The Unknown Srivaishnava

The Rt.Hon’ble Srinivasa Sastri’s memory and legacy… (Part-19): Last days in Mylapore…

The last days of Srinivasa Sastri were spent in his home “Swaagatham” in Mylapore, Madras… in one of the oldest, most historically well-known quarters of the city (now known as Chennai).

Mylapore was indeed one of the oldest and culturally richest parts of Madras, known for its temples, classical music, and Tamil and Sanskrit scholarship. Sastri, a scholar deeply versed in Sanskrit, Tamil, and Indian traditions, found in Mylapore a vibrant and spiritually salubrious environment since it greatly nurtured his love for classical learning, religious harmony, and cultural continuity…. all his core liberal values in life.

Mylapore was also home to many of his close and dear friends and contemporaries in the Brahmin intellectual and political elite, often called the “Mylapore Clique,” who were known for their scholarly pursuits and contribution to the Indian National Freedom movement. They all had like Sastri embraced the politics of moderation and constitutional methods.

**Alladi Krishnaswami Aiyer** (*1883-1953*)

Sastri’s own residence and work were both closely linked to this Mylapore cultural milieu, which influenced his sense of identity and intellectual pursuits. The rich temple traditions, festivals, and cultural activities of Mylapore embodied the same “Sanatana Dharma” values that Sastri so deeply respected and avidly promoted.

Mylapore was a place where classical Carnatic music, literature, and religious discussions thrived, of which all Sastri, a patron himself, supported through his engagements with scholars, poets, and institutions. The influence of Mylapore provided a conducive cultural grounding for Sastri’s approach to nationalism and gradualist reform, blending respect for tradition with modern education and civic values. Here is how he felt about his own home in Mylapore:

“In the sacred streets of Mylapore, where temples and scholars alike rise in enduring testament to our culture, lies a living testament to India’s spiritual and intellectual heritage. This ambience nurtures not only faith but reason; it inspires us to pursue knowledge with humility and serve with diligence.”…. “Let us remember, in these sacred environs where poetry and song ring out, that the work of the mind and the work of the spirit go hand in hand. Mylapore and her scholars gift us this example, and we should cherish it as a beacon for all India.”

Mylapore in Sastri’s time, as it is even today, was famed for its religious ambience and grand landmark temples… the Kapaleeshwara Temple being the most magnificent of them all. Sastri was a man of both Reason and Faith at the same time and he found it easy to soak and luxuriate himself in that ambience…. It was truly la dolce vita of Mylapore! Kodanda Rao, Sastri’s biographer’s quote below reveals the religious side of the man:

QUOTE: The doctrine of Bhakti, as revealed in the Gita, captivated his (Sastri’s) heart, but not his head. Sastri said: “The struggle between the head and the heart, described with self-revelatory pathos in religious writings, rages perpetually within me. It is only my lifelong practice of self-control that cloaks the gnawings of my inmost being behind a blank expression of face.” He craved for some experience, some revelation, some authentic sign of life after death. He had moments when he preferred the contentment of the pig in the sty to the agitation and turmoil of the enquiring mind. But he soon found consolation and encouragement in the thesis that “there is more faith in honest doubt than in half the creeds” and concluded that to believe what was not proven to one’s satisfaction was to abdicate the sovereign quality of reason. UNQUOTE

Sastri himself did like to go on occasions to worship in temples since he regarded “The temple is not merely a place of ritual; it is a center of art, philosophy, and community. The centuries-old traditions of Mylapore have taught me that our past is not to be preserved as a museum but lived as a fountain of inspiration for modern progress.”

Sastri’s house in Mylapore thus became a beehive of cultural activity and a watering-hole for neighbourhood cognoscenti. The home called “Swaagatham” became known for being an informal gathering spot for intellectuals, where figures from different disciplines—poetry, politics, philosophy—met for lively, spirited discussions.

“At irregular intervals, a small group of persons interested in public affairs would assemble at Sastri’s home in Mylapore. Sastri would listen thoughtfully, speaking only occasionally but with great weight and precision. His calm deliberations often steered conversations towards reason and reconciliation.”

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In his last days in Mylapore, Sastri’s engagement with politics and world affairs was reduced to a bare minimum. Even amongst friends who gathered at his house for intellectual conversations with him, he spoke more on literary, art, music and cultural topics than politics. However, there were two specific matters that did catch Sastri’s attention and on which he did make known his mind. On one matter his comments went public because it concerned an international issue. The other matter which was a local issue, he chose to make his comments private.

The first issue was the advent of the (A) Apartheid Regime in South Africa and the second matter was the emerging (B) Dravidian Movement of the Justice Party of Tamil Nadu led by E.V.Ramaswamy Naicker (aka “periyaar“).

As mentioned (already in an earlier chapter in this series) while he had served in South Africa as Agent-General for the British Government of India, Sastri had recognized the plight of the Indian community there that was being deprived of even basic human and civil rights. The plight was an incipient symptom of the growing racial problem in that country. Even as early as 1927–1929, Sastri had already been acutely aware of the plight faced by the Indian community under white minority rule and he had consistently advocated for their upliftment and equal treatment. He strongly opposed policies treating Indians as aliens or pushing for their repatriation, calling instead for improvements in housing, sanitation, education, and legal status.

Though the formal system of apartheid was officially instituted only after Sastri’s time in South Africa, his diplomatic efforts and public statements condemned the sort of racial segregation and legal discrimination that was driving force behind apartheid ideology. He had worked tirelessly to negotiate better rights for Indians and opposed any legislation that legitimized racial inequality. Now, from Mylapore, he spoke publicly to condemn Apartheid Rule in South Africa in a manner reminiscent of an impassioned speech on Legal and Civic Rights, he had given once in the past:

“It is neither justice nor reason to treat the Indian community as aliens in a land that many of us have called home for generations. The laws that seek to exclude us, to restrict us, to repatriate us, are unjust and must be resisted by all means consistent with constitutional dignity. We reject every form of racial segregation, and we demand the recognition of equal rights before the law.”

The speech directly condemned the nascent apartheid structure of racial segregation and exclusionary laws, calling for equal legal rights.

(B) Sastri’s political career peaked in the decades before the Dravidian Movement became a dominant force in Tamil Nadu. By the time the Self-Respect Movement gathered momentum in the late 1920s and 1930s—and especially when Dravidar Kazhagam (DK) emerged in the 1940s—Sastri was already an aging figure, focused solely on constitutional advocacy, diplomacy, and liberal reform. He spent some of his later years deeply involved in public education, language debates, and literary activity, rather than frontline political activism in either India or in what became later the State of Tamil Nadu.

The Dravidian Movement was openly critical of both the “Hindu orthodoxy” and “nationalist” positions, seeing both as protecting Brahminical privilege and Sanskritic traditions. Periyar’s activism aimed thus to counteract what he saw as Brahmin superiority promoted by Congress moderates, including leaders like Sastri and Alladi Krishnaswami Aiyer.

The main documented response of the liberal Brahmin elite (such as Sastri and Sivasamy Iyer) towards the Dravidian and anti-Brahmin movements was one of disapproval and quiet reservation, often articulated in private correspondence or moderate platforms rather than combative public debate. There are secondary references in the Dravidian Movement literature to “Brahmin leaders“, including Srinivasa Sastri, upholding social separation and traditional values, which Periyar and the Dravidian ideologues criticized vehemently. Mahatma Gandhi himself recognized the parochial and casteist underpinnings of Periyar’s Self-Respect Movement and expressed his alarm at the spectre of narrow, sub-national “identity politics” beginning to loom large in the State of Madras:

“The Justice Party… opposed Brahmins in civil service and politics, and this anti-Brahmin attitude shaped many of its ideas and policies… Gandhi responded by highlighting his appreciation of Brahmin contribution to Hinduism and said, ‘I warn the correspondents against separating the Dravidian south from Aryan north. The India today is a blend not only of two, but of many other cultures.'”

Sastri and his Mylaporean colleagues like Alladi Krishnaswami Aiyer and Sivasami Iyer represented traditional Brahminical values in their public comportment, moral philosophy, and literary emphasis—which stood in implicit, if not explicit, contrast to the Dravidian critique. They came to symbolize—for critics and Dravidian polemicists—an older establishment whose influence was now being actively challenged, not so much in direct confrontation, but through structural social shifts and new populist mobilisations in the streets and public squares.

From his home in Mylapore, which was itself witnessing the winds of change in its traditional and cultural ethos from liberalism to increasing Tamil parochialism, Sastri might have silently brooded over his foreboding of a grim future for the Tamils of Madras State —- a future where Periyar’s “movement would not work out too well for the Brahmin who would be made the scapegoat for 500 years of Tamil decline slowly unfolding itself…

Sastri sensed that the earliest manifestations of the Dravidian movement was not particularly rabid or secessionistic but was more focused on resentment of Brahmin ascendance, particularly in provincial government and education. Yet he feared that the Movement had in it seeds of secessionism.

Sastri did not however personally engage in any documented direct commentary or confrontation with E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker or the Dravidian Movement. His moderate, liberal reformism and devotion to Sanskritic culture stood in intellectual opposition to the radical anti-Brahmin politics of Periyar, but their interaction was one of contrast, not direct conflict or debate.

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In the years and decades to come, the ethos of cultural and intellectual excellence of Sastri’s beloved Mylapore would surely undergo a sea-change. It would be able to neither resist nor overcome the ideological onslaught the Dravidian Movement would come to inflict upon the so-called “brahminical” social order and its values of liberalism that Sastri and his “Mylapore Clique” had espoused and wished to propagate.

Inevitably, the time to depart from such a fast crumbling old world order waa fast approaching… Sastri’s angina pectoris attacks were becoming more and more frequent and ominously unbearable too…

(to be continued)

Sudarshan Madabushi

The Rt.Hon’ble Srinivasa Sastri’s memory and legacy… (Part-18): Ignored by New Delhi, short-shrifted in Durban, forgotten in Mylapore,…

In the last ten years, Prime Minister’s Narendra Modi’s has made more than one high-profile State visit to South Africa. His public addresses there in Durban focused primarily on Mahatma Gandhi, with ceremonial visits, of course, made to places like Durban associated with Gandhi’s life and message. There is extensive media coverage and official documentation of these tributes.

Significant other eminent Indian persons with direct South African connection like Ela Gandhi and events relating to Gandhian movements and Sastri College (founded by Srinivasa Sastri) have been honored and recognized locally in South Africa, with alumni gatherings and celebrations acknowledging Sastri’s lasting contributions to Indian education and upliftment there. However, there is no evidence in government press releases, major news coverage, or public speeches of Narendra Modi directly mentioning or honoring Srinivasa Sastri on these visits—despite Sastri’s foundational role as India’s first agent to South Africa and his lasting educational legacy. In the last decade, local communities in South Africa nonetheless continue to respect Sastri’s legacy in the sphere of Education.

While previous Prime Ministers of India and their governments may have had various priorities for visits abroad, from a historical and diplomatic standpoint, not acknowledging Srinivasa Sastri’s role is a significant lapse on the part of Narendra Modi and predecessors—and one that ought to be meaningfully addressed in future commemorations or cultural exchanges. Such recognition would enrich the narrative of India-South Africa relations and serve as a reminder of the many individuals like Sastri who worked for justice, dignity, and friendship between the two nations.

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India’s Home Minister, Amit Shah, recently made a public statement declaring that “soon, in India, English speakers would feel ashamed,” arguing that the dominance of English represents elite privilege and cultural detachment from the broader Indian society. Shah’s remarks were made during some author’s book-launch event in New Delhi. The media reported his comments and were widely interpreted as a critique of English as an elitist language and as part of the ongoing effort to center Indian languages in public life. Shah then went on to emphasize that “the languages of our country are the ornament of our culture,” and asserted, “Without them, we would not have been Bharatiya. Our history, our culture, our Dharma – these cannot be understood in foreign languages”. Shah’s statement was seen as a call to efface the perceived elitism of English from India and to shift cultural and institutional focus toward Indian languages.g

In voicing such blatant disdain for the English language, calling it an elitist tongue that eventually Indian languages must banish from India, Amit Shah was articulating an extreme Hindu Right Wing or Hindutva aspiration common to mass-populations in the vast Hindi-Belt of North India.

What Amit Shah obviously did not know perhaps was that love of English more did not necessarily mean love of Indian languages less. Srinivasa Sastri was the best example of such ardent lovers of both English as well as ancient Sanskrit which was the root language of ancient India — in fact, the mother of all other Indian languages of the present — but which many people believed was no less an “elitist” language.

Shah’s vehement statement revealed a strange Hindutva paradox: On the one hand, it was a pronouncement of an Hindutva agenda that means to revive, and resurrect from the dead, elitist Sanskrit; and on the other hand, there was also this wish for so-called “elitist English“, that was alive and thriving, to be banished from India and dead. It was Sastri however who had brought home to millions of Indians who knew no Sanskrit at all, all the sublimity of Valmiki’s Ramayana, enabling them thus to overcome the language handicap and still be able to creatively appreciate the epic through the medium of English.

One today wonders how might Sastri have responded to Amit Shah calling him an unabashed Anglophile or to Shah’s tirade against the English language. Perhaps in typically “inoffensive” manner, he would have reminded our powerful Home Minister that it was mastery of the English language that had enabled Sastri to contribute to the Indian freedom struggle in ways for which even Mahatma Gandhi had expressed not only admiration and appreciation but also gratitude.

It was the English language, polished oratory, and constitutional approach that had made Sastri, yes, an elite diplomat into a consummate international representative of Indian interests. It had enabled him to successfully engage with British political leaders and at global forums like the League of Nations, the Imperial and diplomatic missions to South Africa and the UK and speak with authority on matters like even the creation of the United Nations Organisation.

Sastri might also have deigned to give Amit Shah a lesson in history to help him understand how Anglophile elites like Sastri had contributed essential diplomatic skills and constitutional knowledge to gain international legitimacy for India’s independence struggle; how a pluralistic nationalist movement balancing elite negotiation and mass Gandhian resistance movement was thus created. And why inspite of such valuable contributions, people like Sastri were still disdained by radical nationalists for their perceived Anglophilia and “elitism“. It was unfair and uncharitable.

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The renowned Tamil litterateur, novelist, scholar and Sahitya Akademi Award winner, “Sri. Indira Parthasarathy“ once shared a wry titbit with me in a private message about how in New Delhi, the name of the Rt. Hon’ble Srinivasa Sastri had been completely ignored and erased from public memory:

“In New Delhi many many years ago, a new locality that came into existence was named “Srinivasapuri” to honour the memory of Srinivasa Sastri. But subsequently they forgot after which Srinivas exactly the neighborhood was so named. The common belief among Delhites thereafter becamet that it was named after Lord Balaji, the Deity of Tirupathi!”

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New Delhi is the capital city of India. It has served as the crucible and centre in which all post-Independence political churning took place — of ideas, ideology and notions of all kinds getting had been brewed…. Hindu Nationalism and Hindutva, Nehru’s conceptions of Socialism and Secularism, the idea of Constitutionalism, Rule of Law and the ideas of Civil Rights, Freedom of the press and speech and not to speak of Indian federalism and that grand idea of “unity in diversity”… and many more newer forms of thinking later mutating and growing therefrom.

In such a dynamic intellectual milieu and ideological cauldron as New Delhi was, Srinivasa Sastri, one would have expected, would have come to be ever remembered fondly and saluted too for his cerebral brilliance and such valuable contributions to the country’s affairs in history that he had made. What then possibly could be the reasons for a man of such great stature to have got so undeservingly short-shrifted by New Delhi that Prime Ministers and Home Ministers of India, past and present, hardly remembered or cared to mention him even in passing in their public speeches, either in India or in South Africa, in acknowledgment of his many-faceted accomplishments in life?

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IN historical hindsight that one possesses today, could it be said that Sastri’s stature in the Indian political landscape of his times was something that of a political gadfly? One who every one respected, of course, but who, more often than not, they saw as a stormy petrel of sorts? Was that why none felt comfortable with him? … With the sole exception of Mahatma Gandhi, of course.

Sastri was not a political gadfly in the sense of a pestering or provoking irritation; nor was he a hated stormy petrel stirring up revolt. He was genuinely revered for his intellect, moral courage, and tact, often called upon to mediate or articulate the moderate nationalist viewpoint. However, his moderate, liberal stance sometimes did frustrate radicals, and his cautious nature occasionally drew criticism, but even then, he was never hated—his reputation remained sterling across the Indian political landscape.

Yet, it is true that Sastri never belonged nor was he warmly embraced by and accepted into any established organisation!

The complex reality of Srinivasa Sastri’s career path was that, practically everywhere, it was marked by profound respect from all quarters but also with a certain “outsider” status . He was in many ways a paradox. He was admired by all yet he remained peripheral to all. The reasons that can be adduced for such a paradox may well be explored along the following lines:

Independence of Mind: Sastri’s unwavering commitment to principle, truth, and constitutionalism made him difficult to fully assimilate into any group or party. He followed his conscience rather than the majority or the mood of the movement—even when this meant walking alone… “eklo chalo re...!”.

2. Reluctant Political Affiliations: He started his career in the Indian National Congress but was uncomfortable with its drift toward mass agitation, civil disobedience and Gandhian style satyagraha. He left the Congress when it conflicted with his convictions, joined the Servants of India Society but didn’t truly belong ther either. And then he helped found the Indian Liberal Federation—which, despite initial hope, remained just a marginal parliamentary force.

3. Leadership Without a Following: Sastri was never a charismatic mass leader or populist. He was too scholarly, too urbane, and too principled for populist politics. His politics was about reasoned persuasion, not emotion or mobilization.

4. At odds with the political zeitgeist: He was skeptical of both revolutionary nationalism and state socialism, which became the dominant idioms in twentieth-century India. Even the British government hesitated about him—respecting his intellect and moderation, but wary of his insistence on equality and rights for Indians.

5. Geographical Limitation: Outside South India, Sastri’s fame did not match that of Gandhi or Nehru, since he was not given to mass movements or popular agitation.

6. Relationship with National Leaders: Nehru, Rajaji, and Patel found Sastri a formidable intellect and moral presence but perhaps too independent-minded and uncompromising for their coalition-building and power politics. He was admired rather than trusted as a fellow strategist.

PANDIT Jawaharlal Nehru in his Autobiography, published in 1936, was highly critical of Sastri. He had not met Sastri often and long enough to form a close personal friendship which could rise above political differences. When he had freshly returned from England about 1912 he heard a speech of Sastri in Allahabad which gave him a “great shock,” because Sastri, according to Nehru, had advised students to obey and be respectful to their teachers and observe the rules and regulations of constituted authorities. The advice seemed to Nehru to be “goody-goody” and “platitudinous” and “somewhat undesirable.” Though he admitted that Sastri had not used the “hard word,” he formed the impression that Sastri advocated students’ “spying” on one another and acting as informers! He was aghast at such advice and felt that there was a great deal of difference between his morality and Sastri’s.
Sastri refrained from replying to Nehru’s criticisms, and preferred to put up with them silently. Years later he revealed his reaction, which he called his “drawback” in his Tamil autobiography, “If I Live Again” (freely translated here):
- “When one criticises me in the papers or on the platform it is not my practice at once to enter into a controversy and immediately answer the criticism. If any mis-statement has been made I would correct it. For a long time I suffered greatly on account of this. Some time back, a few years ago, a patriot of unparalleled eminence wrote a book. It sold in lakhs. Few were there who did not read it. In that book he criticised me at great length and subjected me to humiliation. Several friends of mine, feeling that it was unjust criticism, prompted me to reply in defence. To me it appeared unnecessary. Though I had the fear that the younger generation on reading this book would have a very low opinion of me I thought that there was no way out and put up with it. But this idea of mine is by no means the outcome of the Gita doctrine that we must treat praise and blame alike. Nevertheless, I do have an iminense faith and desire to live up to that doctrine.” (Letters of Srinivasa Sastri, pp. 135-136).
In 1940, Sastri in a moment of introspection and self-deprecation made this remark about himself: “I may make a general confession that I am particularly weak-minded. I cannot come to strong and decided resolutions. I am in the habit of looking round and round. of weighing things in the scales of right and wrong; and, as you know, a man who thinks too much of right and wrong is apt to land himself in utter confusion. For, the moment of action is gone; time for decision is left behind.”

7. A “Conscience-Keeper,” Not Kingmaker: Sastri’s destiny was to be heard and heeded by the influential, but seldom to lead the crowd or control an organization.

Sastri’s legacy thus was his personal example which was his own unique one. It was one of rectitude, learning, and statesmanship—an influential outsider, respected but rarely embraced, who never did quite “fit” anywhere and yet left an indelible imprint on every space he occupied. Sastri’s story in that respect is emblematic of the intellectual or moral giant whose devotion to principles places him eternally outside the inner circles of power, but always at the center of conscience and public respect.

This unique position of Sastri, neither fully “in” nor “out,” was both his greatness and his solitude.

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Would Srinivasa Sastri’s liberalism qualify as true Liberalism as we know it to be in the world today?

Sastri’s liberalism bears far more resemblance to “classical liberalism” or “liberal constitutionalism” than to contemporary neo-liberalism. His was a philosophy of gradual reform, social justice, and constitutional safeguards, not one of market deregulation or state retrenchment. He stands closer to 19th and early 20th century political liberals than to late 20th century economic neo-liberals .

Sastri’s liberalism was an article of faith, not just strategy or rhetoric. He valued intellectual honesty and detested political posturing or cynical branding. If modern politicians used “liberalism” as a mere label, without substance, he would have called them out.

Sastri at the same time also strongly opposed extra-constitutional protest and civil disobedience except in the most extreme circumstances. He feared lawlessness and social instability. He might today have roundly criticized tactics (of what are called “andolan jeevis“! i.e. professional agitators) that resort too quickly to street protest or shutdowns, preferring legislative and judicial routes.

Sastri, like some early Indian liberals, operated in a socially elite, English-educated world. Some critics today, we see in fact, often accuse “Indian liberalism” of a similar disconnect with broader public sentiment. Sastri too might have found that that some of today’s liberal leaders lack deep grassroots ties or rely too much on symbolic posturing.

Sastri championed inclusive Indian-ness, moral public leadership, and the dignity of all. But he equally placed real weight on education, self-restraint, and personal example—not just rhetoric. He might have gone and supported today’s broad calls for protecting India’s “soul” (understood as secular, plural, and just), but would have surely expected rigorous self-discipline and principled action, not mere slogans.

Sastri would probably also today have offered critical fellowship to some modern liberal politicians in India—defending genuine constitutionalism, civil liberty, women’s and minority rights, and pluralist values. But he would have been sharply critical of those whose liberalism lacked depth, principle, or respect for legal methods, and those who used the language of the “soul of India” as a convenient substitute for real reform or civil behavior. He would certainly have stood as a formidable reminder that true liberalism is lived practice, not just a platform.

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Sastri’s Views on Secularism contrasted with that of Nehru’s:

Sastri: Emphasized inclusive secularism based on constitutional equality and mutual respect among religions. He firmly believed in religion but that it should be a private matter and citizens should act as individuals, not based on exclusive religious identities. Warned against communalism and political divisions based on creed, stressing Hindu-Muslim unity as essential for peace and progress. His secularism was moderate, pluralistic, and sought harmony through understanding.

Nehru: Saw secularism as essential to modern nation-building and governance but was more explicitly atheist or skeptical of religion’s role in public life. Defined secularism as freedom for all religions to practice so long as they do not interfere with each other or the state’s basic functioning. He was personally skeptical about religion’s role in public affairs but respected all religions, envisioning a state that keeps a “principled distance.” Opposed religious communalism and favored nation-building based on modern, scientific principles. Practiced a pragmatic secularism balancing state neutrality with protection of minority rights.

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Was the Rt. Hon’ble. Srinivasa Sastri a Socialist?

Sastri was fundamentally a liberal rather than a socialist. His economic views reflected a belief in free enterprise and constitutional progress, but with a strong emphasis on justice, social reform, and gradual political change. While supportive of constitutional reforms and social upliftment, Sastri’s vision aligned more with free enterprise and economic liberalism within a framework of fairness rather than socialist or collectivist economic models. Sastri was thus what is defined as a classical liberal in economic outlook: supportive of free enterprise, rule of law, and gradual reform, opposing socialism’s more radical redistribution or state control ideas. His engagement with international diplomacy further reflected a worldview respecting property rights and liberal economic principles, unlike socialist economic planning

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If Sastri lived today in India, would he be regarded as a political anachronism?

Sastri’s liberal-humanism bears far more resemblance to “classical liberalism” or “liberal constitutionalism” than to contemporary “neo-liberalism” in India or abroad. He stands truly closer to 19th and early 20th century political liberals than to late 20th or 21st century economic neo-liberals.

Sastri’s liberalism was a broad, constitutional, political, and social program. Neo-liberalism is primarily an economic program, often with less focus on social equality or political rights. Sastri’s genre of liberalism was deeply invested in social uplift, minority rights, and constitutional protection—the opposite of the more technocratic, market-dominated outlook of modern neo-liberalism. There’s little evidence that Sastri espoused the unfettered free-market economics or anti-state values characteristic of neo-liberalism.

Sastri if he lived today would probably be severely rebuking public figures who, in his view, called themselves liberals but sought power, office, or foreign approval rather than real reform. He would be telling them that he believed showy gestures or slogans (cliches like “progress”, “freedom”, “soul of India” etc.) were hollow without an ethical core and consistent effort. Sastri would probably have been skeptical of politicians who paraded liberal ideas for image or electoral gain, rather than embodying those values—and calling instead for policy, humility, and service.

Sastri’s values of liberal constitutionalism, pluralism, social justice, and internationalism would very likely place him in opposition or serious critique of the Hindutva movement too. He would have been probably advocating for an India that embraces all its diversities and upholds a constitutional, inclusive democracy.

So yes, Srinivasa Sastry, if he were living amongst us today in India would in all likelihood be looked upon as a political anachronism.

While his principles would be held up as being profoundly relevant today and might even earn respect across political lines … all mere lip-service, no doubt … the current political environment in India—with its intensity, fragmentation, dog-eat-dog rivalry and ideological battles—would quickly and most certainly marginalize a figure of his nuanced, moderate character. Sastri would today remain as much a respected outsider as he was in his own times. He would never be regarded as a mainstream party leader or influencer.

This overall assessement of Rt. Hon’ble Srinivasa Sastry, the man and the politician should surprise or offend no one … least of all admirers of Sastri like myself … because this pattern, of principled moderates being utterly sidelined in favor of our more combative, identity- and electorally-driven breed of politicians, is very common worldwide and it only exemplifies the challenges if not the impossibility of ever upholding true liberal values in contemporary democracies.

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Sastri’s last days in life were spent in his home in the tranquil neighbourhood of Mylapore, Madras. He loved Mylapore. He was happy to breathe his last there… Does Mylapore cherish his memory today as it did then?

(to be continued)

Sudarshan Madabushi

The Rt.Hon’ble Srinivasa Sastri’s memory and legacy… (Part-17): A streak of “raashtravaadi”? …

Srinivasa Sastri, in so far as we have studied him in the foregoing pages, was a man who never could be stereotyped as either this or that type of votary of any particular political ideology or as anyone who could be easily swayed by any extreme notions of Nationalism, Patriotism or Liberalism. And nor was he any inveterate or wholly Hindu Sanatanist, Anti-Sanatana Secularist …. nor any mere Performative Orthodox Brahmin… Sastri never did fit neatly into any pigeon-hole. As many of his vast circle of political colleagues found to their consternation, in the then prevailing political discourse of India and Great Britain, Sastri more often than not seemed a square peg in a round hole.

The question however may be asked:

Judging by how present-day yardsticks are applied to know what is a man’s core political affliation, could it be said that there was a certain furtive streak in Srinivasa Sastri’s that was suggestive he was a Hindutva-vaadin … i.e. a nationalist who teetered almost on the border of jingoistic ‘raashtra-vaada‘?

A pointed question as above, however, would naturally raise indeed a few corrollaries such as the following:

Do Sastri’s professed and practised values of liberalism have any resemblance to those of today’s so-called “Liberals” in India or to the so called grander notions of “neo-liberalism” in the Western world?

If Sastri had been alive today would he have made common cause with those Indian politicians today calling themselves champions of liberal values…. and of the so-called “soul of India” ?

If Sastri were to be living today amongst which side of the “Hindutva-vaada” debate would he have veered towards ?

In a very moving condolence message that she sent to the family of Sastri on his demise, the poetess-patriot, Sarojini Naidu, wrote these famous lines which provide the glimmer of a clue that leads to answers for the questions above. She said:

“He (Sastri) wrote to me long ago (that) “I have lived too long in the shelter of the school-room to be able to adjust myself to the noise of the market-place”. But, although his approach to political problems was somewhat cautious and even conservative, in recent years he seemed to have developed closer sympathy with the more dynamic ideals and programmes of the more actively-nationalist sections of the Indian people.”

There was no doubt that between 1942 and 1946 when he died, Srinivasa Sastri’s innate “cautious conservatism” of spirit and mentality came under severe stress and he found himself on occasions, rare though, when he found himself involuntarily developing, as Sarojini Naidu accuratel put it, “closer sympathy with the more dynamic ideals and programmes of the more actively-nationalist sections of the Indian people.” Only in that limited sense in which the poetess characterised him could it be said that Sastri also tended to lean a bit towards “Hindutva-vaada“.

************

In January 1943, C. Rajagopalachari (Rajaji) had mooted the idea of conceding Pakistan and his canvassing for it began increasing. Although some in the Indian National Congress Party were reluctant to openly endorse the Rajaji’s proposal, support for it from even non-Congress leaders was seen to be muted but not cold.

In January, 1943, the Council of the Servants of India Society, of which Sastri was a long-standing and eminent member, by a majority vote, lent secret support to the partition of India. The Society directed its members to refrain from opposing Rajaji’s idea which it was well known had Gandhi’s blessings and Nehru’s backing . When the Society’s decision and the directive were conveyed to Sastri, who was firmly and fundamentally opposed to the idea of Partition, he felt so shocked and distressed that he forthwith submitted his resignation from the Society.

In his letter of February 27, 1943, to a colleague in the Society, Sastri said:

“I am conscious I am no longer useful or a source of strength to the Society. Age and conformity to old ways of thought make me a relic of a former age! It is as much as I can expect to be tolerated as an object of interest. Time has run rapidly, while I stand still. I realise that I must not become a positive obstruction.

Three months later — during which period while his resignation letter remained unacknowledged by the Society — the Society’s governing body had a rethink on the issue and advised its members of its revised stand on the matter viz.: the Society does not oppose the idea officially but its members are free to express their individual opposition to the idea of Partition and Pakistan.

“I understand (from Chimanlal Setalvad, a jurist and barrister in Bombay), that the President has restored the status quo and allowed members to speak and write against Pakistan if they are so minded. If this be the case, I need not press my application for release. My sense of relief is almost a positive happiness. A tie of thirty-live years, dear to me as life itself, to which I owe all I care for and with which I am identified in the eyes of the world, is not to be snapped. Be sure I am to the Society the same as ever”.

Sastri thus withdrew his resignation from the Society but a gnawing sense of unease he felt now over the looming prospect of the political vivisection of India by the British Government and, moreover, the Indian National Congress under Gandhi and Nehru acquiescing with it too via Rajaji’s proposal, began deeply rankling and disturbing his mind. And that probably was when Sastri’s latent Hindu nationalistic instincts or sentiments got aroused. He just could not digest the idea of India being partitioned to appease the Muslim population and Mohammed Ali Jinnah.

In a passionately worded private letter to Gandhi, Sastri gave voice to his own hurt “national pride”. The words were adulatory of Gandhi but the message was clearly meant to chide. Gandhi was “hero-worshipped” as a “saint” who, Sastri said, “experimented with truth and courage”. The letter was adulatory, yes, but it is difficult to read it today and not miss the veiled sarcasm in the tone of Sastri’s every phrase and line:

“I judge you as a saint who has the gift of seeing the truth and courage to experiment with it — and in the experiment has had more success than most saints so called.

That is why I rejoiced in your enunciation and proclamation of the non-violence doctrine, unadulterated and pure, though the Philistine world jeered. Nor can you put me off by an outburst of your humility and confession of inconsistency, weakness, corruption of the soul and so on. This only exalts you the more in my hero-worshipping mind, making your merits the more lustrous and your blemishes, alas, the more glowing.

I place you along with the philosophers and ethicists of fame. The pursuit of abstract thought and the practice of austerities belong to us in India by heredity. To see you descend on occasions from the heights, I feel bereft of my natural garment, disrobed of my national pride.”

Earlier, in April, 1944, the Mahatma had himself revealed that he had agreed to the principle of the partition of India when Rajagopalachari pressed it on him in 1943. Accordingly, on September 24, 1944, he informed Mohamamed Ali Jinnah the leader of the Indian Muslim League that was demanding a serparate Pakistan, that he would commend Partition, but under certain conditions. Jinnah rejected those conditions outright. Wavell, and even Amery (the British Secretary of State for India in London), felt that the British Government should initiate some steps for Partition and no longer wait on any preliminary communal agreement between the two Indian leaders.

************

In his well-researched biography of Srinivasa Sastri, Kodanda Rao, narrates:

QUOTE:

The news that the Mahatma had agreed to Partition, if only in principle and subject to conditions, created a terrific controversy. The Nationalists were in two minds; they were dead against Partition but at the same time they saw no hope of political advance without it. An increasing number of them felt obliged to concede Pakistan but shrank from (openly) avowing it and took up an attitude of ambiguous neutrality.

Sastri was profoundly disappointed with the Mahatma and perhaps for the first time used a strong expression of disapproval in a personal letter of August 11, 1944, to a colleague.

“Gandhi has sold us. He hates the British Raj so much ho would use any means of ending it. Hates, of course, is my word. G. (Gandhi-ji) will call it by some other name.”

Sastri also wrote to the Mahatma and some others that he was “boiling over and should burst out.”

UNQUOTE

The bitter controversy over the issue of Pakistan and the increasingly frequent talk of “civil war” created alarm in every one’s, including Sastri’s, minds.

It was at that time that the Tej Bahadur Sapru (1875-1949, another freedom fighter who had left the INC to found the Liberal Party of India) who was a leading member of the Hindu Mahasabha, and a close associate of Sastri, proposed a conference of non-Congress Party leaders to find a way out. Sastri was invited to accept the Presidentship of it.

Sastri declined. In his letter of August 25, 1944, to a colleague, he explained his reasons:

“I never had any fight in me. Now I am useless for a warm debate. The other day I suffered during and after a speech so much that I resolved never to go on a platform again. Yesterday, however, I spoke on the same subject for a trifle of a hundred minutes! Repentance holds me at the moment, but I shan’t take an oath.”

In another letter of September 1, 1944 to his colleague, Sastri referred to the conversation he had with Rajagopalachari about Congress Party’s “repentance” and and, at the same time, the Mahatma’s offer to accept Muslim rule! And it was in that very same letter, for perhaps the very first time in his life, that Sastri thought it fit not to conceal what Sarojini Naidu later was able to discern to be his growing “sympathy with the more dynamic ideals and programmes of the more actively-nationalist sections of the Indian people”. Sastri referred to the conversation he had with Rajagopalachari by quoting the hard-core Hindutva-vaadi, militant freedom-fighter and the leader of the Hindu Mahasabha, Veer Damodar Savarkar:

“Have you seen a typewritten statement over Savarkar’s signature? In it he says several things. Two of these are:

The Congress people, now free, recently celebrated a “Repentance Day”!

Gandhi, while in the Aga Khan Palace, sent the Viceroy a letter suggesting that the British Power be transferred to the Muslim League and Jinnah be given a free hand and Gandhi would persuade Congress to accept the Muslim mie.

“Both are true, though Savarkar has twisted the text somewhat. On the sands of the (Marina) beach here, Madras, one evening I asked C.R (Rajaji), who comes there almost daily, whether the letter was true. He confirmed the substance and proceeded to defend it. I lost my temper and, raising my voice, exclaimed that I wholly repudiated it and that it was damned surrender. I got ill and suffered most of the night.

“I believe there are more of those against than there are for Pakistan. Still here, in Madras at all events, the antis won’t come out and give battle, while the other chaps are very vocal. Why is this? A hush has fallen on people, as though a natural phenomenon of terrific power was in progress, and we can only wait for it to do its worst and come to an end. I am feeble, though all afire and daren’t get excited.”

From the correspondence above, it is clear that on the matter of Partition of India for the sake of appeasing the Muslims with a separate Pakistan, Srinivasa Sastri openly found himself with the “more actively-nationalist sections of the Indian people“, namely the “Savarkarites” of those times and of those who in the present are often branded as “Hindutva-vaadis“.

**********

That Sastri — as he himself had admitted in writing, — was simply “boiling over” the fact which he himself had earlier described in damning words viz.: “Gandhi has sold us”…. and that he felt he “should burst out”, clearly reveals the state of his distressed mind at that point of time in history. Also, he was a man devastated by the fast-paced political developments he was witnessing then all around him, all orchestrated and managed by the Indian National Congress under the leadership of Nehru and Rajaji and by the Indian Muslim League under Jinnah … and all which filled Sastri with grim foreboding that they were inevitably leading to a historic disaster in the making — the Partition of India.

The biographer Kodanda Rao writes:

QUOTE

Nevertheless, Sastri (from his home in Mylapore in Madras) kept up a pretty sustained and wholly uncompromising crusade against the partition of India. On October 24, 1945, just about six months befour his death, he along with three other Indian Nationalists, issued a statement on the subject.

“We think it our duty, and the duty of all who share our views, to give expression to our concern and raise a timely warning as to the direction in which we are drifting. None of us is clear as to the precise implications of the two-nation theory.

Much less perhaps are those who advocate it. The country has never been given any precise details of the territorial division of the country and the lines of demarcation between the two Indias. When Mr. Jinnah is asked to define the territorial demarcation, he has always evaded the issue by demanding that, in the first instance, the claim of the two-nation theory should be granted as the basis of any further negotiations. Those of us, therefore, who are definitely opposed to the very idea of breaking up the unity of India suffer under a handicap as we are not in a position to know precisely the nature of Mr. Jinnah’s Pakistan.”

The statement strongly criticised the Mahatma and the Congress for their surrender to the Muslim League.

“No measure and no rapprochement could have been so fatal to the unity of India as the Congress Resolution bearing on the right of self-determination for the federating units and the even more regrettable negotiations which took place a year ago between Mr. Gandhi and the spokesman of the Muslim League.”

***********

It was thus truly a sad, cruelly ironic turn of events in the life of the Rt. Hon’ble Srinivasa Sastry that a moment descended so suddenly and so unexpectedly in his illustrious career as freedom fighter for India when he found himself, an uncompromising Liberal-Humanist of the finest order, being forced by overpowering historical circumstances to have to speak the same sort of language as today’s Hindutva-vaadins….

(to be continued)

Sudarshan Madabushi

The Rt.Hon’ble Srinivasa Sastri’s memory and legacy… (Part-16): “Anti-Sanatanist Liberal” or “Orthodox Performative Brahmin”? …

“THE SARADA ACT 1929“

Sastri deeply respected the śāstra-s and Hindu traditions but at the same time he also insisted that tradition must be intelligently interpreted in the light of contemporary science and modern needs. In taking this stand, the Mylaporean Brahmin-liberal-humanist clearly stood on the side of the “anti-Sanatanist Hindu Reformers” of his times … and yes, those perhaps of the present day, too, who are in the forefront as champions of Women’s Rights amongst several other ‘so-called “neo-liberal” causes.

D.V.Gundappa (DVG), Sastri’s biographer remembered Sastri’s philosophical approach to the Hindu Sastras, classed under the overarching civilisational umbrella called Sanatana Dharma, as being singular. In a talk at the Kannada Sahitya Parishat, Bangalore, Sastri had said, DVG wrote, that many scholars merely parroted old texts without adapting doctrines to the present context. The world was changing, Sastri averred, with new knowledge, and dharma must evolve accordingly:

“The traditional scholars must keep in mind the current circumstances and the needs of the time…the perspective of man has been changing and such changes are neither artificial nor do they go against sathya and dharma.”

Sastri explained Sanātana Dharma as being manifold ways people can approach the Divine and emphasized individual spiritual growth and the pursuit of truth:

“The essence of Indian religion is to aim at growing and living so that we can grow out of ignorance which veils self-knowledge from our life and become aware of the Divinity within us.“

Sastri also stood for a Hinduism that was inclusive and universal, rejecting sectarianism or narrow religious identity. He saw Hinduism as a living tradition interacting with other faiths and modern ideals, not rigid dogma:

“The Hindu civilization, rooted in Sanātana Dharma, has constantly been enriched by brahma and safeguarded by kṣāttra.“

***********

The way Sastri has defined Sanatana Dharma above is not just interesting … it is quite extraordinary indeed!

Sastri invoked two very significant Sanskrit terms : “brahma” and “kshaattra” which to the Hindu mind should immediately evoke the idea of “vita contemplativa” and “vita activa” which may be prima facie Aristotelian terms, but then refer actually to two of Vedic civilisational and cultural aspirations of India’s ancient history.

“Vita contemplativa” means the “contemplative way of life.” It is the life focused on contemplation, meditation, and intellectual or spiritual reflection. It aims at an inner, spiritual perfection and union with the divine or ultimate truth. This typically is the way of true “braahmanic living” — but shorn of all casteist connotations.

“Vita activa” means the “active way of life.” This path centers on active engagement in the world through moral virtues, social and economic duties, military work, and practical actions. It involves the exercise of honour, prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance and addresses the external, secular activities of life such as labor, work, and political/social action for public good. In other words, this is the true ideal of “kshaattra” or the “kshatriya way of life” — again with no casteist connotation attached to the word at all.

Sastri’s approach to Sanatana Dharma was thus both Spiritual and Secular at the same time. He viewed Hindu religion, tenets, traditions and institutions as being in essence both brahma and kshaatra representing the harmony of India’s spiritual and social needs.

It was precisely this enlightened approach to Hindu orthodox religious traditions that convinced Srinivasa Sastri that in matters where Reform was possible, reasonable and imperative — for the betterment of Hindu society at large — Change should not be anathema to him.

**Pujyashree HH Sri Chandrasekhara Bharathi, Sringeri Sankaracharya Muttam** **(1892–1954 CE**)

It was Sastri’s conviction about such Change which made him a defender of the Sarada Act, a legislation which he had no doubt would bring not only justice but also great dignity to the status of all Hindu women in India. In the defense of the Sarada Act, which went, some people said, against the grain of Hindu Sastra and law, and had angered if not outraged Hindu religious and traditional Brahmin pontiffs such as the Sankaracharya of Sri Sringeri Mutt, Srinivasa Sastri was willing and ready to take on the formidable orthodoxy. But he went about doing so — as is obvious from the narratives below — in his typically “inoffensive“, low-key, diplomatic, scholarly and most persuasive way.

***********

In the matter of Women’s Rights and social dignity for women, it is quite evident that Sastri’s convictions were deeply influenced by the Valmiki Ramayana’s portrayal of the agony and humiliations that Sita had to undergo — in the heart-rending episodes in the Yuddha Kandam and Uttara Kandam wherein Rama is seen making it his Dharmic duty to demand proof from her of innocence of chastity. Equally, it can be inferred that the same convictions also stemmed from his taste and appreciation of Western literature.

Sastri loved reading the fictional works of English writers like Thomas Hardy. One particular novel was his favourite because in it he found moral grounding for his own views and position on Women’s Rights. In an essay he wrote as appreciation of Hardy’s novel, one can perhaps sense from where the empathetic and emphatic support Sastri gave to Sarada Act might have found its springs.

QUOTE:

“Tess of the D’Urbervilles” gave a vision, as bright as it was clear, of a problem that had long been vexing me, and for the first time in my experience, set the position of women in correct perspective.

Hardy, I have no doubt, meant to startle a convention-ridden and heartless world to a consciousness of the essence of chastity by his sub-title “The Story of a Pure Woman.” It is audacious, but he makes it out to be just and proper.

The taint is inflicted on Tess while she is hardly aware of what is happening and, the sinister consequence following, she has to pay the severest penalty that is exacted of her sex. Society is no doubt heartless in such cases, but Hardy makes society almost fiendish in its persecution of poor Tess. The victim of a cruel wrong, her subsequent life of high purpose and good deeds does not avail her, and at the end disaster, black and utter disaster, overtakes her until it seems to the reader that Tragedy herself must be horrified.

Our (own) Ahalya, who is in a way suggested to our thoughts by the story of Tess, escapes lightly in comparison, though her sin was committed consciously for the rapture of it. If we reduced the Ramayana scale to human proportions, her penance cleansed her soon enough, and it needed only Rama’s touch to restore the unsullied charm, that Brahma had given her at birth.

Hindu society has treated her with divine indulgence. She is placed first among the five good women whose names have only to be remembered once a day to rid us of our grossest sins. Only one of these, Mandodari has a perfectly white record. Sita had a whisper against her, however unjust. Draupadi had more husbands than one. The last one Tara, if she is the wife of Brihaspati, was unfaithful; if she is the Ramayana heroine, (she) changed her husband three times. To say the least, this is a perplexing galaxy of good women.

Yet I am persuaded that it is indicative of a highly tolerant and understanding attitude towards woman, which dates back to a very early period in our story. How time and custom have hardened our hearts today! We have forgotten the natural standards of the early time and become the slaves of false ideas utterly inconsistent with our nature as human beings. The springs of character would be purified, conduct would be regulated justly, and life would be happy all round, if the relations between men and women could be based on mutual forbearance and understanding as in olden times and forgiveness and tolerance were regarded as excellences not only in wives but equally in husbands.

UNQUOTE

In Sastri’s own mind thus, the enactment of the Sarada Act was a way in which Hindu society could go back to its past when Indian womanhood was treated “with divine indulgence” … so that Indian women received the dignity that was their birthright, and all got once again “placed first among the five good women whose names have only to be remembered once a day to rid us of our grossest sins”. It was precisely with that spirit within him that he and the Pontiff of Sri Sringeri Muttam, Pujyasri Chandrasekhara Bharathi engaged in a scholarly debate over whether the Sarada Act was or was not a violation of Hindu Dharma Sastras.

D.V.Gundappa (DVG) in his biography of Sastri gave an enthralling eye-witness account of that vigorous but graceful debate between a presiding yogi and an erstwhile commissar.

***********

QUOTE:

Sri Chandrashekhara Bharati was the presiding Jagadguru during our visit to Sringeri back then. About a couple of weeks before Sastri’s visit to Sringeri, the Jagadguru had supposedly taken up a certain oath – he had stopped delivering lectures and giving lessons. All the resident students and scholars had been instructed to constantly chant the Gāyatrī-mantra on those days. The reason for this will be clear in the due course of my writing. Srinivasa Sastri who was visiting Sringeri with his family had the darśan (‘a meeting/ an audience with a deity/ Guru’) of the Svāmi during the pūjā, as it was premediated. The Svāmi enquired about his well-being and instructed Sastri in the following manner:

“I am glad that you have come here. It seems like Śāradā-devī (the presiding deity of Sringeri) herself has brought you here – to get her task executed. It is something important in the view of safeguarding our dharma. I have heard that there is a certain law pertaining to the Hindu marriages that is being discussed at the parliament in Delhi. Apparently, it is called the ‘Sharada Bill’. What kind of times are these? Should we name an idea that is totally contrary to Śāradā-devī’s view after her? We certainly need to do something about this strange set of circumstances. The Emperor has honoured you by including you in his Privy Council. I have heard that the members of the council can meet the Viceroy in person and can explain their views to him. You should meet the Viceroy and appropriately advise him such that this Apasmārāsura (a demon) is stopped immediately. We (royal ‘we’) have given up all teaching and lectures for the last fifteen days with the hope of countering the attempts being made by the Bill at the Centre. We have instructed all the students and scholars residing here to constantly chant the “Gāyatrī-mantra”. We have taken up an oath to go ahead with this lifestyle until our prayer is answered”.

Sastri, who heard this brief speech of the Jagadguru replied:

“It is time for the pūjā now. We will need time to think out the matter that you have just touched upon. If you could please permit me to do so, let us discuss this matter on another occasion”.

The following day, we spoke about the wedding rituals at the mutt. The conversation between the Jagadguru and Srinivasa Sastri was in Tamil –- Tamil mixed with Sanskrit – I am sure that the readers would have guessed this. Sastri put forth the matter in two dimensions – one personal and the other related to the śāstra. He said –

“The Bill says that the minimum age for the marriage of girls needs to be increased. I too have always had the same opinion. A few years back when I was a member of the Legislative Council of Madras, I had felt that this was a welcome change. I had even drafted my thoughts and brought it before the council for discussion. Back then, the council was full of government officials and it was also a pre-decided norm that the governing council would not interfere in the religious matters. Thus, my suggestion was not taken up for serious discussion. My opinion, however, has still remained the same. Somebody else has put forward the same idea at the Centre and is it right for me to oppose it? When somebody else is supporting the idea that I have always had, how can I oppose it? Moreover, in about three to four weddings that have taken place in my own family, the bride was much older than the recommended age. It is not merely my opinion but what I have been practising too. The two together can be helpful in bringing the required change in the system. Therefore, it does not seem right for me to oppose the Sharada Bill”

“Let me now move on to the second aspect connected with the issue.

From what I gather from the śāstras, it is only after a girl attains her puberty and her menstrual cycles start, she should be given in marriage. I have gone through quite an number of works on this subject and have carried out some research. We don’t find any evidence in the śruti and the smṛtis for the practise of getting a young girl married, as is in vogue today. Most people in our country today get a girl who is between eight and ten years old married. We will need to understand that this practise is not very ancient and has come into vogue due to some historical reasons. We can only guess that people gave up the ancient tradition and took to getting girls married in their childhood (bālya-vivāha) because of some historical developments.

We should examine the mantras that are used as a part of the vivāha (wedding) ceremony. There is a mantra that goes ‘ārohūraṃ …’. The meaning in this and other mantras is very clear. This is not something you would tell a girl who is eight or ten years old. The meaning of the mantra goes well only with a matured girl. Let us also contemplate upon the procedure of conducting a wedding. We know that the married couple will need to spend three nights sharing the bed. After this, as per the sūtra – ‘tṛtīyāyāmapararātrau’, the husband will need to perform the visarjana of viśvāvasu and gandharvas. This is to be followed by the Caturthi-karma. What does this mean? It only means that the girl is ready to take part in the marital life. We can infer this from a close examination of the gṛhya-sūtras (vedic dharmasastra pertaining to household rites)

Sringeri Svāmī: I have not gone through the gṛhya-sūtras…

Sastri: The gṛhya-sūtras are not relevant for the yati-āśrama, i.e., for sanyāsis. However, the matter under discussion is connected with the gṛhastha-dharma. I feel that we will need to take gṛhya-sūtras as our guidebook in these matters.

Sringeri Svāmī: Ahaa! That is right indeed… I shall examine the gṛhya-sūtras and then arrive at a conclusion on this matter.

UNQUOTE

***********

The forceful but un-polemical way in which Sastri put forward his “reformist” views to the Pontiff of the Sringeri Mutt on the issue of Hindu Child-Marriage custom was anything but argumentative. It was substantive and couched in polite words that the Jagadguru himself could easily appreciate from the standpoint of his high level as a great authority himself on many Hindu scriptural texts. Sastri was careful not to strike any posture of passionate zeal or self-righteous rhetoric that a lesser Hindu Reformer of his time might have adopted under the circumstances. Instead, Sastri’s low-key, measured representation to the Pontiff stuck simply to cool logic and to a dispassionate interpretation of the Hindu Dharmasastras.

Going by the account of the meeting as given by DVG, we may conclude that the Sringeri Jagadguru Sankaracharya did, of course, seem to have immediately understood and also graciously appreciated too Sastri’s averments. But then for the sake of our own understanding of all the scholarly allusions Sastri had made for his case i.e. references to the relevant “vivaaha” ritual mantras, it would be worth our while to acquaint ourselves, even if only very sketchily, about what the Hindu “gruhya sutras” state in the matter.

a. The “ārohūraṃ” mantra refers to the Asmarohanam (the Ritual of Ascending the Grinding Stone) during the Vedic marriage ceremony. This ritual symbolizes the bride’s strength, steadfastness, and her resolve for marital duties. “Ascend the stone. Like this stone, be firm, resolute, and strong in your household responsibilities and duties.”

As the bride places her foot on the grinding stone, she is blessed to emulate the unyielding and stable nature of the stone—signifying her strength of character, fortitude in family life, and ability to withstand challenges.

आरोहणं शिलायाः स्थिरा भव सखाय सधूत्वम अनुशा

“ārohāṇāṃ śilāyāḥ asmasā tvam sthirā bhava śilāyāḥ ārohaṇāṃ“…. chanted with the following Rig Veda mantra:

तिष्ठा शिलायाम् अन्वेति त्वं स्थिरा भव गार्हपत्येषु

b. The sutra phrase ‘tṛtīyāyāmapararātrau’ refers to the third night of the marriage ceremony after the wedding day. In this context, the groom is said to perform visarjana (i.e. “sending off” or “dismissing”) of the viśvāvasus and the gandharvas and is then followed by the Caturthi-karma (i.e. the “fourth” ritual act).

Viśvāvasu and Gandharvas are celestial beings often associated with divine attendants, guardians, or spirits connected to natural forces, marriage, and music in Vedic literature. In the marriage context, the bride is traditionally believed to be attended by these benevolent spirits or guardians during certain rites.
Performing visarjana of these celestial spirits or beings signifies formally releasing them or dismissing their protective presence around the bride,. Such “dismissal” signifies the marking of her transition from girlhood to married womanhood, emphasizing that her guardianship by the celestial beings now comes to an end and henceforth it is the the groom and the new husband’s family that shall protect the bride.
This ritual symbolizes the bride’s complete acceptance into the groom’s family and her severance from previous under protective supernatural guardians. It also marks the bride’s readiness to fully assume new familial and social responsibilities. It purifies and completes the linking of the couple according to cosmic and spiritual order in line with Vedic traditions.
After the visarjana of these celestial attendants, the Caturthi-karma is performed.This fourth ritual action often relates to specific rites that stabilize the marriage bond, invoke blessings on the couple, and ensure household prosperity. The exact procedures of Caturthi-karma vary by Vedic tradition but generally include fire-offerings, recitations of sacred mantras, and ritual offerings that sanctify the union and household.

Overall, these rites reflect the deep spiritual and cosmic dimensions of the Vedic marriage, emphasizing transformation, protection, and sanctity of the marital relationship beyond the social contract.

Sastri’s sound reasoning therefore was that all the rituals described above — being reflective of deep, spiritual and the cosmic dimensions of the Vedic marriage sacrament, which was indeed more than a mere social contract, could not really have been formulated by the Dharmasastra or the “gruhya-sutras” by keeping in mind a mere, pre-pubic, innocent and uncomprehending little girl-bride in mind.

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In the above encounter with the Pujyashree Sringeri Mutt Sri Jagadguru Sankaracharya, Srinivasa Sastry’s credentials as both a “Sanatanist-Liberal” (no matter how oxymoronic the term may sound!) as well as an “Orthodox Performative Brahmin” get clearly established.

(to be continued)

Sudarshan Madabushi

The Rt.Hon’ble Srinivasa Sastri’s memory and legacy… (Part-15): “Anti-Sanatanist Liberal” or “Orthodox Performative Brahmin”? …

Even with the benefit of 20:20 historical hindsight that we enjoy today, and as it was in his own time without it, Srinivasa Sastry could never easily be stereotyped. He was rather unique in that it could not be said with any certainty whether he was outright an Orthodox or Performative Brahmin “Sanatanist” or otherwise a shrill “anti-Sanatanist Liberal” whose heart bled for secular reforms to Hinduism.

Two separate incidents in Sastri’s life do support the above assessment of the man. In one he seemed to lean towards Brahmin Orthodoxy but, of course, only in the most liberal and enlightened sense; and in the other incident, he openly played the part of an anti-Sanatanist liberal-reformer. The two events were:

(A) Temple Entry law for Dalits into the Guruvayur Temple in Kerala (which was a continuation of the famous1924-25 Vaikom Sathyagraha movement in Kerala for Untouchables to gain entry and worship inside Temples)

(B) The Sarada Act that related to Hindu customary law relating to woman’s rights. (The Child Marriage Restraint Act, 1929, passed on 28 September 1929, in the Imperial Legislative Council of India, fixed the minimum age of marriage for girls at 14 years and boys at 18 years. In 1949, after India’s independence, it was amended to fix the age of marriage at 15 for girls, and in 1978 at 18 for girls and 21 for boys. It is popularly known as the Sarda Act, after its sponsor Harbilas Sarda).

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GURUVAYUR TEMPLE ENTRY FOR UNTOUCHABLES

The Guruvayur Temple Satyagraha was a major campaign in Kerala for Dalit temple entry, led by K. Kelappan who was supported by leaders like Mannathu Padmanabhan and A. K. Gopalan (Communist Party of India). The struggle included a hunger strike, mass mobilization, and a demand for the right of lower caste Hindus (then called “untouchables”) to enter the temple.

Gandhi took personal interest in the Guruvayur agitation. When K. Kelappan (imitating Mahatma Gandhi’s own political tactics) began a fast-unto-death to press the cause, Gandhi intervened—writing to ask him to break the fast, fearing harm or violence. The satyagraha was suspended at Gandhi’s request and the issue then gained all-India attention. The Satyagraha itself did not immediately succeed in opening the Guruvayur temple, but it triggered significant social reform debates. It was only later in 1936, that the Temple Entry Proclamation in Travancore allowed lower castes access to many Kerala temples, marking an important step toward ending ritual exclusion.

Srinivasa Sastri did not play a significant or direct front-line role in the Guruvayur Satyagraha of 1931–32, though he was aware of the issue and Gandhi, in fact, reached out to him for advice.

YERAVADA CENTRAL PRISON: 8th November 1932

Dear Friend and brother,

You will have seen that Guruvayur is being made the centre of attack by the self-styled Sanatanists. Not much time to lose.

I do not know how far your health will let you organise the battle on behalf of the reformers. To the extent it is possible, I wonld like you to put your great Sanskrit learning at the disposal of the cause.

I am sure you have been thinking of the thing yourself. But I could not restrain myself from sending you a line when I am writing to many friends about the impending storm.

It gives me great joy that I am able to take some work out of the Servants (of India) here.

I do hope you are better.

With love, Yours

M. K. GANDHI

Then on November 10, 1932, Gandhiji, referring to Kelappan, issued however a statement urging that the Guruvayur sathyagraha be called off for the time being, but in which he also said that he himself would gladly later join Kelappan!

“I would be in honour bound to fast with him if on or before the first of January next that temple is not opened to the Untouchahles, and if it becomes necessary for Sri. Kelappan to resume it”.

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Sending a copy of the above letters he had received from Gandhi to another friend, Sastri wrote:

“In reply I have written two letters (to Gandhi), clearly stating my dissent from his views and my disapproval of his threatened fast. Of course I favour the temple-entry of the untouchables”.

And writing to another friend, Sastri also wailed:

“What a predicament I am in! To wish his (Gandhi’s) cause success but utterly discountenance his method and his hurry.”

Sastri, a staunch constitutionalist and a steadfast moderate, and never an overzealous Hindu reformer, was sympathetic to the cause of temple entry for Dalits. However, he typically advocated negotiation, education, and legal reform rather than direct action or satyagraha. Privately, he corresponded about his misgiving to Gandhi:

“Patience, good-will, and consideration for sincerely-held beliefs are essential in matters of faith. Social change, especially concerning places held sacred, comes best through understanding and education, not through pressure—however righteous the cause.”

Sastri evidently had pointed out to Gandhi that ancient temples like Guruvayur had been administered for centuries strictly in accordance with time and custom honoured Hindu Agama Sastras which were the sole authoritative basis of faith upon which temple norms were established and rituals had always been conducted. To interfere with such Agamas with the intention to overturn them in a spirit of revolutionary or republican fervour would only do more harm than good to the social fabric of the peoples of India.

Gandhi, was obviously receptive to the spirit in which Sastri’s two letters to him had been written. And so, referencing Sastri’s advice, the Mahatma wrote to a few friends about it:

“Shri Sastri’s counsel has always been to avoid any method that would cause bitterness. I have valued his friendships and his faith in the power of reason … His voice carries great moral weight in South India.”

Thereafter, once the Sathyagraha and Kelappan’s fast had been called off, Gandhi further wrote to Srinivasa Sastri, perhaps, after having carefully read through both correspondence and all the accompanying material on Temple Agama Sastras that the latter had made available to him. Gandhi acknowledged the wisdom in Sastri’s advice to tread slowly and cautiously on matters related to the faith of the Hindu people in their Temples but refused to accept the overarching authority of the Agama Sastras.

YERAVADA CENTRAL PRISON: 24th November 1932

Dear Brother

I had your precious letters. Your criticism soothes. Your silence makes me nervous. Time only deepens my love for you.

Our differences appear to me to be superficial. Deep down I feel and touch the meeting ground, and that is precious.

I do wish I never spoke of God or the Inner Voice or Conscience. But, like Raamnam, however much it may be abused, it has got to be repeated when it is relevant, and almost becomes imperative. Truth will receive a deep cut if, for fear of being misunderstood or even being called a fraud, I did not say boldly what I felt to be true.

I carefully read the typed notes you sent me. The reasoning failed to make any appeal to me. The implications of the Agamas are stretched too far by the writer.

I hope you are keeping well.

With love, Yours

M.K.GANDHI

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Eighty five long odd years (!) have passed after the above Sastri-Gandhi correspondence took place. But it is sad irony that even to this day the Hindus of India continue find themselves deeply embroiled and entangled in scores of seemingly irreconciliable and rancorous legal battles in the State High Courts and in the Supreme Court of India too over what limits are there and to what permissible extent, exactly, they must be set to restrain the Constitutional powers a Democratic, Secular Government can invoke and exercise in its interference into religious affairs of Hindu temples by even overturning ancient Agama Sastras.

Truly, Srinivasa Sastra — the oxymoronic orthodox liberal-hearted Brahmin from Mylapore — had possessed such remarkable foresight and wisdom that he did not have to shirk from counselling even the tallest, most dominant political leader in the country of that time, the great Mahatma Gandhi. Sastri did not mince words in warning him that rabble-rousing and rallying Hindu Reformists and Secularists with clarion calls of Sathyagraha, Ahimsa and fasts-unto-death, all would only foment unwarranted revolution inside the ancient temples of India. Such revolutions would only divide the nation, never unite it.

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(to be continued)

Sudarshan Madabushi

The Rt.Hon’ble Srinivasa Sastri’s memory and legacy… (Part-14): “Anti-Sanatanist Liberal” or “Orthodox Performative Brahmin”? …

Srinivasa Sastri viewed Dharma as both personal ethical conduct and societal duty. He linked it closely to moral responsibility, justice, compassion, and wise governance. If there was only one overriding theme that overshadowed all others in his famous thirty “Lectures on the Ramayana“ 1944, it was this commandment and this alone:

“Rulers must abide by Dharma—a combination of righteousness, discipline, and self-restraint. And he saw “Rama, as the model king, (who) embodies the vision of dharma—binding his people together in justice and loyalty founded on ethical leadership and personal virtue.“

Since Sastri, above all else, held the principle of Dharma to be supreme, the question naturally arises in the minds of both admirers and detractors, then as it does now:

~ Was he a Hindu Orthodox Santanist or a Hindu Liberal Reformist? And if he was either one of the two, could he also be described or not with that peculiarly pejorative term often reserved for the so-called “Hindu Sanghi” viz. a “Performative Brahmin“?

~ Was he a devout orthodox Brahmin in religious outlook ? Did Sastri ever wear caste marks on his person as Brahmins did ? Did he perform Sandhyavandanam? Did he perform ancestral Vedic rites of pitru-shraadham? After all, Sastri did passionately hero-worship, did he not, his idol and ideal in life, Sri Rama of the Ramayana, who in fact, as Valmiki wrote, scupulously performed both the rites of Sandhyavandam and Pitru-Shraadham…?

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Sastri was born into an orthodox Brahmin family and was raised in an environment of strict ritual observance and traditional Hindu values. His father was a vedic scholar and a devout practitioner of ritual, and his early upbringing included deep exposure to the Sanskrit scriptures, epics, and the cultural life of a traditional Brahmin household.

Sastri maintained a strong personal discipline, placing high value on self-control, piety, and moral conduct, and repeatedly expressed reverence for the ideals of dharma (righteousness) and the spiritual teachings of the epics like the Ramayana and other Vedic scriptures. He was known to have maintained the typical Brahminical customs, which included performing daily rituals and observing caste marks (such as the pāṇḍu or tilaka) traditionally worn by Brahmins (although exact specific details of his wearing caste marks on the person are not explicitly documented in public sources or archives; however, his orthodox upbringing implies such observance). And there is enough historical evidence to show that Sastri did practice traditional Hindu rites including Sandhyāvaṇḍanam (the daily ritual-worship performed by orthodox Brahmins), as he adhered closely to Vedic and ritualistic norms in his devotional and family life. Sastri also participated in pūjā for the ārādhana (yearly remembrance rituals) connected with the passing away of sanyāsis in his family lineage, indicating observance of annual ancestral rites in the strict Brahmin tradition. He also performed pitṛ-śrāddham (ancestral rites) annually, as noted from accounts of his observance of yearly rituals connected to the worship and remembrance of ancestors (pūjā for ārādhana), which aligns with the orthodox Brahminical duties.

D.V.Gundappa (DVG), the famous Kannada litterateur, who was Sastri’s biographer, narrates a very telling incident which reveals Sastri’s reverence for the spiritual value of the Vedic ritual of Sandhyavandanam. Sastri expressed to DVG feelings of deep guilt and regret for having been lax in the performance of the Sandhyavandanam ritual due to his ill-health.

Sastri with his wife and family had once visited the Ashram of the Sri Sringeri Sankaracharya Muttam to pay obeisance to the pontiff, Jagadguru PujyaSri Chandrashekhara Bharati. The Sankaracharya was engaged in Puja ritual when Sastri arrived there and humbly requested for an audience with the pontiff.

QUOTE: The Jagadguru consented and went ahead with the pūjā. After the pūjā, the Jagadguru offered “phala-mantrākṣatā” to Sastri and his wife Lakshmamma and blessed the couple. Something interesting happened at this instance. The Jagadguru placed a golden “tāli” ( or “mangala sutra”) and a handwritten note in Sastri’s hand and said: “You should ask your wife to wear this taali”.

Sastri: “We are privileged, thanks to the blessings of the Guru. As per your command, I shall have her wear this in the Śāradā-devī temple tomorrow. She has lost all confidence looking at the illness I am suffering from and she is constantly worried about my longevity. I’ll act as per the Guru’s instruction for her mental well-being. I’ll also keep the śhloka safe and remember the same. I can’t speak much.”

They bowed down to the Guru and returned to their lodge. I then asked Sastri:

Me: “What did you intend to say? What was the śhloka that you mentioned?”

Sastri: ”I have not been performing the sandhyāvandana regularly. It has, in fact, been quite a long time since I stopped performing the sandhyāvandana. Such being the case, how can I give my word to the Jagadguru that I will regularly chant the śhloka? The śhloka looks really ordinary. Don’t we have hundreds of such śhlokas and “stotras” in our tradition? What is so special about it? However, the person adorning the Guru’s pedestal has given it to me with great affection. It is our duty to respect it.” UNQUOTE

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So, given the above facts of Sastri’s personal faith, would it not be too easy for any present-day social commentator who, let us say, proudly claims that he or she is wedded to ‘secular-liberal values‘ and ‘social justice’, to label him as a “Performative Brahmin”?

Who is a “performative brahmin“? This term is used in contemporary social critique and cultural studies to describe how certain individuals or groups publicly display, enact, or emphasize the traits, customs, symbols, or mannerisms associated with being a Brahmin (the priestly, scholarly caste in Hindu tradition)—often for social prestige, authority, or belonging, rather than as a matter of authentic personal spiritual practice or lived tradition. This can involve the conscious use of dress (white clothes, forehead marks), speech patterns, Sanskritized language, and participation in traditional rituals—mainly as social performance.

In drama, literature, and public events, Brahmins may be depicted (or self-depict) as calm, wise, charitable, scholarly—projecting virtues commonly associated with Brahmin status and elitism… Sometimes, this is done to claim moral or intellectual authority, rather than resulting from deeper engagement with those ideals.

In political or intellectual contexts, “performative Brahminness” might mean publicly enacting Brahminical identity to signal legitimacy or belonging among elite circles—sometimes overshadowing more inclusive or pluralistic values. It can also involve gatekeeping or dominance in academic, cultural, or spiritual spaces. Dalit and Dravidianist anti-caste writers often use “performative Brahminness” to criticize token displays of Brahmin identity (in rituals, ceremonies, or discourse) that imply reinforcement of caste privilege, rather than genuine spiritual practice or egalitarian reform. It’s seen as part of the “Brahminical social order”—upholding status and hierarchy through outward performance.

So, we now know for sure that Sastri in his own time was viewed by many of his colleagues, political peers and even admirers as an Anglophile-cum-Sanskritist elitist of high-brow Tamil Brahmin stock. And therefore, it would be hardly surprising if Sastri were today to be branded a “performative brahmin“?

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Objectively speaking however, the term “performative brahmin” must surely ill suit Sastri as definitely as the term “Sanatanist“, in its present-day sense, would wholly mischaracterize him.

“Sanatanist” widely used in contemporary India often signifies a strong, public, and actively political identification with Sanatana Dharma. It is also in some cases a strong advocacy for ritual orthodoxy as a social or political project. Many a time it is also virulent opposition to reformist or secular currents.

Sastri’s personal record in history shows that he favoured none of the above courses of action. The record shows that his approach to Sanatana Dharma was very nuanced and sophisticated.

Sastri did not publicly champion orthodox Sanatanist causes or use religion as a political weapon. He was influenced by liberal and reformist traditions within Indian society (notably Gokhale and Ranade), and his public work was characterized by rational inquiry, moderation, and a focus on ethical universals, not ritual exclusivism. Sastri was part of a generation that sought to purify and reinterpret Hindu traditions, seeking to reject only its superstitions but wholly and categorically emphasizing their ethical core.

While personally devout and respectful of Hindu tradition, Sastri never was a militant orthodox Brahmin in the contemporary political sense. He was liberal in his public engagements, stood for social harmony, and did not involve himself with extremist movements opposed to social reform or secularization. Sastri’s own Hindu cultural identity blended seamlessly with liberal, secular political goals because he worked very closely with leaders like Gopal Krishna Gokhale and Mahatma Gandhi, both of whose inclusiveness transcended narrow religious identities— and values that Sastri shared with them and upheld steadfastly. Furthermore, Sastri was a founding member of the Indian Liberal Party, which favored constitutional reforms and opposed separatist tendencies and communal divisions.

If Sastri were present today, his values of liberal constitutionalism, pluralism, social justice, and internationalism would very likely place him in opposition or serious critique of some of the “hard-core” or “hawkish” Hindutva movement. He would probably have found advocating for an India a movement that embraced all its diversities and upheld a constitutional, inclusive democracy.

So, if Sastri were to be alive today, it would really be a moot question whether he would have been gleefully appropriated as their mascot or flagship symbol by the small but very powerful influencer-group in the left-liberal-secular anti-Sanatanist intelligentsia of India, that has sworn eternal enmity with radical Hindutva. In other words the likes of all the enlisted eminent persons below — belonging to varying professions and walks of life — might certainly have been only too and desperately keen to apotheosise Rt. Hon’ble Srinivasa Sastri and use him as their figurehead icon.

Legal and Constitutional Luminaries

Fali S. Nariman, Soli Sorabjee, and other senior advocates: These jurists are known for upholding constitutionalism, minority rights, due process, and civil liberties, echoing Sastri’s dedication to rule of law and debate over populist mobilization.

Justice Madan Lokur, Justice R. F. Nariman, Justice A. P. Shah: Some retired judges continue to speak out for constitutional values, judicial independence, and reasoned discourse in public life.

Civil Society Leaders

Prashant Bhushan, Dr. Syeda Hameed, Harsh Mander, Anjali Bhardwaj: Activists working for civil liberties, minority protections, and social justice within the framework of constitutional democracy. They defend dissent, dialogue, and inclusive citizenship—key to Sastri’s philosophy.

Nandan Nilekani, Aruna Roy, Yamini Aiyar: Policy thinkers and reformers who emphasize incremental change, institutional strengthening, education, and evidence-based public action, rather than revolutionary upheaval.

Political Figures with Liberal Leanings

Dr. Shashi Tharoor, Jairam Ramesh, P. Chidambaram (Congress Party): They advocate pluralism, civil liberties, and global engagement—in ways that sometimes echo the liberal constitutional tradition. However, their party and the broader landscape often pull in more populist or majoritarian directions.

(late) Sitaram Yechury, Brinda Karat (CPI-M): Though left-of-center, they sometimes defend the constitutional order and rights for the marginalized; however, their ideological framework is more socialist than liberal.

Scholars, Writers, and Public Intellectuals

Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Ramachandra Guha, Madhav Khosla, and Gautam Bhatia: These writers and thinkers robustly defend constitutionalism, pluralism, federalism, and reasoned engagement in public discourse, standing closer to Sastri’s world than electoral politicians do.

Gopalakrishna Gandhi, T. M. Krishna (musician–activist): Advocates social harmony and democratization of culture, with token respect for tradition alongside reform—a spirit reminiscent of Sastri’s syncretic outlook.

Institutions

The Indian Liberal Group, Centre for Civil Society, and a campus debate forums and parliamentary research bodies here and there: They promote dialogue, debate, and a non-polarized vision of progress and reform, working in the spirit of liberal civic argumentation.

However, there is no doubt at least in my mind, that no single individual or party fully embodies Sastri’s mix of scholarship, statesmanship, nobility of thought , pluralism, and the ideal of genuine constitutionalism. Not one of the above eminent persons can be said to qualify as genuine inheritors of Sastri’s tradition. Indian public life has a few “inheritors” of Sastri’s legacy because the reality is that his nuanced, principled liberalism is not of the kind that cannot survive in the harsh and unconducive conditions of civil society today…. not within the cynical ecosystem of law and academia. Sastri’s genre of lofty Dharmic-Liberal-Humanism would be perhaps no more a dominant force in contemporary Indian party politics than it was in his own time.

While it can be argued that Sastri’s principles remain still profoundly relevant today and and might earn him a little respect across political lines, the current political environment in India—with its intensity, fragmentation, and ideological battles—would have no choice but to marginalize/sideline a figure of his nuanced, moderate character. He would a “respected outsider” rather than a mainstream party leader or influencer.

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Srinivasa Sastry thus cannot easily be stereotyped as belonging to any of the categories that we are all familiar with in today’s India. He was unique. He was neither an Orthodox nor Performative Brahmin “Sanatanist”. And nor was he a shrill “anti-Sanatanist Liberal” with a heart bleeding for secular reforms.

Two separate incidents that involved burning social issues of his times that happened in Sastri’s life are clear evidence for the above assessment of the man:

(A) Temple Entry law for Dalits into the Guruvayur Temple in Kerala and

(B) the Hindu marriage customs under the Sarada Act .

(to be continued)

Sudarshan Madabushi

The Rt.Hon’ble Srinivasa Sastri’s memory and legacy… (Part-13): …Lecture#15 of “Lectures on the Ramayana” – 2025 Independence Day special…

In Mylapore, Madras, on July 19th, 1944, Rt. Hon’ble Srinivasa Sastri delivered the fifteenth in his series of thirty sterling “Lectures on the Ramayana”

Profoundly insightful observations were made in the course of the passionate speech upon a very wide range of matters, political and philosophical viz.: Patriotism, Treason, Nationalist pride, Democracy, Political Dissent, Political civility, Temperance of speech and, lastly but not the least, on the supreme importance of mutual respect that one human must alway culivate for the other, no matter what idea, ideology, feeling or prejudice separates them.

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Tomorrow, the 15th of August 2025 happens to be the 79th anniversary of India’s Independence, an occasion when great orations will be heard from the Red Fort in New Delhi and from the ramparts of Raj Bhavans and State Legislatures in State Capital cities right across India.

Great many lofty-sounding patriotic sentiments will be aired in public, all as a matter of annual routine and ritual but very little genuine national soul-searching will likely to be seen anywhere . The pomp and pagaentry of Indian Independence Day will all be over in a few hours of chorepgraphed festivities and after the grand speeches have been made, the People will all go back to their homes and to their private burdens and challenges in daily life. The politics of business will go on as usual and so will the business of Indian politics too.

Many of Sastri’s observations made in Lecture#15 of the “Lectures on the Ramayana” way back in July 19, 1944 were made in the context of his expatiation on the episode and characterisation of Vibheeshana. Nonetheless, they so strongly resonate with us even today on the eve of August 15th, 2025 because what was said about India then holds equally good for India today. That the remarks Sastri made then are so relevant even today will become clear to us if we realise that the fundamental nature of Indian political and social life as he had described them to be in his time has not changed much since then. If this assertion of mine sounds rather too jarring, too provocative or cyncial, and is also prone to be, as I shudder to think, grossly misunderstood, perhaps the actual extracts of Sastri’s oration from Lecture#15 that I am going to reproduce below will bear me out.

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ON DEMOCRACY

Democracy is certainly the best form of human governance that has yet been devised, but it wants to be served by brave men, by true men, by first-class men. It stands liable ever to the greatest abuse at the hands of untried men who think that abuse is the staple of politics and hatred is the hall-mark of patriotism. This sermon has been drawn out of me partly because I think it is an evil of the day, which in India is of foreign origin and may well be eradicated, and partly because it accounts for the degradation to which the great name of Vibhishana has been unfortunately subjected. If our politics were not what they are, if the word ‘ patriotism’ has not been applied in the modern way, Vibhishana’s name would well have been pure and unsullied in our estimation.

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ON PATRIOTISM and NATIONALIST PRIDE

What is meant by Patriotism? I ought to be very careful in the words I use, for people who bring political bias in the listening of a leader interpret it in their own way, according to their predilections, not necessarily according to the words of the speaker or his real sense. Pray, let me be understood to say what I wish to say, not what you think I am saying.

I was going to say that patriotism is not necessarily a virtue of human character. It is an emotion. It is a high feeling, an inclination of the heart of a noble order, of an exalted character. But whether it works well or ill, whether the consequences of patriotism are good or bad, whether the country is served well by the patriot in the end, depends upon how the emotion is directed.

Take the love of the child in the mother. The mother would spill her blood, give her life for the child. What is there in the world which she would not do for the welfare of the child? But we all know how often mothers untrained to their task, not knowing the nature of children do not bring them up properly and even spoil their general health completely. However sincere, however loving, however devoted, however sacrificing she may be, the ignorant mother cannot bring up a child in proper ways. She herself, out of the excess of her love, becomes a source of the child’s weakness, perhaps of its wickedness.

We see to what bad uses love may be put, and we know too how in times of famine and acute trouble, women, burdened with two or three children and not knowing how to find the day’s bread for them, and thinking that they should put an end to their own lives, think that the necessary preliminary for that is that they should kill their own children. See where it leads. I am trying to point out that this noblest of all feelings, the love of her child, can lead a woman to the commission of deeds the very mention of which fills us with horror.

On the other hand, take a wise father or a wise mother who has read books on how the young should be protected and guarded from evil practices, who can teach them to love the noble and the sincere, and avoid what is likely to degrade. Think how strong a power for good in the life of our nation becomes the possession of a mother or father of that character.

So now you will see how I am justified in saying that even our strongest passions, our noblest emotions, are only to be welcomed to the extent that they are used for uplifting purposes by those in whose hearts they play a prominent part. Patriotism thus may be good, or it may be bad in its effects, however honourable a man’s intentions may be. No man is born with all these good qualities.

If we want to examine their origin in human affairs, we shall find perhaps that they had a very simple physical origin, and from that physical origin, by gradual perfection of their associations, by gradual exaltation of the uses to which they are put, these moral ideas have become purer and purer, until now we think that the chief end and aim of education is to inculcate them in the young.

Allow me a few minutes to show how patriotism arose in human history. Patriotism is not today what it meant at first. At first patriotism was largely confined to tribes and communities. From being strictly limited to families and to little villages, it gradually extended and came to mean a kindly feeling, a love af our kinsmen, a love of our people.

In our history we have the Kosalas, the Vaidehas and communities of that kind. No one had a country or land or district of his own. He belonged to a certain tribe or community, whose welfare was to him a prime concern. Originally this community migrated in the land. People moved rapidly from one part of the land to another, and gradually this feeling was transferred to the land itself, until now, by long usage, the word ‘patriotism’ is applied much more commonly to a feeling concerning the country where we were born rather than to a feeling concerning the people to whom we belong. Now, that is the change that has come over the word ‘ patriotism’… From being communal or tribal, it gradually transferred itself to the country where these communities or divisions settled down permanently.

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ON TREASON and TRAITORS

It is in this section of Lecture#15 that we find suggestive hints that Sastri, in the course of offering a stout defense of the character of Vibhishana in the Ramayana, might have been subconsciously also offering — as much to himself as to his audience — a veiled rationalisation and justification for the role he himself had played in the Indian freedom struggle.

In the passage quoted below, he conducts a sort of psycho-analysis of the character of Vibheeshana. But then, it was perhaps also a way to psychoanalyse himself by which he identified himself, in part, with Vibheeshana’s character. Whether Sastri found the experience cathartic or therapeutic or not, we will never, know for sure, of course.

Sastri, through the same process, had perhaps found a way of rationalising to himself why such sharp differences and divergences had arisen between himself and the INC under Gandhi and Nehru’s leadership. His explanations for Vibheeshana’s deep moral misgivings about Lankan politics in Ravana’s time, in fact, may have served Sastra well in reflecting upon how he himself had to cope with and come to terms with many conflicts he had faced in his own political career in India.

Vibheeshana had dissented with Ravana bitterly. And Sastri too had found himself dissenting from his elder brother Gandhi, not to mention his acolytes, Patel, Rajaji, Nehru et al, with regard to the Ends and Means to be adopted in the fight for Indian Independence. While Gandhi did teach that the means are as important as the ends, Sastri’s objection was that even noble ends could not quite justify methods that risked destabilizing society or weakening ethical respect for government and law. He was particularly troubled by Gandhi elevating mass suffering and imprisonment to a political virtue. He feared that it sentimentalized public policy and undermined rational discourse.

Sastri is noted to have regarded Gandhi, in philosophical-political terms, as something of a “philosophical anarch”. To Sastri it seemed that Gandhi believed Order could come out of Chaos… and Sastri believed the exact opposite: From chaos could come only more Chaos.

To Sastri, Gandhi’s Civil Disobedience was not any kind of high-minded political philosophy. It was at best a clever-by-half, innovative political tactic. Thus, from the chaos of Civil Obedience mass-movements in pre-independence India, Sastri feared, what would ultimately emerge could only be a motley, rambunctious, unstable or chaotic Democracy. Sastri viewed the masses as not yet ready, in terms of political discipline and education, to safely wield the power of governance through rule of law when Independence was attained. He saw only the great danger of emotional crowds replacing deliberative debate.

Sastri clung to espousing the way of Gopala Krishna Gokhale, his political guru viz. “gradualism” and “constitutionalism“. It favored gradual, evolutionary progress—step-by-step reforms—over mass agitation and popular upheaval. Gokhale had always said that deep-rooted social or political change had to be built patiently within existing frameworks, not imposed through extra-legal pressure or mass mobilization against the state. But Gandhi and Nehru had by then already jettisoned Gokhale’s idealism and instead embraced the philosophy of Sathyagraha, which Sastri was convinced, contained within itself the dangerous, viral seed of anarchic politics. It might, in the short-term, serve well the purposes of “non-violent Civil Disobedience and Non-Cooperation” politics but for the future of Indian nationhood in years ahead it meant only one thing: a political culture of chaos, indiscipline and social strife.

Through a masterly portrayal of Vibheeshana as a tragic, anti-heroic victim of vindictive, clandestine politics, Sastry juxtaposed himself in this Lecture along with the same Ramayana character, holding its portrayal up as one of unjust vilification by North India that had misread and misunderstood Vibheeshana altogether. In saying so, Sastri was probably subtly insinuating that he being a scholar-politician of no mean stature from South India, had been misunderstood and vilified by his more dominant, assertive colleagues from the North.

It is therefore a matter of literary conjecture that Srinivasa Sastri really saw Vibheeshana as an allegorical metaphor for himself.

Sisters and brothers,

In the opening days of 1907—thirty-seven years ago-there occurred an event in the political world of India, which will serve as a suitable introduction to my talk today. The famous Dadabhai Naoroji Congress had concluded, and the feeling of Congressmen generally was that the threatened split had for the time been averted and that our efforts should all be directed to its prevention next year. That, however, as you know, was not to be.

After the 1906 Congress concluded, Mr. Gopal Krishna Gokhale, who had taken a prominent part in the proceedings, thought that the good work should be completed by a series of public talks in various parts of India, showing young people how wild talk about the severance of the British connection and about a thorough-going boycott of everything British might end in disaster. He toured through Upper India, and his first lectures had a very great effect, producing anguish in the hearts of those whose efforts to weaken the Congress had caused all the trouble.

At that time Bengal was served by a famous daily newspaper called ‘Bande Mataram‘. Its editor was Aurobindo Ghosh. The first lectures had appeared in the press and they were reported in full. We were all astonished one morning to read the editorial headed “Exit Vibhishana“. The idea was that Gokhale, by declaring himself on the side of the British power and against the surging national movement, had played the part, the odious part, that Vibhishana played when deserting his brother and going over to join Sri Rama on the other side of the water.

I was naturally hurt very much by the reference to my master Gokhale, but I was still more hurt by the use of the name Vibhishana to signify a traitor, I had been brought up to believe that Vibhishana was a Bhakta of the first order, that he was a noble character who might be held up to pious people as an example of devotion to Dharma and to those who practised it with sincerity.

Was Vibhishana to be held up to public execration as a man who had abandoned a noble cause and exposed his kinsmen and his land to the perils of a foreign invasion? That anyhow was not the light in which I was trained to understand that character. And on enquiry I was much pained to learn that the name Vibhishana was used, generally speaking, in Upper India to mean a traitor, a betrayer of his national cause. That opened up a great difference between North India and South India in the understanding of this great epic, the Ramayana. But I am glad my enquiries since then have proved that there is not that very great difference that I thought at that time was prevalent.

There are many in South India who, for some reason, inflamed by the political feeling of the day, regard Vibhishana as a character to be held up to contempt and to odium; and there are in other parts of India many who hold the contrary opinion. Nevertheless, I think, if we were to take a census today, we should find more people inimical to the reputation of Vibhishana in Upper India than here.

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(As an aside:) ON VISHISHTADVAITA SOTERIOLOGY

In the course of this passionate speech, and right in the middle of this particular section of Lecture#15 that was a passionate defense of the character of Vibheeshana, Sastri also exhibitied — by way of an aside — his intimate knowledge of Vishistadavaita soteriology!

As a Sri Vaishnava myself, when I first read the little passage below, I was wonderstruck by Srinivasa Sastry’s catholicity and with what superb appositeness he had brought it to bear too as an allusion while weighing in with his redoubtable argument:

It appears to me a misfortune that a character in our greatest epic whom the Poet himself has held in the highest esteem and whom for centuries upon centuries India has regarded as an ideal devotee, a man who exemplified by whatever he did, according to the Visishtadvaitins, in faithful reproduction, the various attributes and stages, one after another, of the progress of a “prapanna”, that a character of that high order should by any means be regarded by the politically inflamed people of the time as a character to be avoided, to be mentioned only with disapprobation.

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Lecture#15 then proceeds further in the same vein with Sastri juxtaposing himself, very subtly, very suggestively in veiled if not cryptic manner, right into the character-mould of Vibheeshana:

It seems to me to be a melancholy fact, and I cannot reconcile myself to it. I wish today, talking to an audience in sympathy with Valmiki and his general ideas, in sympathy with our great traditions, that Vibhishana should be possibly saved from his detractors, and presented to you in what I consider to be a correct light. I hold that Vibhishana was a good man according to the standards of his time, and is a good man according to the standards of our time too. Let me make my meaning clear by devoting a part of the time this evening to an illustration of the chief elements of Vibhishana’s nature.

In the above excerpt, in the line — viz.; “I wish today, talking to an audience in sympathy with Valmiki and his general ideas, in sympathy with our great traditions, that Vibhishana should be possibly saved from his detractors, and presented to you in what I consider to be a correct light” — if Vibheeshana were to be subsituted with Srinivasa Sastri, a reader like me perhaps would tend to believe that Sastri was simply referring to himself.

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Sastri next proceeded to define who is a Traitor. He posed a classic rhetorical question to his audience. He held up to them a painting, as it were, that was a vivid contextual representation of the moral predicament, the horns of dire dilemma on which Vibheeshana in the Yuddha Kandam found himself impaled. His situation seemed to mirrored the moral quandary that Sastri himself had grappled with on the Indian political stage:

The first question that occurs to me is, who is a traitor? In common parlance today, a traitor would be one who betrays his country or his nation to the enemy who has invaded the country and makes war upon it. By extension, ot course, it would apply to any politician or public worker who sets himself deliberately for private profit, or who, for the sake of title or for some such purely worldly considerations, sets himself against the efforts made by patriots for the liberation of their country.

It is not very difficult fathom who Sastri really had in mind when he stressed that the word “traitor” could “by extension, of course, … would apply to any politician or public worker who sets himself deliberately for private profit, or who, for the sake of title or for some such purely worldly considerations, sets himself against the efforts made by patriots for the liberation of their country”. A new political-class and breed of people by then had already emerged in India, had flocked to the Indian National Congress Party and had begun dominating it. The Congress Party’s future ethos was in the making and Sastri was probably alluding to it.

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ON POLITICAL DISSENT, POLITICAL CIVILITY

The rousing, conscience-stirring words quoted below spoken by Srinivasa Sastri on this subject are, in fact, far truer today in 2025 than they might have been in 1944 :

Unfortunately, I am not in sympathy with the deep hatred that political parties bear today to each other. Politics are just on the surface of human affairs. They do not go deep down into the heart of things or into the profundities of our real nature. They have small connection with our relations to the other world or to our being able to secure the grace of the Almighty.

Why should people who hold one political opinion execrate men on the other side to such an extent that whatever their private character may be, however great their usefulness to the public may be in other directions, however exemplary their conduct may be, why should people hold them up to be the enemies of the future of the nation?

All parties, it seems to me, have their place in politics. No one party has the monopoly of truth or of political wisdom. Each party requires the assistance of the others, if only we knew that political wisdom and political truth are to be found in the doctrines of every organised political party. We ought all to regard one another as allies in the task of serving the country. Perhaps the exigencies of the day may throw us even into some rivalry of actual work, and we may be found on opposite sides of the camp, each trying to negative the work of the other. But we need not traduce the character of the great men on the other side.

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ON TEMPERANCE OF SPEECH

Young men delight in throwing mud at older people. I have suffered a great deal myself. I have known other people who have a title to real greatness and to the gratitude of our country suffer undeservedly at the hands of young men. This is a very special feature of democratic politics. It was not the case at a time when politics had not become democratised. It is much more prevalent in America and England, where politicians have established themselves over a good many generations and where at the moment, if you will ask my honest opinion, the converse of democracy is far more in evidence than the good it has done or the good it is likely to do for some time.

More than property, more than the honour of your wives, more than the affairs of litigation which cast off fellow-feeling, more than all these, political differences seem to call forth from our people the vilest language to be applied to one another. It is a thing that I cannot understand, and it is a thing which I wish were eliminated from the education of our boys if possible, for ever and for ever.

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ON THE SUPREME IMPORTANCE OF MUTUAL RESPECT

No young man ought to be taught to think that a leader of high reputation, just because he happens to be on the other side, is a vile man to be abused and to be spoken of as one who has to die, or if he will not die, to be destroyed if the good of India has to be served. I think that that man would be the greatest benefactor of his day who could teach the young in our colleges and schools to think that private merit, the beauties of human character, the dignities of human conduct, are to be found in all political parties, and that it is wrong for a young man to narrow his sympathies and his heart.

That, however, is a desire which is not going to be fulfilled in my time.

It is inconceivable that Srinivasa Sastri may have possibly also foreseen then that the same forlorn desire he voiced on July 19, 1944 would continue remaining unfulfilled to this day, the 15th of August, 2025.

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(to be continued)

Sudarshan Madabushi

The Rt.Hon’ble Srinivasa Sastri’s memory and legacy… (Part-12): …Lecture #15 of the “Lectures on the Ramayana”…

Sastri felt politically marginalized by the rise of Gandhi and Nehru’s mass movements. He expressed melancholy and resignation about the eclipse of moderate liberalism. ‘I am a clod of miserable earth, which nothing can galvanise. Let me be’”, he had written to a friend. His personal relation with Gandhi was respectful and affectionate despite political dissent. Nehru respected Sastri but politically differed sharply and no historian really knows if there was personal animosity towards him. Sastri’s own mood was more one of sorrowful withdrawal and principled dissent rather than outright bitterness or rancor.

The feeling of being “unwanted” however did hurt Sastri acutely. He was aware that many within the Indian National Congress (INC) thought of him as a closet Anglophile whose real sympathies for British sense of constitutionalism overrode Indian spirit of proud nationalism. And he also was only too conscious, again, that amongst more radical-minded quarters within the INC, a few people secretly even suspected his patriotism even though none did go so far as to regard him as an outright traitor to the causes of Indian freedom struggle. While all this indicated personal disappointment and sadness at his marginalization, Sastri still always maintain a dignified stance, continuing his intellectual and diplomatic contributions.

The only occasion however when Sastri’s heart broke out and he felt the need to give voice to his long-suppressed feelings of hurt, pain and humiliation was during the period in Madras when he was delivering to his large Mylapore audience the “Lectures on the Ramayana“.

Throughout the thirty brilliant Lectures that he delivered — over a span of seven long months between April and November of the year 1944 just as World War-2 was ending and India’s own Independence Movement, after the near-abortive Quit India agitations, had wound down and but poised to revive again — not once did Sastri in any of his grand narrations of the episodes and themes of the Valmiki Ramayana, stray from its faithful textual interpretations and character delineations into anything that could have been construed as veiled, related commentary insinuating upon the state of contemporary politics and social affairs of that time. The Lectures instead were scrupulously focused only on the finest features and aspects of Valmiki Ramayana — i.e. on its literary excellence, poetic beauty, aesthetic qualities, philosophical and moral inquiry of the profundest kind… Not once did the narrations descend to low-grade discourse about the sordid situations in run-of-the-mill politics prevailing then, nor about its polemics nor about the dramatis personae in it.

However, there was one departure… one glaring exception that stood apart from all the rest… It was in Sastri’s Lecture No. 15.

In this exceptional Lecture some deeply distraughtful feeling seemed to have overcome Sastri and broken right through — like raging flashflood-waters breaching the great concrete wall of a high dam — Srinivasa Sastri’s reticence and characterestic self-restraint. It made him deliver a vociferous speech, pulling no punches and it indeed did go all out to reveal his disapprobation and utter disillusionment with the entire class of political leadership in India and the political climate it had created.

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In Lecture No: 15 Sastri devoted himself to a detailed charater study of Vibheeshana, the Lankan Prince.

This brother of the tyrant king, Ravana, as the story goes, relinquished his royal status, renounced ties with the Lankan nation and went seek Lord Rama’s asylum. Later he also threw in his lot with the latter’s army that had gathered upon Lankan soil, waiting to launch a great war against King Ravana who had stubbornly refused to return to Rama the Lady Sita who he held hostage.

The dramatic dynamics of the whole Vibheeshana episode — commonly known to all Ramayana scholars as “Vibheeshana saranaagati sarga-s” — appears in the Yuddha Kandam of the Ramayana. The setting is the great War that is about to begin between Rama and Ravana. And the political fallout and churning that then consequently occurs inside the royal palace of Ravana — in the form of tumultuous disagreements breaking out amongst brothers, uncles, cabinet ministers and advisors — are all indeed so very redolent of the kind of widespread nasty politicking and venal political discourse we see in present-day India.

The entire Yuddha Kandha is filled, in fact, with the familiar theatre of disruptive, hate-filled, cynical and acrimonious scenes and script. Accusations and counter-accusations of treason, deception, tyranny, moral turpitude, hubris and blood disloyality are seen to fly thick and fast, and back and forth with mutual recriminations thrown at each other by brother against brother, kith against kin, amongst ministerial colleagues and between friends who turn suddenly into foes….

The battleground atmosphere of the Yuddha Kandam is not just about military conflict alone. More significantly, such scenes in the epic also serve as metaphor for the greater battle of morals, of Dharma and Karma, the clash of ideologies, and for values at odds with culture. The role that the character of Vibheeshana plays in this Kandam is even today one of the most complex and enduring controversies in the entire “itihaasa“. Vibheeshana was perhaps really the precursory model for Hamlet since his own moral predicament too was in the nature of that classic and often irreconciliable human dilemma: “To be or not to be … that is the question!”.

This roiling Ramayana episode seemed however to provide Sastri with the perfect platform from which he felt he could sought to put up a moral defense of the difficult choices he had made when he was in the thick of politics of India along with his guru Gopal Krishna Gokhale (1866-1915 CE) who had been a leading figure in it. It was because of the Gokhale brand and style of politics that Sastri had chosen to espouse and follow that why, later on, he had come to be virtually ostracised and eventually excommunicated by the INC leadership under Gandhi and Nehru who had left him to languish in political oblivion. Even though during the prime years of his career, Sastri was thought to be the most qualified of the entire lot of Congressmen and the most capable even amongst others who could fully engage, on behalf of the country, in international diplomacy at the highest levels not only with Imperial Britain but with the whole world, when the job was done, however, and the INC changed course, it let it be known that the Party had no further use for Sastri.

Like Vibheeshana of the Ramayana, Sastri too felt that he had been unjustly treated by his compatriots, Gandhi, Nehru, Patel and Rajaji, simply for remaining true and deeply committed to his very own philosophy of “constitutional liberal-humanism” that was in fact also that of Gandhi’s own one-time mentor, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, a leader whose principles were rooted in the tenets of Dharma and who fearlessly advocated opposition to the more popular but more radical philosophy of Gandhian “sathyagraha” which as far as he was concerned was essentially nothing but anarchist ahimsa.

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In Lecture#15 thus, Srinivasa Sastri struck what is clearly discernible in the delivery of his oration a vaguely autobiographical tone.

In the character of Vibheeshana, he found the almost identical moral reflection of own. The Lecture thus presents itself as a sort of auto-suggestive psychotherapy through which Sastri perhaps sought to deal with his own inner struggles to overcome the deep and dormant trauma that his political marginalisation from the centre-stage politics of the Indian Independence movement had caused and lacerated him. If Ravana was the elder brother of the dissenting Vibheeshana, then perhaps Sastri was the dissenting younger brother to Mahatma Gandhi? And if Vibheeshana’s renunciation of his elder brother and his embracing his adversary, Sri Rama, was morally defensible, how could Sastri’s rejection of Gandhi’s methods of “sathyagraha” in favour of the much more moderate and constitutional forms of Gokhaleian political struggle be condemned as traitorous flirtations with Anglophilia and siding with the British?

In Sastri’s own unexpressed opinion, the “sathyagraha” of the Gandhi-Nehruvian type was perhaps “crypto-himsa” or, at best, say, a kind of dangerous “hybrid-ahimsa“, which he feared would in the years ahead become the normative style of the general political culture, style and discourse in India. in his view, it was never going to instil true patriotism or true national spirit. And the fears he boldly articulated did not mean that he must be attacked ad hominem and cast out as some sort of a traitor to the cause of India’s freedom from the British…

If one were to keep in mind all that is stated above, one certainly can get a much better understanding of the various issues that Srinivasa Sastri spoke about in Lecture#15. The tone and content of his speech might seem to some even today as a bit fulminatory but the language — even in flights of rhetoric — is yet ever so refined, cultured, reasonable and typically “inoffensive“. And the trenchant messages so conveyed too can hardly be ever faulted on any account … certainly not of bile, falsity, intemperance, exaggeration or self-righteous bromide.

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The brilliant Lecture#15 contains brilliant observations upon a very wide range of profound matters, political and philosophical viz.:

Conscientious objecters, Patriotism, Treason, Nationalist pride, Democracy, Political Dissent, Political civility, Temperance of speech and last but not the least, the supreme importance of mutual respect that one human must alway culivate for the other, no matter what idea, thought, feeling or prejudice separates them.

Today, as I read Lecture#15 again — for god knows how many times — I am more than ever convinced that every word in it is an invaluable lesson in lofty ethics for our own times. It is simply amazing to me how the Lecture as far back as 1944 foresaw and predicted the pathetic way Indian politics would ultimately go… And how we in 2025 are seeing right with our eyes how Politics is conducted today and the way our politicians behave atrociously towards one another, both in public and in private.

Sastri’s stirring words does make me recall the words of his own favourite English poet, William Shakespeare:

O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason…

O, what a fall was there, my countrymen!
Then I, and you, and all of us fell down,

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There is no other way for me but to extensively reproduce below, long and whole extracts from Lecture#15 because any attempt on my part to present Sastri’s speech in a paraphrase of my own will only end up marring, mutilating and mocking the mettle, the majesty and magniloquence of Rt.Hon’ble Srinivasa Sastry’s masterful oratory.

(to be continued)

Sudarshan Madabushi

The Rt.Hon’ble Srinivasa Sastri’s memory and legacy… (Part-11): …Living for the love of Valmiki and Shakespeare…

In the sunset years of his life — i.e. the early and mid-1940s — Srinivasa Sastri’s physical and mental health remained beleagured. His angina attacks came upon him suddenly and not infrequently. They caused him excruciating chest-pain and breathlessness. In those days in contrast to the present day, medical research had not yet discovered miracle drugs and wonder-pharmaceuticals to attenuate the physical distress caused by cardiac ailments. Also, the continued marginalisation of Sastri by the then political leadership of the Indian Freedom struggle movement (Gandhi, Nehru, Patel and Rajaji at the forefront) also made him at times feel mentally distraught.

Sastri however had many other interests, pastimes and passions in life from which he drew tremendous strength and joie de vivre. Books, literature, religion, carnatic music and above all he had a very affectionate and close-knit family support-network provided him constant emotional solace to him. His wife, siblings, sons, daughters and many loving grandson and grand-daughters were always beside him. If ever he found the atmosphere in Mylapore, Madras, getting a little depressive, he was able to move on, go and spend quality time with his extended family living in other salubrious and quieter towns and cities such as Coimbatore and Bangalore. In those tranquil family surroundings Sastri was able to devote his time to the deepest passions in his life — reading great literature, discussing books, having lively conversations with visiting friends and admirers, giving little talks on many a subject, listening to music and if nothing else to do, then simply personal reflection.

DVG (D.V.Gundappa, the prolific Kannada litterateur who was Sastri’s friend and admirer) in a biography wrote about Sastri’s lifestyle during these sunset years in the following pen-portrait (Second essay in D V Gundappa’s magnum-opus “Jnapakachitrashaale” (Volume 6) – “Halavaru Saarvajanikaru”:

QUOTE:

V.S. Srinivasa Sastri’s daily routine in Bangalore was as follows: He got up before 7 in the morning and visited Lal Bagh. He would sit on the shore of the lake or on a bench in the garden. If he had an article in mind, he would dictate it and it was my duty to write it down. This would usually go on for about half an hour or forty five minutes. There were deer housed in front of the place where we usually sat down. He was very eager to see the deer ruminating grass and walking around in the enclosure. He would recite the poem – ‘romanthamākurvati’ from the Śākuntalam (of Kālidāsa) as he watched the deer. He walked around slowly. It was also my duty to stop him from walking very fast and to slow his gait down. At times, when he had lost himself in talking to me, he unconciously accelerated his gait. If he met someone on the way who he could converse with, his speed of walking would go even further up. I had been told that I was to stop him from doing so.

As we took strolls in Lal Bagh different topics would come up for discussion. We often went by the mādhavī creeper present in the garden. He would see that and quote – “Kṣāmakṣāmakapolam…” from Śākuntalam. He would explain how to split the words, parse them and the summary of the poem. He spoke at length about the meaning of the verse. His manner of speaking itself was a huge treat for our ears and hearts. As he explained the meaning, he often quoted phrases and sentences from Sanskrit literature. At times, it turned into a monologue completely in Sanskrit and went on for a few minutes.

We had many such lively conversations during our morning walks and returned home by nine in the morning. By then, the day’s newspaper would have arrived. Sastri would go through the headlines that he felt were imporant and described their content to me. Discussions usually followed during and after his reading of the newspaper. This went on until eleven. He then would have his meal and retire for a siesta.

I would go back to his place by three in the afternoon. By then, his wife Lakshmamma would also have got some free time. We all sat together and had some lively discussions.

Sastri usually read out sections from the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa. His wife, Lakshmamma then would compare what Vālmīki had said with the same sections from the Tamil poet Kamban’s Rāmāyaṇa. She was more familiar with Tamil literature. A conversation regarding the beauty in both poems would ensue. Their study of the Rāmāyaṇa proceeded in a relaxed manner.

“Lakshmi! Read out what Kamban has written in the context of this incident. Let me hear it out”. Though Srinivasa Sastri often claimed it as an excuse, he did not lack knowledge about the Rāmāyaṇa in Tamil at all. He went through the original Rāmāyaṇa in Sanskrit again and again and perhaps he did so all through the day. As he went through the original version of the Epic composed by Vālmīki, he grew curious to see how the other poets had described the same episodes. He would immediately call out for his wife. His beloved wife, Lakshmi would then read the Tamil version of the Rāmāyaṇa out loud and also compare it with the Tamil translation of Vālmīki’s Rāmāyaṇa as rendered by Srinivasa Iyengar. Sastri would then examine in detail the manner in which Kālidāsa had presented the matter and how Bhavabhūti had creatively managed the same episode. Later, he discussed the same with friends who shared interest in the subject. I have been a witness to all this.

By half past four or by five in the evening, Sastri’s other friends visited him. On some days we headed out for a casual stroll to breathe in fresh air. In the beginning we rented a coach and travelled in it to inhale fresh air. Later on, one of our friends brought a car to take us around.

Some evenings, he would hop onto his vehicle and go around the city, visiting places he thought were worth seeing. One such place was the Sugrīva temple located in Balepete. This was a unique thing for Sastri and had greatly kindled his interest. “Oh, He was a close friend of Śrī Rāma and helped him in his dhārmic activities. “Ah! Bangalore has people who remember Sugrīva!”

During the early days of his stay in Bangalore, Sastri was very weak. How should he spend his time? I told him that I would bring a couple of books for him to read. Back then, I was going through the works of the Greek dramatist Sophocles. I was enthusiastic about the work – and I should admit that my enthusiasm was quite high. Being overly enthusiastic about somethings is one of my shortcomings. Sastri’s reply was so impactful that I should note down for eternity –

“Why do I need to read anything new? My old Rāmāyaṇa and works of Shakespeare suffice!”

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Sastri’s passionate love for “Valmiki Ramayana” was legendary indeed. In his last last years, it was perhaps his life breath and it is what really kept him going in spite of both physical and mental fatigue. His love for the “itihaasa” he expressed in these words with intense feeling:

“The Ramayana I hold to be almost without a rival in the world’s literature. Whether we judge by the grandeur of the theme, by the variety of characters portrayed, by the tone of its idealism, of by the appeal that it makes to the devout heart, it ranks, amongst the noblest monuments of poetic genius. To those who cannot read it in the original, I would unhesitatingly recommend resort to translations. Even through media the narrative shines with rich brilliance”.

It was mainly thanks to Sastri’s wholehearted advice to one and all, Indian or foreigner who “cannot read it in the original“… “to resort to translations” just so to be able to appreciate “even through media, the narrative (that) shines with rich brilliance”… which I say to myself made me, in my own life and in my little forays into literature as an essayist, to embrace his recommendation.

It was thanks to Sastri’s many scintillating essays on the Ramayana which I read with great admiration in my middle-aged years that I was able to creatively understand how the “rich brilliance” of the original work of Valmiki could be creatively enjoyed even in translation into English. Despite my knowledge of Sanskrit being no more than a smattering and limited to common usage of a dozen or more Bhagavath Gita shlokas and other verses from stotra works of Vedantic Acharyas like Adi Sankara, Sri Ramanujacharya and Sri Vedanta Desika, I came to still marvel at Valmiki’s Sanskrit as Sastri described it himself in his splendid peroratory style. Through the sheer brilliance of Sastri’s own Ramayana exegeses in scintillating English language, I found myself gradually being able … over the years … to acquaint myself with the beauties of the Maharishi’s Sanskrit poesy as seen through the eyes of Srinivasa Sastry. It never did surprise me, therefore, when later I read somewhere that Sir Winston Churchill and others were said to have been astonished at the “beauty and power of Sastri’s English,” with the Master of Balliol College, A. L. Smith famously remarking, “I never knew that the English language was so beautiful till I heard Sastri speak it”.

Personally, thus, Sastry’s essays and lectures on India’s greatest “itihaasa” brought me much closer to my own cultural roots than I felt I ever did before in life. When in 2016-17, I published my first book of essays “The Unusual Essays of an Unknown Sri Vaishnava”, I made no secret of the fact in telling my readers upfront that many of the essays in my book dealing with themes from the Ramayana were largely influenced by Rt. Hon’ble Srinivasa Sastry. One short-story, in fact, that I wrote and published in my book as separate chapter titled “The Fourth Widow of Ayodhya”, was a clear illustration of the deep spell of enchantment that Sastry’s writings had cast upon my own.

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Sastry’s undying love for Valmiki Ramayana was most definitely genetic in origin. It was a legacy of his Vedic ancestry and hence he really did not have to make any great effort to carefully cultivate and nurture it in life.

Sastri was said to be able to quote large passages from Valmiki Ramayana verbatim with apparent ease. By his own account given in his Tamil autobiography, Sastri’s prodigious memory was a matter of surprise even to himself! With no false modesty, and in all humility, he wrote that he could memorise with ease even passages from Milton’ Paradise Lost:

“நான் முதலில் என்னை நினைத்தது போல சாதாரண மனம் கொண்டவன் அல்ல என்பதைக் காண நான் ஆச்சரியமடைந்தேன். பள்ளிக்கூட காலத்தில், மிக வெகு சீக்கிரமாகவே மில்டனின் Paradise Lost எனும் ஆங்கிலக் காவியம் எட்டாவது புத்தகத்துடன் நிறைவடையும் வரையிலும் என்னுள் நன்கு பதிந்து விட்டது. ஆச்சரியமானது என்னவென்றால், நான் படித்ததை நினைவில் வைப்பதற்கு சிலவேளைகளில் முயற்சி செய்யவே வேண்டாம் — அது தானாகவே மனத்தில் பதிந்து விடும்.”

“I was surprised to find that I was not, as I had once thought, a person of ordinary memory. During my school days, Milton’s Paradise Lost, right up to Book VIII, became firmly impressed upon my mind in a remarkably short span of time. What amazed me most was that I often didn’t even have to make a conscious effort to memorize — the words would settle into memory on their own.”

Shankaranarayana Sastri, Srinivasa Sastri’s father was a famous paurāṇika (bard, story teller, raconteur). He delivered story-telling sessions on the Rāmāyaṇa in public. This is how Srinivasa Shastri developed great reverence and love for Rāmāyaṇa–- it was something that had come down to him in his family. He then developed great scholarship in the work of Sanskrit poetry with the use of the English language. Sastri’s ancestors, namely his grandfather, great-grand father and great-great-grandfather were scholars of Veda and Vedānta. They had taken to yatyāśrama (sanyāsa) in their old age and had attained siddhi (Ultimate goal, liberation).

Sastri was the eldest among his siblings. Vasudeva Sastri, Narasimha Sastri and Ramaswami Sastri were his younger brothers. Vasudeva Sastri was an inspector of the schools located in the Bellary region. He was very well educated. Narasimha Shastri worked at co-oprative societies but was well educated too. Ramaswami Sastri worked as one of the Associate Editors of the ‘Hindu’ daily newspaper and was erudite himself.

So, given the family background so steeped in Vedic scholasticism,erudition and Sanskrit learning, Sastri’s love for the Ramayana came perhaps with his birth itself. And it exceeded the great love that he later in life cultivated for Milton and Shakespeare

***********

Besides the Valmiki Ramayana, there were several other magnificent books and timeless classics that Srinivasa Sastri himself in one of his well-known essays listed out as being his all-time favourites.

“The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius stirred me deeply by their utter sincerity and high-souled philanthropy. Curious as it may seem, Tolstoy took me captive by his The Kingdom of God is within You. I remember how the revelation came on me with a rush”.

Sastri also studied deeply Herbert Spencer’s Sociology and John Stuart Mill’s Subjection of Women, On Liberty, and Three Essays on Natural Religion. He delighted too in the works of T.H.Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics .

“The Iliad and the Ramayana can never die, so say our idealists. The Vedas, we swear, had no beginning and will have no end. Grand conceptions these, which it were vandalism to examine historically or appraise scientifically. To how few of the world’s population of nearly two thousand million do they mean anything? In our own homes they have long ceased to be a direct means of enlightenment…

I would place in this category the great plays of Shakespeare and moving orations like those of Burke. Who can escape the instruction of (Walter) Scott’s novels or the edification of George Eliot’s? Wordsworth, Tennyson and Browning go deeper down in your nature and shape it to finer issues”.

On Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, Sastri wrote:

“The story is one of the great epics of the world, the events and characters alike are cast in large moulds, and the sensitive reader is instructed, edified, scolded, exhorted, and by every possible means, shaped to be fit for a happier world than he now knows. Out of this vast storehouse of experience and history we carry away just so much wisdom as we are capable of. But there is no one, however exalted, however wise, however powerful, who can leave a study of this book without being summoned with the compelling majesty of supernatural law to the recognition of a more humane code of behaviour and a more altruistic sense of duty. If any one of my readers has not yet read this book, I bid him, with the authority that belongs to age and knowledge of the deeps and shoals of life, to get hold of a copy at once and benefit to the full by the treasures that its pages enshrine.

************

In my personal opinion, the greatest gift of the man who was called “Silver-tongued Sastri” to India is contained in his monumental literary legacy he left behind viz. “The Lecture on the Ramayana”. All other achievements that Sastri is credited with in the sphere of politics, international diplomacy, education and the arts all pale into insignificance in comparison to what he delivered as his pièce de résistance, the Lectures,which indeed were virtually his last bow too before his demise in 1946.

V. S. Srinivasa Sastri delivered his celebrated Lectures on the Ramayana in Madras (now Chennai) at the Samskrit Academy. The series began on 5 April 1944 and concluded on 8 November 1944. The initial lectures were part of a small, select gathering, but soon drew much larger crowds as word of their quality and insight spread through the city and region.

Sastri began the Lectures at the behest of his friends and only for the benefit of a small closely-knit circle. It all started in T.R. Venkataramana Shastri’s house. As the people who attended the lectures started inviting their other friends and relatives to join them in the following days, the crowd kept growing. News about the lecture series spread through word of mouth. In the course of a few of his lectures, the audience witnessed Sastri thoroughly immersed in the narratives of the Ramayana. At times, they saw him overcome with emotion as he spoke about the Epic and his voice choked. His eyes filled with tears and he would go silent for a while. The audience that had gathered also then lost themselves in the lecture and felt that their life had found at last some meaning.

So enthralled was the audience by the experience of listening to Sastri’s commentaries on the Ramayana, that a grand concluding ceremony for the series of lectures was organised for the audience to express its thoughts, gratitude and delight in going through the process. The people presented Sastri with a silver plate with letters from a Sanskrit śloka from the original Rāmāyaṇa embossed on it. The śloka was from the episode wherein Rāma meets Āñjaneya for the first time, and having got impressed with his manner of expression, Rama speaks words of appreciation. The audience was also, similarly, overwhelmingly impressed with Sastri’s style of presentation and the śloka was thus so very relevant to the context.

संस्कारक्रमसंपन्नाम् अद्रुतामविलम्बिताम् ।
उच्चारयति कल्याणीं वाचं हृदयहर्षिणीम् ॥

saṃskārakramasaṃpannām adrutāmavilambitām ।
uccārayati kalyāṇīṃ vācaṃ hṛdayaharṣiṇīm ॥

D.V. Gundappa wrote: “There is a school of thought in Indian literary aesthetics which considers Style as the Soul of Poetry – “Rītirātmā Kāvyasya”. This holds true in case of Sastri’s art of expression. His lecture was poetry and the best part was his style of rendition”.

At least thrice in my life so far have I myself read Sastri’s “Lectures on the Ramayana” in full and countless times have I turned to its pages by way of referencing. Each time I have experienced a different kind of delight while savouring the book. Every one of thirty lectures is a masterly dissertation indeed on the Ramayana and the profound lessons on Dharma it is gem-encrusted with.

However, in my opinion, the most enlightening of all the 30 lectures is Lecture No. 15.

(to be continued)

Sudarshan Madabushi

The Rt.Hon’ble Srinivasa Sastri’s memory and legacy… (Part-10): ….An “Ahimsa” purer than Gandhi’s….

Srinivasa Sastri’s melancholia that clearly arose from a general sense of being cutoff from mainstream political life in India during the years leading up to the Indian National Congress’s QUIT INDIA Movement — and thereafter too until his death in 1946 — was perhaps worsened by declining health. It is documented that Sastri suffered from acute angina pectoris from around 1923, which handicapped him for the rest of his life, a fact that he acknowledged implicitly through his lifestyle and writings, though no extensive personal medical diary is publicly cited.

Sastri wrote and spoke about his delicate health condition which he suffered for many years. In detailed biographical recollections, it is described how he experienced chest pain and physical weakness, especially in his later years. For instance, during one episode of severe attack of chest pain, those around him noticed his distress and efforts to manage the pain with calm perseverance. He even expressed a wish to listen to devotional music during his painful moments, reflecting a spiritual and composed approach to his ailment.

To his close friends, Sastri seemed to have at times lamented in conversations about the time-consuming care of his frail body, which he felt interfered with his work and productivity. He spoke candidly about the demands of maintaining his physical health due to his heart condition while continuing his intellectual and literary pursuits.

Sastri’s mood of loneliness is reflected in brief autobiographical essays in Tamil language that he penned in the year 1942. Here below are a few Tamil passages from his book in ‘மீண்டும் வாழ்ந்தால்’ (Meendum Vazhndhaal, “If I Live Again”)‘ along with English translations. Clearly they reflected his utter disenchantment with politics and the fading relevance of his moderate liberal ideals and that of his very own conception of “ahimsa” which he envisioned as the upholding of Non-violence not only in thought, word and deed, but more importantly, in demonstrably Dharmic terms too and which is what, he felt, rendered his philosophy of Ahimsa purer perhaps than Mahatma Gandhi’s or Nehu’s?

“நான் ஒரு தாழ்ந்த மண்ணின் குண்டு போலவே, என்னையும் எழுப்பக்கூடியது எதுவும் இல்லை. இந்திய லிபரல் பாகுபாடு முற்றிலும் முடிந்துவிட்டது — சில வருடங்களாக இங்கு உயிரின் ஊற்றே இல்லாமல் மௌனமாகக் கருகிக் கொண்டிருக்கிறது. இத்தகைய உலகில் நம்மை அவர்கள் விரும்பமாட்டார்கள் என்பது தெளிவாக தெரிகிறது.”

“I am like a clod of miserable earth, which nothing can galvanize. The Indian Liberal Federation is entirely dead — for several years now it has been quietly dissolving without any sign of life. In such a world, it is clear that we are not wanted.”

“சிறு ஒரு பண்பாட்டுக் கூட்டமைப்பாக இருந்த இந்த லிபரல் கூட்டமைப்பு, இப்போது இயல்பாகவும் அமைதியாகவும் சிதறி கரைகிறது. அதற்கு ஏதாவது சிறப்புக் கடைசி நிகழ்ச்சி வேண்டுமோ என்று நினைப்பதில்லை.”

“This Liberal federation, which was once a small cultural association, is now naturally and quietly dispersing and dissolving. I do not think any special final ceremony is needed for it.”

“என்னுடைய சிந்தனைகள், உயிரின் ஈடுபாடுகள் இப்போது குறைந்து வருவதற்குச் சாத்தியமான காரணங்கள் அவ்வளவாகவே உள்ளன. நான் அரசியலில் இருந்து அங்கேப் பின்பற்றிப் போனேன், ஆனால் இதயத்தில் அந்தப்போதும் மற்றவர்களுக்கு காட்டிய கண்ணோட்டம் அதுவே தொடர்கிறது.”

“My thoughts and life’s engagements have increasingly diminished for understandable reasons. I have withdrawn from active politics, but the outlook I always held toward others continues in my heart.”

These passages reveal Sastri’s bleak sense of political isolation and resignation as his moderate political vision became marginalized during the rise of radical nationalist leadership like Jawaharlal Nehru’s. They express his quiet acceptance of the fading role of liberal constitutionalism in the Indian independence movement, reflecting his deep disenchantment with the political climate of his time.

Amidst the political turmoil and moral turbulence of his times, Rt. Hon’ble Srinivasa Sastri may perhaps, deep inside his heart, have felt that he had consigned himself to the wrong side of History… But then not once did he ever express weakness of will to plough his own lonely furrow; nor ever did he waver in his convictions. The Bengali poetic line of Rabindranath Tagore “Jôdi Tor Dak Shune Keu Na Ase Tôbe Ekla Chôlo Re (“If no one responds to your call, then go your own way alone” was perhaps his inward motto. And to Sastri alone perhaps amongst all others of his generation, would the two verses below in the “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard“ of the English poet, Thomas Gray, most befit:

"Full many a gem of purest ray serene  
  The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:  
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,            
  And waste its sweetness on the desert air.  

"Th' applause of listening senates to command,  
  The threats of pain and ruin to despise,  
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,  
  And read their history in a nation's eyes".

***************

In his own words seen above, Sastri had said that although he had “withdrawn from active politics”… his “outlook held towards others” nonetheless continued in his heart. In other words, neither did his sense of political isolation nor his cold-shouldering by his colleagues in the freedom movement, and nor his frail health condition, broke his indomitable spirit that made him still a man whose erudite opinions and awesome moral presence could never be ignored at any time… not even by the Viceroy of the British Government nor by Mahatma Gandhi.

From his home in Mylapore, Madras, Sastri often took up cudgels on behalf of his fellow-compatriots, Gandhi and Nehru, by writing strong, extremely articulate missives to the Government of India. Below are reproduced two of those brave, stinging yet polite and eloquent letters.

On 24th October 1943, Sastri wrote to the British Viceroy in India Lord Archibald Percival Wavell. He was appointed and took office as Viceroy in June 1943, succeeding Lord Linlithgow who was the Viceroy during the earlier part of the year including the terrible Bengal famine for which Prime Minister Winston Churchill had been squarely responsible, as it came to light later. Lord Wavell served as Viceroy from 1943 to 1947.

To H. E. THE VICEROY

Your Excellency,

My heart misgives as I think of the many delicate and intricate tasks that await you. We have been assured of your resolution, independence of judgement and liberal outlook. That is satisfactory, but not sufficient. Your training must have exalted obedience high above all other virtues and made you impatient of the slowness and caution of diplomacy and the compromises of parliamentary negotiation. Besides, the Indian politician’s attitude, suspicious and soured by generations of deferred hope, may be a puzzle and soon become your despair. Can you look beyond the narrow circle of official advisers and invite to your aid the patriotism of the land, which now is held at arm’s length, because it will not neglect Indian honour and Indian welfare? Can you see, in men and women branded as disloyal, eager colleagues in the service of India and of the Empire? Anxious eyes and ears from every corner will be directed towards New Delhi to find out whether you “ weigh well” and not merely “maxwell.”

Sastri’s delightful punning on the name of the British Viceroy’s name of “Wavell” with “weigh well” and “maxwell” could not have gone unnoticed or grudgingly admired even by the British!

“Anxious eyes and ears from every corner will be directed towards New Delhi to find out whether you ‘weigh well’ and not merely ‘maxwell‘” was Sastri’s pointed and brilliant play on words referencing Sir Reginald Maxwell, who was the Home Member of the Government of India at that time.

In historical context, Sir Reginald Maxwell was a prominent British official involved in the administration and political affairs, often associated with repressive measures during the period. Sastri’s phrase “weigh well” meant the Viceroy’s actions was going to be judged on their merit and effectiveness ( i.e. how well he performs and carries weight in his role), rather than being merely another “Maxwell“—alluding to Sir Reginald Maxwell’s controversial reputation.

The trenchant literary usage of a pun by Sastri was a veiled advice to the Viceroy to abandon the repressive policies often linked to Maxwell. The phrase in fact captured the expectation of Indian leaders and the public during a critical period in 1943, awaiting whether the Viceroy would act justly and wisely amid the intense political unrest and demands from Indians following the Quit India movement.

Thus, “weigh well” contrasted the idea of true leadership and responsibility with the negative connotations surrounding “Maxwell”— the name that symbolized heavy-handed, unjust governance. This was Sastri’s trademark way of conveying subtly yet sharply how large the political stakes for the British administration in India at the time were and how fraught with risks for Lord Wavell’s helmsmanship.

In the same acerbic but polite vein, and in the same letter, Sastri continued:

“I will ask leave to say another word. The Secretary of State (reference to Leopold Charles Amery, the Secretary of State for India and Burma from 1940 to 1945 under Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Amery was known for his deep interest in British India and the British Empire and often clashed with Churchill on Indian policy. He was born in India and was fluent in Sanskrit, giving him a unique connection to India among British officials of that era) has declared, I fear, that British Parliamentary democracy may not suit India and advised us to invent a new type of popular government for ourselves. I am not known to be an uncharitable critic; but I find it hard to beheve that he can be serious. What Britain does not know and has not tried, she cannot conscientiously recommend to a people less experienced or guide them in operating it. For a century and a half, we have studied British institutions and admired them. When Mr Montagu ( ie. Edwin Montagu, the Secretary of State for India from 1917 to 1922) framed his proposals (for reforms of British Rule over India) and published them for criticism in India, some of us would have preferred an unremovable executive (i.e. a Presidential form of government). I was among these. But he was all for the system “ins” and “outs” and the majority of our leaders were attracted by the excitement and struggle incidental to recurring trials of parliamentary skill and strategy.

For twenty years and more we have practised it and become used to it. To pronounce us unfit now and send us about in quest of another plan is to hold up things indefinitely, to strew the land with apples of discord and create such confusion as to imperil the constitutional progress so far achieved. If it was intended to punish us for venturing to look forward to further progress in the same dircetion, Mr Amery’s advice would become intelligible.

Before we become much older, however, his attempt will encounter the fate of Canute’s command to the sea. Not in these days can a nation’s freedom be denied or delayed with impunity.

Yours sincerely

V. S. SRINIVASAN

Sastri’s reference to “Canute’s command to the sea….” is so very apt indeed to describe the then prevailing political context of rising and even rather militant spirit of Indian Nationalism in the country and to which he was drawing the Viceroy’s special attention. It was a proverbial reference to the legend in modern politics at that time in world affairs when allusion “King Canute’s arrogance” of “attempting to stop the tide” was a dire warning to all mighty empires of the world.

King Canute of England (1016-1035 CE reign) set his throne by the sea shore and commanded the incoming tide to halt and not to wet his feet and robes. Yet “continuing to rise as usual [the tide] dashed over his feet and legs without respect to his royal person”. Then the king leapt backwards, saying: ‘Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings, for there is none worthy of the name, but He whom heaven, earth, and sea obey by eternal laws.'” He then hung his gold crown on a crucifix, and never wore it again “to the honour of God the almighty King”.

*************

At the conclusion of the Second World War, the British Government became very enfeebled and it realised that its grip over its colonial rule in India was slipping away and would soon have to give way sooner or later.

Her Majesty’s Government thus organised what was called a series of conferences called “The Peace Conference” in London. Leading Indian political leaders were expected to participate in those round-table Peace Conferences to deliberate upon and put forward ideas for shaping India’s post-war future, influencing global peace settlements, and pressing for Indian self-determination.

Sastri advocated that Mahatma Gandhi, being recognized as the world’s foremost apostle of peace, should participate in those international efforts directed at negotiating peace with the British and India’s status after the war.

Gandhi, however, refused to participate in the main international peace conferences due to his deep distrust of the British government’s motives and process. He saw the conferences not as genuine efforts to resolve India’s political aspirations, but as British devices to divert attention from colonial imperatives and perpetuate division among Indian communities—especially over communal questions (Hindu, Muslim, and Dalit interests). Gandhi felt that such conferences would not deliver real independence and that his presence could be used to falsely signal Indian endorsement of a British-driven process and agenda. He also believed his efforts were best directed at mass movements and local negotiations, rather than at forums he felt did not respect India’s fundamental right to self-determination.

Sastri was dismayed by Gandhi’s stubborn rejection of the British Government initiatives to hold the Peace Conferences as a prelude to eventual transfer of power to Indian leadership. In a passionate letter dated October 24, 1943, Srinivasa Sastri once again expressed his deep disappointment over the Mahatma’s political stance and tried to persuade him to change his mind. The letter — one of the last few ones perhaps he sent to Gandhi — was written in Sastri’s inimitably eloquent style. But it is not without significance to note, that departing from his old habit of addressing Gandhi in all his letters as “Dear Brother“, Sastri in this letter addressed him as “Dear Mahatma”! That departure in itself told a story of the imperceptible estrangement that had crept into the relations between the two kindred souls.

FROM: V. S. SRINIVASAN

TO MAHATMA GANDHI

Dear Mahatma,

I pen these words in anguish. The days are hard for our motherland. Fain would I know how you feel so that no random words of mine might add to the wretchedness and desolation which fill every minute of your life. Bear with me once more. At similar crises before, it has been my unenviable lot to address you with the harshness of unheeding truth but in accents of love.

The people of India, for whom you have slaved these thirty years as no one has done, lie prostrate in the deadly grasp of hunger, destitution and stark despair. A dismal sense of frustration oppresses them like a nightmare. Their trust in you, however, is the same, if possible, tenderer and purer for your sufferings and sorrows.

Promising plans are promising only so far as you may work them out. Proposals from any quarter are canvassed, but only so long as the execution stage is not reached; then they ask for you and speculation stops.

Officials in their way and for their reasons, unofficials in their way and for their reasons, all alike turn to you. Only on half a dozen occasions have human hearts yielded themselves up in such complete thrall to one without birth, beauty of form, possessions, force of arms or honours to distribute. Every true Indian is proud that he can call you his fellow-countryman, and those that you have honoured with your friendship are among the blessed ones of their generation. Being one of these, I have used my privileged position now and then to remonstrate against the way you have allowed the doctrine of “ahimsa,” of which you are the unanointed apostle, to be muddled in its application to the work of the Congress. Your answer is that you always meant to employ it in the furtherance of national aims and could not help the lapses. You add too, with humility all your own, that you are not a saint strayed among politicians, but a politician appearing like a saint and not to be judged by the highest standards. I am, however, unreconciled and own to a feeling of grief that one so near the summit of purity should not reach it.

Dear brother, an opportunity has come, the like of which never was and never will be for generations. At the ensuing Peace Conference, which may meet sooner than most people expect, the affiliated nations will seek ardently for brave and honoured advocates of justice, equality and brotherhood without distinction of race, colour or religion. You must be there. Who, if not you?

War must be banished for ever from the earth and all possibility of its recurrence provided against so far as it can be provided against by human fore-sight. Would you he missing on that supreme occasion? No, a thousand times No. Pacifism, non-violence, ahimsa whenever and wherever these words are pronounced, the name of Gandhi will occur to the minds of people all over the earth. What should keep you from bearing irrefragable witness to the truth that you have ever cherished in your heart, the truth that must resound through the ages when your body has perished? After several humiliations due to association with earthly causes, the hour of exaltation approaches you.

I see you, Great Soul, in a vision of glory, go up the Mount of Expectancy of a weary, waiting world, raise high the right hand of blessing, and solemnly utter the word which is in all hearts and which comes full of hope and full of meaning from your inspired lips.

Come, then, bestir yourself. Not a day should be lost.

There is so much to do before civilised administration can be restored and competent authorities in the provinces and at the Centre can be formed with national aims and appropriate means for the choice of delegates through whom the soul of India can speak to the rest of the world. Don’t say you are not free. You can be free, if you but realise that you are waited for. Your last movement has not borne the fruit that you wished. Admit what everybody sees. No hesitation need be felt in recognising facts. You yield, no doubt. But you yield to Fate and not to man.

Stoop and conquer. Many a hero before you has done so and many a hero after you will do so. Let us consult the Ramayana, a book which we revere alike. It counsels against the single aim and the single strategy. A good general should vary them. These are the words of Hanuman, whose aid all Hindus invoke before beginning great enterprises:

“No single plan is adequate to achieve even a small aim. Only he can suceeed in his purpose who adopts different plans in different circumstances.”

Yours affectionately

V. S. SRINIVASAN

**************

Srinivasa Sastri’s referencing specifically the Ramayana in what might perhaps have been one of his very last few letters to Mahatma Gandhi now perfectly sets the stage for us to segue to examining the great love for Maharishi Valmiki’s “itihaasa” that he truly cherished; and also the great erudition in it that he went on to display through his “Lectures on the Ramayana” which, in later years in his life, made him famous.

(to be continued)

Sudarshan Madabushi