V. SIVARAMAKRISHNAN
“History”, wrote Iswara
Dutt, “will record that two men read dangerously at Bangalore (?) in earlier years.
One was Winston Churchill and the other is our own Chalapathi
Rau. He read everything he could lay his hands on – literature, history, politics
and what not.”
It is an odd juxtaposition, W. C. and M. C.,
but singularly appropriate. Both read widely and wrote copiously; both had a
thorough grasp of the historical forces that shaped human destiny; and both
were masters of English prose. Churchill was the subject of one of M. C.’s brilliant literary sketches and both revelled in the art of the profile.
The comparison need not be pressed; farther
as Churchill was also one of M. C’s. early antipathies.
M. C. admired Churchill as a man of letters and leader of a nation in distress
but fired his ten-pounders against the
arch-imperialist. For, M. C. was patriot first and everything
else next. “We may love English poetry, but we cannot but hate the bacilli
processes of British imperialism.”
M. C. prepared himself, even while he was a
student, to bear the “agony of
The relationship between Nehru and M. C. has
few parallels in history–between an editor and a Prime Minister. It started
formally and deepened into brotherly affection as the years went by. Nehru
respected M. C.’s editorial integrity; M. C. admired
Nehru’s humanism and vision. Yet, Rau remained a “sceptical
observer”, of the wielder of immense power. “I wanted nothing from him except to be left alone….Even when I
was sitting next to him, I could be as detached in time as if he was a
potential Caesar and I a potential Brutus.”
There were many influences on M. C.’s life. From Iswara Dutt, one would think, he caught the flair for
pen-portraiture. To Rama Rao, as he himself acknowledges, he owed his “love of
work, earnestness, freedom from cynicism and pride in the profession.” From Nehru, humanism, the essence of his personality. How he
learnt his first lesson in humanism from Nehru has been told by M. C. himself.
He had joined the National Herald in
1938 and was in charge of the Foreign News page during the war years until 1942
when the paper was forced to close down. Nehru took interest only in the edit
page and the foreign news page. Nehru happened to drop in at the Herald’s
office one day. “He asked me what was the news. ‘Oh, another
twenty British aircraft brought down over
Apart from men, books, on which M. C.
literally fed himself, shaped his thought and outlook. The list of books he
gives in his article “Books in my life” is a daunting one. Unfortunately, the
books he read were mostly in English, and one suspects that he had neither the
time nor the inclination to go to the classics either in his own mother-tongue
or in Sanskrit. This lead to his taking a certain oblique view of Indian
culture, identifying it with externals like casteism,
untouchability, dowry, ceremonial piety, greed and so
on. He was frankly an agnostic and, as he did in a review of a book on Lord Venkateswara, he looked for “What God can do for man.” It
was only late in life that he realised that he had
made a mistake in ridiculing the Ramayana like Aubrey Menen–” it seems vain to deny the blood,
whatever, the intellect’s liking for subtleties.”
M. C. found much to find fault with in Hindu
society. He wanted a “regenerative protestantism.” He
was himself something of a protestant and knocked the “no-changers” with the
lance of his biting wit and sarcasm. He lashed at conservatives and effete
traditions, customs and beliefs with tomahawk fury.
M. C. wrote in a hard, granite-like style,
without a touch of poetry–the effervescence of his younger days when there was a
“tumbling of similes and metaphors” and
the “deep rhythm roll of thought broke into words of embroidered foam” had
cooled long ago. “I have not found books in running brooks,” he said. But this did not prevent him from
appreciating the poetry of Sarojini Naidu or Nehru’s sense of rhythm. Writing about Nehru’s autobiography,
M. C. says: “There are passages which are moving for their pathos, for their
undertones, for the stillness and sadness and for their simple but rich prose
rhythms and this has made the book dear to those who love to have their history
served with a personal touch. But it is not poetry, major or minor; it is the
stuff of which poetry and life are made that make it both a fairy-tale
narration and miniature self-portraits.” M. C.’s
models were Swift and Shaw.
M. C. emerged as a biographer late in life.
It is a moot point whether M. C., as a biographer, fulfilled the promise of his
youth as a painter of miniature portraits in words. It would appear that his
long years of toil in daily journalism proved to be both an advantage and a
handicap. In his biography of Nehru, the narrative is overburdened with factual
information; there is no discernible style. To give an example:
“The months were passing with undertones of
passion and excitement. Jawaharlal had his moments of relaxation and serenity
and he was sometimes in a reminiscent mood. He watered a plant which he had
planted at the
To the if’s
of history one may add: “If M. C. had not become a journalist...” If M. C. had
not lost himself in the “drudgery” of daily journalism, he would have made a
mark as a historian. And history in M. C.’s hands
would have become, with Clio brooding over him, a literary repast as it
happened with W. C. Then, what exactly did