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MADRAS MISCELLANY

Rajaji and Munro

the admirer and the admired Rajaji and Sir Thomas Munro

Among the historical treasures I received during these past few weeks, one of the later arrivals was Satyam Eva Jayate, a four-volume, 2000-page collection of Rajaji’s writings between 1956 and 1966.

The first edition of this work was published in two volumes (1956-61 and 1962-66) by Bharathan Publications. This collection of wisdom and rare foresight has been out of print for nearly 40 years and has now been reprinted by The Catalyst Trust, Thiruvanmiyur. The collection, a ‘must read’ for all students of modern Indian history and politics, is priced at just Rs. 500 for the set. For more details, e-mail catalyst-trust@eth.net

And, when you get your copies marvel at the analyses that Rajaji made in predicting the fall of Communism, the necessity for liberalisation of the Indian economy and the strong opposition that the Congress would have to face.

Every one of the 800 and more articles from a host of publications Rajaji had written for during those years — but mainly from his Swarajya that was the voice of the Swatantra Party he formed to oppose the Congress — contains at least one or two paragraphs of noteworthy quotes or anecdotal material that would enrich this column.

But, for today, I’m just drawing from a tribute he paid to a 19th Century Scot who, according to a recent edition of the Sunday Magazine of The Hindu is still revered in parts of Andhra Pradesh, and his picture worshipped alongside those of Hanuman and Rama and Sita near Cuddapah. The picture is a portrait of Sir Thomas Munro — yes, the Governor remembered in the statue in the middle of Madras’s Island. There was a time in what were called the Ceded Districts when Munrolappa was not an uncommon local name. I don’t know whether in more recent times it is still a name given to children in these districts, but the worship in a temple only confirms that he is not forgotten.

Rajaji too remembered him all his life. As may be seen in the article included in this collection, a tribute he wrote in 1961 for the Clan Munro Magazine at the request of the father of a young Munro who had served as an Under Secretary when he was Prime Minister of Madras from 1937. In it he said, “I am in love with Sir Thomas Munro who lived and died two centuries ago…Whenever any young Civil Servant came to me for blessings or when I spoke to them in their training school, I advised them to read about Sir Thomas Munro who was the ideal administrator.”

Of Munro who spent 47 of his 65 years in the Madras Presidency, Rajaji went on to say, “{He}was one of those exceptionally good and great men who came from Britain to India…and left a record of service of which anyone may be proud…[He] was unpopular with his fellow officials and other British residents because of his sympathy with the people of the land and his admiration of some of their qualities…He was the great initiator of the peasant-wise settlement of land in India…It was his work in this direction…and his just and wise administration that have made his name a legend in South India.”

I too have long been an admirer of Munro, for what he did for land settlement in the South, for education, and for the development of Madras. But more than anything else, for the minutes he wrote that saw a future for India different to what the waning Company envisaged.

Rajaji quotes one of these minutes in his article. My favourite is another, but similar one. Addressed to the Company’s Court of Directors, it read:

“Your rule is alien, and it can never be popular. You have much to bring to your subjects, but you cannot turn India into England or Scotland. Work through, not in spite of, native systems and native ways, with a prejudice in their favour rather than against them; and when in the fullness of time your subjects can frame and maintain a worthy Government for themselves, get out and take the glory of the achievement and the sense of having done your duty as the chief reward for your exertions.”

This was long before 1857.

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