moves, Family Crisis, and Diplomatic Distrust 1950-1951 Panikkar’s 1950 Ordeal: China’s Moves, Family Crisis, and Diplomatic Distrust In this excerpt by Narayani Basu, explore K. M. Panikkar’s 1950–51 ordeal as India’s ambassador to China, marked by personal turmoil, diplomatic isolation, and ignored warnings amid rising Cold War tensions. Read More..

• 1967
  	1967
  Once Upon A Time In Naxalbari 1967 Once Upon A Time In Naxalbari Indian History Collective’s first in a series on the Naxalbari movement Read More..

• 1970
  	1970
  R.C. Majumdar on Shortcomings in Indian Historiography 1970 R.C. Majumdar on Shortcomings in Indian Historiography An excerpt from R.C. Majumdar’s book, originally published in 1970, outlining flaws he saw in the historiography of the historians of his time, and their root causes Read More..

• 1973 - 1993
  	1973 - 1993
  Balasaheb Deoras: Kingmaker of the Sangh 1973 - 1993 Balasaheb Deoras: Kingmaker of the Sangh An in-depth look at Balasaheb Deoras’ two-decades long tenure as RSS sarsanghchalak, analysing his role in transforming the organisation from a fringe party to the national alternative to the Congress Read More..

• 1975
  	1975
  The Emergency Package: Shadow Power 1975 The Emergency Package: Shadow Power An excerpt from Gyan Prakash’s ‘Emergency Chronicles’ that will inform and remind you. Because you must remember Read More..

• 1975
  	1975
  The Emergency Package: The Prehistory of Turkman Gate – Population Control 1975 The Emergency Package: The Prehistory of Turkman Gate – Population Control A second excerpt from Gyan Prakash’s ‘Emergency Chronicles’ traces the lineage of one of the Emergency’s worst excesses Read More..

• 1977 – 2011
  	1977 – 2011
  Power is an Unforgiving Mistress: Lessons from the Decline of the Left in Bengal 1977 – 2011 Power is an Unforgiving Mistress: Lessons from the Decline of the Left in Bengal This chapter from Monobina Gupta’s book traces the rule of the Left Front government in West Bengal, illustrating how its desire to hold on to power overpowered its promises to the public, paving the way for the end of its 34 year-long rule Read More..

• 1984
  	1984
  Mrs Gandhi’s Final Folly: Operation Blue Star 1984 Mrs Gandhi’s Final Folly: Operation Blue Star This gripping and incisive chapter from veteran journalists Mark Tully and Satish Jacob's book goes over the key events of Operation Blue Star in detail. In particular, the night of 5th June when the bulk of the combat took place Read More..

• 1916-2004
  	1916-2004
  Amjad Ali Khan on M.S. Subbulakshmi: “A Glorious Chapter for Indian Classical Music” 1916-2004 Amjad Ali Khan on M.S. Subbulakshmi: “A Glorious Chapter for Indian Classical Music” A short but telling personal account of the life, music and times of M.S. Subbulakshmi by Amjad Ali Khan Read More..

• 2008
  	2008
  Whose History Textbook Is It Anyway? 2008 Whose History Textbook Is It Anyway? On NCERT, the Sangh and history school textbooks Read More..

• 2006 - 2009
  	2006 - 2009
  Singur-Nandigram-Lalgarh: Movements that Remade Mamata Banerjee 2006 - 2009 Singur-Nandigram-Lalgarh: Movements that Remade Mamata Banerjee This chapter from Monobina Gupta’s Didi: A Political Biography looks at the Singur-Nandigram-Lalgarh agitations and how they laid the ground for Mamata Banerjee to emerge as an alternative to the CPI-M in West Bengal Read More..

• 2020
  	2020
  The Indo-China Conflict: 10 Books We Need To Read 2020 The Indo-China Conflict: 10 Books We Need To Read 10 recommendations from experts for what to read to better comprehend the Indo-China flareup in Ladakh Read More..

• 2021
  	2021
  Singing/Writing Liberation: Dalit Women’s Narratives 2021 Singing/Writing Liberation: Dalit Women’s Narratives An examination of literature and songs produced by Dalit women, providing a glimpse into their role in building an anti-caste consciousness and the role of Dr. BR Ambedkar as a feminist icon Read More..

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