Introduction to the Life and Legacy of D V Gundappa

Source: prekshaa series

[[Introduction to the Life and Legacy of D V Gundappa Source: prekshaa]]

ಅಸಮದಲಿ ಸಮತೆಯನು ವಿಷಮದಲಿ ಮೈತ್ರಿಯನು ।
ಅಸಮಂಜಸದಿ ಸಮನ್ವಯ ಸೂತ್ರ ನಯವ ॥
ವೆಸನಮಯ ಸಂಸಾರದಲಿ ವಿನೋದವ ಕಾಣ್ಬ ।
ರಸಿಕತೆಯೆ ಯೋಗವಲೊ - ಮಂಕುತಿಮ್ಮ ॥

To find equality in disparity, harmony in oddities,
A gentle strand of reconciling strife,
To find joy in the melancholy of worldly existence –
This attitude of refined taste verily is Yoga – Mankutimma

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Given the vast expanse of his work, the sweep of his accomplishments, and the elevating quality of his entire life, one could begin anywhere but the aforementioned verse is among the most representative. It encapsulates and epitomizes the vision, work, legacy, and life of the philosopher-poet-litterateur-statesman who wrote it: Devanahalli Venkataramanaiah Gundappa or D V Gundappa or simply, DVG.

This essay marks the beginning of a humble attempt to honour and commemorate his multi-hued, eventful and noble legacy spread over nearly seven decades set primarily on the vast canvas of Bharata and Bharatiyata. With the sheer dint of his spotless life, writing, and Loka Sangraha, he gradually came to be known simply as DVG, the three letters uttered reverentially, lovingly, even today by millions of Kannada-speaking people across the globe.

But the chief difficulty in this attempt is the nature of the legacy itself. DVG was a journalist, editor, chronicler, biographer, poet, intellectual, litterateur, critic, scholar, philosopher, preceptor, polyglot, statesman, freedom fighter, and an honest, detached witness of his era. He was all these but he had also transcended all these. Indeed, to what specific facet does one attribute the grandeur of a lush and sprawling forest or the majesty of mountain-peaks? Likewise, how does one couch DVG’s all-encompassing legacy without the trepidation of doing injustice to even one of these facets?

Cyncial Times

As a reflection of the melancholic and cynical period we currently live in, it is indeed a travesty that today, DVG’s name is completely unknown beyond Karnataka. Even in Karnataka, his renown rests primarily (and deservedly) on his 1943 magnum opus, “Mankuthimmana Kagga,” (“Foggy Fool’s Farrago,” in DVG’s own translation) a collection of independent contemplative verses on such topics as the meaning of life, fate, philosophy, God, and creation.

Which is why it might be surprising even to the people of Karnataka to learn that during his lifetime, DVG was associated with such greats as Sir M Visweswarayya, “Right Honourable” V S Srinivasa Sastri, Sir M Puttanna Chetty, Sajjan Rao, Dr. B R Ambedkar, C. Rajagopalachari, M S Subbulakshmi, and had closely worked with at least four Diwans of the Mysore Princely State. What is also mostly unknown is how he was part of several relief efforts in combating large-scale epidemics like influenza and tuberculosis. DVG also officiated as a Purohita in widow remarriages, a “sin” that invited social ostracism in those days. These facets even taken together are but the proverbial tip of the iceberg of his oceanic bequest to this country, its society, civilization, culture, ethos and history, to put it broadly.

What has equally been buried, not under the sands of time, but under wanton national neglect, is the corpus of his journalistic and political writing, which alone run up to over three thousand pages. This includes books and essays on political philosophy and statesmanship, critiques of policy, open letters, reports, editorials, (transcribed) speeches, monographs, and reviews and must be made prescribed reading for students and teachers today.

A distinctive mark of these writings is their innate power to elevate the reader from the mundane and the mediocre to the lofty and the enduring. For instance, DVG adorns the rather dry subject of politics and policy with an originality that bestows a literary and philosophical quality to it.

A Three-tiered Legacy

Given this expansive scope, one can regard the legacy of DVG from the three-tiered perspective that his life and work represents:

1. Public Life: as a journalist, statesman and political philosopher 2. Litterateur: as a poet, dramatist, writer, translator and author 3. Philosopher: as a commentator on the Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita and other philosophical lore.

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Hampi-Image courtesy:- Google Image search

Bharata has seen very few personalities who embodied all these facets as a unified whole both within themselves as well as reflected them in their life and work. In this, it is not farfetched to claim that DVG follows in the path set by Maharshi Vidyaranya, the iconic inspiration and spiritual founding father of the grand Vijayanagara Empire.

The world of journalism and public life is essentially a world of speed: of day-to-day, routine events occurring unceasingly at a rapid pace—events which give rise to new ones or are a consequence of prior events, or entirely new events which supplant or distract the world’s attention away from prior ones.

The world of literature on the other hand, is much slower. Literature in its purest definition must have an enduring, insightful, and universal quality to it. In essence, good literature, in the words of Shelley, “pierces the veil” of everyday events and worldly upheavals by holding its thumb over the pulse that drives them: the interplay of human impulses, emotions, and passions. In the realm of Indian thought, these impulses can be distilled into just two concepts: Artha (wealth) and Kama (any kind of desire). In the “real” world, they are transmuted as wealth, fame, and position. Thus, fame can be defamed, positions can be pulled down, and wealth, eroded. And the twin impulses that drive Artha and Kama are Raga (attachment, avarice, greed) and Dwesha (hatred, enmity). In this manner, literature also shows a mirror to the interplay of Raga and Dwesha by eliciting responses within the reader to this interplay.

This contemplation enters the realm of philosophy when we inquire into the causes that produce Raga and Dwesha. These causes in turn, are couched in the term, Gunatraya, or the three Gunas (attributes) of Sattva (peace, equanimity, serenity), Rajas (vigour, passion, zest), and Tamas (laziness, stupor). The imbalance of Gunatraya is what causes Raga and Dwesha. Gunatraya in turn is the characteristic (Lakshana) of Jiva or Life. And the Absolute (Parama) characteristic of Jiva is Sacchidananda (Unqualified, Eternal Joy or Bliss). This then is the manner in which one can trace and elevate the banal worldly events, tribulations and turbulence to the level of pure philosophy. This method is also known as the sopana krama: step-wise deduction.

Unsleeping Insight

This then was DVG’s approach: of regarding one of these three aspects in the light of or with reference to the other two. For example, of regarding a problem related to public life in the light of literature and philosophy. Or extrapolating and analyzing a literary tenet or episode to a political or social occurrence. Or expounding on say, a verse of the Bhagavad Gita with a contemporary incident. The great strength that this approach brings is the insight that it provides in evolving a solution or course correction to contemporary problems.

This philosophical quality that permeates almost all writings of DVG was not accidental, deliberate or laboured: it was intrinsic and natural like a mathematical constant because DVG had realized it within himself. One is reminded of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s observation ¹ about Henry David Thoreau:

If [Thoreau]…defied the opinions of others, it was only that he was more intent to reconcile his practice with his own belief… Never idle or self-indulgent…[h]e chose to be rich by making his wants few… there was an excellent wisdom in him, proper to a rare class of men, which showed him the material world as a means and symbol. This discovery, which sometimes yields to poets a certain casual and interrupted light, serving for the ornament of their writing, was in him an unsleeping insight… His soul was made for the noblest society… wherever there is knowledge, wherever there is virtue, wherever there is beauty, he will find a home. [Emphasis added]

Roots in Vedanta

In an age when the Yogipratyaksha or mysticism of Sri Aurobindo and numerous other mystic Gurus and Swamis gained enormous currency, DVG not only stuck to his roots in Vedanta, he disseminated it widely, wrote, presented and re-presented its integral values variously: as essays, monographs, expositions, and commentaries.

He never ventured into proclaiming a “new” philosophy or “school.” He trod the path of his senior contemporaries, the towering scholar-philosopher Prof M Hiriyanna, the Vedantin Swami Sacchidanandendra Saraswati, and Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi. Like them, his unshakeable roots in Vedanta made him realize that the prophets and heralds of “new” philosophies were innately enamoured by Rupa (form) and not Swarupa (nature, substance, spirit). Epiphanies and revelations are neither unquestionable nor eternal. Therefore, merely because Vedantic concepts are ancient or age-old is not reason enough to discard them in the quest of elusive newness. The quality of antiquity also means that they will not change in essence or substance. One only needs to provide new commentary or explanation to suit the jargon of the contemporary age. Equally, this contemporary-age commentary must be rooted in and faithful to verifiable experience (anubhavanishTa).

Prof M Hiriyanna accomplished this feat most notably in the realm of aesthetics in works such as Art Experience, and Indian Conception of Values.

Other stalwarts accomplished the same in their chosen fields: for example, Gopal Krishna Gokhale in public life, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa in the spiritual realm, and Swami Vivekananda in rejuvenating the Hindu society and heritage.

But most of these stalwarts, with due respect to their matchless contributions, left behind an office, so to say. For example, Swami Vivekanandabuilt the Ramakrishna Mission and incessantly travelled far and wide. While he was a Sanyasin of the highest order, the fact remains that Sanyasa is also an office that brings with it all the concomitant challenges.

The Fulfilment of Life

DVG charted a different but complementary course. He not only accomplished what the aforementioned eminences did in their respective realms but straddled their realms in a unifying sense. In a manner of speaking, he embellished their work with what’s known as theFulfilment of Life.

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DVG-Image courtesy:- Google Image search

DVG never traveled widely. Much before India attained independence, this untiring conscience-keeper and Yogi of public life completely withdrew from it. Neither was his vision of public life based on the sort of dry theorizing that has become commonplace today. The following is a representative sample of this vision elucidated in his masterly Rajya Shastra (Political Philosophy), where avers ² that:

…it is yet to be known how the Communist ideology actually works in Russia. Set aside Government announcements; it is but natural that they [will be] in favour of the Government. But if we need to believe that they are honest, the evidence needs to come from elsewhere. Let the Communist ideology be as it is; under Communist rule, are commodities available in the markets in Russia? [If so], what are the prices? An ordinary clerk, schoolteacher, other people from the middle class, how do they carry on their daily life? What do they do during festivals and holidays? Is the food they eat tasty to the tongue? We require this sort of investigation. There’s not enough evidence available in this regard.

Around the same period, the literature characterized by say, W.H. Auden and others began gaining worldwide popularity. It was essentially a literature of hopelessness, a negationism of life. Unfazed, DVG stuck to his roots: to the fact that the innate nature of Jiva (Life in the highest sense) is Joy or Ananda. Every work of DVG’s copious literary output underscores this quality.

His magnum opus, the versified long-poem, Mankutimmana Kagga is the distilled essence of his vision of the triad of philosophy-literature-public life. Although it appears didactic in nature, it is akin to a long monologue in verse narrated by a person to himself. Kagga is essentially a contemplative work and therefore, non-prescriptive. Coincidentally, Kagga was published in 1943, the same period during which DVG withdrew from active public life.

DVG uses images, allegories and metaphors drawn from daily life and draws from the vast bounty of rich repertoire of Indian proverbs, geographical elements and suchlike to expound difficult philosophical concepts. His commentary on the Bhagavad Gita, Jivanadharma Yoga (The Yoga of the Dharma of Life) is the most remarkable example of this method. Other examples include his commentary on the Ishavasya Upanishad and the Purushasukta.

A Pioneering Approach to Traditional Commentary

This is a groundbreaking approach when we consider the fact that almost none of the traditional commentaries written for over centuries on these texts employ the said metaphors. More importantly, DVG also takes care of maintaining the reverence for these past masters both in traditional circles and common parlance. For instance, he regards the Bhagavad Gita as a Dharma Sastra while tradition continues to consider it a Moksha (Spiritual Liberation) Sastra. While this is a departure from strict tradition, he not only reconciles ³ this departure with sound reasoning but shows how the two approaches are complementary and not opposed to each other.

The burden that we must carry in the present time is that of the travails of the material world. Earning a living to satisfy hunger, shelter, and clothing…loans and taxes, unremitting work…loss of traditions and customs…never ending worries have become our fate. Amidst such ceaseless disturbances, where then is the space and time for contemplating about things like Moksha? Given this, does the Bhagavad Gita help us? If it does, only then will it have some value.
[…]
The fact that it does have this value is evident from its own words. Although our ancient masters and commentators have laid emphasis on Moksha, they have equally stressed on the fact that the Upadesha (Teaching) of the Bhagavad Gita is useful and valuable to worldly life.
*Dharma is the most accurate guide to lead our lives in the world. Dharma and Moksha are inseparable from each other. Dharma is the prerequisite for attaining Moksha; and Moksha is the flowering, fruition, and fulfilment of Dharma. Therefore, what was regarded as the text of Moksha by our ancients has become the Dharmasastra in our own time. *

DVG also infuses aspects drawn from the social and political milieu in *Jivanadharma Yoga—*for instance, in the portion dealing with Arjuna’s moral dilemma and the inevitability of the war which was forcibly, unjustly thrust upon the Pandavas. Equally, DVG doesn’t lose sight of the poetic beauty of the Bhagavad Gita. This becomes evident when we read the verses he composed using a mixture of prose and poetry to extoll its greatness as also his liberal usage of analogy, humour, and mirth. If one needs to explain Sastra (philosophy, in the highest sense) effectively and engagingly, it needs to be direct, simple, and clear. Thus, when we regard DVG’s work in this sphere, it becomes clear that he was endowed with the clarity of contemplation required for philosophy and the compassion of heart required for poetry.

Tireless Exponent of Dharma

Dharma is the other major sphere of the Indian ethos to which DVG has bestowed lasting contributions which are truly original and exemplary. The term “Adhidharma” is his own coinage not found in our traditional works on philosophy.

In his typical self-effacing manner, DVG explains how he derived this term from the annals of the selfsame traditional lore. When the Upasarga, or prefix, “adhi” (besides, after, upon, above, over and above, etc) is added to “dharma,” we derive “adhidharma.” But when we consider the fact that Dharma is itself a relative term, we obtain greater clarity about DVG’s coinage. If Dharma becomes absolute, it will be akin to Moksha*.* In this light, the term, “adhidharma” indicates the absolute nature of Dharma itself as a value of sustenance. Therefore, various other Dharmas and their relative status to one another like Putra (Son) Dharma, Pitr (Ancestors) Dharma, and Apaddharma (Dharma during emergencies) can be seen in the light of Adhidharma. In fact, DVG himself provides an oblique explanation ⁴ for Adhidharma in his note on the renowned verse, Traigunya vishayA vedhAh (Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 2: 45):

The various Dharmas and Karmas enumerated in the Vedic and Sastra lore relate to fruits emanating therefrom. Those who desire for Heaven (Swarga), wealth, etc perform such Dharmas and Karmas. But you (O Arjuna) perform the same Dharmas without any desire for the fruits ensuing therefrom. That is when your actions become Adhidharma…you aspire to become someone who has transcended the Three Gunas [Sattva, Rajas and Tamas explained earlier in this essay]*. *

Nature and Features of DVG’s Body of Work

If one were to characterize DVG’s body of work from another perspective, the following features and themes emerge:

• AklisTa Karma: The attribute of doing all work (Karma)—big and small—without complaint or tears. - Satya and Soundarya: Or Truth and Beauty. Although his writings have a quality of all-encompassing abundance, they are also characterized with an innate beauty while explaining profound truths. DVG’s view was that unless a work is endowed with beauty, it won’t appeal to the proverbial common man. - Jivanotkarsha: Or exuberance of life. This attribute can be termed as the central theme of his work. DVG regarded life itself as a precious good, a value to be pursued and upheld for its own sake. It was the exuberance of the spirit, not of the matter.

These aspects illuminate themselves when we notice the kind of people that DVGregarded as ideals. He paid rich, lyrical, and generous tributes to heroes like Parashurama, Sri Rama, Sri Krishna, and Sri Vidyaranya who upheld Dharma. He celebrated Rishis and saints such as Valmiki, Veda Vyasa, Maharshi Kanwa and Thyagaraja. Nor were they outside the purview of his critical scrutiny as evidenced for example, by hisSri Rama Parikshanam, and Sri Krishna Parikshanam.

Sri Vidyaranya represents an ideal in which we discern a beautiful mix of intense enjoyment in the external world and profound contemplation within one’s own self. The contrast and paradox is truly sublime: when intense sensual enjoyment doesn’t lead to inner contemplation, it becomes mere exhibitionism, and when contemplation becomes exhibitionism, it results in unadulterated hypocrisy.

His Antahpura Geethagalu (Song of the Harem), and Jivana Soundarya Mattu Sahitya (Beauty of Life and Literature) among others, fleshes out very useful insights derived from a heartfelt exploration of truth and beauty in its various manifestations and dimensions. One key insight derived from his explorations is the fact that truth must attain the manifestation of beauty and beauty must graduate to truth.

Even his political and journalistic corpus reflect this same all-inclusive philosophical outlook. At every turn, we see DVG advocating individual or self-empowerment in the sense that as a democracy, we must first be deserving of governing ourselves. And at every turn, he emphasizes duties over rights because every person is endowed with rights bestowed upon us by nature. However, duties must evolve within ourselves with conscious effort, as part of culture. Therefore, culture in tune with nature (in the sense of Rta) must constantly monitor all aspects of a person’s life. It is this wholesome view that made DVG fully realize the status of Indians as subjects of the British imperial power. It is also the reason he never endorsed Gandhianism fully. His opinion piecein the aftermath of Gandhi’s reckless statements following the Vidurashwatha police firing ⁵ is a good example of DVG’s worldview in the realm of politics and public life.

In today’s parlance, the moniker of “cultural conservative” would be applied to DVG. However that maybe, the fact is that DVG didn’t want anarchy to develop in any system: all change had to be gradual and deliberated upon. He was strictly against change for its own sake or because it had to meet a temporary demand or fad. DVG was opposed to any change that would cause needless turmoil and turbulence among the masses. Needless, this is perfectly consonant with the timeless Indian spirit of admonishing violent revolution as an agent of change.

Advocate of Dharma in Politics

Few have contributed as much as DVG to educating the Indian people about a new political system called democracy at a time when it was wholly alien to India. Equally, few have shown how this new system must be adapted to a nearly-unbroken and centuries’-long tradition of Indian polity as brilliantly as DVG. Like many other eminent statesmen and political thinkers of his time, DVG repeatedly warned against the disasters of blindly following the Western (mainly, British) system of democracy. The contemporary period is the living illustration of this warning which went unheeded.

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Image courtesy:- Google Image search

Indeed, DVG’s entire corpus of political writing was inextricably rooted in classical Indian thought. His classic, Rajyanga Tattvagalu (Principles of Statecraft) begins with the invocation from the Taittirya Brahmana of the Yajur Veda (the portion dealing with the Ashwamedha Yaga), which he fittingly titles as the “National Anthem of the Rishis.” It is this same spirit of the Rishis that moved DVG to pen Swatantra Bharata Abhinandana Stava (A Hymn Celebrating Independent Bharata) an extraordinary paneygric in verse on the night that Bharata finally attained freedom.

It is therefore unsurprising that DVG elevates political philosophy, statecraft, statesmanship, and public life in general to the standard of a Darshana (loosely translated as philosophy) in the finest traditions of Sri Krishna, Kautilya, and Sri Vidyaranya, which holds Dharma as both the pulse and the spirit that guides politics and public life: in institutions as well as people. The scholar and literary critic, H M Nayak offers a valuable observation ⁶ in this regard:

Dharma is greater than the state. In reality, the state is just one part of Dharma. From this perspective, Rajya Sastra [Political Philosophy] and Dharma Sastra aren’t different or separate from one another. Those who wish to separate Dharma from Politics know neither politics nor Dharma. It is impossible for politics to exist without Dharma. But a lot of confusion has ensued because people are unaware of how the two need to be integrated…DVG had no such confusion…those who read DVG’s writings will clearly understand the substance of Dharma and will also discern how [Dharma] can be used to distill and purify politics. [Emphasis added]

To the contemporary mind, such conceptions and notions may appear fantastic and idealistic, even. However, unless we have this ideal at least in our working consciousness, we will have no goal that has any value beyond, for example, increasing the material prosperity of the nation. In DVG’s own words, this goal in politics like in life was “dhanyateya betakaata,” or the quest after fulfilment.

Personality, Character and Life

This quest reflected itself in myriad ways in DVG’s personality itself. A significant repository of anecdotes and writing regarding various facets of his life has been left behind by DVG’s contemporaries and a large swathe of disciples that he attracted. Among others, this list of DVG’s contemporaries includes such stalwarts as Masti Venkatesha Iyengar, V Sitaramaiah, Shivarama Karanth, A R Krishna Sastri,andT S Venkannayya. His prominent disciples include luminaries likeD R Venkataramanan, Padmanabhan, and Dr. S R Ramaswamy, who is the only surviving link to DVG.

In his Virakta Rashtraka (The Renunciate Nationalist), D R Venkataramanan brilliantly recounts ⁷ how DVG “bestowed upon me an accurate and comprehensive vision of the philosophy of life.” This also finds an echo in Dr. S R Ramaswamy’s note ⁸ that DVG’s contact by itself would “inculcate Samskara, or culture and refinement.” In turn, this faculty for infusing culture and values in others stemmed from DVG’s innermost convictions developed very early in his life. D R Venkataramanan traces the seeds of these convictions by quoting DVG’s own ⁹ words:

Since childhood, whenever I used to spot Jogis, Dasayyas, Bairagis, Sanyasins, Fakirs, I would think, “when can even I wander around like them with nary a worry?” – like caged monkeys think. What attracted me most in that unfettered mendicant lifestyle was their absolute freedom from worries. Not for a second did they worry about “will I get food tonight?”, “where will I be in the morning?” An abiding and total faith and conviction in some ideal. And because that conviction was strong, absolute courage, and unchained mind set. It was this enthusiasm for the non-worldly that revolved within my inner self.

D R Venkataramanan then narrates ¹⁰ how on various occasions, he and several others had seen DVG singing devotional songs, Kritis, etc with an Iktara (one-stringed musical instrument) as an accompaniment, and how he always kept a Rudraksha garland, and a Saligramam deity under his pillow.

But DVG didn’t follow the path of the Sanyasins and the Bairagis and the Yogis. On the contrary, he became so deeply inseparable with the world that he knew at least one person drawn from every conceivable walk of life: Sanyasins, heads of Mathas, politicians, Diwans, freedom fighters, judges, lawyers, mediapersons, writers, musicians, dancers, potters, cart-pullers, vegetable and fruit vendors, barbers, courtesans…he had the names of their family members and even far relatives on the tip of his tongue. On occasion, he would converse for hours with any one of them: on topics as mundane as the weather, crop, the person’s health, news from their native villages, various happenings in the circles of their family and relatives, etc.

If this wasn’t enough, he used to reply to every single letter he received from different corners of the country. He always offered a kind word, sage counsel, and consolation for everybody who wrote to him. None returned empty-handed. It was this sort of prolific letter-writing that lead his close friend, K. Sampathgiri Rao ¹¹ to remark that

*Gokhale, Sivaswami Aiyar, Srinivasa Sastri, Gundappa—these Liberals have contributed more towards the enrichment of the Postal Exchequer than anyone else. These are all literally men of letters. *

This is Loka Sangraha of the tallest and noblest order, and the purest form of lived Karma Yoga. Writes D R Venkataramanan ¹², “God did not grant the mendicant’s life that DVG so craved. This became the country’s great fortune.”

Giraffe Eats Only the Topmost Foliage

Dr. S R Ramaswamy briefly, pithily lists the chief qualities that contributed to and characterized DVG as a person:

• Simple living - Unceasing, penance-like pursuit of letters - Lively conduct - Friendship - Love of the arts such as music and poetry - Reverence for scholarship - Mirth and laughter - Non-jealousy - Unselfishness - Nationalistic thought

It was these qualities ¹³ that made “his character far loftier than all his published writings. To those who had earned the fortune of being with him in close quarters, he was an inexhaustible mine of wonder and surprise.” And in the words ¹⁴ of his contemporary V Sitaramaiah, “DVG was a giraffe. It eats nothing but the topmost foliage.”

Among numerous others, one specific instance brilliantly illuminates DVG’s character, attitude, and outlook towards life. DVG was a Member of the Mysore Legislative Council as long as Mirza Ismail was the Diwan (1926-41). After he retired, DVG decided to withdraw from public life completely and focus on reading and writing. But his close friends like K T Bashyamexerted enormous pressure to reconsider and said that they would arrange for the necessary funding, campaigning, and allied activities. DVG requested for a day’s time to think about it. Dr. S R Ramaswamy narrates ¹⁵ what happened next:

Contemplating on what was to be his next duty, DVG was strolling around in Cubbon Park in the afternoon. From a loudspeaker from afar (perhaps from some wedding function), his ears heard the strains of this Thyagaraja Kriti:
Oka mATa oka bANa
oka patnIvratuDE।
oka cittamu galavADE
oka nADunu maravakave।
[O My Mind] SrI rAma is wedded to one Word, one arrow and one wife. He is endowed with an unwavering mind.
*DVG’s earlier resolve became unalterable the moment he heard these words from Thyagaraja. He withdrew from public life. *

Nor did he harbor or ascribe any greatness to his work or least of all, to himself. He lived and worked like an epitome of one of his favourite ideals encompassed in his poem, Vanasuma (Forest Flower). In a letter ¹⁶ to Sri Narasimha Murthy (who he regarded as his Atma Guru), DVG writes:

You ask whether I am conscious of any mission. What a question to ask!…I have always viewed life as a supreme ‘Leela’—sport if you please…how could I fall into the error of making a missionary of myself? It is only people wanting in modesty that conceive great ideas of themselves and their so called mission here. So you need have no fear whatever of my ever turning into that most insufferable of all bores, a man with a mission. [Emphasis added]

Indeed, DVG was first of all, a Rasika, a connoisseur of food, fun, frolic, music, poetry, literature, and people. His numerous study circles attracted truckloads of people who would hang on to and savour his every word. His Sunday discourses on the Bhagavad Gita went on unremittingly for a record twenty-five years come sunshine or rain, whether he was in good health or had fallen ill. The agglomeration of these discourses emerged in book form as Srimad Bhagavad Gita Tatparya or Jivanadharma Yogareferred earlier in this essay.

A Modest Attempt to Recount DVG’s Legacy and Life

It is in light of this introductory backdrop that this modest attempt at bringing out DVG’s multifaceted legacy will involve an in-depth examination of the following:

• Philosophies, ideas and ideals that shaped his political views both in theory and practice. - Role as a freedom fighter, a chronicler, participant and eyewitness of the freedom struggle. - Insights as an observer and dispassionate critic of post-Independence politics of India. - Contribution as a political, social and cultural biographer. - Distinction as an advocate and practitioner of clean public life and as a statesman of global standing, and as a detached nationalist-philosopher who transcended all political and other currents.

Note*: I owe an immense debt of gratitude to the indefatigable Shatavadhani Dr. R Ganesh who has patiently guided me, held my hand, and corrected my numerous errors and filled various shortcomings while preparing this essay. My gratitude also extends to the young and brilliant scholar, Shashi Kiran B N. And to the quiet and unassuming Rishi of our times Sri S. R. Ramaswamy, who chose to remain, in the finest tradition of DVG like a Vanasuma.*

To be Continued

References

[[The Political Philosophy of D V Gundappa: National Anthem of the Rishis Source: prekshaa]]

One of the Kannada literary giants of the twentieth century, K V Puttappa (Kuvempu) once classified ¹⁷ literature as Sakaala (timely) and Trikala (timeless) literature. Given the innate nature of the medium, journalistic (news reports, opinion pieces, editorials, magazine essays) literature belongs to the former category. Yet, in the hands of masters, even this category of literature takes on a quality of timelessness. Instead of being buried under the proverbial sands of time, it becomes akin to fine and rare pearls which an intrepid diver unearths from the bottom of the ocean. DVG is one such master. In his characteristic self-effacing style, he supplies the contours ¹⁸ of how one might imbue this character of timelessness even in mundane, journalistic writing.

*Being a news reporter was how I earned my livelihood. The material that falls into the hands of such a person will be relevant only for that specific point in time. But even when such transient questions arise for contemplation, they pull on to the stage changeless principles. It is only in the realm of such practical application that the substance and meaning of such principles become clear to our mind. Because of this, a newspaper article that’s relevant for say, a day or a week acquires a lasting value. A timeless tenet has an illustration in such writing. *

Accidental Journalist

Journalism was not a profession DVG consciously chose. He stood outside the doors of the press of Suryodaya Prakashika (Literally, “Rising Sun Publishing”) as a young and impoverished lad who had to eke out a livelihood. That was to be the harbinger of a six decade-long and distinguished and unparalleled career in journalism, to severely understate it. DVG’s career and contributions as a journalist will form a separate section later in this volume.

But journalism was merely a moor. In many ways, it opened up panoramic vistas and brought him into contact with almost every sphere of human activity in which he was participant, observer and commentator rolled into one. Politics and public life was one of the most significant among them. Indeed, when one surveys his entire literary corpus, it is hard to separate his journalistic writing from that of his political literature. There is a quality of Advaita (indivisibility) in the two, emanating from his deep anchors in classical Indian thought as we shall see.

The National Anthem of the Rishis

Perhaps a fitting place to locate the inspiration for and the driving force that animated DVG’s political and journalistic writing is the Ashwamedha Yaga portion of the Taittiriya Brahmana of the Yajur Veda. DVG terms this portion as the “national anthem of the Rishis” in the prelude to his classic, Rajyanga Tattvagalu (Principles of Statecraft).

This Vedic conception of Rashtra (loosely translated as “nation” or “country”) as something that by itself is an ongoing Ashwamedha Yaga (or Yagna) ¹⁹ is quite profound and evokes a textured tapestry of dynamism, energy, activity, and purpose. This is captured in the concluding verse that avers:

Let us be bestowed with auspiciousness, safety, security, and abundance. Through this Yagna, may the citizens be blessed with unity and peace.

In this manner, there is an indivisible relationship between Rashtra and Ashwamedha Yaga.

The significance of this national anthem can also be summarized as follows:

• It is only when a Brahmana is endowed with Brahmavarcas[4] does he attain fulfilment. In other words, a Brahmana must reflect eternal values in spirit, thought, word, deed, and conduct than by the mere accident of birth. - A king or ruler should exude strength and exhibit power by the sheer force of personality ²⁰ and must not rely on his position or office to derive power. The latter invariably leads to exploitation of office and abuse of power. - Experience in war gives a ruler the power of resolute decision-making and endows him with patriotism and instills a sense of value of a unified nation. - An ideal nation will invest in training and grooming its youth to become deserving of actively and fearlessly participating in public assemblies. If this national capacity is not developed, stagnation and consequent degeneration of public life will ensue. - Women are the ones who protect a Pura[6] or a city or town. The underlying import of this is that when a girl becomes a woman, Samskara (culture or refinement) prevails. Put another way, when a male and a female graduate functionally, they become man and woman, and the intermediate process is known as Samskara. When this is transferred to succeeding generations, the entire nation becomes strong, prosperous and attains a high degree of culture. The pre-Islamic history of India shows an India that largely upheld and lived according to these values.

This then is at the heart of DVG’s conception of an ideal, strong, happy and prosperous Indian state. His long poem titled Swatantra Bharata Stava (Hymn to an Independent Bharata) composed on the midnight of 14 August, 1947 invokes Bharata Mata (Mother India) not to give birth to sons and daughters who are not courageous, who are not warriors. The invocation directly harks back to the aforementioned national anthem of the Rishis:

Let a youthful warrior be born who drives his chariot and returns victoriously from battle. ॥7॥

May he who performs this [Ashwamedha] Yajna be a warrior; may he beget a warrior-son. ॥9॥

In other words, DVG’s conception of a strong India was an admixture of Yoga and Kshema; Yoga in the sense of having an opportunity to obtain something and Kshema in the sense of retaining and sustaining it safely.

Footnotes

[[The Political Philosophy of D V Gundappa: Strengthening the Inner Government Source: prekshaa]]

DVG’s conception of a strong and prosperous Bharata was a mixture of Yoga and Kshema; Yoga in the sense of having an opportunity to obtain something and Kshema in the sense of retaining and sustaining it safely.

Blend and Balance

These ideals operate at the level of the Samashti (the nation and society) and act as guideposts for organizing and governing a nation and society. No matter however noble and lofty these ideals may be, they’re mere “paper flowers” (to use DVG’s expression ²¹) unless they are tested in the real world. Which is why, in consonance with the ancient Indian ethos, DVG also constantly emphasizes on the role, importance and duties of the Vyashti (the individual, the citizen). Not just that, he also shows the blend and balance that must exist between the mutually-dependent entities of Vyashti and Samashti. One can distill the chief characteristics of DVG’s eloquence on this subject in the form of the following phrases:

• Dharma - Rashtraka Praja or Nationalist Citizen - Rashtra Sharira or the National Body - Rashtraka Tattva or the Philosophy of a Nationalist - Rashtraka Prajna or the Nationalist Consciousness - Atma Guna or Soul Quality - Swabhava Parishodhana or Constant inquiry and purification of the nature of things (and of the individual)

In keeping with these, DVG was one of the pioneering advocates of what’s known as “clean politics” decades before the phrase became popular. But this cleanliness was not limited just to method and execution; he showed how it is possible to clothe politics and public life with Atma Guna.

Notions of Freedom

One of the most illuminative treatises that demonstrates this is DVG’s learned expositions on freedom. He unequivocally gives primacy to the role and responsibility of the individual in the practice of freedom. Accordingly, freedom is deserving of a people endowed with self-restraint, self-introspection, continuous refinement of character, and questioning whether an individual is deserving of something before demanding it. Decades later, the eminent Indian jurist Nani Palkhivala obliquely echoed ²² the same tenets when he stressed on “obedience to the unenforceable.”

In keeping with the ancient Indian spirit of all-inclusiveness, here is how DVG conceives[3] the notion of freedom.

Freedom as a principle is an indivisible whole. One cannot break it down into pieces [and still claim that one is free]…freedom is the opportunity for every individual to make decisions about any aspect of his life without restraints imposed by others by using his independent judgement and wisdom.

Contrary to the notion of unlimited and unfettered freedom that Ayn Rand-inspired libertarians espouse today, DVG is firmly wedded to the reality of intrinsic human impulses and has a keen understanding of the realities and lessons of history.

Rousseau_2.png

Rousseau

Accordingly, DVG assigns the proper place to the notion of freedom, which he says, is of recent origin. In the era ²³ of kingdoms, “the notion of ‘ruler’ was greater than that of the ‘citizen.’” Just as wild animals were domesticated over centuries, just as conveniences like railways, bicycle, motor vehicles, and technology evolved over centuries, so did political systems evolve by trial and error and experimentation. Therefore, the political systems that were once largely the preserve of the warrior class evolved into a system of kings, ministers, councils and judges. In other words, ²⁴ over time, “these systems became citizen-oriented. The notion of individual freedom therefore belongs to a political system that is citizen-oriented.”

Viewed from this historical perspective, the question that logically arises is this: individual freedom to do what? The idea of individual freedom that first arose in the West, after passing through various trajectories, can be summed up as follows:

• Freedom to dress, eat, drink, think, write, and speak even what is considered unpopular and sacrilegious because the moment freedom is subject to any restriction, it stops being freedom. This is also known as free speech absolutism. - Non-censorship of any form: on books, public speeches, art, music, cinema, etc. - Primacy of the rule of law. That is, all freedoms are guaranteed as long as they don’t violate the freedom of another individual or don’t militate against the law of the land.

All of these ideas have been implemented and are operating in varying degrees in the USA and most countries of Western Europe. However, whether the actual outcome and consequence of this has been positive and desirable is still a matter of debate. More than twenty years ago, modern Singapore’s founding father and its longest-serving Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew made ²⁵ the following observation:

Good governance…requires…upholding fundamental truths: that there is right and wrong, good and evil…The ideas of individual supremacy and the right of free expression, when carried to excess, have not worked. They have made it difficult to keep America society cohesive. Asia can see it is not working.. In America itself, there is widespread crime and violence, old people feel forgotten, families are falling apart. And the media attacks the integrity and character of your leaders with impunity, drags down all those in authority and blames everyone but itself.

Arguably, this state of affairs is the direct consequence of not fully thinking about the goal sought to be achieved after individual freedom has been fully realized. Besides, the Western conception of individual freedom primarily arose as a reaction to centuries’ long oppression of the majority of their population by the Church apparatus and a political system controlled by a complex and interconnected web of a nexus between the Church, the State and robber barons.

In this backdrop, DVG accurately analyzes the origins of individual freedom by providing a pithy critique ²⁶ of Jean Jacques Rousseau.

*The teacher of today’s world is Rousseau, the political philosopher who sowed the seeds of the French Revolution. He preached that freedom is the birthright of every person. Both Government and law are artificial constructs. A person must safeguard his natural rights within their confines…Although the underlying principles of his teaching aren’t erroneous by themselves, he placed a greater emphasis on rights. In their fight for rights, people paid less attention to duties. It is this neglect of duty that is the root cause for the worldwide turmoil today. *

To provide yet another illustration of DVG’s foresight and prescience of fundamental analyses, one can cite the example of the thinker and author Paul Johnson writing ²⁷ about Rousseau more than fifty years later. Unlike DVG’s restrained but firm language, Johnson is brutal, merciless, and accurate.

*[Rousseau] moved the political process to the very center of human existence by making the legislator, who is also a pedagogue, into the new Messiah, capable of solving all human problems by creating New Men. ‘Everything,’ he wrote, ‘is at root dependent on politics.’ Virtue is the product of good government. ‘Vices belong less to man, than to man badly governed.’…Politics will do all. **Rousseau thus prepared the blueprint for the principal delusions and follies of the twentieth century. ***

In spite of his constant emphasis on idealism, DVG was neither blind to harsh realities nor was he unsparing in his criticism of one-sided hortatory. At every step, he stressed on the “duty of pre-examination” before embarking ²⁸ on “adopting the child of feelings” emanating from the West. Thus, as early as in 1952, DVG cautioned that the feelings of equality, liberty and fraternity that had already become widespread in India weren’t working properly in the geography of their origin. This critique will be taken up for a more detailed examination later in this volume. He diagnosed ²⁹ that the

*…chief defect in these conceptions is that they cut off the human touch from human interactions. The relationship between humans, instead of becoming one between hearts, is becoming a lifeless, mechanical task. No matter what prosperity accrues to the physical body by these new notions, they are proving proportionately detrimental to the richness of the soul. *

The goal and objective of freedom according to DVG is the flowering and fulfilment of the soul at the individual level, and the sustenance and defense of Dharma at the level of the society and the state. No matter how noble the intent, the state must not place hurdles in the flowering of the citizen’s spirituality. This mutually-dependent and indivisible relationship is a serious responsibility as also a joy arising from purifying one’s Atma Shakti or inner strength.

At the individual level, the pursuit of freedom must follow this dictum of the Bhagavad Gita

uddharedAtmanAtmAnam ॥
Let a person raise himself by his own efforts.

DVG’s exposition is also a reflection of the Bhagavad Gita’s emphasis on the supremacy of Svadharma (one’s own duty) and the true freedom ³⁰ ensuing from the cultivation of one’s “Inner Government over that of the Outer Government.” Stronger the Inner Government, lesser one’s need for external regulation.

Footnotes

“Unless there is beauty and dynamism in administration, all legislative books are mere paper-flowers.”

[[D V Gundappa’s Critique of Western Notions of Political Philosophy Source: prekshaa]]

At the individual level, the Bhagavad Gita’s dictum of uddharedAtmanAtmAnam (Let a person raise and purify himself by his own efforts) and its emphasis on Svadharma also means that one must rule oneself, which in turn means that the onus is upon the individual to constantly rectify himself. Hidden within these tenets is a call to discard one’s ego at every step. The opaque wall of ego blocks the sunlight of self-reflection required for the said rectification.

Translated in the realm of public life, politics, and state policy, this contemplative attitude forms and informs the character of a nation.

The case of Germany, Italy, and Japan (the so-called Axis Powers) in the World War II era stand as timeless warnings if such a contemplative national attitude is not developed. The national character of all these countries during that period was premised on and informed precisely by an extreme egotism, even egomania, that allowed no room for self-reflection. In the present time, the United States offers a milder version of the same ego, which propels it to “liberate” countries by launching unprovoked aggressions and forcibly impose its version of democracy on these “target nations” whether it suits those nations or no.

Analyzed in this backdrop, we might need to revise the definitions and notions of freedom, liberty, independence and democracy. This revision becomes more significant today given the fact that most Western democracies are founded precisely on these notions, which have acquired the status of self-evident, universal truths to be pursued uncritically by and in every country. Indeed, there is a case to made in India for a thorough re-examination of these ideas in light of the increasingly dangerous trajectory they have taken precisely in the same Western nations, which have failed to supply convincing answers to urgent challenges posed by globalization, rampant environmental destruction, and Islamic terrorism among scourges. What is left unsaid and untested are the unpredictable, disastrous consequences that ensue when these notions are implemented as state policy. It is also for these and other reasons that the methods of inquiry adopted by DVG, Dr. S Srikanta Sastri, and P V Kane become even more relevant.

In India, this untested implementation of these Western theories and practical systems of governance resulted in a near-obliteration of the time-tested system of the Panchayat, which largely remained untouched even by the most oppressive Islamic tyranny. In other words, the form of democracy that India adopted after 1947 centralized political power in New Delhi to such an extent that even state governments were reduced to the status of supplicants. It is indeed tragic to read the rather depressing account of the deliberations over the Panchayat Raj in the Constituent Assembly recounted in Dharampal’s “Panchayat Raj And India’s Polity.” Some excerpts follow:

• I want to ask whether there is any mention of villages and any place for them in the structure of this great Constitution. No, nowhere. The Constitution of a free country should be based on ‘local self-government’. We see nothing of local self-government anywhere in this Constitution. This Constitution as a whole, instead of being evolved from our life and reared from the bottom upwards is being imported from outside and built from above downwards. A Constitution which is not based on units and in the making of which they have no voice, in which there is not even a mention of thousands and lakhs of villages of India and in framing which they have had no hand—well you can give such a Constitution to the country but I very much doubt whether you would be able to keep it for long. [1] - We cannot have a strong Centre without strong limbs. If we can build the whole structure on the village panchayats, on the willing cooperation of the people, then I feel the Centre would automatically become strong.[2] - Dr Ambedkar boldly admitted, and the members of the Drafting Committee do concede that in this Constitution there is no provision for establishing Panchayat Raj…When there is no such provision, it can never be the Constitution of India… If the village is to be discarded, someone can also boldly demand that this Constitution be discarded. [3]

In this case, the unpredictable and disastrous consequence continues to remain the following: at no other time in the millennia-old history of India—even under the vast and sweeping monarchies of the Mauryas, the Guptas and the Vijayangara Empire—was political power concentrated in the hands of so few a people in a single city, i.e. Delhi. Such a concentration of power is not only alien to the Sanatana spirit, it violates this spirit. Indeed, this centralization and concentration of power is the chief reason for the growth of regional and caste-based parties in just about thirty years after we attained freedom. It is a testimony to DVG’s foresight when he anticipated and warned ³¹ against the seeding and growth of regionalism as early as 1952.

…an elected representative, no matter how self-reliant he is, no matter how wise…or courageous…if his honest vision of securing people’s welfare is restricted to only a specific region, group or sect instead of encompassing the entire nation, the nation does not derive the full benefit of his vision…he must be imbued with the same compassion and feeling for every single person in the country as he has for the people of his own region or community…In the soil called the country, every citizen is an equal nationalist.

It need not be explicitly stated that DVG’s warning went unheeded. Quite obviously, the logical consequences of ignoring it emerged soon enough. The Justice Party movement in Tamil Nadu which began as an uprising for getting “social justice” for the downtrodden and the “lower castes,” quickly morphed into crude regionalism, which succeeded in capturing political power after Independence. This in turn raises fundamental questions about the manner in which we defined “independence,” as we shall see later. Equally, the aforementioned absolute concentration of all power in Delhi ensued in the same consequence: beginning in the late 1970s, the political system of India has devolved itself into a coarse hunger whose only satiation is the capture of power by any means: fair or foul but mostly foul as history shows us. Today, our political system resembles a veritable alphabet soup of regional political parties who openly boast that they are “fighting against the ‘Delhi Government’ to protect the interests of our people” as though Delhi is an alien, foreign Government. As ironic and tragic as it might sound, DVG’s foresight has rung true in a lived, nightmarish fashion to the peril of the unity and integrity of the Indian Sovereign State.

Notes

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[[Backdrop of DVG’s Political Philosophy Source: prekshaa]]

But at the doctrinal level, this consequence is the direct outcome of imposing the selfsame untested theory of freedom, democracy, liberty and related ideas fashioned in the West on an entire people who had fashioned their lives for more than three millennia based on a thoroughly different political, cultural and social inheritance. In other words, an all-encompassing and far-reaching change was thrust upon the entire population of the seventh largest country in the world without their consent. Bharatavarsha continues to pay the human cost of this change. This Britain-inspired Constitution was castigated [^5.1] among others, by Thomas Paine—one of the founding fathers of the United States—in such acidic language as the “base remains of two ancient tyrannies.” Therefore, when the Constituent Assembly members averred [^5.2] that this “Constitution as a whole, instead of being evolved from our life and reared from the bottom upwards is being imported from outside and built from above downwards,” this was what they meant.

Doubtless, those who fashioned such an imported Constitution had the best interests of the Indian people in mind but the end result was and remains a classic case of the road to hell being paved with good intentions.

And when we turn to DVG, we are astonished at how the deep profundity and pragmatism of his political philosophy was woefully ignored. This is truly tragic given that in DVG we find perhaps the optimum—if not ideal—blend of a political philosophy rooted in the native genius of a political order informed by and infused with spirituality and the mixing it with Western notions of individual freedom and democracy.

In his view, the theoretical and intellectual portion of politics was an examination and analysis of practical, everyday realities of national life lived through its people when he correctly, bluntly declares [^5.3] that a “democracy is not a rule of saints and monks.” And further, that fundamental issues of politics must be pursued in the same spirit of philosophical inquiry [^5.4] by “discarding personal attachments and prejudices.” The greater this sense of detachment, the sturdier will be our democracy. Adopting this method of inquiry also implies that there is no exclusive or only path [^5.5] to attain the desired objective. In a way, this has a parallel in the Sanatana approach to attaining philosophical goals: through Jnana (inquiry), Dhyana (meditation), Japa (chanting), Tapas (penance), and other paths and methods.

*In many cases, there is every possibility to attain a stated objective using [multiple] methods…Ultimately, it depends on the individual decision-maker’s erudition and wisdom to select the best course. *

As noted in the earlier chapters, DVG never tires of emphasizing on the role, responsibility and accountability of the individual in public life because [^5.6] “the subject-matter of politics is human nature.” And nowhere is the failure of the best laid plans more evident than in politics and public life: “in politics, the person who operates using mathematical formulae inhabits a world of illusions.” [^5.7] This prophetic vision of DVG is timeless; in a sense it is akin to the proclamation of a Rishi when we observe the fact that in our own time, the overweening mantras of “data-driven” and “technology-driven” politics continue to cause havoc. Together, these phenomena have manipulated public opinion, diverted people’s attention away from real issues and adversely impacted elections, to list a few undesirable outcomes.

In our own time, and with the obvious benefit of hindsight, the following valid case can be made as far as India is concerned: the farther we travel down the path of western notions of democracy, the more Christianized will our outlook become. One can regard this from a different perspective: beginning with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the destruction of the USSR, almost every single country to which the United States sought to “bring democracy” to has invariably been an Islamic theocracy. In turn, these countries have been the fiercest opponents of US-style democracy for a far more fundamental reason than their hatred of the US lifestyle and society. The cultural and civilizational inheritance of these Islamic nations instinctively detects the underlying Protestant-Christian nature of the United States and also recognizes the fact that America uses evangelism as one of the effective organs of its state and diplomatic policy. The clampdown and violence against Christian missionaries, destruction of Churches, etc that had occurred and continues to occur regularly in say Libya, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, and even Turkey is a reflection of this fact.

Unfortunately, during the same timeframe, the record of Bharatavarsha in this regard has been really poor, to say the least. The Christianization of the urban Indian milieu and its vocabulary has been near-comprehensive. And in the present time, this is perhaps the most urgent reason to revisit and popularize DVG’s well-informed, reasoned and even stinging critique of the aforementioned Western notions and theories. These critiques shine illuminating light on and provide invaluable intellectual and philosophical fodder for anyone who is intent on rejuvenating the Bharatiya ethos in the realm of public life (broadly speaking). As DVG himself notes [^5.8] elsewhere:

It was but natural for the Christian Padres who came to our country from alien lands to convert our people to their religion. And so they derided and mocked our dharma as the handiwork of the “Priestcraft” and our traditions as “superstition.” Imitating them, some of the highly educated folks among our own people regarded our traditional Vedic scholars with disdain and contempt. But there is indeed another perspective… no matter how far India progresses in the achievement of….material wealth, there will always be numerous other countries as competition. Indeed, I feel that our desire…to be equal to England, Germany, America, and Russia in material acquisitions…is itself an adventure. It’s our duty to attempt such things so let’s do it. But hoping that India alone will get the top spot is an argument of the extreme sort.

But the one field which doesn’t present any such competition is culture: specifically, the spiritual culture of India. This spiritual culture is the best and the finest of India’s wealth. If we don’t account for or neglect this spiritual culture, there’s no other area which India can take pride in. Forget pride, there is indeed no area where India can become useful to the world.

It will be most beneficial, useful and rewarding when we examine and study DVG’s political philosophy and critiques in this backdrop. Two other major factors are inseparable in this study: the Indian freedom struggle to which DVG arguably contributed in a more profound sense than most of the well-known leaders of his time, and his exposition of Dharma in the realm of public life.

Notes:

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• Thomas Paine: Common Sense: Of the Origin and Design of Government in General, with Concise Remarks on the English Constitution

• D V Gundappa: Rajyashastra, Rajyanga—DVG Kruti Shreni: Volume 5 (Govt of Karnataka, 2013) Pp 150.

• Ibid Pp 176.

• Ibid Pg 177. - Ibid

• Ibid

• D V Gundappa: Jnapaka Chitrashale: Vaidikadharma Sampradaayastharu: DVG Kruti Shreni: Volume 8: Nenapina Chitragalu – 2: (Govt of Karnataka, 2013). Upasamhara. Emphasis added.

[[DVG and the Freedom Struggle Source: prekshaa]]

Writing just four years after India attained independence, DVG characterizes [^6.1] our freedom from British rule as a “fruit” endowed with a “sour taste.” But more bluntly,

…what exactly is this fruit? Freedom is not a mango or a banana. It is a coconut. We need to have the skill to remove its fibre-covering, the strength to break its shell, and the patience to chew the copra [within]. Else, we will never be able to savour its full taste. This is the nature of democracy. If we wish to realise its utility and usefulness, we need to prepare ourselves for hard work. But in the unique circumstance of our country, we were forced to bear the burden of freedom before we could equip ourselves to undertake such an endeavor.

This is political writing imbued with literary flair, supplying vivid imagery embodied with vigour. As we have noted in the first chapter, DVG correctly diagnosed that the run up to our independence mainly consisted of a frenzied clamour to obtain “freedom at any cost,” and not a calm and dispassionate assessment of what we would do after obtaining it. The war-torn British were only happy to leave India in haste. This is how our freedom became a burden. As a result, after the British left, we lacked sufficient numbers of elected representatives and national leaders who were capable, competent, and deserving of the high office they occupied. But instead of questioning [^6.2] this deficiency, “we uncritically embraced electoral democracy.” This in turn led to the emergence of an attitude and the rise of a political class peopled by leaders who believed in the following [^6.3] dictum:

ghaTaM bhindyAt paTaM ChindyAt
kuryAt vA gArdhabhaswaram ।
yena kena prakareNa
prasiddhaH puruSho bhavet ॥
*Breaking a pot, tearing a cloth, or braying like a donkey–Doing something by hook or crook, become famous by any means. *

Or to borrow DVG’s phraseology, ever since, the Indian political system fell in the hands of the unskilled whose strength repeatedly crumbled in face of mob fury giving way to impatient and therefore imprudent moves, and not decisions because according to DVG, “it is no Government that does not take decisions.” And further [^6.4], that

The strength to govern effectively is a great strength in itself. It requires experience and practice to percolate in the administrative staff. The opportunity for both will be available only when a nation becomes truly independent. A people who are merely clerks cannot develop grand, noble, and lofty ideas and a sturdy work ethic.

This is perhaps the most accurate indictment of the state and character of our IAS system and bureaucracy since Independence. As an antidote, DVG advocates [^6.5] cultivating an awareness and attitude and a sense of responsibility that always accompanies freedom until such time that this “sense of responsibility becomes akin to a national educational curriculum.”

In no particular order, one can examine the fundamental nature and some characteristic features of this curriculum.

Keeping in tune with the best traditions and systems of Sanatana Bharata and various other ancient, classical civilisations, DVG correctly analysed and repurposed them in the backdrop of what can be called as the basic human impulses and had an integrative view of human nature. This is consonant with the Indian ethos of Prakrutyanurodhena Samskrutihi (culture follows in the footsteps of nature). One can extend this to say that Samskrutyanurodhena rajanithi (statecraft or politics follows in the footsteps of culture). More fundamentally, this involves a careful contemplation of the interplay of the forces of Raga and Dwesha, which in turn are the byproducts of Artha and Kama. These impulses are embedded in the aforementioned human nature and create differences and hierarchies in any society. One cannot wish this practical truth away. Nor can one forcibly attempt to equalize these hierarchies. As DVG writes [^6.6] in a related context,

The inner kernel of Dharma is the expansion of the Atman [soul], which begins with a deep, noble feeling and culminates in a sense of kinship with the universe…in this journey, one encounters frequent obstacles and doubts as to which path is Dharmic and which is Adharmic. There exists no body of knowledge or philosophical system that can make [or has made] a list of these obstacles and doubts and also the solutions to resolve them. The genius who can prepare such a list is yet to be born.

This is also perhaps the best counter to and criticism of prophetic creeds and utopian theories which as history shows us, has repeatedly resulted in disastrous consequences and suffering on a large scale.

The insights of the sort DVG possessed emanated precisely from this deep understanding of philosophy, or more accurately, his realization of Darshana. In other words, when we grasp the nature of the world characterized by form and content (Nama-Rupa), we develop what is known as the *Tara-tama Viveka—*wisdom to grade worldly events and phenomena. In his own [^6.7] words,

*The subject matter of politics is human nature…a person who desires to work in this field according to mathematical formulae truly lives in the world of illusion…[For this reason, such a person needs to] study and contemplate on philosophy with a sense of objective detachment after discarding personal feelings of anger and prejudice. Our politics will be healthy and robust in direct proportion to the extent to which this contemplation is deep, robust, and fundamental. *

Especially in an alien system like electoral democracy, where [^6.8] “everybody has the freedom and opportunity to meddle in every affair,” and because every citizen is a potential ruler, and all are [^6.9] (theoretically) equal, “how should such a political system work?After all, that which belongs to everybody belongs to nobody.”

Notes

1. D V Gundappa: Rajyashastra, Rajyanga—DVG Kruti Shreni: Volume 5 (Govt of Karnataka, 2013) Pp 560. Emphasis added.
2. Ibid. Pp. 180 3. Ibid p. 181. Verse quoted in the original 4. Ibid p.127 5. Ibid 6. Ibid Pp. 267. Emphasis added. 7. Ibid Pp. 176-7 8. Ibid. Pp. 192 9. Ibid. Pp. 180. Emphasis added.

[[DV Gundappa’s Conception of an Ideal Statesman Source: prekshaa]]

The insights of the sort DVG possessed emanated precisely from this deep understanding of philosophy, or more accurately, his realization of Darshana. In other words, when we grasp the nature of the world characterized by name and form (nAma-rUpa), we develop what is known as the t*ara-tama vivEka—*wisdom to grade worldly events and phenomena. In his own [^7.1] words,

*The subject matter of politics is human nature…a person who desires to work in this field according to mathematical formulae truly lives in the world of illusion…[For this reason, such a person needs to] study and contemplate on philosophy with a sense of objective detachment after discarding personal feelings of anger and prejudice. Our politics will be healthy and robust in direct proportion to the extent to which this contemplation is deep, robust, and fundamental. *

Especially in an alien system like electoral democracy, where [^7.2] “everybody has the freedom and opportunity to meddle in every affair,” and because every citizen is a potential ruler, and all are [^7.3] (theoretically) equal, “how should such a political system work? After all, that which belongs to everybody belongs to nobody.”

There is great profundity behind this seemingly common-sense observation. It is also a warning that DVG issues: perhaps a significant and continuing challenge before Indian democracy is this: how should our political system constantly renew the intangible but real feeling of belongingness and oneness? When we compare this with the aforementioned phenomenon of the growth of regional political parties and fanatical and other lobbies, this challenge demands an urgent remedy like never before.

This phenomenon can be viewed from another perspective: in the last seventy years, each time a clash has occurred between the harsh forces of business, various lobbies and groups with those of ideals, the latter has invariably, unfailingly lost. In other words, for the most part, this trajectory has been a change for the worse. Which is another area where DVG becomes more relevant, and a study of his work, more imperative today. A change in the cabinet or in laws as a genuine response to the demands of people and public opinion is largely in tune with the principles of natural justice (another topic on which DVG has provided extraordinary insights, which shall be examined in a subsequent chapter). However, if this change occurs due to any other extraneous reason, the demonstrated consequence is chaos. In a democracy the opportunity for change [^7.4] is a healthy sign.

However, is it not a healthy sign for that opportunity to be subjected to experimentation on a monthly basis. Change is essentially a punishment. Punishment means an exposure of faults. And so, if the only job of a Government is to keep making mistakes and getting beaten for it, where will it have the time to do the right thing? Merely because the medicine to cure diarrhea is readily available, is it wise to voluntarily embrace indigestion?

It is for these and other important reasons that DVG expounded and emphasized on the necessity for a rigorous philosophical training and cultivation of certain specific traits, attitudes, and behavior on the part of any person who wishes to enter political life. Because every citizen in a democracy is *eligible—*by constitution-given right—to occupy political office, it automatically doesn’t mean that the person is qualified for it. As a representative sample [^7.5] of DVG’s vision,

The first qualification for such a (political) aspirant is this: a keen understanding of the nature of justice and harmony. The method of earning this qualification is a study of literature and philosophy. [And] A person who wishes to occupy public office must be able to visualize the noble or ideal picture of the world first in his mind. the field of activity of the litterateur is the world of sound; that of the politician is the vast world of real people.

Indeed, as the history of the greatest statesmen in the world has shown, this kind of self-education and personal traits supplies a vision of justice that is rooted in an integrative view. Thus, DVG’s conception of the ideal statesman should possess the following qualifications and traits:

1. An uncompromising fidelity to justice. 2. A conscious and active awareness of his/her debt to the nation, society and culture. 3. A constant refinement of his/her innate sense of morality and magnanimity in public conduct and affairs. 4. An awareness of the physical manifestation of the ideal that the state should strive to attain.

When translated in practical terms, this statesman must be akin to an integrating force of:

1. Theoretical scholarship endowed with what can be called a “research mind set.” 2. Nuance, subtlety and foresight 3. Clearly articulating tough concepts 4. Promoting a philosophical outlook among the people 5. Safeguarding and multiplying the ethical and moral treasure of the country.

In the same vein, DVG also warns of the perils of a statesman becoming a professional politician. And the caution he gives [^7.6] to the potential dangers faced by a nationalist who becomes an elected representative: as long as the nationalist remains outside the formal or established political system, his/her voice has limited reach but has complete freedom; the moment this nationalist becomes part of this formal system, he/she loses this freedom. It takes extraordinary ability, skill, subtlety and perception to strike a fine balance. Or to take the easy way of succumbing to the vices of what DVG calls “party politics” as a substitute for real democracy.

To the post-industrial and technology-driven sensibilities of the contemporary world, which has pretty much erased a sense of history, these might sound fanciful and therefore unattainable ideals. However, the same history (in India, for the present purpose) shows the examples of scores of such statesmen, kings, ministers, and leaders who lived these ideals from which DVG took inspiration and developed his own insights.

Notes

---

1. Ibid Pp. 176-7 2. Ibid. Pp. 192 3. Ibid. Pp. 180. Emphasis added. 4. Ibid. p.554. Emphasis added. 5. D V Gundappa: DVG Kruti Shreni: Volume 1: Vicara, Vimarshe: Sahitya Shakti (Govt of Karnataka, 2013). pp.192, 199. 6. See, for example, the discussions on pp. 152-3; 182-6. D V Gundappa: Rajyashastra, Rajyanga—DVG Kruti Shreni: Volume 5 (Govt of Karnataka, 2013).

[[D.V. Gundappa’s Vision and Ideal of Rama Rajya Source: prekshaa]]

Every creature felt happy. Everybody was intent on [performing] Dharma. Turning their eyes towards Rama alone, creatures did not kill [or inflict violence upon] one another.

While Rama ruled the kingdom, the conversations of the people centered round Rama, Rama and Rama. The whole world became Rama’s world.

Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and Shudras were performing their respective duties, satisfied with their own work and bereft of any greed.

*While Rama was ruling, the people were immersed in Dharma and lived without telling lies. All the people were endowed with excellent character. All were engaged in virtue[1]. *

The ideal of Rama Rajya (the Kingdom of Rama) is also a goal in itself and is as dateless as Sanatana Dharma and Bharatavarsha. The extraordinarily vivid, compassionate, gentle, and serene picture that Maharshi Valmiki has painted in the foregoing verses is a perfectly-blended distillation of all the best elements of the Vedic conception of the “Rashtra Yagna” described in chapter 2. This picture also reminds us of a great scholar of art and aesthetics who averred that the purpose of art is to show the possibility that a better world exists. In the parlance of traditional space-time notions of Bharatavarsha, Rama Rajya can be likened to a kingdom or a world order that existed in the Krita (or Satya) Yuga[2], which Rama brought ushered in in his own time, i.e. in the Treta Yuga. A renowned description of the Krita Yuga is available in the Mahabharata:

In the Krita Yuga, there were no poor and no rich; there was no need to labour, because all that men required was obtained by the power of will; the chief virtue was the abandonment of all worldly desires. The Krita Yuga was without disease; there was no lessening with the years; there was no hatred or vanity, or evil thought; no sorrow, no fear. All mankind could attain to supreme blessedness.

In other words, no external factor was necessary to regulate order in the Satya Yuga while the very maintenance of order became an ongoing task in the successive Yugas. This point becomes significant when we consider the following phrases in the aforementioned verses: (1) rāmamevānupaśyanto nābhyahinsanparasparam – Turning their eyes towards Rama alone, creatures did not kill [or inflict violence upon] one another; (2) rāmabhūtaṃ jagābhūdrāme rājyaṃ praśāsati – The whole world became Rama’s world. This also has a beautiful parallel in “rāmo vigrahavān dharmaḥ,” that is, Rama is the embodiment of Dharma. To state the obvious, both the meaning and the message in this is that people turned to Rama, the human embodiment of Dharma in order to guide them on the virtuous path and help them abstain from wrongdoing.

Politics and Statecraft in Rama Rajya

The logical question that arises from this discussion is this: how is politics and statecraft conceived in this Rama Rajya? To which D.V. Gundappa answers in his inimitable style that [^8.3]

Rama Rajya is the grandest conception of a Master Poet… where there are no fetters in the relationship between the ruler and the ruled…where Dharma doesn’t depend on others for its functioning and is akin to breathing: effortless.

The subtext here is the fact that the political life of a ruler, the daily application of statecraft, and politics in national life do not exist in independent realms; DVG clearly eschews the popular connotation embedded in the term, “political machinery.” Instead, he (correctly) views these elements as a “jīvaśarīra,” a life-body motivated by a higher and nobler impulse because the worshipped Deity of a state/nation is the life of its people. For DVG, the primacy of the human spirit and its higher impulses in politics was paramount. Unless this spirit was underlaid and motivated by Dharma, any political system was superficial at best and dangerous at worst. In his [^8.4] own words, “politics is also a mere instrument like the numerous paths and approaches to pursue and practice Dharma,” and “the state akin to the family, is a field for the pursuit of Dharma.” [^8.5] And he provides a guidepost of sorts as to what this Dharma is in the practice of statecraft in lines that are matchless for their simple profundity

The verdict of those Pandits [wise and learned people] who have understood the nuances of tradition and act in a spirit of selfless service directed at the good of the country is Dharma.

In the realm of politics, this translates [^8.7] into the following:

The ruler is subservient to Dharma; Dharma in turn is embodied in society. Therefore, the original home of the state’s power emanates from the Dharmic feeling prevalent in the society. The seat of the ruler is just a mere implement or equipment that maintains and protects this Dharmic feeling.

This is entirely consistent with the Sanatana conception of statecraft which instructs the king to be an upholder, protector and an agent of Dharma in the verse, rājā dhārmiko bhūyāt. The most effective discharge of this duty is also the price that he pays for enjoying his royalty (or its equivalent in today’s democratic terms). Even a cursory perusal of the life and legacy of great monarchs, royal dynasties, and world leaders (in various democracies) clearly shows the verifiable truth that the yardstick [^8.8] of a politician’s merit is the condition of the citizens.

There is however a jarring note of sorts which can be made by way of contrast. The Sanatana conception of statecraft (or Raja Dharma) allowed for a certain class of people who were beyond the king/state’s power. In common parlance, these were the Rishis, Sadhus and so on who contributed at a far profounder level by staying within society and being detached to it simultaneously. Prof M. Hiriyanna offers one of the best characterizations of such people. They were people who deliberately[9] chose *Moksha or Jivanmukti “*as the ideal to be pursued, and thereafter [made] a persistent and continual advance towards it.” The system of democracy that India adopted after 1947 makes no allowance for such class of people. But the fact that they still exist and are accorded the same level of respect and reverence is not because this system of democracy protects them but despite it, owing to millennia of our civilizational inheritance.

To be continued

Notes

1. Valmiki: Ramayana: Yuddha Kanda: 131. Verses: 100, 102, 104, 105 2. Yuga is an epoch or an era in within a four-age cycle which repeats. These four are: Krita (Satya), Treta, Dwapara and Kali. 3. D V Gundappa: Rajyashastra, Rajyanga—DVG Kruti Shreni: Volume 5 (Govt of Karnataka, 2013) p310. Emphasis added. 4. Ibid. p309 5. Ibid. p319 6. Ibid. p376 7. Ibid. p377 8. See for example, the discussion on p 309: D V Gundappa: Rajyashastra, Rajyanga—DVG Kruti Shreni: Volume 5 (Govt of Karnataka, 2013) 9. M. Hiriyanna: The Indian Conception of Values: The Quest After Perfection (Prekshaa Pratishtana and W.I.S.E. WORDS, Reprint 2018) p50

[[Rama Rajya : The Crown-Jewel and an Attainable Truth Source: prekshaa]]

DVG’s essay titled *Rama Rajya *is the fitting finale and the crowning glory of his monumental, semi-academic work, Rajyashastra[1] (Statecraft/Politics) meant for a general audience. This essay touches the upper echelons of pure political philosophy akin to the precision of the tip of a finely-sharpened pencil.

While defining completeness (or fulfilment) as one of the vital characteristics of Rama Rajya , DVG simultaneously clarifies that this completeness in a *Rama Rajya *is attained in both [^9.2] our outer and inner worlds. This clarification is essential because a mere outer completeness is fraught with a terminal risk: it ushers in complacency by making self-effort and self-reliance unnecessary. World history shows that every great civilization that attained this stage (of external completeness) eventually went into a downward, self-destructive spiral. To this end, DVG offers this timeless warning [^9.3] written in a splendidly pithy style in the original Kannada.

The sight of suffering is the reminder of auspiciousness. Indigence is the brand ambassador of prosperity.

DVG’s exposition of Rama Rajya occurs at three major levels: the literary, the philosophical, and the practical (in the sense of political philosophy). This exposition is a harmonious blend of all three, marked by an element of indivisibility. Thus, when he extols Valmiki Maharshi’s description of Rama Rajya, he also makes allowance for the deep-seated, traditional faith of millions in Rama’s kingdom. Among other things, DVG’s reverence towards Valmiki Maharshi is based on the grand vision of life and perennial philosophy that he has embedded throughout the Ramayana. And whether Rama really existed or not or was based on an existing king’s life is secondary to DVG: the fact that Valmiki Maharshi offered an immortal, inexhaustible bounty to the world by conceiving such a character holds greater value. Which is why DVG invokes a sort of Advaita between Valmiki Maharishi and Rama when he [^9.4] says,

Just like how Valmiki is among the poets, Rama is literally a manifested truth in the realm of ruling a kingdom, who has no equal.

DVG also stresses [^9.5] upon and upholds the necessity and importance for a ruler to be guided by poets, philosophers, scholars and wise people, a tradition that has been maintained since the dawn of political systems throughout the world. This has an echo in P.B. Shelley’s rather passionate statement that “poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.” As also in an oblique warning attributed to Thucydides that “a nation that separates its scholars and its warriors will have its laws made by cowards and its wars fought by fools."

At the practical level, DVG offers perhaps the most profoundly insightful and compassionate understanding [^9.6] of what Rama Rajya really means.

Rama Rajya is an exquisite conception of the beauty of life because it is an attainable goal instead of being a finished product. A continuous quest for it, the effort to attain it, and a single-minded penance upon it is the greatest profit that our soul can obtain. Its quest is what makes our soul become deserving of completeness, perfection. Just as Rama Rajya existed in some era in the remote past, it will also be a realized possibility in some era in the future. Our very conviction in this is itself the motivation to achieve it.

An Attainable Truth

As we have seen in the earlier chapters, as far as DVG was concerned, the inner world was the surest and most reliable guide of actions and transactions in the outer. This is completely in consonance with Valmiki Maharshi in this context. Valmiki Maharshi’s conception of *Rama Rajya *has “truth in its soul.” It is an attainable truth for which the only path is continuous study, introspection, incessant pursuit, and penance unlike established facts like “statistics, data, reports, census.” In the quest for Rama Rajya , “all of us are Sadhakas—seekers—and not Siddhas” (self-realized people). The nature of our Rama Rajya will be directly proportional to the extent to which our quest and penance is truthful and noble. Or to state this in plainer words, when the entire nation is shaped by such ideals, it will be automatically reflected in its political, social, intellectual, moral, ethical and spiritual health.

A Caution

At the same time, DVG was not blind to the real-world pitfalls because the pursuit of ideals is met more with opposition than support and encouragement in an era of parliamentary democracy and a climate of free expression which exists largely in its abuse. The extent to which “old fashioned” ideas of conviction, shraddha, devotion have a place in this climate is still a matter of debate. Given this everyday reality, how pragmatic, or even possible is it to pursue this ideal of Rama Rajya? As early as in the 1940s DVG sounded [^9.7] the same caution:

*No political system is inherently perfect and beyond continuous scrutiny and refinement. Merely because we name a system as “democracy,” it doesn’t mean it is universally applicable. There is nothing magical about a system of voting. It might bring a fool to occupy a place that a wise man deserves to occupy; it cannot make that fool wise. Similar to monarchy and other systems, democracy too, is just one more experiment in human history. *

The truth of this caution and the analysis made by DVG of the aforementioned pitfalls can be accurately verified in hindsight. When we examine the history of elections fought since 1951, we observe a very prominent slogan—used almost customarily—till the early or mid-1970s. This slogan was the promise by aspiring candidates to usher in Rama Rajya in contemporary India. After seventy years, none in our political class have managed to rebuild just one Rama temple.

The reason behind this electoral promise of bringing *Rama Rajya *is no secret: it was a blind, templatesque parroting of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s declared notion and dream of bringing a Rama Rajya in India.

Notes

• See Chapter 1 for a brief discussion of Rajyashastra.

• See also: the highly-elevating discussion beginning at para 4 on p. 315 through para 2 on p. 316: D V Gundappa: Rajyashastra, Rajyanga—DVG Kruti Shreni: Volume 5 (Govt of Karnataka, 2013)

• D V Gundappa: Rajyashastra, Rajyanga—DVG Kruti Shreni: Volume 5 (Govt of Karnataka, 2013) p. 315

• D V Gundappa: Rajyashastra, Rajyanga—DVG Kruti Shreni: Volume 5 (Govt of Karnataka, 2013) p. 311

• Ibid.

• Ibid. p. 316. Emphasis added.

• Ibid. p. 313

[[Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and D V Gundappa: A Yawning Contrast Source: prekshaa]]

Any discussion about Rama Rajya in the context of the previous century of India’s history will be incomplete without objectively examining the role of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. In the present context, this examination becomes more crucial for significant reasons.

Both Gandhi and DVG were contemporaries; the former was senior to DVG by eighteen years. Both contributed to the freedom struggle. While Gandhi was a freedom fighter in the commonly understood sense, DVG was a freedom fighter of a far profounder sort. It can be said that while Gandhi had his finger on the pulse of the proverbial masses, DVG had invisibly established himself in the heart of Bharatavarsha. DVG was able to accomplish far more without the sort of extensive and relentless travel that Gandhi undertook; this is an oblique reminder of the famous remark of Sarojini Naidu that “it costs a lot of money to keep Gandhi in poverty.” While Gandhi was moved by and mostly saw the paint that had faded on the body of Bharatavarsha, DVG had an unerring insight into and sought to reinvigorate the foundations she stood on.

In fact, the yawning contrast between the two can form the subject of an independent study in its own right.

Nowhere is this contrast more visible than in their respective understanding of the conception of Rama Rajya. In the interests of objectivity, we can cite the words of the legendary scholar-historian, R.C. Majumdar who has presented perhaps the most unbiased assessment [^10.1] of Mohandas Gandhi’s role and legacy.

*Gandhi combined in himself the dual role of a saint and an active politician… one’s attitude towards a saint or view of his personal conduct…is a matter of devotion and personal opinion.…But one’s judgement on the public career of a political leader rests upon certain…expectations of a norm and conduct to be followed by him. The former is based upon faith…while the latter requires logical reasoning untrammeled by any personal sentiment or belief. The historian has nothing to do with the first, and is concerned only with the second…Such history must begin by discounting the halo of semi-divinity—and also…of infallibility—which was cast around Gandhi…I have to…view his life and activities…from [an]…angle, namely as a politician…leading a great political organization…formed for a definite political object…to achieve India’s freedom from political bondage. *

This contrast is also directly evident in a different manner. DVG holds the distinction of bringing Mohandas Gandhi to Bangalore for the first time apart from penning several laudatory writings on Gandhi the saint. Yet, in his characteristic and unwavering fidelity to truth, DVG also displayed the tremendous courage required to dispassionately critique [^10.2] Gandhi the politician as we can glean from this passage.

Before Gandhi’s advent, there was an open atmosphere in public discourse… After Gandhiji took the stage, this culture of free and open disagreement and debates vanished. It was said that the political stand of the entire country should be one, and that Gandhiji’s frontal leadership should be unhindered. It was said that if Gandhiji spoke, the nation spoke. The reasoning offered was as follows: unless the nation adopted this unquestioning mentality, we would not get freedom from the British… from then onwards, People were prohibited from taking his name without the mandatory honorific of “Mahatma.” Gandhiji’s thought was the nation’s thought.

Courageous Critique of Gandhi

Another similar example of DVG’s critique of Gandhi that we can cite is the caustic rebuttal he wrote condemning Gandhi’s arrogant behavior in the aftermath of the British firing on freedom fighters in Vidurashwatha near Bangalore. Gandhi had used this mass-killing as the pretext to write a haughty letter to the Mysore Maharaja, Krishnaraja Wodeyar IV asking him to abolish the Mysore Princely State and establish a “responsible government” in its place, and that he would henceforth “monitor agitations in all the princely states of India.” In practice, Gandhi’s call translated into spreading the Congress party’s machinery deeper and wider by supplanting the Mysore Princely State. The events that transpired from the Vidurashwatha firing and culminating in the Patel-Mirza Pact [^10.3] of 1938 show the manner in which Gandhi actively encouraged the Mysore unit of the Indian National Congress to foment continuous disturbances against the Maharaja Krishna Raja Wodeyar IV.

In his rebuttal, DVG termed Mohandas Gandhi’s reaction as hasty, unfortunate and irresponsible. DVG was among the very few men of his time who had seen the innate value of our Princely States in preserving and maintaining the core aspects, traditions, and unbroken social and cultural norms of Bharatiya civilization. More so with respect to Mysore which even the British had praised as a model state. Therefore, DVG viewed Gandhi’s reckless response as succumbing to mob fury under the excuse of his promise [^10.4] that the “sacrifice at Vidurashwatha will not go in vain towards achieving freedom by peaceful means.” DVG further said that if this was the nature of and the method for getting “responsible government,” one would need to question the very definition of such a government, which sought to uproot time-honoured systems which were working smoothly and replace them with something untested in practice, based solely on sloganeering and noisy activism. In fact, the Vidurashwatha eventuality can be regarded as a representative microcosm of the dangers of Mohandas Gandhi’s “cult of non-violence,” in R.C. Majumdar’s memorable phraseology.

Notes

1. R.C. Majumdar: Preface: History of the Freedom Movement in India: Vol 3 (Firma K.L. Mukhopadhyay) Pp xv, xviii. Emphasis added. 2. DV Gundappa: Vruttapatrike 3. K. Veerathappa: “Dewan Mirza Ismail and Mysore Congress.”Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, vol. 40, 1979, pp. 653–661 4. Vidurashwatha: Jallianwala Bagh of Karnataka. Retrieved from http://vifreeindia.com/history/

[[DVG’s Traditional Wisdom and Gandhi’s Whimsical Leadership Source: prekshaa]]

Drawing from history, DVG [^11.1] says,

*Before the advent of the British in India, what was the system which united the king and the citizens in our kingdoms? The answer is this: in those days, there was no cleavage between the two. The individual could directly question the king. The king ruled with the fear that the citizens would revolt if he ill-treated them. *

Mohandas Gandhi was blind to or perhaps willfully ignored these positive and life-affirming elements in our traditional systems of political organization. At one level, it seems incredible that Gandhi did not bother to ask himself a fundamental question: how was it that these systems had endured for hundreds of years even up to his own day, in the selfsame Princely States that he relentlessly condemned?

Note: For a near-comprehensive discussion of DVG’s critiques and essays on these topics, the reader is referred to the reading list [^11.2] in footnote 22.

Whimsical Leadership

However, in historical hindsight, it is quite accurate to state that Gandhi’s behavior in this instance was typical of his leadership of the freedom movement: whimsical, short-sighted, erratic, and largely a failure. We find an echo of this in R.C. Majumdar [^11.3] as well.

Gandhi was lacking in both political wisdom and political strategy…and far from being infallible, committed serious blunders, one after another, in pursuit of some Utopian ideals and methods which had no basis in reality.

The same Mohandas Gandhi had earlier extolled Maharaja Krishna Raja Wodeyar IV as a “Rajarshi” and his Mysore Princely State as a Rama Rajya. Therefore, this is a pertinent instance as any to examine Gandhi’s notion of Rama Rajya given the fact that he found it perfectly fine (or politically expedient) to provoke his Congress party to agitate against and overthrow his self-described Rama Rajya of Mysore.

The Rama Rajya of Mohandas Gandhi and D.V. Gundappa

[1] By Rama Rajya I do not mean Hindu Raj. I mean by Rama Rajya Divine Raj, the Kingdom of God. For me Rama and Rahim are one and the same deity. I acknowledge no other God but the one God of truth and righteousness. [4]
[2] My conception of Rama Rajya excludes the replacement of the British army by a national army of occupation. A country that is governed by even its national army can never be morally free…[5]
[3] The withdrawal of British power does not mean Rama Rajya. How can it happen when we have all along been nursing violence in our hearts?[6]
[4] If you want to see God in the form of Rama Rajya… You have to magnify your own faults a thousand fold and shut your eyes to the faults of your neighbours. [7]

Mohandas Gandhi’s own words cited above are the clearest contrast to DVG’s vision of Rama Rajya, which has been outlined earlier in this chapter. It is quite evident that a detailed explanation or commentary on Gandhi’s notions of Rama Rajya is unnecessary. The most charitable thing that could be said about it is that it is unrealistic and muddled. And extremely fatal in practice.

Like his views on most topics of human activity, Gandhi’s Rama Rajya was an extension of his personal experiments with truth. This is perfectly fine except for the fact that he insisted that the entire society/country follow it for their own good. His words quoted previously also resonate with what the late Christopher Hitchens [^11.8] observed, that “Gandhi cannot escape culpability for being the only major preacher of appeasement who never changed his mind.” In summary, Gandhi’s Rama Rajya leans heavily towards and is inspired by the fundamentalist idea of the Christian Kingdom of God than Valmiki’s description of Rama Rajya.

D.V. Gundappa had clearly seen through the doctrine of Christianity in practice and had a healthy contempt [^11.9] for the inherent arrogance in the grand notions of “saving souls” and so on. DVG’s exposition of Rama Rajya did not stem from a mere intellectual understanding of the ideal. He had internalized not just Valmiki and his immortal epic but drew from the inexhaustible Sanatana treasure. While Gandhi saw the need to explicitly state that his Rama Rajya was not a “Hindu Raj,” DVG had no need for such labels.

Gandhi’s Rama Rajya and indeed, his devotion towards revered heroes like Harishchandra, Rama, and so on were merely sentimental. This is also the reason that Gandhi selectively quoted from the real masters and the cultural legacy of Bharatavarsha such as Valmiki, Vyasa, and Krishna. In Gandhi’s Rama Rajya, there is no place for Dharma in its widest and deepest possible meaning and application. Therefore there is no place for Moksha as well in Gandhi’s Rama Rajya because his ideal state is one where all citizens are engaged in a lifelong quest of a perfect moral order not just in their own country but the entire world. Given this sort of a quest after illusion, there is also no place or even the possibility for Rasananda in Gandhi’s Rama Rajya. In direct contrast, DVG includes [^11.10] “leisure for the cultivation of the mind and the spirit” in the “minimal requisites” of a robust and healthy state. DVG’s Rama Rajya admits the critical questioning of even Rama, and firmly declaims against narrow sentimentalists [^11.11] in public life.

Notes

1. D V Gundappa: Rajyashastra, Rajyanga—DVG Kruti Shreni: Volume 5 (Govt of Karnataka, 2013) p. 493 2. D.V. Gundappa: DVG Kruti Shreni: Volume 5: Rajyashastra, Rajyanga (Govt of Karnataka, 2013). List of essays: (i) Purvacharitreya Rupada Pithike (ii)Uttarabaddha Rajya (iii) Badalavane (iv)Jawabdari Sarakarada Chalavali Brahmanana Pituriyalli (v) Congress Mattu Bharatiya Samsthanagalu (vi) Namma Jawabdari Sarkara Hege Saaguttide? 3. R.C. Majumdar: Preface: History of the Freedom Movement in India: Vol 3 (Firma K.L. Mukhopadhyay) p. xix 4. M.K. Gandhi: Young India, 19 September 1929, p. 305 5. M.K. Gandhi: Harijan, 5 May 1946, p. 116 6. M.K. Gandhi: Harijan, 3 August 1947, p. 262 7. M.K. Gandhi: Harijan, 26 October 1947, p. 387 8. Christopher Hitchens: The Real Mahatma Gandhi: Questioning the moral heroism of India’s most revered figure: The Atlantic, July/August 2011 9. See for example, DVG’s note in this regard in his essay titled, Nanna Atmagurugalu Narasimhamurthy in his Jnapakachitrashale volumes. 10. D.V. Gundappa: Towards a New World Order, Indian Institute of World Culture, B.P. Wadia Memorial Lecture, p. 7 11. DVG’s classic musical narrative poem, Sri Rama Parikshanam [The Trial of Sri Rama] as the title suggests, is one such questioning of Rama. The two appendixes at the end of the work are deeply instructive in the context of DVG’s ideal and goal of Rama Rajya.

[[DVG’s Rama Rajya is the Original Genius of Bharatavarsha Source: prekshaa]]

The mirage-like Rama Rajya of Mohandas Gandhi at a very fundamental level of ethics essentially must rest on untruths. This is not to imply that Gandhi deliberately spoke untruths but his claims such as Sarvadharmasamabhava (equal validity of all religions), “Ram and Rahim are the same,” and Ishwar Allah tere naam are demonstrably false and are therefore lethal in practice. How for example, is it possible to have a Rama Rajya in a kingdom peopled with religious diktats that explicitly call Rama a false god that needs to be destroyed because the whole world belongs to Allah? This is the same false equivalence that we find in the mischievous meaning attributed to the Vedic verse [^12.1], ekam sat viprā bahudhā vadanti, again an outcome of Gandhian misappropriation. This is also another fundamental reason that supports the claim that Gandhi’s Rama Rajya does not admit Dharma in the true sense.

DVG’s ideal and vision of Rama Rajya was a harmonious amalgamation of the original genius of Bharatavarsha that includes the collective wisdom, insights and legacy of our Rishis (and heroes like), Rama, Krishna, Kautilya and Vidyaranya, to the name the most outstanding ones. The Rama in DVG’s Rama Rajya was also a Jnani in the sense meant by Maharshi Vidyaranya in his immortal dictum [^12.2] of jñāninā carituṃ śakyam samyak rājyādi laukikaṃ. The summary: DVG’s Rama Rajya implies a perfect harmony of Raga and Dwesha and a balance is maintained among the three gunas. Translated in the realm of the kingdom, statecraft, social and public life, this Rama Rajya properly ensures Dushta Shikshana (punishment of evil) and Shishta Rakshana (protection of the good). Both require the application of violence if need be. In other words, DVG’s Rama Rajya assigns the rightful place to the ancient and original Indian ideal and noble tradition of Kshatra [^12.3] (spirit of valour). As recorded history shows, this is thoroughly contrary to Gandhi who wanted to establish his Rama Rajya through “winning hearts” by voluntarily sacrificing one’s life to the sword of the barbarian. Once more, we notice Gandhi’s false equivalence and selective quoting of the verse,

ahiṃsā paramo dharma ।
dharma hiṃsā tathaiva ca ॥

Non-violence is the greatest Dharma. As also is violence that is directed at preserving Dharma.

Mohandas Gandhi’s dense Ahimsa admits nary an illuminative ray of Kshatra, which in his view is equal to violence. In light of the discussions so far, the logical question arises whether his ideal deity and character, Sri Ramachandra’s victories over numerous demons including Ravana were actually a victory over their hearts.

From the same discussion, we can clearly see the truth in the great insight of D.V. Gundappa’s realistic ideal of Rama Rajya, which he terms is a sādhyasatya: an attainable truth.

The travesty of post-1947 India is that Gandhi’s Rama Rajya like the loosely-held planks of an attic floor, gave way to an indeterminate being called secularism whose very first victim was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi himself.

Notes

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1. The complete verse is as follows:
   indraṃ mitraṃ varuṇamagnimāhuratho divyaḥ sa suparṇo garutmān।
   ekaṃ sadviprā bahudhā vadantyagniṃ yamaṃ mātariśvānamāhuḥ ॥
   They called him Indra, Mitra, Varuṇa, Agni; and he is heavenly Garuda, who has beautiful wings. The truth is one, but the sages (or learned ones) call it by many names or describe him in many ways; they called him Agni, Yama, Mātariśvan. (Rg Veda 1.164.46).
   It requires a tremendous leap of logic to interpret this verse to mean that the “Truth” meant here also includes prophetic Gods like Allah and the Christian God. 2. Translation: It is very well possible for the Jnani to engage in worldly duties such as administering a Kingdom. 3. Ref: Shatavadhani Dr. R Ganesh: Bharatiya Kshatra Parampare (Rashtrotthana Sahtiya, Bangalore, 2016)

[[D.V.G: The Adhvaryu of Political Literature in Kannada Source: prekshaa]]

A common refrain in the twenty-two chapters and forty-four essays in DVG’s Rajyashastra and Rajyanga is the natural ease, the practiced manner and legerdemain aptness with which DVG quotes from a wide range of ancient Indian texts including but not limited to the Arthashastra, the Vedas, Kavya (literature), philosophical treatises (by Adi Sankara, Vidyaranya et al) and Dharmashastras (Manusmriti, Kamandaka, et al). DVG was only adhering to the timeless Santana tradition ³² he treasured so much, “of making any affirmations for which authority could be cited by chapter and verse…and deprecated the contemporary mania for personalism.”

But these were not quotations to show off his erudition or to impress the reader or to provide scholarly backing to his own writing. They were forces of nature that could be summoned at will because DVG had tamed his muse to his own moods.

The adhvaryu of Political Literature in Kannada

And he went to the very roots. As a sample, we can consider his deliberations on the best method to coin new terminology in Kannada for producing new literature on the alien system of democracy in a way that was unambiguous, accurate, and easily understandable by the general reader.

*Let’s take the example of a new word, “vṛṇīta.” This word is akin to “punīta” (Jaimini Bharata: ॥ 18-45)…The word cunāyita is a deformed coinage. The correct synonymn for “elected” is “vṛta,” a Sanskrit word. *

This etymological discussion proceeds apace for an entire paragraph, a delicious feast of learning, before DVG offers a conclusive reasoning for selecting vṛṇīta as the most appropriate word for “elected representative.” For each alternative that he suggests, he traces its Sanskrit dhātu (root), cites various examples of its usage and provides ironclad reasoning ³³ for its suitability or otherwise. This is entirely consonant with the traditional Indian method of scholarship.

Without doubt, DVG is the adhvaryu of political literature in Kannada—both scholarly and popular.

On the larger canvas, DVG’s contemporaries like K.P. Jayaswal, U.C. Sarkar, Radhakumud Mookerji and Ananda Coomaraswamy have made valuable contributions, enriching the field of Indian statecraft and polity. However, they fall short in three key realms: (1) a sense of philosophical wholesomeness (2) applicability to the current conditions and (3) a perspective of what is known as samanvaya (integrative approach). Thus while Ananda Coomaraswamy’s Spiritual Authority and Temporal Power is doubtless a fine work, it nevertheless suffers from the minor defect of being prosaic, although one must thank him for the joyless work of translating sublime Vedic Sanskrit verses into an arid language like English, robbing both sublimity and the lived essence of the original. Likewise, K.P. Jayaswal’s meticulous, Hindu Polity is notable for an eagerness to somehow “prove” that ancient Indian republics (mahājanapadas) were similar if not superior to modern Western democracies.

Integral Calculus of the Universal Soul

But DVG is a Master chef who internalized precise flavors and cooked a fine meal even with disparate ingredients. He could use timeless Sanatana precepts and ideals and apply them intact—in both spirit and substance—to contemporary situations using an astonishing range of original, real-life allusions and literary metaphors. Talking about rights, liberty, and duties, DVG says that there should be freedom for the citizen to demand that the state should discharge Dharma; this was concomitant with the freedom for the state in turn, to demand that the citizen should discharge the Dharma that he owes ³⁴ it:

Freedom is needed to establish the rule of law and justice, and justice protects freedom. This is entirely consonant with the principles of our Rajya Shastra.

Such insights were possible because DVG was finely attuned to the universal constants of Rta, Satya and Dharma, which we have already examined. Indeed, what DVG accomplished in all his political writing is akin to an integral calculus of the universal soul if we define it as a system that makes it possible to solve by a unified method many theoretical and applied problems involving a high degree of abstraction.

One of the clearest expositions of DVG’s political-philosophical ideal in the English language is his extraordinary monograph entitled Vedanta and Nationalism. This was originally a lecture delivered at the Chennai Jana Sangham ³⁵ sometime in 1908-9 which was later expanded and published from Bangalore. DVG was just twenty-one or twenty-two then. The summary of his exposition is this: the core of Dharma expressed in the political realm is self-expansion. All systems originate in Mamata (affection, attachment) and should ideally culminate in a cultivated, inner feeling of Oneness of the universe. In his own ³⁶ words:

The duty of every right-minded man…is to annihilate the false self by giving up selfishness bit by bit…by widening the heart to larger and larger spheres…and thus to expand the real Self and see it in everything in the universe…in India, the followers of the Eternal Religion are advised to love everything, not on account of the advantages that it affords, but on account of the Self that pervades everything…This is the only just reason that demands universal love from every man, and the only sound basis of all true ethics.

DVG’s mien is palpable even here: he liberally, conclusively invokes the Bhagavad Gita, Brihadaranyaka Upanishad and works of Kalidasa, and like them, his ideal of politics was to sculpt an informed and spiritualized governance so that for the populace, “enlightenment should also be enjoyable.” ³⁷

An Honest Inquirer and Critic of Mistakes

Yet, he was not blind to harsh realities of the past and present, and reserved his harshest criticism for the degradation of the character of the Indian people during his own time. Thus, when he wrote profoundly in the foregoing monograph that the “Nation is the means of safeguarding the interest of the family,” he also observedhow

Neglecting this sublime principle, the degenerate son of India refuses to acknowledge that the family is but the training ground for the practice of self-denial…Instead of expanding his real Self, he is so utterly selfish that, if he supports a family, it is mainly, if not solely for the gratification of his own personal desires.

This among others is why we notice that other singular quality in all his political, journalistic and literary writing: an earnest longing to infuse conduct, character, vigour and verve among the Indian people. DVG led a frontal crusade against sloth, inertia and indolence in public life.

Notes

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[[Sri Vidyaranya Swami as a Perennial Inspiration of DVG Source: prekshaa]]

DVG frankly reveals the pitfalls of our history and the boundaries of tradition even while he expounds on the deeper nuances of Sanatana Dharma and the trajectory ³⁸ of its customs and practices.

*Although we find in our Vedas and Itihasas the conception of uniting our ancient country under the umbrella of a Chakravartin, we have no evidence to show that this aspiration was ever realized…Even when Muslims invaded us from outside, none of our Rajas showed any spirit of unity…the Janapada system of democracy of ancient India was immediate and physically accessible; the system of today is indirectly constituted…The aspirations and ideals of the people of that period were more honest, simple, and smooth; the mental proclivities of our people today are numerous and splintered and less than straightforward. *

Even more candidly, DVG remarks that while Adi Sankara’s spiritual and philosophical conquest showed the physical and cultural indivisibility of Bharatavarsha, its ultimate goal was not realized in the realm ³⁹ of politics. This is tragically, a verifiable fact of Indian history. A century after Adi Sankara merged into Eternity, three major Hindu Empires became extinct due to mindless infighting and the northwestern gateway of India was left unguarded, paving the way for Mahmud of Ghazni’s barbaric invasions.

Boundaries of Tradition

DVG also notes how it is natural and organic for a tradition to expand its boundaries and enlarge its scope over time. The greatest evidence for this fact is the manner in which the corpus of our Dharmasastras became bloated in number, density, complexity and amplitude. Likewise, it is equally natural for traditions to die a sudden death. Our wisdom lies in how we respond to both situations. However, DVG also adds the caveat that just because something is a tradition it doesn’t automatically become Dharma because no one can predict all the situations where one can accurately pinpoint the way of Dharma and Adharma in each of these situations. Indeed ⁴⁰, “no such Sastra exists and the genius who can write it is not yet born.” DVG offers a guide, something we can call the fourfold method: (1) independent analysis (2) theoretical mastery and contemplation (3) practical experience and (4) tradition and wisdom. In fact, a term and notion that has almost disappeared from public memory in recent times is wisdom.

In a tangential fashion, Shatavadhani Dr. R. Ganesh provides ⁴¹ a brilliant analogy to grasp the essence of DVG’s method. To paraphrase his words, none of the grand palaces that our emperors and kings built have survived. However, the domes and decorations and renovations they made to temples of untold antiquity have still survived. Thus, the hoysaḻeśvara and vijayaviṭhṭhala temples today are mere specks of their former splendour but Virupaksha, the Deity predating the Vijayangara Empire has survived. By implication, the names of the rulers who respected all such temples that have been revered by countless generations in an unbroken fashion throughout our civilisational history have also been preserved. The same principle applies to all kings and chieftains and prominent people who made endowments and contributed to our sacred tīrthakṣetras. Ahalyabai Holkar remains immortal precisely because of her immortal service to Kashi.

The other aspect to this is the fact that almost no temple that kings and chieftains built have attained the status of a Kshetra. While the majestic and grand Brihadeeshwara Temple built by Raja Raja Chola justly deserves a pride of place in world history and continues to draw thousands of devotees, it does not enjoy the stature of say Tirupati. The Sanatana tradition has always respected and revered a sacred spot or structure that has universal sanctity from untold antiquity, a place or structure that is not the work of one person.

Conversely, our civilization and culture also has a silent mechanism to relegate vain eminences to obscurity and oblivion.

Vidyaranya Swami as the Eternal Inspiration

This Sanatana spirit reverberates with the stentorian euphony of a full-bodied conch in DVG’s writings about Vidyaranya Swami, one of his stately ideals. DVG’s devotion towards Sri Vidyaranya was akin to the discharge of the sacred pitṛ-ṛṇa [5]. Over a lifetime, he had painstakingly collected a wealth of research and other material about the life and legacy of this warrior-saint who was both the inspiration for and an active participant in the founding of the magnificent Vijayanagara Empire. DVG also wrote extensively on Vidyaranya Swami including a play in Kannada. Few can equal DVG’s description ⁴² of the Swami, a panorama that envelopes us in its embrace:

Six hundred years ago, the Brahminical spirit in this sage instead of becoming a vocation of supplication was transformed into a courageous endeavor and contributed to the rejuvenation of the Vedas; the renunciation of this glorious eminence did not culminate in passive inertia but instead radiated the light of steely valour, and whose Vedanta instead of becoming dry recitation, directly became the cause for civilisational buoyance.

In Vidyaranya Swami, DVG saw a full life fully dedicated to the cause of lokasaṃgraha[7] and dharmojjīvana[8] and emulated him in his own. This has a perfect echo in Acharya M. Hiriyanna’s memorable ⁴³ words:

*…the pursuit of [service] does not mean running away from society and seeking passive isolation…what is commended here is self-renunciation and not world-renunciation. Service is not regarded here as a mere concomitant of renunciation, but the very means of cultivating it…Even more important than this…will be influence which [the renunciate] silently exerts on [the society]by his life led in entire consonance with the ideal. This is the Gita conception of loka-saṃgraha; ‘what the best men do, that becomes the standard for the rest.’ *

There was also a fundamental and immediate reason DVG found inspiration and sought refuge in Vidyaranya Swami, who epitomized his name: Forest of Knowledge. The major part of DVG’s youth was lived in an India where the British colonial exploitative oppression was at its peak and he (and thousands of stalwarts like him) had to work under throttling constraints: censorship, police action, disturbances and unnecessary deaths of fellow-Indians. Even worse, he also had to contend with the third generation of Macaulayite Hindus, who were gnawing at the vitals of the Hindu cultural inheritance he so prized, from within. Overall, it was tough for someone who worked in the public and cultural life of India to retain his sanity amid such chaotic desolation.

And then, the other reason was DVG’s early training and formative years ⁴⁴ spent in the company of and tutored by traditional scholars, pandits and teachers, and the general cultural and spiritual environs of Mulabagal and elsewhere.

Frugality, Detachment, Renunciation

The natural outcome was his lifelong attachment to titanic viraktas (renunciates) such as Chanakya, Bhartruhari, and Sri Vidyaranya whose inherent imprint we notice across his writings. In their tradition, he extols and recommends politicians to cultivate a sense of detachment even when they wield power. In an extraordinary passage, he quotes ⁴⁵ Vishakhadatta’s immortal play, mudrārākṣasa, which describes Prime Minister Chanakya’s lifestyle.

Aha! How do we even describe the opulence of Emperor Chandragupta’s Prime Minister!
Look here! there’s a stone meant to pound the dried cow dung cake meant to be used in his Homa.
And here, there’s a pile of dried grass which his disciples have brought.
And this house! Old, cracked walls; its roof, bent under the constant weight of the samits.[12]`
And the person who lives in such a house, who addresses the king as, “Hey, boy!” is highly appropriate;
Because to the person who is completely bereft of desire,
the king is akin to grass, does not count for anything.

Among contemporary political figures who lived this sort of frugal life, DVG lauds Sir M. Visveswaraya and Joseph Mazzini in his fine and detailed profiles on them.

It may be argued that the Chanakyan ideal has no place in the present time especially in the realm of politics. However, the argument itself is evidence of the urgent need to revive and uphold this ideal. Or at any rate in India, the cultural and value-anchor informed by Chanakya is still quite sturdy and widely respected and like in DVG’s time, it simply needs an electric jolt of reawakening.

DVG also cautions against mere outward exhibitions of detachment and frugality in public life. The question is not even one of honest intent in politicians but one of implementation ⁴⁶ and outcome: “You cannot kill a goat and claim that you have donated footwear made from its hide. You cannot demolish a temple and then build a dome.” As DVG remarks elsewhere, Gandhi’s saintly ideals and methods resulted in national misery. As always, arrives at the same, time-tested conclusion couched in Vidyaranya Swami’s verse:

jñāninā carituṃ śakyam
samyag rājyadi laukikaṃ ॥
Only a Brahmajnani who is detached and selfless can properly discharge the affairs of politics and worldly matters.

This certainly reminds us of Plato’s ideal philosopher-king because the eternal fount of both is the same. People who run a country must be philosophers in the truest sense because an honest realization of philosophy engenders detachment. DVG invokes the selfsame Plato to spell out the consequences of the absence of such a political leadership.

If [political leaders] lack detachment and philosophical wisdom, the fate of the country that they rule will be akin to that of a ship which is manned by a drunkard and is caught in a storm mid-sea.

Notes

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[[DVG’s Meditations on the Training for Swarajya and Surajya Source: prekshaa]]

sarakāra harigolu, teresuḻigaḻattitta ।
sure kuḍidavaru kelaru huṭṭu hākuvaru ॥
birugāḻi bīsuvudu, janaveddu kuṇiyuvudu ।
uruḻadihudaccariyo‌!‌- maṃkutimma ॥ 308 ॥
Government is akin to a coracle. Whirls and currents lash it on either side.
Drunkards are in charge of the oars.
Storms billow. People erupt in frenzied dance.
It is a surprise that the boat doesn’t collapse—Mankutimma ॥

This pithy verse couches the brutal reality of the brand of democracy that India began to embrace with unthinking fervor as the colonial British began to progressively grant greater representation for Indians in political institutions. DVG published Mankutimmana Kagga in 1943. However, most of the verses in it were written on scraps of paper several years prior to its actual publication. The foresight is truly remarkable: at a time when majority of the Indian masses were unaware of and generally indifferent to democracy and alien institutions that would decide their destiny, DVG unerringly spotted the pitfalls and warned these masses of the dangers of hasty adoption. However, the greater distinction of this verse is the stamp of absolute authority it brings with it because its truth derives from an immaculate mix of learning and labour culminating in experiential wisdom. And few people were as qualified as DVG to write this verse: he not witnessed the political upheavals of the period but was an active participant in the political process for more than three decades and a detached but sharp observer and trenchant critic for the remainder of his life. Like the woeful minority of eminences of his nature, DVG remained a freedom fighter who refused to become a politician after India attained independence.

One of his more insightful essays ⁴⁷ titled Swarjayadinda Surajyakke (From Freedom towards Good Governance) delineates an impressive range of ideas on the true meaning of freedom among other topics. With his trademark simple and direct style, DVG says, “without surajya it is doubtful that that swarjaya will even survive.” It is a truth and a prophecy which has eerily rung true. The history of India of the last seventy-two years is its living proof. From Kashmir to Kanyakumari, from Kokrajahar to Kalinga, the number and hues of forces that are actively, violently waging war against India as a sovereign nation and civilisational state is not only uncountable but have grown to become a frightening menace. The freedom that “India wrought for” in Annie Beasant’s terminology, stands threatened on a scale and intensity never witnessed before in her long history. The precious geographical and political unity attained in 1947 stands on a precipice given the manner in which almost all key institutions have been subverted from within. This is the direct outcome of throwing surajya to the winds. However, surajya is not merely “good governance.”

The Daily Bath in Public Life

DVG provides a great analogy to emphasize the indivisible link between freedom and governance. Surajya is akin to maintaining one’s body which gets dirty each second by washing it, by cleansing it with at least one bath daily. While this reminds us of the famous quote attributed to Thomas Jefferson that “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,” the jurisdiction in which DVG deals with the theme is wider and more profound.

Swarajya or freedom or self-rule is neither a constant nor is it assured as the millennium-long history of India tragically shows. Neither is surajya merely good governance nor merely eternal vigilance but a constant process and execution of a spirit of national self-awareness. The big threats and lethal blows to a nation occur rarely in the history of any country because they can reasonably be foreseen. However, it is the unseen but gradual weakening of the national spirit in a million ways—that is, the accumulated, uncleaned daily dirt in DVG’s words—that causes the fatal downfall.

Wisdom of the Ages

Cutting through the dense verbiage of intellectual argument and copious theorizing, DVG revives the straightforward definition of surajya from the annals of ancient Indian wisdom: dushta nigraha (punishment of the evil) and shista paripalana (protection of the good), and correctly says that beyond this, the government should not interfere in the ordinary citizen’s life. This is an eternal truth and because eternal truths are to be realized in practice, they do not require elaborate tomes to uphold their validity. A fact that DVG cautions in just two words: ativāda kūḍadu (arguments of an extreme nature are not advisable). And then he distills the practical application and implication of this ancient Indian ideal of surajya in just a short paragraph ⁴⁸ dripping with the “wisdom of the ages.”

*According to our ancients, real progress of the society should and will occur from the genuine strength, energy, vitality and virtue inherent in its people and not by the force of eternal authority…People must have the freedom to enjoy and spend what they have rightfully earned…courts must be easily accessible to resolve disputes in the shortest possible time; anti-social elements like thieves must be apprehended and protection must be guaranteed. If this is made available by the government, the ordinary citizen motivated by the natural desire for leading a comfortable life will become industrious and set aside a small portion for social good and will enjoy a happy life. In this manner, the condition in which people lead a worry-free life by enjoying their incomes earned according to their ability is known as contentment. *

DVG rounds off this exposition with a beautiful application of a timeless Sanatana prayer, vinā dainyena jīvanam—a life that is free from groveling before others: “our ancients defined surajya as a government that facilitated such a condition of contentment.” An anecdote from DVG’s illustrious life is relevant in this context. A relative once requested DVG to use his influence in the government to help him secure a promotion. In reply, DVG wrote the following subashita (wise sayings):

akṛtvā parasantāpaṃ
agatvā khalanamratām ।
anutsṛjya satāṃ vartma
yat svalpamapi tad bahu ॥
Inflicting no hurt on others
Not bowing before petty people in positions of authority
Not abandoning the honest path that naturally comes to good people
The livelihood that one earns in this fashion
No matter how materially poor it is,
It is the only way that is deserving of respect.

Notes

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[[DVG’s Exposition of the Primacy of the Individual in the National Life Source: prekshaa]]

DVG was perhaps unique among the giants of his age who achieved a harmonious blend between the primacy of the individual in the realms of his spiritual, social and national life as conceived by the Sanatana tradition and as theorized by Western ideas. That spotless scholar Dr. S. Srikanta Sastri provides a fine exposition ⁴⁹ of this Indian conception of the individual:

*Indian culture gives immense importance to individual freedom…all schools [of Indian philosophy] also universally recognize the fact that the individual, based on his nature and temperament, is free to lead a life of his choosing. It is because of this that there is no scope for totalitarianism in Indian culture… The Fourfold Values of Life (Purushartha)… provide an individual the freedom to perform or relinquish certain duties (Karma) or perform them differently… Therefore, the criticism that Indian culture is obsessed only with the spiritual and the Other World is baseless. *

DVG explains the primacy of the individual ⁵⁰ in the national life following fashion:

The personal ethic of the people is greater than their national law. The individual is greater than the constitution. And the individual’s Inner Witness (conscience) is the greater than all laws framed since the dawn of civilization.

“Examine Yourself First”

However, DVG also reawakens Indians as to how this individual primacy must be adapted in the drastically altered era of democracy. If democracy is a system by, for and of the people, it follows that the quality of the government will be in direct proportion to the ethical standards of the majority of the people. Thus, DVG cautions ⁵¹ the Indian citizen, “before you question your ministers, examine yourself…if the state should be safe, the citizen must first fear the shortcomings in his own conduct.” We get a tangential reference to this in another ⁵² anecdote. A writer gave a copy of his new book to DVG and sought his opinion. The initial pages contained a list of opinions given by several people about its subject matter. After reading them, DVG asked him: “This is all fine. These are their opinions. What is your stand?”

Using art and literature as an analogy, DVG writes that if politics is an art (as it is frequently claimed to be), we need to view it from the perspective of feeling. In turn, we need to constantly fine tune it and hone it because it is most susceptible to vortexes of all kinds. Bereft of human feeling, institutions, no matter how strong they ⁵³ are, are useless.

the ordinary man on a daily basis meets the Amaldar, Shirastedaar etc and not ministers. If such low-level bureaucrats conduct themselves compassionately, truthfully and ethically, people will have no cause to complain no matter which party or government is in power.

DVG illustrates this with several real-life examples, citing the appalling downfall in the basic character of the bureaucracy from the era of the Mysore Wodeyars to the Congress governments under the super-centralised Nehruvian regime. We shall examine this in a detailed fashion later in this work. In this light, it is not out of place to claim that it will be highly revealing if in-depth research is done on the number of court cases filed by common citizens against the police and bureaucracy since independence. It is undeniable that these numbers have gone up with each decade.

The underlying theme in all of this is the fact that the average bureaucrat seems to forget that he or she is the individual Indian citizen (or in DVG’s highly accurate term, Rashtraka Praje) first and that in discharging his duty, he must be subconsciously imbued ⁵⁴ with this feeling: “I owe a debt to the nation and I am repaying this debt by discharging my duty.” This in turn is a pithy commentary on the never-ending rights vs duties debate introduced into the Indian public psyche by the West.

The Soil of Dharma and Auspiciousness

DVG’s brilliant insights into the operation of the fundamental impulses of Artha (wealth, its acquisition and enjoyment) and Kama (desire) vis a vis a system of democratic government is highly original and nuanced. The government should ideally be bereft of Kama and must regard Artha as a public trust that must be safeguarded and multiplied through transparent and ethical policies. This becomes paramount especially for a civilisational state like Bharatavarsha in order to preserve its cultural continuity in all realms. Thus, when DVG says that the soil for Dharma ⁵⁵ and welfare and auspiciousness is the same, several intellectual vistas unfold in our mind. And what are the main qualities of that soil?

1. Eminence of individual excellence 2. Courtesy 3. Wisdom 4. Philosophical fidelity

An ideal or optimum mix of these qualities is what infuses Dharma, and Dharma is incomplete sans Satya (Truth). However, the practical implication of ascertaining truth especially in public life is “not easy” because it is “scattered as pieces in various places. If we need to look at its wholesome and integrated form, we need to locate the places where it has been spread.” We are reminded of the superb line from one of his verses ⁵⁶ in Mankutimmana Kagga: manujaroḻagāgāga torpa mahanīyaguṇa (the noble qualities within people that come to the surface from time to time). DVG advocates that in public life, politics and government, this ability to spot virtue and nobleness (both are attributes of truth) is what needs to be cultivated and kept in constant practice. This is also the reason DVG repeatedly stresses that traditions and customs that have endured among the people from a dateless era must be maintained intact and must not be tampered with at any cost because their longevity is itself a proof of their innate value.

Notes

---

[[DVG’s Entry into the Rough and Tumble of Political Life Source: prekshaa]]

sāsirada yukti sāhasava nīnesagutiru ।
lesu phala doreye ninnella pauruṣakaṃ ॥
śeṣa ninaguḻivudeṃtādoḍaṃ novinitu ।
saisadanu nīnaḻade - maṃkutimma ॥ 636 ॥

Continue to implement a thousand ideas of adventure ।
It is wonderful if your efforts bear fruit ॥
Still, you will be left with a few failures and pain ।
Endure them all without lamenting – Mankutimma ॥

***

Even as Europe was reeling under the first world war born out of its unquenchable colonial rapacity, in faraway Bangalore a twenty-something D.V. Gundappa had already shot to fame with his magnum opus, Late Diwan Rangacharlu published in 1908. With that, DVG had almost overnight become a powerful voice of sanity, reason, balance, and hygiene in public life. His biweekly paper Karnataka (published every Wednesday and Saturday) which had begun in 1913 became highly influential, mostly owing to the force of DVG’s personality, writing, scholarship, keen grasp of a range of subjects and the tempered acidity of its views. It was a period when newspapers were subject to the Government’s whim and will. Censorship was a matter of course and writing against the British would invite assured punishment. Additionally, the British Resident in a princely state could randomly decide whether something constituted an offence purely based on his mood. It was in such an oppressive atmosphere that DVG not only criticized the Wodeyar government but took on the British with casual fearlessness, as we shall see in a future chapter. Here is a sample, a “prayer” appearing in Karnataka:

WHEN WILL IT COME –

A Firewood Depot
For the Poor in the City?
O our Kind Municipality!
O our Wise Government!
—–

*Lord, Have mercy
On poor pedestrians
And shaky cyclists
For our motorists are impatient
Our police are incompetent
Our municipality is impotent
And our Government is indifferent. *

Quite naturally, DVG’s neck-deep involvement in journalism, his frequent interactions with the highest strata of powers enmeshed him in the rough and tumble of political life of the time.

The Iconic Hindu Coffee Club

Public life in Bangalore began in earnest at the historic K.T. Appanna’s Hindu Coffee Club at Chickpet. Barely a decade after its establishment, it had emerged as a throbbing cultural hub and public-discussion magnet attracting scores of people from various walks of life. Vidwans of classical music, bureaucrats, journalists, writers, scholars, thinkers…assembled there every evening between 6 – 7:30 PM. Heated discussions, debates, expositions on political philosophy, language, literature, music, Swarajya and Swadeshi movements…nothing was taboo. Its wooden-benched confines became a solid training ground for a young DVG who was a permanent participant. The “friends” he made at the Coffee Club were nearly double his age. Some, like Guruswamy Iyer were fifty. DVG not only gleaned insights on the aforementioned topics from these seasoned experts but ingrained within himself those crucial lessons of life that cannot be formally taught.

If a parallel can be drawn at all, K.T. Appanna’s Coffee Club was akin to the Parisian Cafes, the throbbing venues of political and social ideas that animated and changed the French public life in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

The other venue was K.S. Krishna Iyer’s home.

Stirrings of Public Endeavours

In both venues, ideas and action plans were hatched and some took off but most were short-lived. Invariably, all these plans had only one aim: to raise the all-round standards of the people, to educate them about the new winds of democracy, liberty, and freedom, sweeping their ancient country, to improve their reading habits, to increase awareness about public health, and in general, stamp out laziness and inertia in public life.

A few notable outcomes include the founding of the Popular Education League, distributing sweets on Deepavali to terminally ill patients at the Tuberculosis Hospital at Magadi Road (it still exists), conducting night classes for mill workers in a temple on Goods Shed Road, and establishing the Bangalore Study Club and the Bangalore Book Club.

As an enthusiastic young man, DVG, the active and passionate participant in both K.T. Appanna’s Coffee Club and a permanent visitor to K.S. Krishna Iyer’s house, eventually wrote with great affection about KT. Appanna in a highly moving long-form essay and penned a respectful tribute to K.S. Krishna Iyer in his Jnapaka Chitrashale volumes. On his part, K.T. Appanna never billed DVG for the food he ate at his hotel. Like with many others, DVG shared a deep, lifelong bond of Samskara with him.

Circa 1915

Two things occurred in 1915, a year that marked a turning point in DVG’s life.

We shall begin with the second occurrence first.

As President of the Bangalore Municipality ⁵⁷, K.P. Puttanna Chetty ⁵⁸ called a public meeting at City Market ⁵⁹ to invite ideas for the development, upkeep and maintenance of the city. The Diwan Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya presided over the meeting. As the discussions progressed, DVG, the journalist and editor, who was present, raised some caustic criticism to which the Diwan said: “You seem to be a great critic. It is one thing to merely raise objections but that doesn’t solve anything. It is only when you jump in and get your feet dirty that you will understand our problems.” Not stopping at that, Visvesvaraya said, “If this young journalist’s critiques need to become useful, he needs to equip himself with insights into administration.” And then, in a gesture mixed with both admiration and challenge, Visvesvaraya nominated DVG as a Member of the Municipal Council in April 1915.

That was the beginning of a long and fruitful association of two titans, a relationship distinguished by a high degree of mutual respect whose bedrock was integrity and unqualified affection. Indeed, DVG’s brilliant memoir of Sir M. Visvesvaraya is a fine, inspirational model into the life, career, ideals and work habits of one of the few eponymous Bharata Ratnas.

Rarefied Service to the Bangalore Municipality

DVG’s appointment to the Municipality immediately, directly thrust him into the swampy waters of political life at that level. Diwan Visvesvaraya had indeed chosen well. DVG proved more than worthy to the task. In 1916, DVG initiated and then published the first Bangalore City Municipal Bulletin, an official newspaper of the Municipality. It had the full backing of the Diwan. However, it would prove to be short-lived. As Member, DVG’s debates in the Council were imbued with the strength of knowledge, impeccable logic, and his criticisms spared none. As Visvesvaraya had foreseen, DVG also got a firsthand experience of the kind of politics in these government bodies and the character and qualifications of the people that inhabited them. In numerous essays in his Rajyashastra, Rajyangatattvagalu and other scattered writings, he recounts several anecdotes from the Council meetings, a beautiful mixture of the sublime, the ludicrous, the hilarious and the shocking. His column titled Bangalore Municipal Politics published in The Hindu, 21 September 1927 is worth reading even today.

Notes

---

[[The Abiding Inspiration of Gopal Krishna Gokhale Source: prekshaa]]

Enter Gopala Krishna Gokhale

The second occurrence was the death of one of India’s pioneering statesmen and a fine democrat, Gopal Krishna Gokhale on 19 February 1915. While his death was mourned by the entire nation, only a handful took the inspiration to perpetuate his substantial and noble legacy.

Accordingly, DVG and some in his close circle seeded The Mysore Social Service League, the precursor to the Gokhale Institute of Public Affairs (GIPA) which DVG founded on 15 August 1948. The first grand event of the League was inviting Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi to Bangalore, his maiden visit to the city on 5 May 1915. The words of Gandhi’s speech as he unveiled Gokhale’s portrait resonated in DVG’s ears:

All Indians who wish to serve the country must work in the field of politics. They must discharge their services in political life and political institutions like Dharma. This is what Sri Gokhale taught me.

Gopala Krishna Gokhale’s dignified portrait still adorns the centre of the DVG Hall (“DVG Sabhangana,” in Kannada) in the GIPA premises with the inscription, “Portrait unveiled by Mahatma Gandhi on 5-5-1915.”

For a full year, DVG meditated not just on Gandhi’s words but on Gokhale’s dictum that “public life must be spiritualized.” The dictum became the slogan of his Karnataka paper from then on. What emerged from his penance was an unshakeable conviction that gave a concrete direction to DVG’s work in public life from which he never swerved. It stretched over a rich, eventful, busy and highly productive span of more than three decades (taking 1915 as the starting point) over which DVG not only wrote contemporary history but created it. One of the first things DVG did was to write a heartfelt tribute to Gopal Krishna Gokhale, and another elevating essay, In his Footsteps, reaffirming his commitment to the great savant. Indeed, for much of his life, DVG never tired of writing and speaking about the contributions and value of Gokhale in both Kannada and English.

The other insight that DVG realized can best be captured in his own words:

It is the burning of the intellect that enables the realization of a Darshana through Mantra. That burning is Shraddha or conviction. It is verily Tapas or penance.

In his case, this translated into a lifelong attempt at a synthesis in public life. DVG never viewed the Vaidika (loosely translated: religious) and Laukika (worldly) as separate. Both were complementary. Laukika would degenerate unless accompanied by the best elements of Vaidika.

Ceaseless Activity, Unremitting Public Service

It would be a mistake to assume that once DVG became the Municipal Member, he devoted all his time to politics.

DVG was first a journalist and editor and described himself as such till the end of his life. However, it is also essential to have a brief idea of the kind of prolific and intense activity he was engaged in apart from his journalism as well.

DVG was instrumental in establishing and growing the Karnataka Sahitya Parishad founded in 1915. As an office-bearer, invited scholars and litterateurs, hosted scholars, conducted seminars, Gamaka sessions, and in general, welcomed anybody who wished to serve the Kannada language and its long and profound literary heritage.

DVG also wrote and published annual reports on various aspects of the Mysore State, a topic we shall examine in detail later.

Around 1916, he was involved in an organization named Friends Union (the rechristened form of the Ranade Society). In 1917, he was made part of a small group curiously named, Non-Entities, whose intent was to raise funds for bright Indian youth who wanted to pursue higher studies abroad. He also lent his weight to the newly-formed Amateur Dramatic Association (ADA), which has survived till date with an auditorium of its own in Bangalore. He was instrumental in collecting the proceeds of several plays from this group, which he then sent to the renowned scientist Jagadish Chandra Bose’s Temple of Truth.

From the insights and learning he had acquired via writing Diwan Rangacharlu’s biography, DVG motivated a few prominent public personalities such as H.V Rangaswami (from Hassan) and M. Venkatakrishnayya and founded the Mysuru Sarvajanika Sabhe (Mysore Public Association) in Mysore city. However, it stopped functioning after three years. DVG was also instrumental in the establishment of the iconic National High School in Bangalore.

Needless, this list is merely a fraction of the full extent and sweep of DVG’s involvement in almost all spheres of national life but for now this fraction suffices as a highly representative sample.

A Blip

Diwan M. Visvesvaraya’s resignation in 1918 in protest against state-imposed quotas for government jobs generated much public outrage and DVG was personally pained by the decision. It was also the end of a principled era in public life. Diwan Visvesvaraya’s conviction was straightforward—the best man for the job and not his background or social stratum. India has long since slipped down the dangerous road to both iniquity and a stifling political correctness which almost prohibits even an informed scrutiny of the necessity of reservations. DVG was among those who abided by Visvesvaraya’s principles, and wrote on the subject:

*To the noble sentiment of uplifting the backward sections are tied several other sentiments and principles. In the attempt to uplift the backward sections, care must be taken not to deliberately push the forward sections behind. *

History testifies to the tragic fact that DVG’s warning went unheeded.

DVG’s Moral Authority and Farsightedness

At any rate, by 1922, DVG had flowered as an authoritative, truthful, courageous, selfless, and therefore fiercely independent voice of public conscience. His caustic column in the pages of The Hindu questioning Diwan A.R. Banerjee’s trips to Shimla and England caused such a massive public embarrassment that the Diwan himself wrote a personal clarification. This is also a reflection of the overall standard of officials manning high office. In October of the same year, DVG wrote a revealing note to Mirza Ismail:

The problem hitherto in this country was – How to rouse the people? How to create a democracy? The problem will hereafter be – How to keep the people well informed and sober? How to impart self-discipline and judgement to democracy? The Leviathan is astir and there need be no misgivings as to its growing force and velocity. Our fear should rather be now about any rude…movements by which he may damage good things or frighten good men*…*

DVG observed with growing alarm the kind of hooliganism that the Justice Party was beginning to unleash in neighbouring Tamil Nadu under the pretext of justice for the allegedly separate race called Dravidians. Its ripple effects were quickly felt in the Nellore region, and it didn’t take long for its dangerous inspiration to blossom in Mysore in the form of the so-called Praja Mitra Mandali. Quite obviously, the Justice Party and similar outfits claimed that their agitations were entirely consonant with the spirit of democracy. However, DVG was not fooled by such well-sounding facades and made it a point to repeatedly call their bluff.

***

A.R. Banerjee completed his term on 30 April 1926 as the Diwan of Mysore. He was succeeded by Mirza Ismail on 1 May 1926. As its longest-serving Diwan, Mirza Ismail’s tenure was marked by substantial upheavals for some of which he was directly responsible and some he proved too meek to control. His regime was also notable for a critical turning point in the contemporary history of the Mysore state as we shall see.

Flung into the Whirlpool

Years before Mirza Ismail became the Diwan, he had an abiding respect for DVG whose scholarship and public service he admired, and the two shared a warm relationship. They regularly met and corresponded with each other on a range of topics. Most of all, Mirza was impressed by DVG’s stunning capacity for fearless, impartial objectivity in a realm choked with time-servers and flatterers. Accordingly, on 27 May 1927, he nominated DVG as the Member of the Mysore Legislative Council. The public was elated with this appointment. The 7 June 1927 edition of The Mysore Patriot gushed as follows:

*A scholar in Kannada, keen student of politics, economy, pioneer in the field of “The Indian India,” accomplished writer and speaker, journalist, publisher of no mean caliber, Mr. D.V. Gundappa long ago earned his title to a place in the Councils for the State. His present nomination to the Legislative Council adds lustre to the journalistic world…and redounds to the credit of the new regime in that it has broken new ground and shown both courage and fresh outlook. *

Accolades, encomiums flowed in torrents towards DVG from all directions. His close circle of friends and other luminaries of the time wholeheartedly welcomed the move. On 9 June, a party was organized to honour DVG at the selfsame K.T. Appanna’s Hindu Coffee Club, now rechristened as the Modern Hindu Hotel. Men recognized as eminences in their own fields fussed over him. Among others, Rao Saheb Thangavelu Mudaliar, Dr. Abbayi Naidu, S.G. Sastry, Dr. Kunhi Kannan, B.K. Garudachar, Belur Srinivasa Iyengar, Pamidi Subbarama Setty, K.T. Bashyam and Mokshagundam Krishnamurthy were present at the party.

In one stroke, Diwan Mirza Ismail had hurled DVG directly into the whirlpool of hard-rabble politics. For the next fourteen years, its brutal reality would unfold strand by strand before his own eyes.

sulabhavenalla naralokahitanirdhāra ।
balake noḻpar kelaru, kelareḍake noḻpar ॥
vilavilane capalisuva manujasvabhāvadali ।
nelegottu hitakelli? - maṃkutimma ॥ 855 ॥
It isn’t easy in this human world to understand what is good and what is not ।
Some look to the right, some to the left ॥
If you seek happiness in the ever-fickle human nature
How can you ever find its true source?" – Mankutimma

[[DVG’s Eightfold Pledge in Public Life Source: prekshaa]]

The warden of Socrates’ prison is a great and enduring metaphor for several reasons. For one, when Socrates’ wealthy friend Crito says he can bribe the prison guards to help him escape an unjust punishment, Socrates refuses purely on moral grounds thereby setting a personal example. His self-sacrifice is perhaps his way of shaming the state of Athens itself. On another plane, as he tells Crito, submitting himself voluntarily to unjust laws instead of inciting a revolt also shows that Socrates valued maintaining social order and cohesion. It is not a coincidence that the Crito episode became and still remains a foundational topic in the philosophy of law. At any rate, the Socratic metaphor also stands for the truism that the world has rarely heeded the sage advice of wise men and women since eons and in some cases, has killed them because of their wisdom.

Arguably, this applies in varying degrees to DVG’s legacy in the political and public realm.

So far, we have examined some of the key facets of DVG’s political philosophy, moorings, inspiration and ideals. Now we can examine how they translated in reality in his own extensive work in public life, politics and journalism spread over six decades. This work maybe broadly divided into four categories:

1. As a representative of various public offices 2. As a tireless advocate of responsible government 3. As a visionary who warned about the problems of the princely states very early in a public atmosphere fraught with only a myopic goal of wresting independence from the British 4. As a conscientious evaluator of the Congress party during the freedom struggle and a trenchant critic of Congress governments after Independence.

A Public Representative

As a nominated member to the Mysore Legislative Council, it didn’t’ take long for DVG to carve out the same standard of distinction that he had earned as a journalist and editor so far. Although Diwan Mirza Ismail had personally nominated him, DVG never became a mouthpiece of the Mysore Government. The reverse is actually true. If public life had to be spiritualized, fearlessness was the first prerequisite. As a firm believer and practitioner of the exalted principle that Government exists for the welfare and well-being of the citizens that gave it power, DVG would passionately criticize every law or move that violated this principle. Quite obviously, his own colleagues didn’t take his criticisms kindly and over time, he clashed with Mirza Ismail himself as we shall see.

The Eightfold Path

Indeed, we have a firsthand source of DVG’s conception and ideal of public life in a remarkable vow that he publicly took. The following is the full text of this vow.

Pledge: With God as witness, I hereby embrace the following eight vows:

1. Debt to the Nation: The people of Bharata, her institutions and traditions have protected and nurtured me. I shall always remember the debt I owe this country and I shall attempt to discharge my nationalist duties with utmost purity of thought and purpose. 2. National Unity and Integrity: I shall try to preserve the unity and integrity of the Indian nation. I shall oppose anything that causes damage to this unity be it sectarian interests of sect, creed, language, economic and social group. 3. Truth: Truth should be the only basis for all decisions related to public life. I believe that the method of arriving at the truth is through honest study of the subject on hand and fearless public discussions. 4. Courtesy*: In interactions with people, if courtesy is complemented by truth, human life becomes truly auspicious. Therefore, I shall, according to my ability, assist in all endeavours that foster mutual friendship, compassion, and empathy among people.* 5. Independent Thought: In order to find out answers and solutions to problems of public life and to express them, I shall not be beholden to any faction or party and be guided by my conscience alone and conduct myself accordingly. However, I shall also truthfully contemplate upon the opinion of every group. In every matter, I shall examine every opinion with empathy and critical reasoning. 6. Striving for Peace: In cases where there is potential for conflict and fight among people, I shall strive to maintain amity among them and attempt to resolve these conflicts through friendly consensus. The peace that is established by mutual goodwill among warring groups is the peace that lasts. 7. Fearlessness: I shall remain fearless in both expressing the truth and spreading courtesy. I shall not conceal the truth owing to my obligation to or dependence on anybody. I shall not tolerate injustice. 8. Giving up Selfishness: I shall not use my public position and official perks for my personal profit or glory.

If the political class of any country is really serious about enshrining lasting national values, it would do well to first inculcate this eightfold path of DVG within itself. Indeed, DVG took this pledge after putting its constituents in practice. A few well-known episodes from his life are worth recounting in this regard.

The first episode relates to the period when Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya was the Diwan. As a young and distinguished journalist, DVG’s newspaper office once received a cheque from the Mysore Palace. When he inquired the reason, he was told that this was part of an age-old convention where the Durbar of His Highness, the Maharaja of Mysore sent a token sum to all journalists who covered the Mysore Dasara festival every year. It was supposed to be a gesture of goodwill. DVG was incensed. He visited the Diwan’s office. This was how the conversation ensued:

DVG: “Why have you sent this money?”

Official: “Because you have covered the Dasara celebrations so well in your paper.”

DVG: “And you sent money for that?”

Official: “You’re journalists. You have travel, lodging and other expenses. Besides, this is an old custom.”

DVG: “Reporting is the duty of a journalist. The paper, not the Government, has to bear these costs. Take this back. I really don’t need it.”

When Diwan Visvesvaraya heard this, he was stunned and impressed by this young journalist’s fearless integrity and fierce independence. He wrote to his secretary: “This boy is not like the usual journalists. We cannot offer him money or any allurement. Please take back the cheque.”

The second dates back to his long associations with both Visvesvaraya and Mirza Ismail. As we’ve seen earlier, in many ways, DVG was a prize catch for both these Diwans. They sought his services for various matters and insisted that DVG accept compensation. Out of respect for these eminences, DVG accepted the cheques they gave him on all such occasions. After DVG passed away in 1975, his son, the brilliant botanist and multifaceted scholar and writer Dr. B.G.L. Swamy opened his father’s large metallic trunk. Among the things he discovered were a stack of cheques signed by Visvesvaraya and Mirza Ismail. DVG never cashed them. Public service should not have a price tag.

The third episode was when the Karnataka Government announced its decision to award a monthly pension to DVG. The aged DVG summoned the Karnataka Chief Secretary G.V.K. Rao to his home and said, “What are you doing my man? For what joy are you planning to give me money? Are you sitting in such a high office to waste public money in this fashion? This is completely unacceptable.” G.V.K. Rao had no option but to yield to DVG’s remonstrance.

The fourth episode was when the Karnataka Government made another announcement: to rename the Nagasandra Road in DVG’s honour. To which DVG promptly wrote a very public letter of protest (paraphrased): “surely, the Government has better and more important work than renaming roads after old people.” Even in this case, DVG abided by one of his cherished ideals: that long-held conventions and traditions of people must not be altered or overturned overnight. However, this time the Government did not yield. D.V.G. Road remains one of the celebrated landmarks in Basavanagudi.

Such episodes are manifold in DVG’s long life and career and they necessitate a separate volume by the dint of their merit.

DVG’s voluntary embrace of poverty might sound rather extreme by today’s watered-down standards and dumbed-down public discourse. In fact, in his own time, even DVG’s staunch admirers felt deeply for him and all their efforts to ameliorate his financial condition were shot down by the man himself. One can hazard a guess. As DVG confesses so movingly ⁶⁰ in his magnificent essay, Hakkiya Payana, right from childhood, he was drawn to Bairagis, Dasayyas, Fakirs and mendicants for their carefree life dedicated entirely to the Divine. Thankfully, instead of following their renunciate path, DVG imbibed their spirit and implemented it in a far more treacherous realm: politics and public life. This reminds us of a beautiful line: “what raises travel writing to literature is not what the writer brings to a place, but what the place draws out of the writer.” DVG’s legacy is itself a superb testimony of what these Yogis and Bairagis drew out of him of which we find an echo in this verse from Mankutimmana Kagga:

Does it matter how much you eat? The body can assimilate only that much that the stomach can digest. The rest is waste.
Of all the wealth you accumulate, how much can you actually use?
Just a handful of flour is all you can use - Mankutimma ॥ 677 ॥

Notes

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[[DVG as the Ideal Legislator: A Legacy of 14 Years as Member of the Mysore Legislative Council Source: prekshaa]]

A little-known episode in DVG’s life illustrates this renunciate facet innate in him. On 2 June 1927, DVG received an invitation directly from the Mysore Maharaja to which he recorded, “Invitation from the palace. What to do?” Ever the respecter of tradition and custom, DVG visited the palace and met the Wodeyar. On 20 June 1927, his daughter Smt Tunga wrote him a letter: “I felt really happy hearing that you visited the palace. I really wanted to see you wearing the Durbar dress.”

DVG has neither spoken about or left any record of his meeting with the Maharaja of Mysore. This profound silence is also a profound testimony of how DVG regarded such things. To borrow a worn-out cliché, DVG was one of those handful of lotuses that bloom in the sludge of politics and public life. At the risk of speaking the blunt truth bluntly, DVG was several notches higher than even “Right Honourable” V.S. Srinivasa Sastri ⁶¹ who for all his erudition, eminence, patriotism and public service, wasn’t particularly courageous in matters that demanded taking a decisive stand.

***

DVG entered the Mysore Legislative Council at a crucial juncture in the history of the Mysore Princely State. The Indian National Congress had all but been monopolized by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in British India and was spreading its tentacles across the country at a feverish pace. However, it had no presence in the Mysore State. The only political party here was the aforementioned non-Brahmin Party in its infancy. It would prove to be a short-lived experiment. The nationwide clamour for Responsible Government quite naturally made its voice heard in Mysore as well and DVG was one of its staunchest proponents as we shall see. As a journalist deeply involved in politics and national life, DVG could not be immune to these currents furiously swirling outside Mysore. As a perceptive commentator, DVG realized that it was only a matter of time before these currents would flood Mysore as well. With great foresight, DVG anticipated the numerous problems and sudden turmoil that such a flood would cause and tirelessly wrote about them.

Although the Mysore Legislative Council had its own importance, it was largely a toothless body in the sense that its decisions could be overruled by the King or the Resident on a mere whim. Despite this overarching constraint, the sort of spirited and highly knowledgeable debates that DVG conducted in the Council is truly astonishing. Indeed, if an independent volume [^20.2] comprising all of DVG’s speeches and debates in the Council is compiled, it will make for a brilliant education for all aspiring and serving lawmakers both in our assemblies and the Parliament.

In no particular order, here is a small list of the subjects on which DVG debated: freedom of speech, legislative motions and rules, economy, prostitution, reservations, communal harmony, press censorship, untouchability, Hindu temples, child marriage, widow remarriage, and public security. Neither can these be merely classified as legislative debates in the sense it is commonly understood. They were virtuoso performances suffused with erudition, eloquence, scholarship, wit, courage, and moral authority.

Extent of Free Speech

In 1929, the leader of the House Proceedings, a Minister named K. Mathan raised an objection regarding Rules. He had a rather self-righteous bias against nominated members of the Council. Accordingly, he sought to impose limits to the matters such members could discuss. Thus, if a nominated member was a recognized expert on say economics, law, education, or reservations, he could debate only these topics, nothing else. If the member did venture to opine on other topics even on justified grounds and armed with solid knowledge and sound reasoning, it was seen as a violation of House Rules. DVG was inflamed when he heard this. In a debate ⁶² on 28 June 1929, he retorted:

I must very strongly protest against the implied censure*. I think that Government has nominated me not to represent the Government but to represent the public** and I represent the public according to my light. I interpret the Rules according to my understanding and not according to Government’s understanding.*

The minister Mathan never spoke about House Rules after this. However, this did not end here. It resurfaced in another form five years later. By then, the Indian National Congress had already made impressive inroads into Mysore and the turmoil DVG had anticipated was unfolding on a daily basis. His earlier cautions had gone unheeded but DVG persevered. In May-June 1936 just before the House convened, DVG sent two matters for consideration:

1. A committee had to be urgently set up to discuss political reforms 2. Another committee to discuss and debate the problems of integrating the 500-plus Princely States into Indian Union after the British left

Needless, both topics were inextricably linked. The Diwan, Mirza Ismail who was also the President of the Council refused to place these proposals before the House. DVG was unfazed. On 23 June 1934, he wrote a detailed essay discussing his proposals in The Hindu. In response, Mirza Ismail reprimanded DVG in the House saying that publishing such things in a newspaper constituted a violation of House Rules and gave him no chance to reply. DVG was dogged. Two weeks later, the Prajamata magazine (then based out of Madras) published a Special Supplement ⁶³, a dedicated long-form rebuttal by DVG. The entire essay ⁶⁴ is worth its weight in gold. Only a representative sample is provided below.

It is…reassuring to see the analogy of the British Parliament commended…after the requiem on Parliamentary democracy…from the lips of Sir Mirza Ismail just two weeks ago. If he would establish Parliamentary institutions and traditions in this country…we have no quarrel at all. That he is not doing is our…grievance…

In writing my article in ‘The Hindu’, my purpose was to show the limitations of the existing Constitution in Mysore…Sir Mirza desires not only that we should remain gagged on the floor of the House, but that we should remain gagged even outside as to what we suffer inside. He does not admit that the general public of the country is a higher tribunal than the Legislature which it creates. My position is different. I think that the public…which elects the legislature is a higher authority than the Legislature; and that if the representatives of the public are under any…handicaps they have not only the right but also the duty of reporting their difficult position to the people who elects them.

Needless, such occurrences were not infrequent and caused some tension in the relationship between DVG and Mirza Ismail. To both their credit, they never allowed bitterness or personal animosity to creep in and till the very end, they remained cordial friends. In a moving reminiscence in his classic Jnapaka Chitrashale, DVG not only praises Mirza Ismail but chides himself in a rather self-deprecatory Kannada term, “nannadu bhanda-jiva” (I am thick-skinned). Indeed, much before he became a Member of the Mysore Legislative Council, DVG had clearly stated his position to Diwan Mirza ⁶⁵ in a letter:

In the present circumstances of the country, politics is as often a force to divide as to unite; particularly when one of two friends happens to be an official in high authority and the other a non-official worker of the public…In such cases I hold that what, according to one’s right is due to the country is greater and more sacred than what is due to private friendship. Of course, one’s first effort…should be to reconcile the two claims. But when that is found to be impossible, the larger must, alas! be allowed to supercede the smaller…May I regard such rare good fortune as mine?

This quality of honest friendship and genuine affection in political life is in the realm of impossibility today.

An Ideal Legislator

DVG exhibited the same traits of courage and fearlessness in his debates on highly-charged and taboo issues like prostitution and child marriage and widow remarriage. Unlike other members of the Council, he did not nonchalantly dismiss prostitution as an absolute evil but strove to find ways to mitigate it based on precedent, history, social realities, and…statistics. He demanded the Leader of the House for hard facts, census data and verifiable experience before making a law regarding prostitution. These debates are truly eye-opening to say the least. On widow remarriage for example, he led by example. After tragically losing his wife to a fire accident at a relatively young age, DVG was pressurized by his family to remarry. He accepted on one condition: I will remarry only if my widowed sister also remarries. His family let the matter rest there.

It is obviously impossible to do justice to the full, rich, erudite, and wise legislative legacy of DVG spread over fourteen long years in these pages. Even the aforementioned glimpses are merely representative at best and partial at worst. What is undeniable is the fact that he elevated parliamentary democracy to a high and sublime degree that earned him enormous respect even from his opponents in the House. Other members like J. Mohammad Imam, Abbas Khan, D.H. Chandrashekhariah, Rao Saheb Chennayya, Narasinga Rao, Hassan Venkateshayya, M. Ramachandra Rao and Sir Puttanna Chetty poured generous, heartfelt compliments on DVG’s style of debate, his eloquence, wit, constructive criticism and held him as an ideal legislator.

sarvārtha sahabhāgitege rāṣṭra kula varga ।
sarvadaṇu tānenuttorva manujan ॥
sarvajīva samṛddhiganugūḍi duḍiyutire ।
parvavaṃdiḻegalavo - maṃkutimma ॥ 882 ॥

The goal of founding countries, categories and sects is to help in sharing and caring for one other.
Each person must realize that he is just an atom of the whole.
He must work towards the overall well-being of the whole.
Only then, the world will look beautiful akin to a festival day - Mankutimma

Notes

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[2] In a rare departure from a half century of legislative indolence, the Karnataka Government published a few selections of DVG’s debates in Pratibhavanta Samsadiya Patu: DVG in 2009 in Kannada, a shoddy, unsatisfactory and incomplete work.

[[DVG: The Indefatigable Champion of Responsible Government Source: prekshaa]]

Writing about the necessity for a politician to cultivate a practiced and constant study of high and valuable literature, DVG says ⁶⁶ that

*Governance is primarily an art, then it is a subject for study. As art’s innate nature, it first reveals itself in practice before it can be codified. Likewise, the first step is to strive for friendly acceptance of the people in the real world before defining a proper framework of rules and laws. Theory is akin to a mountain, art is akin to rain-laden clouds…Both theory and art must go hand in hand. *

Indeed, when one surveys the best of world literature, it is clear that they also exhibit an astonishing command over a vast range of scholarship—from Mahakavi Kalidasa to Dr. S.L. Bhyrappa in our own time. Thus, like an artist, a good politician should be able to accurately gauge what is known as the “mental makeup” of his city, for example. Indeed, we have examples of former Diwans and corporation heads who would go out and personally inspect every street in their city. This sort of hands-on governance is perhaps the most effective method of ensuring that decentralization works at its most optimum level because it ensures two things at the same: one, alertness and healthy fear among the lower levels of bureaucracy and admiration from the people that the topmost rungs of the government personally cares for them. This is also consistent with the method of the familiar, ancient system where the King would tour the kingdom in disguise etc.

Needless, DVG also anticipated the criticism that this method of governance is not feasible or practical in a modern democracy. The essence of his brilliant rebuttals to this charge can be summarized as follows: DVG regards the individual citizen’s vote as power and to use this power, self-education in democracy was the first and greatest prerequisite. Second, because the aforementioned method of hands-on administration was still in vogue and familiar to the inherited Indian historical consciousness, it only needed a change of form in the new system of democracy. Third, in a remarkable essay ⁶⁷ written in his later years, this is what DVG says:

Fifty years ago, there was clamour everywhere for the freedom of the citizen…today, if we feel that something is a public good, we automatically want the government to do it.

In other words, this is the perennial struggle—if not battle—of a democratic system where the limits of government and individual freedom, and the extent of law are engaged in a constant clash. As always, DVG’s preference is to cultivate the goodness that comes from within, which both ensures individual freedom and limits the ability of government and law to overreach into the citizen’s personal life.

Outlines of Responsible Government

Before and throughout his tenure as a legislator, DVG stressed precisely on these elements using a constant mantra: Responsible Government. That was a period that stretched from 1913-1948. DVG’s tireless advocacy of Responsible Government makes for a separate section as we shall see. But in passing, here are the key features as outlined by him:

1. The Office of the Diwan was over-centralised and exercised its authority in an arbitrary fashion. DVG advocated for a thorough but well-thought out decentralization of this power. 2. Given the ancient political tradition of this country which is innately noble (i.e. infused with Dharma), Indians are more than capable of being trained for Responsible Government. 3. The national atmosphere charged with patriotism and nationalism will eventually usher in a patriotic Government when independence comes and it is only befitting that when our people are trained in Responsible Government, future nation-building will be more vigorous, successful and will have sturdy foundations. 4. Responsible Government is perhaps one of the most workable and practical realization of the democratic fundamental, people ruling themselves.

Needless, DVG was deeply influenced by the clamour for Responsible Government raised by the Indian National Congress in British India, studied it thoroughly and was convinced of its fitness in the Mysore Princely State as well. More importantly, he witnessed the pathetic condition of most of the Princely States and was both alarmed and angry at the complete absence of democracy therein and doggedly wrote to the various Maharajas and Princes pleading for reform. Comparably, Mysore was much better. Yet, although democracy was injected in slow drops, it was a sham in practice as we have seen earlier.

Two major episodes stand out in DVG’s long fight for achieving Responsible Government in Mysore: repeated gags on the press and the infamous Bangalore Ganapati Clashes of 1928.

Quite naturally, these were also great causes of his tense relations with Diwan Mirza Ismail. The Bangalore Ganapati Clashes especially took this tension almost to a breaking point. The following is a brief summary of the outbreak.

The Bangalore Ganapati Riots of 1928

The Government School (formerly known as S R Nanjundayya School) on Arcot Srinivasachar Street in Sultanpet, Bangalore (today, AS Char Street) housed a small Ganesha idol in its campus since time immemorial. When the school underwent renovation in 1928, the contractor built a small mandap for the Ganesha idol.

Overnight, the government decided to focus its attention on this development which had gone unnoticed by the general public. The officials of the education department objected to the presence of this Ganesha idol inside the mandap. The reason? The house of Abbas Khan, the then head of the (Bangalore City) Corporation was located right opposite the school. A mosque stood next to his house.

Once this news became public, students and the general citizenry took out a rally demanding the Ganesha idol to be restored to its place in the mandap. Prominent Kannada papers like Veerakesari, Nava Jeevana and Vishwa Karnataka stood rock-solid behind this widespread public opinion. It didn’t take long for the rally to morph into a protracted public agitation.

H C Dasappa (who later became a Congress MP from Bangalore South in the second Lok Sabha and was a minister in Nehru’s cabinet), Nilagiri Sanjivayya, and K H Ramayya stood by the government’s stand to not restore the Ganesha idol. On the other side, those who supported the public agitation included the formidable Kannada editor, “Veerakesari” Sitarama Sastri, Sampige Venkatapatayya, Nittoor Srinivasa Rau (later the Chief Justice of the Mysore High Court, also the first chief of the CVC), and M P Somashekhara Rao.

“Veerakesari” Sitarama Sastri wrote blazing editorials protesting the nakedly communal stand of the government, including a fine piece of satire in Kannada with the God Ganesha himself outpouring his sorry plight in the first person.

The government, instead of resolving the issue in a rational manner, decided to use brute force. It arrested student leaders who formed a significant and influential chunk, which only heightened tensions. The unrest only intensified — now the government had two problems on its hand instead of one: the demand for reinstating the Ganesha idol and the protest against the government’s haughtiness. Thousands of protesters took out their processions in front of the Diwan’s home and the Bangalore Central Jail. Things reached such a dangerous pass that the army was called in to restrain the protestors.

Finally, the government backed down and released some student leaders on bail. Ramlal Tiwari, Subramhanyam and Bhima Rao became instant heroes — they were paraded in a massive victory procession, which eventually reached the school. The Ganesha idol was reinstalled and Arati and Puja was performed.

Muslim Hooliganism, Government Inaction

Even as the Arati was being performed, a barrage of stones and footwear came flying from the opposite buildings. This was followed by the sound of a gun going off. Within minutes, an army of Muslims armed with sticks, swords and other deadly weapons descended on the worshippers. Hundreds were grievously wounded.

That the nature and the aftermath of this unprovoked attack was so gruesome can be gauged by the fact that it not only made national headlines but was also reported in faraway London by the Times and other prominent papers.

Meanwhile, the Mysore government seemed to be hurtling towards disaster after fresh disaster. This time, it simply feigned blindness, which only infuriated the public, which perceived the government to be insensitive. An incident that was reported in the international press was being met by the government with snubbing-by-silence. A torrent of angry editorials, protest marches and other forms of strident criticism followed.

Finally, the government backed down and appointed a six-member enquiry committee headed by the retired Diwan Sir M Vishweshwarayya. After a prolonged process of collecting evidence, documents, reports, and testimonies, the committee submitted its report formally titled Report of the Bangalore Disturbances Enquiry Committee. Its findings: Things went out of hand because of the government’s inaction and delay in the face of a situation of crisis, and that “law and order was completely broken during the disturbances and the government favoured one side in the incident.”

Faced with plummeting credibility, the government turned to vent its ire against newspapers. It unleashed a regime of press censorship and threatened editors with banishment, a common punishment in those days.

Quite naturally, DVG didn’t take kindly to such repeated high-handedness on the Government’s part.

Notes

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[[The Bangalore Ganapati Clashes Set the Stage for DVG’s Advocacy for Responsible Government Source: prekshaa]]

DVG was not in Bangalore when the Ganapati clashes occurred. He had been to Bagalkot for a conference of press editors. When he returned, he found Bangalore in a state of boil. Diwan Mirza Ismail had called for a public meeting of Hindus and Muslims to pacify both parties but public opinion was almost unanimous that he was on the Muslim side. Tempers flared when it appeared that Mirza Ismail was attempting to blame Hindus for the riots. When DVG listened to the detailed eyewitness stories and reports of the clashes, he concluded that the Mirza Government was indeed trying to pin the blame on Hindus. He severed all contact with Mirza Ismail for nearly two years. Not just that. He wrote a strongly-worded opinion piece titled What is Wrong With the State of Mysore: Bangalore Disturbances and After in Swarajya dated 15 September 1928. This was DVG’s rebuttal of an earlier mischievous article in the Times of India that sought to whitewash the role of Muslim mobs that instigated the riots.

DVG traced the roots of the riots in his rebuttal and concluded that Mirza Ismail, in his zeal to beautify Bangalore City, had not consulted all stakeholders but relied excessively on Abbas Khan. Repeated complaints to various Government offices about this matter had yielded no response. Besides, the plan to shift the Ganapati Murti was not informed to the public earlier. When even this was pointed out, the Government simply ignored. Then there was the question of “secret meetings” held by the Diwan with just a few of his confidants. When the Ganapati Murti was shifted from its original location under the supervision of Government officials and the police, public suspicion acquired the colour of confirmation that Diwan Mirza Ismail’s Government was anti-Hindu. The last straw, of course, was the unprovoked vandalism of Muslim mobs.

Recounting the atmosphere of the period in one of his Jnapakachitrashale essays, DVG narrates his interaction with a traditional Vedic Pandit and teacher. The Pandit shares some snippets of his conversation with a prominent Muslim. When he questions the Muslim about the Ganapati vandalism, the man nonchalantly justifies the mob violence: “Diwan sahib hamara aadmi hai” – “The Diwan is our man.” DVG then confesses that he had no answer for the Vedic Pandit’s query: “You say you know all these people, you know the Diwan himself. What could you do about this?”

Aftermath

Faced with stinging criticism and widespread condemnation from the press and public, on 28 August 1928, the Mysore Maharaja appointed a commission of inquiry into the Ganapati clashes. It was headed by the former Diwan Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya. On 10 October, DVG testified before the committee. His tenor was acerbic. The following is a sample of his testimony.

*I am stunned to notice that the administrative machinery has been struck by paralysis. The cataclysm that hit Mysore on the 30^(th) is new. It is also a great warning to every person who aspires to enter the Civil Services…The Government, instead of acting in a timely fashion despite several reminders, was busy napping. It appears that there is no connection between the Government and the life of ordinary people it is meant to protect and govern…Even when newspapers by the dozen wrote repeated letters to the Government and penned editorials of alarm, it didn’t show even the basic courtesy of a response…When protest marches and agitations over the Ganapati issue were being taken out, the Government did nothing…Poor thing, it didn’t know anything and we are supposed to believe it. It is rather shocking to note that the Government didn’t even bother to understand the real strength of these agitations…On the contrary, it clamped down on these newspapers post facto! And it continues to impose all manner of restrictions on press freedom and calls for separate laws for further choking the press. *

On 15 January 1929, Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya submitted his report to the Government. Expectedly, it was deeply embarrassing. On the floor of the Legislative Council, DVG demanded that the Government make its contents public. He was met with silence. However, as the truism goes, no Government document can ever remain completely secret. Visvesvaraya’s Report was leaked to the press, which had a field day. DVG himself took the lead by penning a sardonic piece ⁶⁸ in the Vishwa Karnataka paper:

*We were living under the fond illusion that everything was fine in the Mysore State only to be rudely awakened…The dome or tower atop the home might be shining from afar. Inside, its very pillars and columns might be shaking. All it takes is one lash of solid rains to understand whether the dome or the pillars are more important…Likewise, it took one Ganapati clashes to awaken us to the reality of our administrative machinery, judiciary, and public safety and security systems…Our great public officials in various departments must set aside petty squabbles and reinvigorate the functioning of the Government. Only then will Ganapati himself bless us. *

Eventually, this sort of dogged and sustained pressure forced the Mysore Government to publish the Visvesvaraya Report. It was a small victory. DVG wrote another essay commending the Report for its truthfulness and thoroughness, and recommended that everyone read it. This is how he summarises the report.

1. There is excessive concentration of power in the Mysore State. This has caused a situation whereby Government officials are always scared to take independent action even in cases where such action demands timeliness and serves the interest of justice. 2. This in turn, causes paralysis at all levels and justice is not done. The Bangalore Ganapati Clashes have illustrated this in a clear-cut fashion in real life. The police did not and could not discharge their duty fearlessly and objectively because of these reasons. Faced with a crisis, the administrative machinery completely broke down. 3. The only solution to these appalling defects is Responsible Government where various functions of the Governments are optimally distributed across different departments who are accountable to one another.

This set the tone for a prolonged crusade to introduce Responsible Government in Mysore. Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya was perhaps highly impressed by DVG’s passionate and well-argued writings and speeches in favour of Responsible Government. As such, he sent a recommendation to the Maharaja’s Government as an addendum of sorts. It was titled, How to Remedy the Current Political Discontent. However, Diwan Mirza Ismail didn’t budge an inch. But that is a story for another day.

This brings us to the next phase of DVG’s political career: the aforementioned advocacy for Responsible Government.

Notes

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[[DVG’s 35-Year-Long Crusade for Responsible Government Source: prekshaa]]

Apart from his regular writings in Karnataka and other publications, perhaps the most lucid, fierce and passionate expositions on the urgent need for Responsible Government in Mysore are to be found in Problems of Indian Native States. This can be considered as a magnum opus of sorts among political literature in this genre. While most of it is addressed as Memorials to the then Maharaja of Bikaner, the sections devoted to Responsible Government are uniformly applicable to all princely states ⁶⁹ of the time. We can examine a random ⁷⁰ passage.

*In many Native States at present, the prevailing system is one of unqualified autocracy. In an India making rapid strides towards democracy, such states are an obvious anomaly…Other states…in which there is a semblance of constitutional government, the actual fact [is that]… the Assembly or the Council is simply a clever contrivance for preventing true popular ascendancy and for justifying bureaucratic sins with the seeming support of democracy. *

In DVG’s view, Responsible Government was ⁷¹ not “merely a device for political convenience and material comfort; it is also a training of character.” Needless, DVG also offers a five-point outline of a “True Constitution” for such a Government.

1. Absolute supremacy of law, which is not subordinate to any individual or class. 2. An elected Representative Assembly of which the legislature of the State is a part. 3. Autonomous local institutions from the rural Panchayats to urban bodies. 4. An executive council elected by the members of the Legislative Assembly. 5. Full freedom of speech and criticism “subject only to the conditions imposed by the ordinary penal law.”

DVG’s passionate crusade in favour of Responsible Government found enthusiastic support and endorsement from a significant section of eminent people in public life. Public meetings, seminars, debates, and conferences were organized on a regular basis. Charters, appeals, resolutions and notices were forwarded to the Government. May 5, 1929 was a memorable day. A huge gathering met at the Majestic Theatre comprising M. Venkatakrishnayya, Hosakoppa Krishna Rao, Pamadi Subbarama Shetty, M.P. Somashekahra Rao, S.R.S. Raghavan, C.V. Narasinga Rao, K.T. Bashyam, K.T. Satyanarayana Murthy, B.L. Bayyanna, Veeranna Gowda, Ramanlal Tiwari, T.T. Sharma, Sanjeevappa, and other luminaries. The special feature of the conference was D.V.G.’s erudite and courageous condemnation of the infamous ⁷² Butler Committee Report. The Report which took two years to prepare only reaffirmed the British political duplicity. DVG’s resolution that a round table conference should be called to further debate the Report was unanimously accepted in that conference.

The consequences were immediate. A fresh wave of press clampdown, arrests, forced closures of newspaper offices and other forms of repression ensued. Several of DVG’s friends were arrested.

DVG hit back with equal ferocity by openly organizing the Indian States Subjects’ Day in Kalasipalyam on 3 June 1929. More than a thousand people attended. He made a vociferous speech the gist of which is as follows:

1. The need for Responsible Government is more urgent now given the prevailing repressive atmosphere. 2. Not just Mysore, but Responsible Governments must be established in all Princely States paving way for their eventual integration into the Indian Union. Princes must give up their obstinacy of sticking to political power and voluntarily usher in Responsible Government out of goodwill. 3. The constitutional recommendations made by the Visvesvaraya Committee must be implemented forthwith.

As on earlier occasions, even this didn’t bear any fruit. The Mysore Government was simply unwilling to give in. However, the Government of India Act, 1935 was a turning point in the Indian freedom struggle. With this, there was a semblance of Responsible Government in the various states of British India. However, the Act maintained a studied silence on the Princely States by not mentioning them at all.

DVG began to study the Act with his usual thoroughness and after making solid preparations, made a speech in the Council on 26 January 1938. He categorically said on the floor that the Government of India Act of 1935 was highly unsatisfactory and unacceptable to one and all. Then he demanded that the Mysore Government should set up a committee to examine this Act minutely and come out with recommendations on the best method for merging into the Indian Union. It was a striking endorsement of his twenty-year-long refrain: Responsible Government in Mysore would make the path smoother for such a merger. A brief extract ⁷³ is given below:

*What Indian political life is suffering from today is not the paucity of truths…but the neglect of the practice of some elementary laws of the art of living together. Both democracy and nationalism are to me nothing else than certain highly evolved processes of this art of living together. It is from this point of view that I would look at the New Government of India Act…one supreme merit [is]…for the first time in Indo-British history, it marks an attempt to put both the political divisions together on one political platform and impart to India some measure of that statal unity and integrity of which she has so long stood in clamant need…We decline to make use of the present Act and defer the day of any kind of direct contact between the two parts of India now kept apart… In candid language, the chief objection of British India to taking the states as partners is that they are autocratically governed and that their influence in all-Indian councils will be anti-democratic…The pressure of nationalist aspiration is the only remedial agency…to base all our hopes for the reform of the States and their befitment for membership in all Indian polity. *

It was an inspired speech that received pan-India applause in the political circles and was widely quoted in the media. However, the outcome was pathetic: Government representatives and officials merely paid it lip sympathy.

But Diwan Mirza Ismail saw value in the speech and pressurised DVG to sit on a committee for political reforms. By this time, the earlier animosity between the two had healed. Yet, DVG declined the offer with his typical courageous dignity in a letter ⁷⁴ dated 3 March 1938:

What do you think of having on the committee a pauper pursued by bill collectors and bailiffs? Could he add to the strength…of the committee?… Let me plainly say that my position is not very different…I do sincerely wish to be left out of committees. No more the pose of a public man for me.

…I am not down-hearted or disappointed. Why should I be? … Hardship and I have long been friends, and I have courage in my heart. I am not afraid of hard work and privation. I’ll struggle…and pay my creditors like an honest man and then enjoy my freedom. This is now my prayer*. I have never looked for any prizes…and do not want any** – neither membership of the State Council nor the State’s deputyship in the Federal Legislature…I have never aspired to the honours of leadership…I am aware of my limitations. My role is that of a humble student and I am content with that. When I have redeemed my honour from the clutches of my creditors my wish is to give the rest of my life to the work of interpreting to my countrymen some of the things that I value in the great books I have read – in poetry and philosophy and politics; Shakespeare and the Ramayana and Plato are the voices that call me and to them I would go in my freedom. Public life has made me sick. My soul is crying for peace. So have mercy and let me go out of public life. *

This letter like countless others by DVG is a collector’s prize, an inexhaustible balm for the distressed soul and a salve for the troubled mind. It would be highly instructive and inspirational if an independent collection of DVG’s letters is compiled.

The letter was also a preface to DVG’s eventual and complete exit from political life just two years later. In hindsight, one can reasonably say that DVG had already made preparations for such an exit about two years prior to writing this letter to Mirza Ismail.

But there was just one final chapter in his thirty-five-year long crusade for Responsible Government.

Notes

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[[Contributor to the Patel-Mirza Pact and Member of the Reforms Committee Source: prekshaa]]

This final chapter was the formation of the constitutional Reforms Committee on 1 April 1938 by the Mysore Government. The Committee itself was the outcome of a series of agitations by the Mysore unit of the Congress Party to usher in Responsible Government. It was simultaneously another ruse of Diwan Mirza Ismail to curb the growing power of the Congress in Mysore. The wording of the Government order that established this Committee did not mention the words “Responsible Government” as the ultimate objective of the Reforms Committee. Expectedly, the Mysore Congress hit back claiming ⁷⁵ that the Committee was mere “political tinkering and as an attempt to stop recent political agitation without giving anything away.”

Mirza Ismail’s long relationship with the Indian National Congress was dichotomous. He was one of the staunchest admirers of Mohandas Gandhi. In April 1927, when Gandhi embarked on a tour of South India, Mirza made intricate arrangements for his stay in Nandi Hills for two months. During the course of their interactions, Mirza was suitably impressed by Gandhi’s advocacy of Khadi and later set up the Khadi industry in the Mysore State. It was the beginning of a long friendship. Mirza had earned the twin displeasure of the Mysore Maharaja and the British Government for entertaining Gandhiji as a state guest. Over time, Mirza also developed a similar level of friendship with other national Congress leaders like Sardar Patel, Acharya Kriplani, and Jawaharlal Nehru.

However, his relationship with the Mysore unit of the Congress was almost the exact opposite. From the start, Mirza felt that the Congress here was overreaching its boundaries through incessant agitations and making unreasonable demands on the Government. On its part, the national leadership of the Congress Party took whimsical stances with regard to its policy towards princely states. Its stated policy was one of non-interference. However, on various occasions, Gandhi would overrule this policy and issue shocking proclamations and condemnations ⁷⁶ about certain princely states. Even as Gandhi’s 1927 visit to Mysore had charged up the local Congress, his statement in 1933 dealt a big blow. The All India Congress Committee (AICC) in Calcutta that year passed a resolution expressing its unstinted support to Congress units in all princely states. However, with regard to Mysore, Gandhi condemned the resolution itself. With that, the Mysore Congress was thoroughly demoralized.

However, the Government of India Act of 1935 completely changed the equation. In one stroke, Congress Party activists and freedom fighters got a firsthand taste of wielding political power albeit with constraints. A bicameral system was introduced in the British-ruled provinces of Bombay, Madras, Bengal, Assam, Bihar and United Provinces. It was a tremendous success for the Congress Party. Quite naturally, the fire spread to the Mysore unit which began demanding Responsible Government with greater agitational fervor. By 1937, it was no longer the same Congress that the Diwan could crush at will.

Another significant development occurred.

The Praja Mitra Mandali (Association of Friends of the People) had formed a political party in the late 1920s modelled after the infamous Justice Party in Tamil Nadu. Some members of this party founded another party titled Praja Paksha (People’s Party) in 1930. In 1934, both parties merged to form the Samyukta Praja Paksha (United People’s Party). On 16 October 1937, this party merged with the Indian National Congress. As an immediate consequence, the agitation for Responsible Government in Mysore intensified.

Diwan Mirza Ismail was now truly alarmed and opened a long chain of correspondence with Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, and other leaders.

Meanwhile, DVG was observing these developments with a mixture of caution, happiness, and optimism. He wrote learned and fiery columns and editorials about these developments. As a testimony of sorts to DVG’s tireless advocacy of Responsible Government, one can read the following note ⁷⁷ by Balwant Rai Mehta, a Congress leader who toured the Mysore state in 1937:

The coming to power of the Congress Ministers, both in Bombay and Madras, to speak of only the two provinces that abut the [Mysore] State, has kindled similar aspirations in the hearts of the people of the State.

Mirza Ismail’s aforementioned correspondence reached a logical stage when Gandhi deputed Sardar Patel and Acharya Kriplani to Mysore. It seemingly appeared like a concession that Mirza was making to the Mysore Congress, a big climbdown. This then is the backdrop of why Mirza Ismail formed the Reforms Committee. The outcome of Patel’s negotiations with Mirza Ismail was the famous Patel-Mirza Pact published on 1 May 1938. A little-known fact is that DVG and Brahmachari Ramachandra were present in and contributed to these negotiations. No book on the history of the Indian freedom struggle mentions their names.

The main points of the Patel-Mirza Pact are as follows:

1. Responsible Government must be gradually introduced in the Mysore State under the careful and compassionate supervision of His Highness, the Maharaja of Mysore. The Mysore Congress, whose major aim is the establishment of Responsible Government must be treated with esteem by the Mysore Government. 2. Seven members of the Congress Party must be incorporated in the Reforms Committee. 3. The Committee must be given the authority to provide guidance and recommendations with regard to establishing Responsible Government. 4. There must be no curbs to hoist the national flag in public places along with the Gandabherunda flag (the official flag of the Mysore Kingdom/Wodeyars).

Accordingly, Congress members were admitted to the Reforms Committee along with an unwilling DVG who has himself written the reason for his unwillingness, as we have seen in the previous part.

Notes

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[[The Mockery of Responsible Government and DVG’s Exit from Public Life Source: prekshaa]]

orvane niluve nīnutkaṭakṣaṇagaḻali ।
dharmasaṃkaṭagaḻali, jīvasamaradali ।।
nirvāṇadīkṣeyali, niryāṇaghaṭṭadali ।
nirmitraniralu kali – maṃkutimma ।। 689 ।।
You will be standing alone in all the intense and turbulent moments of your life,
When faced with moral dilemma, fighting the battle of life,
During the moment of self-realization, and in death.
Learn to be friendless - Mankutimma

***

The Reforms Committee constituted by the Mysore Government was headed by Sri K.R. Srinivasa Iyengar. The Congress party nominees who were members to the Committee gradually stopped attending its proceedings after January 1939, less than a year after it was constituted. Among the major reasons for this development was a divergence of values and a lack of understanding the full import of Responsible Government in practice. Sri Chengalraya Reddy, a prominent Congressman said that he was in no hurry for full Responsible Government in Mysore. However, he would be satisfied if the Mysore Government would implement all the “constructive activities” that (Congress) Responsible Governments were undertaking in the six or seven states where they were in Government. Chengalaraya Reddy would become the Chief Minister of the Mysore State after India attained independence.

However, DVG had a more nuanced and an all-encompassing perspective towards this cause so dear to him. He likened Responsible Government to climbing a ladder and all the dangers that accompany it: “A slight misstep might bring us down to a rung far lower than where we had been when we began climbing.” As we have seen on numerous occasions in the preceding sections, DVG tirelessly emphasized on the necessity for a full, truthful, and thorough self-training for Government. Among other things, Responsible Government was one which could anticipate the aspirations of the people in advance and was in fact the very vehicle for realizing these aspirations. In this context, DVG, in his editorials, newspaper columns and speeches, cited and upheld the ideals of Diwan Rangacharlu who seeded the Mysore Representative Assembly. In his speech to the Reforms Committee, DVG observed with some causticity that, “although there has been tremendous political growth in the Mysore State, this ideal of Diwan Rangacharlu has not been realized till date.”

That was the beginning of a chain of petty politicking which ended in disappointment as far as DVG was concerned.

The reason was not far to seek. On one side the Mysore Government’s nominees feared that the kind of Responsible Government DVG was advocating would dilute and “bind the Maharaja’s hands from functioning with discretion.” On the other side, the Congress nominees were unwilling to undergo the kind of rigorous self-training that DVG had in mind. The same Congress Party which had repeatedly agitated for and publicly declared that “Responsible Government is our only goal” suddenly deserted DVG in the very Committee that was set up for achieving this goal. DVG was isolated and his position was akin to what he describes ⁷⁸ in his Mankutimmana Kagga as, “You stand alone in the most intense and the most trying moments in life.” However, DVG did not allow his disappointment to consume him. As always, he took the honourable route. Indeed, the conviction he expressed in the March 1938 letter to Mirza Ismail had proven to be unambiguously correct. At 9 PM, on 16 March 1939, he reiterated the same conviction in another letter:

As you know so well, I have cherished and advocated the ideal of Responsible Government for over twenty-two years now. I have spoken and written…in favour of it in public on every available occasion; and it will surely be doing violence to my own conscience if at this stage of my life I swallowed the conviction of a lifetime…On [this]… I can make no compromise…There are some things which everyone of us holds to be sacred and unassailable and beyond the province of bargaining. Responsible Government issue to me is such a thing. That being so, if the committee will not agree to recommend Responsible Government as a goal at least I can have no place in it.

The letter had the intended effect. The Committee decided that DVG’s arguments were not only persuasive but profound. Several more rounds of discussions took place and the Committee submitted its final report comprising twelve major recommendations authored by DVG. It was a tour de force that struck an extraordinary balance between the ideals, belief systems, traditions and customs prevailing in Mysore from the ancient times and the aspirations of the advocates of Responsible Government. It is also noteworthy that DVG made it a point to specifically include the prohibition of separate electorates for Muslims and Christians. Likewise, DVG also ensured that he upheld the primacy and dignity of the Mysore Maharaja by mentioning that the proposed reforms had to be carried out under his guidance, wisdom, and protection.

After the report was ready, DVG wrote a monograph anticipating the objections to the report. Its concluding paragraph is truly brilliant.

To see clearly into the future farther than a few paces in front of him is given to no man. In which exact year of grace Responsible Government will…be established in a perfect form in Mysore and what its distinct features will be questions that need to be asked, for the answer is obvious that fulfilment will be largely in accordance with the good sense and capacity of the seekers.

The last line is yet again consonant with his lifelong mantra of the qualifications required for people wishing to run a Government.

***

The Mysore Maharaja passed a royal order on 6 November 1939 in response to the Reforms Committee Report submitted on 31 August. It was a cruel blow and a complete mockery of the Report. DVG wasted no time to condemn it. In his words, while the Report sought for a gradual and systematic devolution of Government powers to the Representative Assembly, what the Government order gave was greater interference. He concludes, “What is now needed is a recasting of the relationship between Government and the people from a position of benefactor-seeker to that of Rights and Duties. This Government Hukum (Order) is so disappointing that it appears to mock the very notion of democracy.”

A barrage of newspaper articles, editorials and columns followed. Prominent editors like Tirumale Tatacharya Sharma and others relentlessly castigated the Mysore Government for its callous attitude. However, the Government was unmoved. On this side, DVG and other public figures of his stature embarked on a campaign of educating people in democracy, self-government and Responsible Government. Monographs, books, and essays encouraged young men and women from all walks of life to get a fundamental grounding in political education.

It can be argued that DVG suffered a deep, personal wound by the latest Government Hukum. He felt defrauded at what can be interpreted as political chicanery on the part of Diwan Mirza Ismail who outwardly endorsed Responsible Government but did the exact opposite in practice.

Despite such yawning differences, DVG’s faith, respect, and integrity towards the Mysore State and its royal family was abiding. A great testimony to this is his superb, near-poetic tribute on the death of Krishna Raja Wodeyar IV in August 1940. Writing in the August issue of Triveni journal, DVG described the Wodeyar as,

…his politics had for its basis a certain upward looking disposition of the soul. He was forever on a quest of Dharma…The late Maharaja was a lover of great solitudes and great silences…He was such a one among princes as might have been singled out by Plato for approbation. He belongs to the company of Ashoka and Aurelius, with the splendor of the crown made mellow by the wrinkles on the brow.

Indeed, circa 1940 was a pivotal year in DVG’s life. As he had noted in his letter, such an extraordinarily long stint in public life had made him a sick man who had realized at least one fundamental truth about this sort of life. This truth became a maxim of sorts for him and Cardinal Newman’s brilliant sermon ⁷⁹ had delivered it to him.

We are not born for ourselves, but for our kind, for our neighbour, for our country… we owe much to those who devote themselves to public life…in public life a man of elevated mind does not make his own self tell upon others simply and entirely. He must act with other men; he cannot select his objects or pursue them by means unadulterated by the methods…of men less elevated than his own. He can only do what he feels to be the second best.

In hindsight, Newman’s “second best” was imprinted in DVG’s mind. He echoes this sentiment in his Rajyashastra in his inimitable fashion:

The person who sets out to achieve his own objective no matter how noble it is, does not understand the nature of politics. He is unaware of the difficulties and dangers therein. These dangers lie in hiding. However, an accomplished politician who intends to accomplish good things knows these dangers and he keeps working to achieve the best that is available within his reach. If this best is second rate, he will be content to accomplish just that. As the political expert Morley said, ‘politics is a long series of the second best.’

Krishnaraja Wodeyar IV’s death and DVG’s disappointment with the Mysore Government’s mocking order was the dusk on DVG’s public life. He had made up his mind. In 1940, DVG’s term as the Member of the Mysore Legislative Council came to an end and he refused to contest again. The next year, he also vacated the Mysore University seat and wrote a public letter to his voters giving details of his honest service to them for six years. It was a heartfelt and moving expression of gratitude for the faith they had reposed in them.

That was the end of his public life, to which his epitaph reads as follows: “After that, I had no direct contact or association with the Government in any form. From then on, I am a mere witness—a faraway witness.”

Postscript

DVG’s much-cherished Responsible Government ultimately came in 1948 and when it did come, it was a deformed infant, a premature birth midwifed by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

Notes

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[[Overall Assessment of DVG’s Career in Public Life and a New Beginning Source: prekshaa]]

DVG’s final exit from public life occurred in four broad stages, in a manner of speaking. The first was the aftermath of the Ganapati clashes, which publicly showed the dangerous chinks in the Mysore State’s administration. It also didn’t help that Diwan Mirza Ismail’s studied silence and inaction only added to the perception that the administrative machinery was powerless to punish a mere mob of Muslim hooligans.

The second was the growing decline in the standards of legislative debate due to a variety of reasons including but not limited to the appointment of favourites, incompetence, and factionalism. One of DVG’s final debates in the Council related to the Public Security Bill that the Mysore Government introduced on 23 January 1940. DVG vehemently opposed it on the grounds that it was detrimental to individual freedom and freedom of expression and that it would transform Mysore into a police state. A close reading of the full text of the debate ⁸⁰ clearly reveals the fact that very few Members apart from DVG had given it such deep and comprehensive thought. As the debate intensified, the Speaker began to repeatedly provoke DVG using a mixture of condescension, hostility, mockery, and haste. This is what an exasperated and wounded DVG said:

If the House thinks that I do not deserve its magnanimity, it is a matter of deep regret for me…At any rate, the matter of this [Bill] is something that is very dear to my heart. And now I have a feeling that this House has not provided me a fair opportunity and that this House has not treated me with dignity. This is the first time that this feeling has emerged within me…I had never witnessed such things before…Indeed, this House has become the witness for the worrying precedent of multiple Members speaking at the same time and yelling at each other…Perhaps, this will be my last ever session here. I am sorry that I had to attend this session and I regret that I will have to leave it with such a feeling.

The third was DVG’s growing alarm at the intensity, senselessness, frequency and violence of agitations. By the early -to-mid 1930s, it was clear that violence as a favoured method for achieving the desired outcome was fast becoming the order of the day. Most of these agitations were demands-of-the-moment which had no national vision or integrative intent or the welfare of the people in mind. DVG himself provides one of the most definitive critiques of the dangers of agitational politics. The backdrop is the 1926 Binny Mills Strike in Bangalore. In its immediate aftermath, the Government ordered a general clampdown in order to prevent its spread to other places. Public meetings were banned, and there was police patrolling everywhere. In this context, DVG recounts an incident. He was in his lawyer friend’s home when another lawyer visited him. This man was a ferocious opponent of the clampdown. When DVG suggested the method of persuasion and reasoning, the lawyer shot back, “It is not our method to beg before Government officials, even if he is a City Magistrate. We must forcibly snatch our rights at any cost! Only this method awakens the people in the real sense, and agitation is the best vehicle for this awakening.” Commenting on this ⁸¹ and similar fervor, DVG says:

Our Sastras say, “Dharmo Rakshati Rakshitah.” If we protect Dharma, Dharma protects us. However, if we cripple Dharma and still expect it to protect us, how will it have the strength to do so? If people preserve the decorum, system, and dignity of the Government, the Government might perhaps safeguard justice among the people. But if people themselves revolt against the Government, what Government can function?… The path of persuasion and consensus is the path of wisdom. It involves a careful analysis of cause and consequence. It is a quest for justice in the true sense, and therefore it always involves enormous patience. Wisdom does not accrue in haste and through the impatience of agitations.

As we have noted several times elsewhere, even this warning went unheeded with predictable consequences. By the 1980s, India became a nation of professional agitationists, and renting professional agitationists became a flourishing subterranean economy in which middlemen made fortunes.

Indeed, a common criticism levelled against DVG by some of his contemporaries in public life was that he was too much of an idealist and a pacifist. This is only partially true because DVG’s pacifism was the pacifism leading to the kind of wisdom required for solid nation-building. DVG’s pacifism was the pacifism of Vidyaranya Swami who inspired and helped build the splendid Vijayanagara Empire by appealing to the innate goodness even among dissenting or independent chieftains, commanders, Rajas, heads of different Hindu Dharmic sects, business leaders and so on. Indeed, Vidyaranya Swami busily engaged himself in this gentle persuasion and calm discussion for nearly twenty-five years. The noble precedent of bloodless transfer of power from the Hoysala Empire to the Sangama Brothers was the outcome of gentle persuasion and goodwill which he initiated. This was DVG’s method.

The fourth stage was his increasing disillusionment with the Indian National Congress, which had acquired a subtle dictatorial streak by the mid-1930s. On 28 November 1937, the Secretary of the Mysore Congress Board wrote a letter to DVG warning him of “consequences.” DVG’s crime? Exactly a month ago, DVG had signed an open letter published by some eminent persons, which the Congress took umbrage to. The sheer arrogance of the Secretary was breathtaking. A paraphrased version is given below.

The Congress Party finds your signature highly objectionable. It is in violation of your pledge that you will be loyal to the Congress at all times. Therefore, you must show cause as to your objectionable action. Additionally, according to the Board’s decision, you must resign from your Council membership immediately.

On 1 December 1937, DVG hit back in his characteristic style. He said that he had never taken any such pledge of loyalty to the Congress. He also questioned the Congress Secretary’s haughty assumption and schooled him in some home truths: DVG was in the forefront of the demand for Responsible Government in the Maharaja’s State decades before the Congress even had a presence here. The Congress would have his support to the limited extent that its goal of Responsible Government aligned with his in thought, word, and deed. And then DVG delivered ⁸² the knockout blow:

May I say it is the Congress Board that has since changed? It seems to me that the Board of today is not…the same as the Board…seven months ago**. I could not then detect in it any indications of the methodology now in vogue**. While I subscribe to the Congress…objective of Responsible Government, I cannot accept its recent methods of work.

For the first time, DVG had a firsthand experience of the chokehold a political party has over even its non-members. This realization was also accompanied by a whiff of the state of things to ensue. Thereafter, as we noted earlier, DVG became a mere witness from afar. When occasion demanded it, he also became one of the most trenchant and fiery critics of the Congress Party after India attained independence.

Notes

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[[Gokhale Institute of Public Affairs as DVG’s Karma Bhoomi Source: prekshaa]]

beku jīvanayogakoṃdu bahusūkṣmanaya ।
bekoṃdu jāgarūrakate, buddhi samate ॥
tākaneṃdanu yogi, nūkaneṃdanu jagadi ।
ekāki sahavāsi - maṃkutimma ॥ 703 ॥

Happiness in life needs a very fine balance.
It requires utmost caution and tranquility of mind.
Akin to a Yogi, its practitioner will not get attached to anything
Nor will he neither reject anything.
He stands alone while being friends with the entire world – Mankutimma

***

An almost visible line separates DVG’s pre-independence and post-independence public life. After actively cutting himself off from the rough and tumble of political life, DVG devoted himself with the same profound passion and spirited zeal to the more sublime pursuits of philosophy, spirituality, literature, and nationalistic ideals for the rest of his well-lived life.

His devotion to the aforementioned nationalistic ideals took the concrete shape of the Gokhale Institute of Public Affairs (GIPA), which was founded in his home at Nagasandra Road ⁸³ on 18 February 1945. Public response to this new institution was immediate and an overwhelming success. Congratulatory letters and messages and personal visits poured in from both within and outside Karnataka from such eminent people as Gopalaswamy Ayyangar, Sir Mirza M. Ismail, B.P. Wadia, V. Sitaramaiah, K.S. Krishna Iyer, S.G. Sastri, and Nittur Srinivasa Rao.

GIPA was the structural realization of DVG’s three-decade-long penance. Its impulse had germinated in his mind as early as 1915 and he began work on its draft charter 1930. It had the blessings of Sir Puttanna Chetty. However, for various reasons, DVG was unable to raise the funds to begin it. On 30 January 1932, DVG completed the aforementioned draft but expressed ⁸⁴ self-doubt:

Finished draft scheme of G.I.P.A. As I finish it I am stricken with fear and doubt…Will I be able to bring it into material existence? Can I trust myself to remain steady at it? I have been such a waverer all my life…a bee-like skipper from ideal to ideal.

History is testimony to the fact that he did bring it into existence thirteen years later. Here is how DVG summarizes ⁸⁵ its entire charter and work:

The Institute is to be looked upon as a laboratory for the analysis and assessment of opinion and policy rather than a factory to produce original contributions to thought and learning or as a platform for propaganda or agitation, or as a mission of philanthropy…It does not aim at supplanting any political party or movement…this Institute would rather leave those other forms of services to other agencies…so that it could give its undivided attention to the particular field of service which it has chosen for itself – namely to be a study-room for intelligent citizenship, an exchange house of thought…for men and women of public spirit and an unofficial secretariat for all good and worthy popular causes.

For an entire year, GIPA functioned from his home even as he put in tireless work at fund-raising and scouting for a building for this infant institution. The goodwill, affection and friendship that he had earned on the dint of his own merit, integrity and selflessness brought him widespread support. Sri Pamadi Subbrama Shetty, one of the fabulously wealthy businessmen in Bangalore was also a highly simple and devout man who gave liberally to all Dharmic causes. Accordingly, he offered one of his homes ⁸⁶ in Basavanagudi. GIPA officially moved to this location on 1 July 1946. Its first ever meeting was addressed by Hrudyanath Kunzru, the then president of the Servants of India Society.

In October, GIPA began its maiden study circle with the rather apt selection of Plato’s classic, Republic. It was guided by Sri S. Raghavacharya and continued for an entire month. Indeed, the study circle was among the defining themes of GIPA for the next three decades. Like fine honey, over time, it attracted hordes of people from all walks and stations of life: students, working professionals, teachers, lecturers, principals, journalists, scientists, doctors, and businessmen. In keeping with its spirit, there was no age or gender bar. The GIPA study circle was conducted every Sunday morning. About twenty people would come together and study and discuss a preselected English and Sanskrit work each. John Stuart Mill, Kalidasa, Shakespeare, works of Vedanta, and numerous classics of Sanskrit, English and Kannada were devoured with relish. Perhaps the most celebrated study circle was the series of lectures on the Bhagavad Gita led by DVG himself. They were eventually compiled, thoroughly revised, vastly expanded, and published as śrīmad bhāgavadgītātātparya or jīvanadharmayoga in Kannada. It remains an enduring classic till date, garnering several reprints and has a dedicated following among the Kannada people across the globe.

From such modest beginnings, GIPA continued to grow into the awe-inspiring cultural treasure that it since became. On 15 August 1948, Sri B.P. Wadia inaugurated its sparkling new library, freely accessible by public. The GIPA library is still one of the best in the country housing extremely valuable, rare, and priceless books, pamphlets, monographs, magazines, and boasts of an enviable archive of Sanskrit, Kannada, Telugu, Hindi and English works. The finest books on every conceivable subject are available: Vedas, literary classics, drama, art, sculpture, history, politics, philosophy, Dharmashastra, economics, law, geography, biographies, research journals, newspaper archives, periodicals, Constitutions of various countries, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha and Karnataka Assembly proceedings…the sweep and gamut is truly stunning. The GIPA library is an invitation to lifelong learning in its truest sense. On another plane, it has that scarce and exquisite ambience that radiates and beckons us to acquire knowledge in its serene environs. As a crowning glory, DVG donated his personal book collection to the GIPA library.

The impulse and vision behind creating such a brilliant library was again rooted in DVG’s foresight that any member of the public who wished to examine, study, speak, or write about public and national issues would have a one-stop resource at GIPA.

The next milestone arrived on 25 April 1950 when the Karnataka Government donated land to GIPA. The finished building was inaugurated on 28 June 1956. Donations for its construction flowed in quite liberally from both individuals and institutions. The current building of GIPA stands on this site.

The other core area of GIPA’s activity was hosting regular lectures by luminaries from different spheres. Thus, in a short time, GIPA was transformed into a vibrant cultural hub that witnessed erudite, scholarly and refined lectures on literature, Vedanta, Bhagavad Gita, jurisprudence, science, economics, music, art, and important contemporary issues. To mention the forgivable fault of a personal account, I still find enormous delight tinged with a bit of nostalgic melancholy when I listen to superb, moving, and inspiring anecdotes surrounding these lectures in the voice of Dr. S.R. Ramaswamy, the last direct disciple of DVG. It is today hard to believe that GIPA in those days would be thronged by hundreds of people who devotedly came to listen to these lectures.

The ranks of admirers, donors, volunteers and contributors to GIPA grew in proportion to the prestige and quality of these programmes. As a memorial to Rajaji’s birth anniversary, Smt. M.S. Subbulakshmi has left an endowment to GIPA. Indeed, there are numerous occasions when she would visit DVG’s home and sing for him, leaving his eyes moist with tears. GIPA is also witness to her concerts. Similar endowments were given by the Kannada poet, G.P. Rajarathnam, Rao Bahadur Venkateshacharya, Justice Nittoor Srinivasa Rao, and the Dharmasthala Manjunatha Temple. These apart, service-minded and culturally-rooted individuals also sponsor these lectures. Initially, these were held every Saturday evening and DVG never missed a single lecture as long as he was alive. Happily, this tradition continues the blazing path seeded by its founder and over the years, they are conducted every evening. The calendar of lectures is published about six months in advance.

The other major focus of GIPA is publishing its monthly journal, the self-explanatory Public Affairs. It is dedicated to examining various contemporary issues relating to politics, economics, and current affairs. Public Affairs began in January 1949 and boasted of an impressive list of stalwarts who wrote for it including its editor DVG, Arnold Toynbee, Bernard Levin, C.D. Deshmukh, Prof G.S. Dikshit, Gorur Ramaswamy Iyengar, Gulzarilal Nanda, Herbert Spencer, Kuldip Nayar, N. Lakshmana Rao, Lord Hailsham, N. Madhava Rao, Minoo Masani, Masti Venkatesha Iyengar, Mirza Ismail, Nani Palkhivala, Philip Spratt, C. Rajagopalachari, Prof B.R. Shenoy, Prof. Suryanath Kamat, Uma Shankar Joshi, and Sir M. Visvesvaraya.

True to its motto of “Public life must be spiritualized,” and its declared stance of “no party affiliation,” month after month, Public Affairs mercilessly skewered the misdoings of the political and bureaucratic class, educated its readers on the meaning of democracy, service, and nationalistic spirit, and sounded frequent alarms over lapses, cautioned about the decline of decency in public life, and brought out valuable insights and essays on history, literature and published book reviews. The volumes of Public Life from its inception up to 1982 are truly a collector’s delight.

The Gokhale Institute of Public Affairs as DVG described it indeed lived up to its vision and practice of being an unofficial secretariat for all good and worthy causes. The testimony to its sturdy roots lies in the fact that it continues to thrive as a cultural and public-spirited institution that has few rivals in Bangalore.

Which brings us to a related facet of DVG’s post-independence work and legacy. By making GIPA both his Karma Bhoomi and Jnana Bhoomi, DVG achieved what he wouldn’t have achieved had he remained in active politics: of being a systematic, truthful, and caustic conscience-keeper of independent India’s political and social conscience. That conscience-keeping essentially meant an honest dissection of the Congress Party, whose only claim to political power was based on the half-truth that it had alone brought freedom from British rule.

Notes

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[[DVG as a Chronicler of the Downfall of Values in Independent India Source: prekshaa]]

At this long distance in history, it sounds incredible, insane even, when we hear somebody utter “conscience” and “Congress Party” in the same breath. However, thanks to the overarching and overreaching influence of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, around the time of Independence, the public regarded the Congress Party not merely as a patriotic and nationalist organization but a moral outfit as well. Needless, there is an inseparable relationship between the words, “conscience” and “moral.”

This is a reasonable starting point to examine DVG’s critical assessment of the Congress after Independence. The history of the Congress Party, especially after Gandhi helmed it, is filled with rich and detailed information as to its own claims of being the conscientious fighter for India’s freedom, and DVG’s substantial critiques can be summed up as a thirty-year-long, spirited effort at showing it the mirror. As we shall see, each time he showed it the mirror, the image that was revealed became progressively blacker and cracked.

However, DVG’s criticism of the Congress was not the superficial and transitory writing of a professional political columnist or journalist. It had far deeper and incredibly profound roots. In no particular order, these roots fall in three broad categories:

1. DVG’s keen understanding that democracy was just the latest experiment in humans governing themselves, a facet we have seen in an earlier chapter. 2. His clear grasp of the limitations of democracy and the pitfalls of applying it to a spiritual civilization like Bharatavarsha. 3. As a participant, votary, and eyewitness of the trajectory of the Congress Party from its earliest days.

Thus, when DVG stood rock-solid behind the Congress in the advocacy of Responsible Government, his support was informed, well-studied and came with caveats and warnings. Equally, when he criticized the cult of Gandhi and the growing trend of violent street-level agitations, it was in the spirit of a surgeon who knows the fatal perils of an untreated festering wound.

***

DVG’s brilliant and sustained critique of the Congress Party after India attained political independence merits an independent scholarly study. The Public Affairs monthly that he edited under the auspices of GIPA is simultaneously a work of objective history of the all-encompassing downfall of Bharatavarsha, which the Congress transformed as an ill-defined “India.” The magazine spared no topic: politics, health, literature, Hindu institutions, the English language, education, public morals, revolutionary ideas, industrialization, parliamentary affairs, law, police, corruption, local issues, global developments, Hindu epics and Puranas, space exploration, panchayat, temples, art… Barring some stray essays, these issues make for truly painful reading. DVG’s junior counterpart who was an equally trenchant critic of the Congress Party was the renowned Kannada literary eminence, Masti Venkatesha Iyengar. Like DVG, Masti skewered the Party and its ministers in his monthly Jivana with honest mercilessness.

In hindsight, it can be reasonably said that Dr. S.L. Bhyrappa’s epic novel, Thantu is a highly artistic narration of the story of this downfall of Bharatavarsha that we read in the issues of Public Affairs and elsewhere.

A shrewdly-buried truth of recent history is the fact that the Congress Party was widely hated in the immediate aftermath of India’s independence. An out-of-print work, Betrayal in India by a Left-leaning editor and journalist, D.F. Karaka, published in 1950 offers a brutal account of the aforementioned truth. The picture we get of the India just eight months after Independence is not only unflattering but repulsive. Congressmen who were proud and celebrated freedom fighters become dealers in illegal imported cars; they are shown to be tampering with the value of national currency. These frugal freedom fighters now acquire bungalows and scores of cars in multiple cities. The more farsighted Congressmen become “traders of patriotism.” State Congress Governments use the dreaded “Security Measures Act” to physically wipe out their political opponents and critics. It is a testimony to the truth of what Karaka has written in his explosive but depressing book that he had to get it published in London.

This is the darker backdrop in which to understand and marvel at DVG’s patience and tempered criticism of the Congress Party. Given the sheer volume of this criticism, one can consider only a few representative samples. As we have seen earlier in DVG’s stinging response to the arrogant secretary of the Mysore Congress Board who demanded slavish obedience, DVG realized that by the mid-1930s, the Congress had ushered in a culture of party-cracy under the cloak of democracy. He delineated its stark nature in a masterly lecture at the Indian Institute of World Culture ⁸⁷ in 1955:

The party junto lays down the law and the ordinary member has to put his judgement in suspense. This abdication of responsibility for independent thought and conscientious decision by the average party member of a legislature marks the Achillean Heel of democracy. Without party, democracy stands crippled; with party, it walks awry. Political thinkers have been racking their brains for a way of reconciling loyalty to party with loyalty to country and conscience.”

DVG’s incessant warnings against adopting democracy in haste, without first acquiring the requisite moral, ethical, and educational training had come true in a nightmarish fashion. We can consider two relevant quotes to illustrate this more fully.

The first ⁸⁸ is by George Orwell.

*The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently, the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different. *

Orwell could have well been describing the Indian National Congress Party. However, Orwell’s intellect, no doubt brilliant, merely stops at this and we should not fault him for it because even brilliant people are hemmed in by the limitations of their cultural ambience. This is what DVG ⁸⁹ does:

*The dominant concept of polity in Hindu India is that the State is a single undivided entity, the king being…the head of the family. It could…be described as a “Crowned Republic.” This was a combination of Monarchy with Democracy. Dasaratha and Dharmaraja had the ready and instinctive support of the entire body of people. The king was merely the head of the…[Janapada]. The State had not been divided even as the Government and the Public…The dominant feature of the present Brummagem Constitution, adopted from the British, is the bifurcation of the State into (1) The Government…(2) the Opposition. **This is a direct contradiction of the Indian ideal…**Now the authority of the State is vested in one whose business is necessarily manipulation for office. Unless the man at the head…is pulled out of office, there is no chance for the head of the Opposition. Their rivalry is a natural phenomenon…this feature of the Constitution…is the métier of all evil of corruption and nepotism and inefficiency in the administration. *

The second quote is by the British-Canadian novelist Arthur Hailey whose criticism ⁹⁰ of democracy, especially the American variety, is sharper.

Americans see democracy as a remedy for all ills-to be taken three times daily like prescription medicine. It works for them. Ergo - it should work for the world. What America naïvely forgets is that for democracy to function, most of a populace must have something personally that is worth preserving.

This is precisely why we see DVG repeatedly stressing on and obsessing over the minute details of the lives of real people in the sense of citizens hailing from all walks of life. This deep and abiding concern beautifully comes to life in his Jnapakachitrashale volumes where he writes about masons, bullock cart drivers, small business owners, Sadhus, Avadhootas, hoteliers, teachers, and an aged beggar-couple. The same spirit, the same feeling reveals itself in his daily interactions with flower-sellers, his household help, and scores of other proverbial ordinary men and women. And in the realm of the political State, DVG gives an eightfold list ⁹¹ of “minimal requisites of welfare” of the people in any country. The last item in this list is also the most important: “leisure for the cultivation of the mind and the spirit.”

As witnesses to the contemporary world dominated by uninterrupted distraction, an outcome of planned technological obsolescence, we can easily verify that leisure has been the most profound casualty. A prime disaster in the dystopian future that Aldous Huxley predicted in his Brave New World Revisited has already come true: entertainment—a major component of leisure—has been defined by forces beyond our control and we are willingly, gladly paying money to be entertained. The trifling matter of the spirit has now been successfully branded as a superstition.

Notes

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[[DVG’s Election from Kolar and its Aftermath Source: prekshaa]]

Like all honest and pragmatic observers and commentators of public life, DVG’s pre-Independence critiques of the Congress Party included the criticism of Mohandas Gandhi as we have seen in the earlier chapters ⁹². Under Gandhi’s leadership, it became a quasi-monopolistic political enterprise that could admit only one dictator at the top notwithstanding how noble or moral or well-intentioned the dictator was. Indeed, we learn this truth straight from the horse’s mouth. This is what the official history ⁹³ of the Congress Party says about Gandhi’s complete takeover in the Ahmedabad Session, 1921:

Gandhiji was appointed as the sole executive authority of the Congress and invested with full powers of the AICC. Chairs and benches for delegates were eliminated and Khadi tents made their appearance for first time.

Commenting precisely on this alarming development, DVG wrote ⁹⁴ in his Vruttapatrike how “After Gandhiji took the stage, this culture of free and open disagreement and debates vanished…unless the nation adopted [an] unquestioning mentality, we would not get freedom from the British… from then onwards, people were prohibited from taking his name without the mandatory honorific of “Mahatma.”

DVG was equally strident in condemning Gandhi’s spearheading role that culminated in the barbaric genocide of thousands of innocent Hindus in Malabar at the hands of the Moplah Muslims. He noted with growing alarm in the issues of the Karnataka at the deadly consequences that would ensue even as Gandhi mollycoddled the fanatical Ali Brothers with unseemly haste in his quest for the chimeraesque Hindu-Muslim unity. These editorials and commentaries are truly a collector’s treasure for a conscientious historian and scholar.

More than three decades later, one of India’s fine historical scholars, R.C. Majumdar provided a similar but more acerbic assessment ⁹⁵ about the Gandhi-led Congress Party in his career-ending classic, History of the Freedom Movement in India:

To [Gandhi] the Congress was a humanitarian association…for the moral and spiritual regeneration of the world.

Unlike Gandhi who lived in a world of his own making, his closest aides had no illusions about realpolitik. Even as they sensed that independence was well within sight, they quietly abandoned the very ideals of non-violence and Satyagraha that Gandhi held so dear. So much so that by the beginning of 1946, Gandhi was completely isolated by his own followers who shrewdly put him on a pedestal, i.e. out of harm’s way.

Thus, when we read what DVG wrote in a classic commentary titled India’s Political Dilemma in 1941, we marvel once again how farsighted ⁹⁶ he was:

*An influential section of the Nationalist Press and many public men of note have…been pleading that the Congress ought not to convert itself into an esoteric body upholding a set of ethical or spiritual abstractions. Politics is a secular department of life and purposes and processes there should be pragmatic rather than transcendental. Politics being a practical art is not fit to serve as a laboratory for conceptual ethics; and to insist on absolute standards there…would be like going into a popular restaurant and looking for the disciplines of a hospital…The issue of non-violence or violence is irrelevant today…There are a great number of people in the country today, who, while not differing…from the Congress as regards the political objective are unable to accept the non-practical parts of its creed…such as Satyagraha and Charaka spinning. *

R.C. Majumdar wrote almost the exact same assessment in the early or mid-1950s. It is simultaneously a profound travesty and an unambiguous proof of the ugly trajectory that the Congress Party took after independence that both DVG and R.C. Majumdar have all but been forgotten today.

Indeed, DVG had a firsthand taste of what the Congress Party could do to someone of his stature just a year after Independence. In 1948, the Mysore Government decided to elect members to the new Constituent Assembly. Accordingly, Kengal Hanumantaiah approached DVG and insisted on enlisting his services. After much persuasion, DVG agreed and was elected unopposed from the Kolar constituency on the Congress ticket. Now he was the proverbial “insider” or “party person.” That was the beginning of his troubles which first came in the form of something called the “Congress Pledge.” It was a revised version of the same pledge that he had rebutted in a letter to the aforementioned arrogant member of the Mysore Congress Board just ten years ago. Next was a far deadlier demand: to raise funds for the Congress kitty. A furious DVG responded, “Forget me giving money to the party, if you can spare some for me, please donate it to the Gokhale Institute of Public Affairs.” And so, it spiraled downward till the inevitable finally occurred. It didn’t take long for DVG to fully understand the fact that idealism existed merely as lip service and jockeying for power and position had become the order of the day. His words once again, had no value in the Constituent Assembly. ⁹⁷ In his characteristic self-deprecatory humility, DVG said that in a democratic set up, Dharma signifies the voice of the majority and that he respected this Dharma. However, he could also not act against the voice of his conscience and support anything that violated it. By mid-1948, DVG resigned from the Mysore Constituent Assembly. This is the unflattering portrait ⁹⁸ of the Congress Party he paints:

Congress politics is far too turbid. The like(s) of me are wanted there to provide screens to others to make safe places for them. I don’t see a single man of idealism among them. They cry ‘God’ and seek Mammon…The bosses want office and power and therefore they don’t want to offend certain groups…however just be the cause…for…opposing those…groups. And they don’t care what the qualities needed for a particular office are*…. People in positions of responsibility have felt disgusted and thought of drastic steps**. *

Needless, this is a preface to the sordid, seventy-year-long tale of how the Congress Party systematically, cynically pushed out decency in public life by expelling decent, honest and men of integrity and character.

Elsewhere in India, similar voices of dissent, alarm, and criticism emerged. The following is one such voice emerging directly from the bowels of the Congress Party. It is a letter ⁹⁹ written by Konda Venkatappaiah, a veteran Andhra Pradesh Congress Unit member to Mohandas Gandhi a few days before his assassination:

Swaraj was the only absorbing passion which goaded men and women to follow your leadership. But now that the goal has been reached all moral restrictions have lost their power on most of the fighters in the great struggle. . . .the situation is growing more intolerable every day. The people have begun to say that the British government was much better.

To its eternal discredit, the Congress Party never referred to the letter and pretended it didn’t exist. More criticism followed from within the Party from no less than a paper than the Harijan, now edited by Gandhi’s disciple, K.G. Mashruwala. In the 3 October 1948 edition, he deplored how the Congress Party members were using ¹⁰⁰ “political service as a short cut to scholarship.”

Needless, as the political and social conscience-keeper, DVG supplemented these criticisms with unfailing regularity in the annals of Public Affairs beginning with a long form essay series titled Congress and Parties from the April 1949 issue onwards. He followed this up with a similar but more caustic series titled The Congress Ailing from the July 1949 issue onwards.

Notes

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[[DVG’s Unsleeping Inner Eye saw through the Facade of Western Secularism Source: prekshaa]]

horāḍu bīḻvannamobbaṃṭiyādoḍaṃ ।
dhīrapathavane bedaku sakalasamayadoḻaṃ ॥
dūradali goṇagutta bāḻva bāḻgenu bele? ।
hori sattvava merasu - maṃkutimma ॥ 573 ॥
It is okay if you fall and you fall alone.
You still must continue fighting. Always seek the courageous path. Of what value is a life lived on the side lines, complaining, but not getting involved.
Endure hardships and show your true virtue - Mankutimma

***

No criticism of the Congress Party after Independence is complete without a critique of what eventually became one of its central creeds: secularism, which over the years, it successfully transformed into a sort of an unofficial political religion of India itself. It is both unfortunate and tragic that our education system never imparted the full story of the genesis, evolution and corruption of the term secularism both in theory and practice. The origins of this story lie in the Constituent Assembly Debates and its outcome—now widely known—was dropping the word “secularism” from the Preamble of the Indian Constitution.

Naturally, Jawaharlal Nehru was one of the most vocal proponents of secularism. Fortunately for India, his contemporaries who opposed it both inside the Constituent Assembly and elsewhere were deeply rooted in the unbroken Sanatana tradition and its outlook towards all facets of life, irrespective of their educational and professional qualifications. However, it is also equally true that they were no match for his shrewd politics of quasi-dictatorship and skulduggery once he wrested absolute control of both the Congress Party and Government. It is unnecessary to recount that sorry tale here.

The Constituent Assembly debates ¹⁰¹ that took place on the fortuitous 6 December 1948 are especially relevant. The services rendered to nip the mischief of secularism in the budding Constitution in this debate by Lokanath Misra, Rohini Kumar Chaudhari, H.V. Kamath, and K.M. Munshi, among others are truly admirable. All of them were rather unanimous on one point: that the flavour of secularism proposed by the likes of Nehru were completely irrelevant, alien and innately opposed to the millennia-old Sanatana civilizational and cultural spirit.

Two instances can be cited here.

Sri Rohini Kumar Chaudhari doubts ¹⁰² the very fundamentals by asking this pointed question:

We are framing a Constitution where we speak of religion but there is no mention of God anywhere in the whole chapter… what I would object to is that there is no provision in this Constitution to prevent the…propagandist of his religion from throwing mud at some other religion… There should be a provision…in the Constitution itself that such conduct will be met with exemplary punishment.

The next is Sri Lokanath Mishra spirited argument ¹⁰³ at once blunt and unambiguous as to the consequences of formally adopting secularism. It deserves to be quoted at length:

Sir, it has been repeated to our ears that ours is a secular State. I accepted this secularism in the sense that our State shall remain unconcerned with religion, and I thought that the secular State of partitioned India was the maximum of generosity of a Hindu dominated territory for its non-Hindu population… Gradually it seems to me that our `secular State’ is a slippery phrase, a device to by-pass the ancient culture of the land. The absurdity of this position is now manifest in articles 19 to 22 of the Draft Constitution. Do we really believe that religion can be divorced from life, or is it our belief that in the midst of many religions we cannot decide which one to accept? If religion is beyond the ken of our State, let us clearly say so and delete all reference to rights relating to religion. If we find it necessary, let us be brave enough and say what it should be.

Keenly sensing the direction in which Sri Lokanath Misra’s argument was headed, Jawaharlal Nehru immediately stood up to object it on the shockingly trivial and silly ground that Misra was “reading from manuscripts.” The objection was overruled. Sri Misra continued,

…this unjust generosity of tabooing religion and yet making propagation of religion a fundamental right is somewhat uncanny and dangerous. Justice demands that the ancient faith and culture of the land should be given a fair deal, if not restored to its legitimate place after a thousand years of suppression. We have no quarrel with Christ or Mohammad or what they saw and said….To my mind, Vedic culture excludes nothing. Every philosophy and culture has its place….but now, it denominates, it divides and encamps people to warring ways. In the present context what can this word `propagation’ in article 19 mean? It can only mean paving the way for the complete annihilation of Hindu culture, the Hindu way of life and manners. Islam has declared its hostility to Hindu thought. Christianity has worked out the policy of peaceful penetration by the back-door on the outskirts of our social life…. Hinduism did not accept barricades for its protection. Hinduism is just an integrated vision and a philosophy of life and cosmos, expressed in organised society to live that philosophy in peace and amity. But Hindu generosity has been misused and politics has over run Hindu culture. Today religion in India serves no higher purpose than collecting ignorance, poverty and ambition… The aim is political, for in the modern world all is power-politics and the inner man is lost in the dust… Let us not raise the question of communal minorities anymore. It is a device to swallow the majority in the long run. This is intolerable and unjust.

Sure enough, the word “secularism” and variants thereof was dropped from the Constitution. However, the right to propagate religion was made a Fundamental Right despite meeting severe objections. The other stalwart who warned and criticised this new Constitution was the legendary Pandurang Vaman Kane. His extensive critique is available as an appendix (or epilogue) in the last volume of his monumental History of the Dharmasastra. In the present context, we can quote ¹⁰⁴ a simple question he posed:

One fails to understand the meaning of the words, ‘fundamental rights’ in a constitution which took over two years of deliberations, if they could be changed within a year and a half.

Similarly, Dr. S. Srikanta Sastri was another luminary who offered a brilliant critique of secularism and similar current political trends in India modelled after the West most notably in his foreword to Independent India and a New World Order.

However, perhaps the most focussed and comprehensive critique of secularism flowed from DVG’s pen in a largely forgotten essay titled The Secular State. It first appeared as a two-part essay series in the May and June issues of the Public Affairs journal.

The Secular State is a virtuoso performance and one of the most erudite and insightful expositions on the topic. Its historical sweep is extensive, its depth of knowledge unparalleled, its courage, characteristic of DVG’s integrity, its diagnosis, unerring and the solutions it proposes still hold true. It covers an extensive swathe of intellectual and historical territory starting from the Vedas, the Dharmashastras and Arthashastras, the history of Hindu polity, Buddha, Ashoka, Jain canons, Adi Sankara, Constantine, Dante, Pope Sylvester I, Gladstone all the way up to expressing alarm at the growing Muslim fanaticism in Palestine and the newly-formed Pakistan.

In many ways, it is DVG’s unique style of both answering and rebutting some of the points raised in the Constituent Assembly Debates. However, from another perspective, it also marks another stage in DVG’s intellectual evolution on the topic. And makes comparison inevitable.

On 14 June 1945, Lord Wavell, the Viceroy of India announced a tentative scheme that would eventually set in motion the full grant of freedom to India. On this occasion, DVG authored an extraordinary analysis ¹⁰⁵ of the announcement in the June issue of The Triveni Quarterly. His essay begins with Wavell’s speech on the aforementioned day and covers enormous ground. A chief element of his analysis concerns the perennial problem of Hindu-Muslim unity. In his characteristic style of gentle persuasion through reasoned appeal, DVG outlines some of the good outcomes of a truly secular nation and society as was in practice in Britain and says that this is precisely ¹⁰⁶ the “gift that India needs at her hands,” and remarks that “In lending countenance to religious and communal clamours in Indian politics and offering inducements to the demand for new theocratic States, England is not only proving herself untrue to the teaching of her own history, but also exposing herself to the charge of perpetuating disunity in India.”

DVG’s statement was both a criticism of the divide-and-rule policy of Britain and as a stinging condemnation of the Muslim League led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah. This had another facet as well. Wavell’s proactive announcement garnered immediate, nationwide support and goodwill including non-Muslim League Muslim organisations who “rallied around the Congress.” This included almost the entire Muslim Ulema (clergy) who “stood by the cause of undivided All-Indian Nationalism and made Mr. Jinnah’s totalitarian pretensions utterly untenable.” In general, the overall national atmosphere of the time and DVG’s innate Sanatana spirit of accommodation perhaps naively led him to believe that Jinnah was merely a fringe element who had overestimated his own influence in the Muslim community. Thus, DVG outlined ¹⁰⁷ the conception of a secular State as follows:

The heart-content of the ideal of Hindu-Muslim Unity is more accurately and more pointedly stated as the idea of a secular nationality functioning through a secular State and secular citizenship. The phrase “Hindu-Muslim Unity” implies the retention of the consciousness of one’s being a Hindu or a Muslim…we should train ourselves to transcend even this feeling of Hindu -ness or Muslim-ness in the field of civil and political life.

Contrast this with what DVG wrote ¹⁰⁸ on the same subject in the aforementioned The Secular State just five years later.

When a government or a Parliament attempts to meddle with anything pertaining to religion, it lays an impious and…mischievous hand on what it does not understand. The legislator setting himself up as an arbiter of religion not his own, exalts the gross above the subtle and prejudice above understanding…He who would be a proper judge of things in the [religious] realm should be a man of deep psychological self-experience and insight into spiritual truth. Is our average legislator such a man?…His meddling with [religion] cannot be necessary for the normal purposes of the state.

DVG’s essay not only covers the themes and critiques raised by say, Sri P.V. Kane but takes them much further and places them in the context of the hard and harsh realities of the suddenly-changed political environment that he was both a witness to and participant of. He is brilliantly prescient when he contrasts ¹⁰⁹ science with politics on the topic of secularism:

The self-confidence of science was such once as to shake our confidence in the postulates of religion…In our day, science has grown wiser and humbler; it has a clearer recognition of its limitations and is more frank about it.

And repeatedly observes how the contemporary legislator who made similar self-confident claims about secularism is neither wise nor humble, and worse, is ignorant. Then, in what can only be considered yet another call ¹¹⁰ for homecoming, for recovery, and for civilizational decolonisation, this is what DVG writes:

The idea of a secular state is by no means a new one to India. On the contrary, it is as old as the Hindu society itself…Even the advent of religions from foreign lands, Islam and Christianity, could not make for any great disturbance of the old order, because the Hindu king had by then become habituated to the attitude of friendly tolerance towards religious dissenters. To his Hindu subjects, he was the protector of their *Smarta Dharma…*Such instances of the cosmopolitanism of Hindu rulers are numerous and can be cited from our own day. The secular State is in effect the same as the cosmopolitan State nurtured by the Hindu kings of old.

The parallels to DVG’s expositions (described in earlier chapters) on the philosophical insights of Kautilya, Plato, and Vidyaranya translated in the political realm are unmistakable. This evokes another basic question: why were some of DVG’s contemporaries like Nehru who waxed so substantially on secularism unable to find this treasure in their own backyard, a treasure that DVG was able to find even with his eyes closed? I will hazard a guess: because these contemporaries lacked the proverbial Inner Eye that in DVG was unsleeping.

Notes

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[[Two Seminal Essays of DVG on the Downfall of the Congress Source: prekshaa]]

This unsleeping Inner Eye was also alert to well-intentioned inanities that the fledgling democracy in India was cooking up in rapid succession. One such inanity is our national motto, Satyameva Jayate translated commonly as “Truth alone prevails.” In a brilliantly piercing essay ¹¹¹ titled India’s Motto, DVG dedicates three pages dissecting this motto down to its last atom. He copiously quotes from the Mundaka Upanishad (where this line occurs), marshals substantial evidence from Sanskrit grammar, traditional Sanskrit commentaries and arrives at significant conclusions regarding the very prudence of selecting this line as our national motto. The essay has to be read in its entirety to savour the rich insights it offers. Using the word “Jayate” transitively will mean “exalting Truth…because it possesses the power to vanquish its opposite…In other words, success or gain is made the criterion of virtue. Is that the best way of honouring Truth? So taken, Satyam-eva-Jayate would merely be another version of the mercantile motto, “Honesty is the best policy.””

Neither does DVG stop at this. He says, “Our concern for Truth should not be utilitarian, but absolute…We adore *Satya…*not for the sake of the Jaya it may (may not!)… bring, but for its own sake.” And exposes the sheer imprudence of applying this Upanishadic verse in a realm it does not belong: politics and Government. He questions,

“Is that a way that will suit a Government?… As part of its service to Satya, how will the [Government’s] motto “Satyam-eva-jayate” sound in the context of a dishonest public official who has avoided detection and hoarded his ill-gotten money…?… Must a Government have a motto? Must it…exhibit one?… When the Government of India have such questions to decide…they should seek advice not from a close coterie unknown to the public, but from…heads of certain Mutts and a few recognized scholars like Prof P.V. Kane and Prof. M. Hiriyanna.”

A similar but far worse inanity is boldly inscribed on the entrance of the Vidhana Soudha ¹¹² : “Government’s work is God’s work,” which elicited a stern condemnation ¹¹³ from a famous litterateur: “Government’s work is a heinous slavery.”

****

Given the sheer volume of DVG’s splendid critiques of the Congress Party and Governments spread over thirty years, even a condensed rendering will amount to a separate book of a modest proportion. Arguably, these critiques have their roots in two seminal essays he wrote in 1949 in the Public Affairs journal as a series. Both have been mentioned earlier: Congress and Parties and The Congress Ailing. The rest of his Congress-critiques can reasonably be regarded as expansions of and additions to these pioneering essays. Put together, both these essays easily run up to about forty pages.

Indeed, the opening sentence ¹¹⁴ of Congress and Parties is bluntly direct: “The Congress is ailing, both in and out and that is a matter for concern even to those who do not belong to its organization, because the Congress is in charge of the country’s Government all over.”

Seven decades after it was written, Congress and Parties remains an invaluable classic in its genre, ever-relevant. It is also a great study in how to write political analyses that are original, objective, comprehensive, truthful, and ethical. The central themes of Congress and Parties hinge on the following:

· How the Congress descended to political promiscuity immediately after India attained political independence.

· How it systematically stifled internal democracy under the excuse of party discipline and how the nation had to pay a huge price for it.

· The emergence of the High Command culture, which under the garb of maintaining intra-party harmony stifled internal debate, dissent and free expression.

· The absolute urgency of birthing rival political formations to the Congress in order to safeguard Indian democracy.

DVG correctly endorses Mohandas Gandhi’s recommendation that the Congress should shut down its political activity after Independence and dedicate itself to the task of nation-building. With great foresight, DVG notes ¹¹⁵ that if Gandhi’s advice had been accepted, “political parties would have…formed afresh, independently of the Congress, and that would have been an advantage to the country.”

As we have noted numerous times in this book, DVG’s analyses considered that vital component missing in typical and superficial political writings: human nature. This keen understanding is precisely what gives us ¹¹⁶ such gems:

Power is as much a disintegrator as it is an integrator. So long as power remained a far-off object to be fought for…the rank and file in the Congress…[were united]. It is just as natural that after the prize has been captured, there should be a scramble among them for shares. Search unites. Gain divides. This is the law of human nature.

Thus, from being a patriotic and nationalist organization whose objective was getting rid of British rule, the Congress crashed down to becoming a purely political outfit immediately after freedom thereby immediately debasing its stature. DVG notes that its tearing power-hunger led to rampant political promiscuity, some facets of which we have seen in an earlier section. This is how DVG characterizes the hasty and staggering downfall of the Congress:

Great undoubtedly is the Congress; but the country is greater. Congress [was] great because it till now recognized the country as greater.

Equally, the sheer stature, pan-Indian spread and dominance of the Congress ensured that even the thought of an alternative political formation did not arise due to the sheer terror it inspired. DVG describes ¹¹⁷ this as the Congress “outgrowth,” which shut down all “open-minded study” and how there were no public meetings in the country “other than those organized by the Congress.” And more acidly, “Like the Upastree (concubine), the Congress will let no other organism thrive anywhere in its neighbourhood.” This sort of quasi-dictatorship also manifested itself in other ways. The most notable ignoble precedent ¹¹⁸ is the infamous Romesh Thapar vs The State Of Madras case. Romesh Thapar, part of Jawaharlal Nehru’s circle had upset the Prime Minister by daring to criticize him in his paper. Nehru’s Government sued him and lost the case. Unwilling to accept this loss of face, Nehru used the full might of his power and influence to bulldoze the first amendment to Article 19 of the Constitution which guarantees freedom of speech and curbed it using the vague terminology of “free speech subject to reasonable restrictions.”

Thus, with virtually no opposition either in Parliament or legislatures, the Congress turned upon itself in a Shakespearian sense. The first casualty was a systematic stifling of intra-party democracy under the garb of party discipline. DVG observes how even someone like Acharya Kriplani (a former Congress President) was humiliated under this excuse and was made to issue a cringeworthy apology ¹¹⁹ in public for daring to speak the unpleasant truth even in the “freedom of friendly conversation.” The Congress Party now demanded and got “submission and acquiescence miscalled harmony.” In reality, the Congress was implementing a milder version of the forced, public confessions of guilt by the members of the Communist Party of Russia in those innumerable notorious show trials of Stalin. DVG correctly traces this corrupt phenomenon as the first stirrings of the dictatorship of the Congress High Command, which assumed fearsome proportions over time.

Simultaneously, DVG points out that one swallow makes not a summer when that other familiar excuse is forwarded: that we have great leaders at the Centre and at the top party leadership and the party and country is largely in safe hands. He counters

Notes

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[[DVG’s Critique of the Congress High Command and Nehru’s Five-year Plans Source: prekshaa]]

The swift emergence of the High Command culture, which spawned the aforementioned dwarfs at many key-points revealed perhaps its most ugly face in the form of perpetually warring factions both in the Government and Party. One of the most high-profile victims of this culture of coteries was Dr. B.R. Ambedkar who mentions it explicitly in his resignation speech ¹²⁰ on the floor of the Parliament on 10 October 1951.

The House has no opportunity to know how the Cabinet works from within, whether there is harmony or whether there is a conflict… we have our newspapers. They have their age-old bias in favour of some and against others. Their judgements are seldom based on merits…. It is now 4 years, 1 month and 26 days since I was called by the Prime Minister to accept the office of Law Minister in his Cabinet. The offer came as a great surprise to me. I was in the opposite camp and had already been condemned as unworthy of association… It is difficult to understand what is the principle underlying the distribution of Government work among Ministers which the Prime Minister follows. Is it capacity? Is it trust? Is it friendship? Is it pliability? … I have never been a party to the game of power politics inside the cabinet or the game of snatching portfolios… The same old tyranny, the same old oppression, the same old discrimination which existed before, exists now, and perhaps in a worst form… Compare the concern the Government shows over safeguarding the Muslims. The Prime Minister’s whole time and attention is devoted for the protection of the Muslims… The Cabinet has become a merely recording and registration office of decisions already arrived at by Committees… They work behind an iron curtain. Others who are not members have only to take joint responsibility without any opportunity of taking part in the shaping of policy. This is an impossible position… I have never seen a case of a Chief Whip so disloyal to the Prime Minister and a Prime Minister so loyal to a disloyal Whip… If I did not think that there could be a difference between the promises and performances of the Prime Minister the fault is certainly not mine.

The existence of coteries within the Congress was as old as the Party itself. As DVG notes, they had not shown their ugly side because freedom struggle necessitated putting up a show of unity. For example, Motilal Nehru financed and founded the Congress-Khilafat Swarajya Party with Chittaranjan Das as its President in 1922 while being a Congressman. More than a decade later, Jawaharlal Nehru became one of the most prominent supporters of the Congress Socialist Party crystallised for the explicit purpose of spreading the Communist ideology within the Congress itself. Then there was the so-called “Rightist” faction led by Sardar Patel. Small wonder that the Party after independence was essentially a party of coteries and conspiracies which obviously had national interest as a secondary objective. This is how DVG describes ¹²¹ the situation:

The present pressure-group-appeasement policy of the Congress High Command is conducive neither to the growth of sound parliamentarism nor to the establishment of harmonious and efficient ministries…A patriotic party will take care not to seek strength for itself at the cost of the health of the country.

Elsewhere, DVG gives us another portrait of this High Command culture. Commenting on the nature of the ministry ¹²² formed for reorganizing the country after the Princely States merged with the new Indian Union he says,

The States Ministry’s proposal smacks of the old imperialist suzerainty, with its system of Residents and Political Agents playing the part of policemen*…He must eat the salt of the Rajpramukh…but take orders from the Ministry of the Sardar in Delhi…And the worst of the Adviser system is that it tends to kill local initiative*.

We shall examine this aspect in some detail in a later chapter.

***

By mid-1950s, DVG was convinced that the Congress was fast becoming a force for messing up the newly-independent nation and internal reform was impossible. Like other stalwarts of his time, DVG repeatedly called for the emergence of a strong alternative and urged men of public eminence not to be disheartened by the looming stature of Mohandas Gandhi whose legacy Congress had so skillfully appropriated. He also considered the prospect of the Congress itself splitting into two where one faction holds office and the other sits as a formidable Opposition. And then he brilliantly ridicules ¹²³ the very prospect as impossible by providing a fitting analogy.

We must not suppose that our politics will become better if the Congress itself splits. If a piece of dried cow dung is cut into two, will either part automatically become fragrant?

Analysing the roots of this shocking state of affairs post-Independence, DVG correctly says that the pre-Independence politics of the Congress was fundamentally the politics of propaganda. After Independence, the selfsame propaganda was substituted for governance and administration. A highly representative sample of how this propaganda worked can be gleaned from the newspaper reports of the time. It was said that one of Prime Minister Nehru’s “splendid victories” was to put capitalist America in its place by securing a large loan for India from the world’s most powerful country! DVG punctures such propaganda in his inimitable style. He examines Nehru’s “first priorities:” introduction of the disastrous Hindu Code Bill and Communal Harmony and concludes that these should not be our first priorities. He also condemns the image that Nehru built up for himself as being the sole repository of communal harmony, nationalistic and scientific spirit. DVG ¹²⁴says, “I can boldly say that there are countless men and women in India today whose love for this nation and whose ethical sense is no less than Nehru.”

A related critique is DVG’s brilliant analysis of Nehru’s pet project of Soviet-style five-year plans. The essay ¹²⁵ titled Namma Prajarajyada Pragati (Progress of our Democracy) is a valuable literature on the subject. This is akin to a companion of P.V. Kane’s far more detailed and equally brilliant analysis ¹²⁶ of the subject. Both DVG and Kane approach the problem from their original geniuses and reach pretty much the same conclusion. Both are alarmed at the enormity of these grand five-year plans and the scope for large-scale wastage inherent in these projects. DVG notes that there are “countless medium and small tasks along with these five-year plans.” This sort of concentration of a bulk of national resources on five-year plans have occurred because there is no decisiveness in the Government’s economic policy, which has in turn, discouraged private capital and enterprise. Further, the “Government must discard its notion that only it has to do every work” of national importance. In turn, this attitude ¹²⁷ was rooted in a dangerous mind set.

Delhi’s eyes are firmly set on the clouds…it forgets the minor details while thinking about grand plans…in its endeavor of manufacturing fashionable clothes, it forgets the threads and buttons.

DVG concludes his essay with a stinging slap: “till the time Congress leaders remain unafraid of the people, this country cannot expect any great change for the good.” And when we realise that DVG uttered these words in 1954, we also realise that this is beyond both comment and contempt.

Notes

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[[How our Legislators Look After Themselves: DVG’s Answer Source: prekshaa]]

Just a year later, the Nehruvian Congress authored the preface to yet another dark chapter that would lead the country to national chaos from which we are yet to recover. This was the notorious 1955 Avadi Session [^33.1] of the Indian National Congress in which Prime Minister Nehru himself gave the indecipherable phrase, “socialistic pattern of society.”

Like the handful of truly national-minded Indians, DVG was immediately alarmed. Needless, his prediction of what would occur under the guise of this perfidious phraseology came true within a decade. Equally, his exposition [^33.2] on its peril remains a classic and ever-relevant. DVG’s piercing intellect first rips off the façade of nobility underlying “socialistic pattern of society” when he writes that the use of this phrase “was in winning the Andhra elections for the Congress.” And then launches a frontal attack on Nehru himself.

When it came to clarifying the meaning of that megaphoned phrase, Mr. Nehru declared that it is not the same thing as Socialism, which itself lacks definition, but a form of organization to be discovered as we go along… how about the darkening of counsel meanwhile?… Viewed against the background of measures like Zamindari abolition and the parrot-talk of nationalization, the phrase “socialistic pattern of society” looked sinister. It spelt disaster to private enterprise and private ownership. It seemed to portend the annihilation of the individual as a distinct human value.

DVG then warns of the long-term dangers of pursuing this course, correctly observing that it would lead to the state monopolizing national resources and the emergence of illegitimate and criminal lobbies, all of which have come true. The ex-Communist, Philip Spratt was unsparing in his analysis [^33.3] of the Avadi Session and the politics and economics of Jawaharlal Nehru:

*Nehru is a Communist in this broader sense. He accepts increasing governmental power, socialisation and mechanisation, as both inevitable and desirable. He is strongly attached to the existing Communist governments, and when they clash with other governments he almost invariably supports them… through a series of constitutional amendments, he has systematically cut down the right to property, which most theorists regard as a necessary bulwark…of the other freedoms…Ten years ago the Congress Party was by no means socialistic. When the resolution on the socialistic pattern was passed at Avadi, an important Congressman compared it to the Emperor Akbar’s Din Ilahi. Socialism, he said, is Nehru’s personal fad, which will quickly be forgotten when he passes from the scene. It seemed a shrewd judgement at the time, but it overlooked the attraction of socialism for a ruling party of hungry careerists. The experience of socialism in the nine years since then has won many Congressmen over. *

Elsewhere in his analysis of the implications of the Avadi Session, DVG pointedly asks whether it would be incorrect to call the Congress as totalitarian because of its penchant to crush even those who it merely suspected were rivals. It is redundant to say but it must be said that the aforementioned crushing was carried out using mostly foul means.

By 1964, what the Avadi Session had planted in the political realm began to yield rich harvest in a highly visible manner in the public space: untrammeled and unchecked corruption at all levels. In this context, DVG notes the emergence of a new class: the professional politician, a class non-existent before Independence. He writes that the professional politician was the most corrosive of all and describes [^33.4] this new breed as the “patriotism-professing non-official,” something that the journalist and editor D.F. Karaka echoes [^33.5] more acerbically as the “trader of patriotism.” In DVG’s observation, “our public life today is thus the paradise of the professional politician.” He correctly traces the roots of this corruption to “the day that Congress, the party in power, agreed to let its men in the legislatures vote themselves attractive salaries and perks.” In another essay sardonically titled, How our Legislators Look After Themselves, DVG provides a devastating table showing the exact figures of the salaries that MLAs and MPs awarded themselves at public expense. This he calls, was a sickening betrayal of the “dreams of 1947” towards which millions of service-minded and patriotic Indians selflessly worked. DVG expresses genuine fear at how the “country’s moral stamina” would handle this “new test.”

Leaving nothing to speculation and always devoted to details, DVG delineates a caustic description of the professional politician [^33.6] that the Congress had thrown up in such substantial numbers:

The worst of democracy is in that it brings a profession of politicians into existence. Every profession has its career-side…in order to keep his career going, the politician has to…dive to the bottom of the pond and stir up muck…to the scum which naturally accumulates he must add some of his own imagining so that…[it] may attract people’s attention. Much-raking thus becomes a professional interest…its life is disturbance,—constant, unceasing disturbance…in that process, the mind of the community should be kept torn…You could then be sure of drawing some into your camp and securing their votes*. The vote is your living…it opens the way to office or…political influence. Membership to Parliament means assured salary and perquisites.** And in order to keep yourself in Parliament you must keep brawling day after day and distract the public over issue after issue…*[it] *thus throws people’s mind out of balance, and moral issues are never even remembered…The conscience of the community thus is reduced to inertia and stupefaction. *

And how did this class of the professional politician fare in its record of nation-building and the actual delivery of governance? DVG provides the brutally honest [^33.7] answer:

Congressmen…mouth promises…But word is not deed, and none of them knows anything of doing except of course for their own dear selves*…[They] have for leaders men who failed the** country when they held office and are becoming notable as windbags and vote manipulators when out of office.*

Sure enough, these windbags and vote manipulators were to have the last laugh, in a manner of speaking. Even as DVG was searing them in issue after issue of Public Affairs with his fiery pen, Mrs Indira Gandhi split the original Indian National Congress and was hurtling down the path to totalitarianism. As we now know, this political Frankenstein would eventually devour her. But back in those days, DVG was among the earliest luminaries who foresaw the ominous signs and the mordant forces that her split had caused. He is unsparing of both the so-called “Syndicate” and “Indicate” [^33.8] remarking that they were cut from the same cloth. More importantly, he notes how both had surrendered to the so-called “Young Turks,” euphemism for a group of young political aspirants who advocated and used unabashed political hooliganism [^33.9] as a shortcut to political office. As DVG predicted, these Young Turks eventually overwhelmed what was left of the original Congress Party, reducing the newly-powerful Indira Gandhi to the status of something slightly better than a puppet of the Communists who now formed her closest circle. The Congress that she had split became swiftly radicalized. It also set in motion the familiar events that would culminate in the Emergency, India’s only brush with dictatorship so far. DVG foresaw this sort of future and wrote these words [^33.10] of friendly but highly sarcastic advice to the Congress Party:

[The Congress] leaders will now be serving the country best by retiring into private life,—to delight…their grandchildren with stories of how they distinguished themselves in their service to the motherland and what miracles they wrought as Ministers and Legislators…It will be to the good of the Congress itself that it should retire from office.

Our greater admiration for DVG lies in the fact that he wrote all these at a time when a majority of influential newspapers and periodicals [^33.11] were vying with one another to curry favour with Indira Gandhi.

[[Vākyajño vākyakuśalaḥ maunamupāgamat: The Twilight Years of the Titan Source: prekshaa]]

The distilled essence of all of DVG’s brilliant critiques of the Indian political atmosphere since Independence and specifically, the trajectory of the Congress Party until its fateful split in 1969 is the fact that by 1970, he had already been convinced that the Congress was a force for the evil. In his innumerable indictments, DVG observes how the Congress Party and Government had become indistinguishable, the chief reason for the chaos both at the national level and in the states. The party and the Government had no place for people who were not up for sale and majority of ministers lacked the qualification, aptitude, training and discipline to “sit at the desk and glue their eyes to the paper.” This discipline was how the politician trained his soul. Instead, the Congress Party and Government busied itself in uprooting everything in the past that was noble and virtuous under the mindless excuse that they were erasing all vestiges of the British. DVG concludes ¹²⁸ this indictment with a touch of original genius:

*Vishwamitra embarked on an endeavor to build a new heaven and create a new Indra. In recent history, only two belong to this class of people. The first are the Communists of Russia. **The second are our Congress leaders. ***

In their zeal to Russianize India, the Congress leaders forgot the glaring irony this blind aping of Communist Russia was another reflection of the deep hold British colonization had on their psyches. In their tearing arrogance, these leaders forgot to ask public opinion vis a vis their project of Russianization. DVG puts this arrogance ¹²⁹ in perspective:

But what is public opinion?…What is the real picture we get when we examine public opinion and subject the Congress claim of being a democratic party and government to test? What we have is not the power of the people but the power of political parties. Neither is it merely the power of parties but the power of one party, and the power of only one leader of that party.

The combined consequence of all this in DVG’s words

In 1973, DVG published the revised edition of his classic political treatises (later) combined into a single volume as*Rajyashastra, Rajyanga.*Reminiscing on the state of the Indian nation in 1973, he notes:

According to some, the condition of our people today is far worse than what it was under British rule.

The year 1973 is an interesting timeline: Devaraj Urs, the blue-eyed lieutenant of Indira Gandhi had established his firm authority as the Chief Minister of Karnataka. He is also remembered for and credited with officializing corruption in the political life of Karnataka. It is unnecessary to recount the dark trajectory of events in the state ever since.

Two years later, when the nightmarish climax of the Emergency came, DVG recorded his protest in his inimitable fashion in the July 1975 issue of*Public Affairs.*It was a Sanskrit verse pregnant with meaning and profound in its implication:

*Vākyajño vākyakuśalaḥ maunamupāgamat *
The one who was well-versed in the fine art of speech took refuge in silence.

On 7 October 1975, DVG passed away. His earthly departure was the final end of an era of courage, truthfulness and decency in public life and the beginning of a demonic era from which Independent India is yet to fully free herself. He was perhaps the last of those luminaries and savants the anchor of whose soul was firmly moored in the Sanatana ethos whose wellspring he unfailingly relied upon to meet contemporary political and social challenges. With DVG’s mortal death, Bharatavarsha had lost yet another vital civilizational link that could effortlessly delineate her timeless genius to the confused mass that democratic India had become. And democratic and Independent India had lost an invaluable social, spiritual and moral guide.

No one who had known DVG for any length of time could recover from the news of his death. People he had mentored, guided, and built abiding friendships with were inconsolable. Tributes and condolences poured in from people from all walks of life: the Chief Minister, politicians, editors, journalists, litterateurs, musicians, educationists, judges, and Vedic Pandits. The October-November 1975 issue ofPublic Affairswas dedicated to his commemoration. Selected excerpts from these tributes follow. Emphases have been added.

By his innate feeling of a call to duty to the motherland and enthused by the lives of Ram Mohun Roy, Vivekananda, Dadabhai Naoroji and Dewan Rangacharlu he lived a life of dedication to great ideals and lived a purposeful life…***He made it his duty to cleanse the minds of his fellow countrymen both individual and collective and uplift their miseries to the great and the good in life.******He assiduously tried to find out the good and made it known to his fellowmen and tried to see it realised.***It is no wonder he found journalism a convenient vehicle to express his thoughts.

***

His learning was as extensive as his intellect was massive and his retentive power extraordinary. Though his schooling stopped with his failing in the matriculation examination, by that time he had read Gibbon ’sDecline and Fall of the Roman Empireseveral times.

***

Authority to him in the State was not unrelated to the holder of it. So, his insistence was on the maintenance of high moral standards of public men. Similarly, the public good was not something elusive for him.Every detail which made the life of the citizen happy was an item of good for him.

***

It was his firm conviction that when power is passing into the hands of the people, one safeguard against error and confusion in public policy is in the influence of a body of independent-minded citizens who untrammeled by party attachments and class loyalties, would keep a critical watch over the country’s affairs and inform the public from time to time.

***

When he received congratulatory letters from friends on the conferment of Padma Bhushan on him,he replied that the grass growing in a meadow does not ask for any praise for looking so beautifully green and for having pleased the looker on.

[Editorial]

I would not be wrong in saying that our education began afresh when we came in contact with him.Beginning with referring to a dictionary, punctuating a sentence, arranging chairs for a meeting welcoming the lecturer, up to the teaching of theUpanishads,the instruction spread over all aspects of life. No detail was missed. I may describe it as an attitude of thoroughness in thought as well as in action. He detested lethargy, procrastination, haphazardness, and perfunctoriness, as also deceit and hypocrisy. So it is no wonder that he partial to scholarship and efficiency and straightforwardness. All this drill and punctiliousness formed part of his philosophy of life andit is no exaggeration to say we have become new men under his influence. [D.R. Venkataramanan]

***

In the course of his public life, DVG never minced matter and whenever any action of Government offended public good, DVG was loud and clear in his indictment of that action***. He was incorruptible and he never thought of utilising his position and influence as a public man to further his interests***. [K.S. Ramaswami]

***

Fifteen years of hard and selfless service had…made Gundappa into a man of grit and incorruptible independence… Gundappa never looked for the appreciation of the work he was doing, by Government.***He was a politician but belonged to no party.***If he had joined the Congress in the earlier years, he could perhaps have been a minister in one of the administrations later. ln literature also he was indifferent to acceptance by the crowd, though maintaining high quality… Born poor, receiving no formal education beyond the secondary stage, and entering public life when he was about twenty years old,Gundappa worked hard and with a will to make something of life; and ended making it a great thing.[Masti Venkatesha Iyengar]

Notes

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[[DVG: The Rational Champion of the Princely States Source: prekshaa]]

baruvella benegaṃ maddanāririsiharu? ।
narara kīḻtanakella parihāraveṃtu? ॥
kiridu pallanu tāḻikeḻalebekaṣṭiṣṭu ।
dhareyaṃtaruṣṇavanu - maṃkutimma ॥ 670 ॥

Has anyone been able to find a medicine for all ailments that affect man?
Is there any permanent solution to the wretched behavior of man?
We have no option but to tolerate all these by clenching our teeth Akin to how the earth patiently conceals the inner heat concealed – Mankutimma