Books

GANDHI AND TAGORE: Politics, Truth and Conscience by Gangeya Mukherji. Routledge, New Delhi, 2016.

OVER the years, much has been written on the difficult and fascinating relationship between Gandhi and Tagore. Following such profusion of attention, one would have believed that the contours of this epochal relationship had been fairly delineated, indicating that there, indeed, were certain basic differences between the two great men. Except that both were large-minded enough to not let their differences affect their mutual respect and admiration.

Belying this consensus, Gangeya Mukherji shows that Gandhi and Tagore shared a striking convergence beneath, to use Mukherji’s felicitous expression, ‘the apparency of a fundamental divergence’. He accomplishes this not so much by unearthing any new wealth of details – not for Bangla knowing readers in any case – as by casting on the existing material a new and acute eye. Seeing the same material not in terms of its empirical details but in terms of the first principles underlying the ideas of both Gandhi and Tagore with regard to a broad rubric comprising politics, truth and conscience, the eye discerns a fundamental similarity in Gandhi’s and Tagore’s imagining of a new India and, by extension, also of a new future for mankind.

This is a formidable achievement. The usual difficulties involved in making any significant academic departure were, in this particular study, aggravated as much by the irresistible personalities of the two protagonists as by the sheer transparency of their respective convictions and, as a result, the supreme confidence with which they formulated their respective ideas. Unless you are incurably predisposed towards one of the two towering personalities, it is very likely that when you read one he will sweep you along. If you then decide, as you must, to see what the other has to say, you will find yourself going along with him. Gangeya Mukherji, his gaze fixed on first principles, has read both with exemplary detachment, and obtained the insight – of fundamental convergence – that runs through Gandhi and Tagore: Politics, Truth and Conscience.

In obtaining this insight, he seems to have been greatly helped by his reading of Romain Rolland. However, that in no way diminishes his achievement. For, unaided by his own erudition, his confidence in his judgment, his understanding of the ethical-philosophical issues at stake, as also the clarity and grace of his articulation, Mukherji could neither have sensed the significance of Romain Rolland’s perspicacious comparative evaluation of Tagore and Gandhi nor developed it so sensitively, elegantly and cogently. That is what makes his book a tour de force, one that will effect a new turn in academic and popular understanding of the complex relationship between Gandhi and Tagore.

Consider, for example, Mukherji’s brilliant two-fold analytic move that helps him see as illusory the chasm that is believed to have divided Gandhi and Tagore on the question of nationalism. He shows, on the one hand, that Gandhi, for all his concern for his country’s freedom, would never think of his country in isolation from, let alone in antagonism with, the rest of humanity. He completes the move by showing, on the other hand, that Tagore’s ‘comments on nationalism in India reflected more upon its impracticability – given the obnoxious caste system which occluded a common birthright and intermarriage and race amalgamation – than on its absolute undesirability in principle.’ Mukherji, then, quotes Tagore to the following effect: ‘…my countrymen will truly gain their India by fighting against the education which teaches them that a country is greater than the ideals of humanity.’ He complements this by recalling Gandhi’s dream of nationalism being ‘transmuted into the enthusiasm of humanity’, and Romain Rolland’s description of Gandhi as an ‘idealistic nationalist who wants his nation to be the greatest in spirit – or nothing.’ That done, Mukherji concludes convincingly: ‘The convergence of Tagore and Gandhi, on the morality of the state and the ethics of nationalism, attests as much the category of their nationalism as it perhaps does the open texture of nationalism itself’.

Writing unmistakably from the vantage point of contemporary India, and evoking resonances unlikely to be lost on sensitive readers, Mukherji warns against any narrow and finished conception of nationalism, in particular against the ‘heady combination of nationalism and atavism’. Drawing upon the convergence between Gandhi and Tagore on the subject, he would rather have nationalism ‘construed as a variegated theme in collective psyche’. Variegated, therefore ever fluid and forming, not prescribed and uniform. Nationalism in India, I am tempted to add, is a mask without a face. For those who care, the challenge is to get the face shaped in the image of Tagore and Gandhi.

This challenge – and this is the other thrust of Mukherji’s monograph – imposes upon each one of us, as individuals independently of what the others do or don’t do, a responsibility from which there can be no escape. Both Gandhi and Tagore were fervent in their conviction that to make the ‘ethical’ an abiding presence in the public domain is a responsibility that each individual must shoulder. Gandhi, the man of action, never shied away from his ethical responsibility, not even when he had to risk appearing to be acting against the nationalist cause. Tagore, a moral philosopher rather than a moral activist, too, felt obliged to burst into the realm of action when, appalled by what seemed to him the silence of the nationalist leadership in the wake of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, he despatched a burning protest to the Viceroy and renounced his knighthood.

Regarding the question of individual responsibility, Mukherji also shows that Gandhi and Tagore were one in recognizing a fundamental truth to which humankind has persistently turned a blind eye: the truth that the ethical and the pragmatic are inseparable. Instead, in practising politics as the art of the possible and in the process transforming politics inexorably from being, at best, amoral to increasingly immoral, humans have rendered themselves incapable of seeing, as Gandhi would put it, that in human affairs, no less than in geometry, the straight line is the shortest distance between two points.

My intention in this short review is not to summarize this excellent book, but to simply indicate its academic and, in the present state of India and the world, political-ethical importance. Nevertheless, before I conclude, I must discharge, however briefly, an obligation under which the book places its reviewer. Having as its protagonists two personages who were fiercely true to their conscience and to truth as they saw it, the book ends, appropriately enough, with an invocation to parrhesia, which represents precisely the duty to speak and hear the truth that was characteristic of the Tagore-Gandhi relationship.

It jars that a work so meticulously researched should perpetuate – and legitimize – a popular misbelief about Gandhi by repeating the insidious story that his last fast unto death was occasioned by the refusal of the Government of India to pay Pakistan its legitimate share of 55 crore rupees. Without recounting the much deeper reasons and larger objectives of that glorious fast, I shall simply point out that it was undertaken on the 13th and ended on the 18th of January. The decision to pay Pakistan the 55 crore was taken on the night of the15th. Had non-payment to Pakistan caused the fast, it would have been called off the following morning.

Politics, Mukherji recognizes, is a messy business, and however noble one’s ideas in the abstract, they cannot be judged in isolation from one’s actual politics. That is why he specifically discusses Tagore’s meeting with, and favourable comments about, Mussolini which – rather harshly – have been seen as vitiative of the poet’s grand humanitarian pronouncements. What in this context deserves special consideration is an often neglected event which, to me, marks a lapse on Tagore’s part from high internationalism into caste Hindu parochialism. Stating the event baldly, when in 1932 Gandhi undertook his ‘epic fast’ – the one that led to the Poona Pact and nullified the official British plan to introduce separate electorates for the scheduled castes – Tagore was so overwhelmed that he nearly deified Gandhi. But the following year, not even deigning to ask Gandhi for possible clarification, he suddenly denounced the selfsame pact as an ‘injustice’ that would keep ‘alive the spirit of communal conflict in our province [Bengal] in an intense form’ and make ‘peaceful government of the country perpetually difficult’.

There is no space here to explicate my conviction that this reversal was on account of the hold on Tagore, as on most caste Hindus, of a subtle, almost unconscious, tendency to synonymize Hindu and Indian/India. Having earlier devoted an entire monograph to illustrate the working of this tendency, I shall cite here just the following excerpt from Tagore which Mukherji quotes:

‘With ever new conflicts we will aspire for the expansion of ourselves. Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims Christians will not die fighting each other in the case of India – here they will discover a harmony. This harmony … will be Hindu in its essential sense. The limbs and organs of this harmony may come from alien countries; however, its life and soul shall be Indian.’ (Italics added.)

Let alone its serious implications, does Tagore seem to even realize that he is valorizing the Hindu as Indian? Mukherji clearly missed this crucial conflation while quoting this excerpt. How quick were you to notice it, if at all, despite the aid of italicization?

Sudhir Chandra

Historian, Delhi

 

AMMA: Jayalalithaa’s Journey from Movie Star to Political Queen by Vaasanthi. Juggernaut Books, New Delhi, 2016.

WHEN J. Jayalalithaa passed away on 5 December 2016, a pall of gloom swept over Tamil Nadu. People who were her opponents, sworn enemies, those she had treated with disdain and contempt grieved. Her funeral was attended by the president and the prime minister of the country. A vast number of mourners followed her funeral procession. She was given full state honours. However, there was a persistent air of mystery, like most other things in her life, about her health issues and how she died.

Two months after her death the Supreme Court pronounced judgement on the ‘disproportionate assets case’ which had dragged on for many years and had haunted Jayalalithaa from the time the Karnataka High Court pronounced her guilty in September 2014. She was convicted, and was released on bail and her conviction overturned in 2015. The Supreme Court set aside the Karnataka judgement and pronounced her guilty. The judges said that Jayalalithaa was a mastermind who misused her public office, ‘masked banking exchanges’, acquired ‘vast tracts of land’ for a pittance and conspired with her co-accused at her residence, only to later ‘feign ignorance’ about any crime committed.

Although the judgement was harsh and widely covered, her aura has not faded. The Tamil population continue to celebrate her as ‘Amma’ but they espise her companion of over 30 years, Sasikala, who is currently in jail in Karnataka. The AIADMK, the party Jayalalithaa led from the late ’80s, is slowly imploding. The members of the party, all factions of it, do not fail to mention her name with reverence at any given opportunity. Jayalalithaa had been known as the comeback queen who had this amazing capacity to re-emerge after every crisis in her life. She could never be written off. She was truly charismatic and nobody really knew her, barring perhaps Sasikala.

Vaasanthi in her book, Amma attempts to figure out what the lady was all about. Why was she given this almost divine status? As the title indicates, it is essentially about her journey from movie star to political queen. During her third term as CM she was celebrated as Amma, the mother, a brand that was built up assiduously. Vaasanthi has tried to unveil Jayalalithaa’s complex and multilayered personality. She has put together a credible account without the benefit of interviews with Jayalalithaa or Sasikala. Her material comes from people who knew Jayalalithaa during certain periods in her life, newspaper and magazine archives and journalists. After she became the chief minister, Jayalalithaa hardly gave interviews or met anyone. She could not brook any criticism. Those who dared to criticize her received harsh treatment.

Vaasanthi describes her childhood, family, brilliant academic performance, reluctant entry into films, becoming a superstar and the influence of her mentor, M.G. Ramachandran (MGR) over her. MGR split the DMK, the party which wiped out Congress in Tamil Nadu in 1967, founded the AIADMK in 1972 and became the chief minister in 1977. He was the undisputed leader who held a tight grip on the state till his death in 1987. Jayalalithaa fell out with MGR around the time he became CM. She also stopped acting in films, and had a brief relationship with a leading Telugu actor, Shoban Babu. By all accounts she wanted to lead a quiet, normal life. But that was not to be. Both the men in her life promised her marriage although they were already married; both got cold feet and did not keep their word. Much has been written about all this; she was open about her affair with Shoban Babu.

 MGR who was 35 years older than Jayalalithaa was the Svengali in her life. She came under his spell when she was still a teenager. Jayalalithaa was MGR’s magnificent obsession. Although they had separated for a few years, it is fairly certain that he reached out to her at a vulnerable moment and inducted her into the party and politics in 1982. As he did with her film career, he mentored her in politics as well. She was a quick learner. For the next two years she could do no wrong and he made her a member of the Rajya Sabha. In that male dominated and chauvinistic world Jayalalithaa, who did not know how to be humble, made a lot of enemies. It was galling to many of MGR’s senior associates that she had emerged as his closest confidante.

It is obvious that MGR constantly played mind games with her. He removed her from all positions in 1984 and denied her any access to him. He would call her back when he felt like it, when he felt he needed her in the party. He must have been a major influence in her evolution as a leader. She probably saw many things through his eyes in her early years as a politician.

Jayalalithaa went through much emotional trauma and survived several attempts to throw her out of the party. She gave her enemies as good as she got, and following much drama managed to take full control of the party after his death. She defeated rival DMK with a large margin and became the chief minister in 1991. She was the undisputed leader. It does appear as though the line between what was right and wrong blurred for her during her first stint as the CM.

Vaasanthi gives a concise and clear picture of Jayalalthaa’s spectacular triumphs and equally spectacular failures since 1991. Her insight into why Sasikala played such a major role in Jayalalithaa’s life seems the most plausible. ‘Jayalalithaa longed for a normal life of marriage and children. Now at least there was a friend who heard her woes with sympathy. Who did not question her actions. Who had taken on the responsibility of running her house and who did not advise her on matters of state.’

This was written before Jayalalithaa’s death. The picture which emerged soon thereafter was different. Sasikala quite clearly wanted to grab both Jayalalithaa’s party and power. Had the Supreme Court not convicted her, she would have been Tamil Nadu’s chief minister.

There are going to be many unanswered questions about Jayalalithaa’s life. She was imperious, mercurial and kept a Garboesque mystique about her. She could spend many months in total isolation. She had no friend other than Sasikala although she turned to ‘Cho’ Ramaswamy – actor, editor, lawyer and political analyst – off and on. She had severed relations with her own family. No one knows why. Was it under the influence of Sasikala?

There were also a few trusted IAS officers who were her window to the outside world and administration. Emotionally, however, they were also kept at an arm’s length. She faced conviction three times for corruption. Did it have any impact on her? Jayalalithaa, who was worshipped for her widespread welfare schemes, was also tough as steel. A record number of defamation cases were slapped against the press and people during her time. People were even put in prison for sedition for singing songs that were critical of her policies.

Vaasanthi’s ‘Amma’ gives a tantalizing glimpse of the woman who could have been India’s best chief minister, ever. Ironically, however, unless Sasikala chooses to reveal all, Jayalalthaa will probably remain an enigma.

Sushila Ravindranath

Journalist, Chennai