C. R. REDDY: A SHINING EXAMPLE
Dr.
PREMA NANDAKUMAR
“To
the question, what should the man of letters be in our time?, we should have to
find the answer in what we need him to do. He must do first what he has always
done: he must recreate for his age the image of man, and he must propagate
standards by which other men may test that image, and distinguish the false
from the true.”
–Allen Tate, The
Man of Letters in the Modern World.
By
this sterling rule, Cattamanchi Ramalinga Reddy looms before us unquestionably
as a man of letters who consciously sought to mould the “future Indian.” Dr.
Reddy’s was an amazing career of brilliant achievements and missed
opportunities. With intriguing question-marks at the most important
turning-points in his life, Reddy the Man is a fabulous subject for a
biographer, though no one has yet delved deep into his fascinating personal
past. He did make a mark in South Indian politics during his brief sojourn into
it. But obviously he was luckier in his exit than entry. He was not really cut
out for the rough-and-tumble of party politics. The man of letters, the
scholar, the sahridaya never is. As Allen Tate rightly says: “While the
politician, in his cynical innocence, uses society, the man of letters
disdainfully, or perhaps even absent-mindedly, withdraws from it.” At any rate,
that sums up what Dr. Reddy seems to have done. Though he did not turn away
from society, he did bid good-bye to politics, for he would not stoop to be a
votocrat and head-nodder. His was the “politics of ideas”, not the “politics of
opinion.” The politics of ideas takes us back to the Man of Letters, and Dr.
Reddy had drunk deep in the springs of Voltaire, Pascal, Rousseau and Diderot.
And so, though he withdrew from politics, he kept up a lively interest in the
future destiny of our nation.
Not
surprisingly then, Dr. Reddy’s vocation became education. As Professor and
Vice-Principal at Maharajah’s College,
As
educationist, again, Dr. Reddy was no jargoniser, nor a mechanical psittacist
of hand-me-down reforms. His wide reading, penetrating thought and deep
understanding analysed the problem on hand with a rare clarity of vision. The
result was always a successful transformation of an idea into reality. An order
for Harijan entry into schools here, a decision to start a Commerce department
there: success was automatic for the educationist always did his homework
carefully.
Dr.
Reddy’s actual achievements were the bone-structure of his educational vision
which was clothed in the healthy, glowing rhetoric of his verbal artistry. The
Man of Letters dominated everywhere and did his duty with deceptive case by
recreating the image of the modern Indian as a child of a glorious heritage,
awakened by the freedom-breeze of the times and poised to master the sciences
of the West while retaining his grip over the Spirit. To read Dr. Reddy is to
watch repeat-paintings of the scientific man as a spiritually advanced being.
Today we look back at these portraits not without a pang. These days the
“false” predominates the atmosphere in a great measure. Nevertheless, Dr. Reddy
helps us gaze at the “true” and work for its realisation.
Dr.
Reddy was heir to the twin traditions of the Occident and the Orient. Born in a
cultured family of scholars and poets, he was introduced to the Telugu versions
of the Mahabharata, the Ramayana and the Bhagavata at an
early age. While at school, he mastered the intricacies of Telugu grammar and
prosody. As a student of the
He
began his long innings as an educationist at
Of
course, as Dr Reddy himself said once, he never came “to preach, to exhort, or
talk atmospheric stuff.” But if the essence of a preacher is to put across a
moral or spiritual lesson, Dr Reddy’s message often did this with singular
success. To begin reading an essay or an address of Dr Reddy is meeting a Guru,
the hallmark of an ideal educationist. He could win audience interest with
ease, and keep the faith of the audience strung to the subject on hand. He was
incapable of destructive criticism. His positive approach to the problem on
hand was most welcome, and his gentle guidance gave an accession of
self-confidence to the young and the old alike.
Dr.
Reddy’s major pre-occupation was with the Indian youth. With the insight of a
mother tending her baby children, he realised their problems and gave them wholesome
advice whenever the occasion arose. Wealth, degrees, honours, scientific and
technological progress–all, all were welcome. But the youth should also look
beyond mere material advancement and seek the good of the soul within. Thus, in
his address to the
“It
is my sincere prayer that Europe may yet learn of the East the saving grace of
moderation, and the urgent need to limit and regulate worldly passions and
effect a proper balance and harmony between all the four Purusharthas, or
objectives of life, namely, wealth and its production by just means and its
proper distribution; love and social enjoyment; devotion to righteousness; and
from bondage to worldliness unsatisfactory when weighed in the eternal scales
of spiritual values.”
“The eternal scales of spiritual values” keeps the
balance throughout Dr. Reddy’s writings, giving his image of man the glow of sreyas.
Not caste, nor religion, but the spirit within that should be taken note
of, was his constant advice. In a remarkable address to the Osmania graduates,
he brought out the historical filiations between the Hindu and Muslim
communities, and described the Nizam’s Dominion as “the confluence or Holy
Sangam of Hindu-Muslim civilisation.” When history teaches us the possible
enrichments of religious and cultural togetherness, why should we go out of the
way and court disaster by emphasising upon the differences, which are again but
superficial things? Dr. Reddy must have been a sad man on our Independence Day
in 1947. His irrepressible jail de vivre deserted him at the very moment
when it should have exploded in rainbow colours. His “Independence Day Message”
reflects the sorrow and disquiet within even as he struggles to put on a brave
face.
“The
British are quitting. Integral
Dr.
Reddy was no hapless Cassandra, but even he could not contain himself and gave
stroke after stroke of “what could happen” in Independent India in the light of
the Partition Holocaust. The “three-pronged menace” of internal commotions,
mutual retaliations and para-national line-ups have today become facts of our
existence. We have just learned to live with them and stare at the horrifying
newspaper headlines with deadened sensibilities. The need of the hour was unity
then, as Dr. Reddy averred. It is so now. But we continue to shy away from the
issues confronting us by ceaseless platform speeches. As the neighbours quarrel
self-lost in the vasts of communalism and regionalism, the government merrily
runs its course of ineffective rule. Thirty years ago Dr. Reddy stated the
malaise and the remedy. The words are those of a man speeding towards his tryst
with the Maker.
“A
corrupt government corrupts society. A corrupt society can only give us corrupt
governments and each will intensify the rottenness of the other. The remedy for
this is not education in the sense of literacy...It is example that counts more
than idea. Knowledge may enable us to understand, but understanding is not
entirely sufficient for conduct. Something else is required–goodwill,
indomitable personal integrity. Ideas don’t breed character; it is character
that breeds character.”
That
was a great educationist speaking. Indeed, Dr. Reddy was never satisfied with
the word. He aspired to transform words into deeds and hence his anxious
building up of the
“I
write as a citizen of the Indian union. There is no other geography of which I
could be national. Nor do I want to be one.”
Among
Dr. Reddy’s abiding anxieties was the suicidal un-neighbourliness witnessed
among
“While
so many works from Sanskrit had been translated into Telugu. Aryan religious
classics as well as Kavyas and Natakas, there was no reason why nothing from
Tamil literature had been rendered into Telugu. Translations and
re-translations galore from Sanskrit! Look at the number of Telugu versions of
the Ramayana and the Sakuntalam. How many more to come! Why could
they not have attempted to capture in Telugu the glory of that superb
piece of art, Manimekhalai? Lack of taste? Or lack of contact?”
In
the handling of the English language, Dr. Reddy had few peers. There was
nothing sombre or stern about his convocation addresses while all that is inviting
and glorious may be found in his essays. As in the passage just quoted, he was
excited by pastures new, the hallmark of a true bridge-builder and sahridaya.
Echoes of great poets and thinkers from the Orient as well as the Occident
may be heard in his writings and not unoften an apt quotation bounces us with
its perfectly hit target.
Never
a friend of doom and gloom, Dr. Reddy could always disseminate cheer with
masterly ease. There was no lack of pepper and vinegar either, a reason perhaps
why he provides such palatable and often delectable reading.
“Joseph
Stalin seems to be a great believer in chopping off heads than in counting them
quietly.”
“We
swallow Mahatmic camels and strain at Nizamian gnats.”
“Because
it is too big an organisation, the Congress always finds it difficult to follow
a simple straight path.”
Dr.
Reddy’s epigrams have a delightful touch and a thought-provoking
depth of their own.
“Discipline
is power; power without reason may be effective, effective for confusion and
evil.”
“The
university is their alma mater the mother; the world is their
mother-in-law.”
“Life
is not idea. It is will and conduct, illumined by idea.”
Of
Course, the young men (of yesterday or today) have a right to be bitter about
such advice. What is the use of will-power, and unflinching adherence to
ideals? Such noble thoughts and noble action seldom wins the day, while
crookedness and short-cuts help the evil men to prosper. Will-power yoked to
inquity alone seems to succeed in this world! Dr. Reddy’s mastery of English
leads to the triumph of his advocatus diaboli as
well:
“The
producers and those who fertilise the soil with their blood
are hardly allowed to be present at the harvest. The parasites eat it up with
cunning glee.”
But
this should not tempt the youth to forsake idealism and adherence to duty. The
nation’s progress must be the goal, and the means should be incorruptible.
“Truth, sincerity of purpose and courageous devotion to principle and
enterprise are the only basis of enduring and widespread, large-scale success.”
Dr
Reddy’s many-faceted achievements were possible because he had dedicated his
early years to a seed-time of intensive study and character-building. And to
the end he retained the receptiveness and flexibility of youth with which he
had dazzled his
“What’s
alive has a spiritual glow–
the
flash is from soul to soul.
Beneath
the processes of mutation
reigns
the eternal Spirit.
On
the heights the godheads pour their sunrays,
and
Truth’s white radiance smiles.”
–K. R. SRINIVASA
IYENGAR