The Dawn of Political Independence
THE DAWN OF POLITICAL INDEPENDENCE
5. of whom delved deep into Hindu philosophy, is still cherished in the city.
It is a pity there are no scholars of this type now in Benares who could command the confidence of Hindus and Christians alike.
THE DAWN OF POLITICAL INDEPENDENCE
In June 1946 Bishop G. T. Selwyn of Tirunelveli Diocese appointed me Archdeacon of Palayamkottai.
One of my responsibilities was to be the correspondent in charge of five Diocesan
High Schools.
As a senior presbyter in the Diocese I was asked to guide the headmasters in such matters as the appointment of new teachers and the best use of school funds.
Our people in the Diocese were eager to start new high schools and even in villages where the resources were limited they were clamouring for them.
They were opened where the resources. were available and careful use was made of the slender funds.
A good deal of my time was spent for the spiritual education of the two thousand teachers in the six hundred elementary schools of the Diocese.
Missionaries in the past felt that in every possible village there ought to be a church and a school—a church to worship God in and a school to give the people an education.
The two ought to go hand-in-hand.
An illiterate Christian population would be unfortunate.
So would be a secular Christian community.
Many of these two thousand Christian teachers were taking services for village churches as part of their work.
Some of them were doing it well, and the others were careless and indifferent.
It was necessary to urge them to do some serious study so that their work in the church may be well grounded.
Each year four Tamil books were published, one on a book of the Old Testament, another on a book of the New Testament, another on Christian Doctrine and yet another on Church History,
All these books were written specially for them with their rural background and elementary knowledge in view and they were asked to take examinations in them.
It was one of the duties of the Archdeacon to organise this work.
I spent a good deal of time getting these books written and published.
A. J. APPASAMY
As Archdeacon of Palayamkottai I was given a stall in the Cathedral in which I had been worshipping from my childhood.
It was good to have this seat in a church which had become precious to me through years of worship.
The festival serxices such as those on Christmas Day, New Year's Day, Easter Day and so forth were attended by crowded congregations.
On Christmas morning a service was held at 4.30 a.m. but people would arrive in Church even from midnight.
The Bishop or the Archdeacon was expected to preach on these important occasions.
In my sermons I urged that these festivals might be real steps to spiritual growth rather than opportunities for merry-making.
In 1948 there was a chance for me to travel for three months in North India.
I spent most of that time in New Delhi but visited also Ludhiana, Lucknow and Calcutta.
The Congress Party had come to power in 1947.
I met many interesting people who were shaping the life of the country and laying down the policy of the new Government.
I was told that even the highest officials in New Delhi were more accessible than in the British days, and I wrote to the Governor-General Sri C. Rajagopalachari asking for an interview.
When I went to the Government House, I was led through numerous corridors and halls to the large and beautifully furnished room in which the Governor-General was seated at an office table.
The establishment attached to the Government House was immense.
Five thousand people were looking after the Governor-General and his staff.
The Government House was a huge mansion built lavishly to add to the prestige of the British Empire.
The Governor-General himself, clad in a simple white cloth and shirt of khaddar (home-spun-yarn), stood up courteously to receive me and after we sat down began talking about the future of Christians in India. He said he was only thinking aloud and frankly expressed
© his views.
'I realize that the future may be quite difficult for Christians.
My own idea is that you should continue to run your Ashrams and orphanages and your schools and colleges, and thus serve the nation.'
I suggested that we should throw in our lot in the political life of the country; otherwise our influence in India would not be much.
'The influence of Jesus has been profound in the world,' he said.
"He did not take any part in the politics of His day. When He was asked about this matter He said, "Render unto Caesar
THE DAWN OF POLITICAL INDEPENDENCE
the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the thing that are God's."* His tremendous influence in the world is due to His selfless service and suffering love.
In India there was a great difference between Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Swami Vivekananda.
Ramakrishna Paramahamsa was a saint, pure and simple; he was devoted to God and his whole life was poured out in service.
Swami Vivekananda was a great organizer. It is generally acknowledged that Ramakrishna was the greater of the two.'
It was Rajaji's rooted idea that those who desired to be truly religious should not be involved in the world.
This, of course, is one of the central convictions of Hinduism.
Rajaji is a man of great political sagacity.
As Governor-General he had no authority to decide on matters, but owing to the weight of his personality the Prime Minister and others in authority often took his advice.
Some years ago he broke away from the Congress.
He was convinced it was going along wrong lines.
He founded a new party of his own (Swatantra).
Today in his goth year he is the most powerful and relentless critic of the Congress Government in India.
Rajaji has strong religious convictions. 'The commentaries and books he has written on the Upanishads during the years when he was not holding office show clearly where his real interests lie.
He expresses in many of his speeches a profound faith in God.
I reflected a good deal on the advice of the Governor-General.
I also talked with several of our Christian leaders on this subject.
Their almost universal conviction, however, was that in Independent India we should identify ourselves completely with our nation, not merely in the sphere of humanitarian activities but also in the political field.
The conditions in our Lord's time were quite different.
He was living as a citizen in the Roman Empire, where his only duty was to pay his taxes and to obey the Government.
He was not expected to take any share, large or small, in running his country.
Today a democracy is being established in India.
Every citizen is expected to have his say as to who should become legislators and how they should run the Government.
If our influence in the country is to be real, we cannot stand aloof, devoting our attention only to humanitarian work, however necessary it may be.
Dr John Matthai, the Finance Minister of the Indian Govern1 St Matthew 22:21.
A. J. APPASAMY
ment, belonged to the Syrian Church in Travancore, which has produced many remarkable men and women.
After several years of service as Professor of Economics at the Presidency College,
Madras, Dr John Matthai was for long a member, and later the Chairman, of the Tariff Board for the whole of India. "In later years he was connected with the Tata Company in Bombay. Thus he had numerous opportunities for gaining a wide and intimate knowledge of financial problems, both on the theoretical and the practical side, in all parts of India.
He had the great reputation of being a man of sound and well-balanced views.
When I met him in New Delhi he stressed the need for political education among our people, and said that citizen groups in connection with different parishes would be quite helpful.
'It is necessary,' he said, 'that Christian people should know something of the programme of the Congress, the Socialist Party, and the Communist
Party.
They could align themselves with one or another party according to their best judgement.
I-know.some good Christians who are members of the Communist Party. But there is one thing which Christians should not do, and that is, they should not form a Christian party, working along communal lines.'
In New Delhi I met Dr H. C. Mukerjea quite often.
In later years he became the Governor of West Bengal.
In 1947 Dr Mukerjea was asked whether he would serve as Vice-President of the Constituent Assembly and he gladly agreed.
On account of the frail health of the President, Dr Rajendra Prasad, Dr Mukerjea actually presided over the Constituent Assembly for several weeks.
When we talked about his age, Dr Mukerjea said to me, 'I am seventy-two years old.
You can see that I am quite strong and healthy.'
Presiding over the meetings of the Assembly which was drawing up the Constitution of India was quite an arduous business.
The members of the Central Cabinet were generally there.
Over three hundred members, including some of the ablest men in India, dealt with matters of great importance.
That Dr Mukerjea was able at this advanced age of his life to guide the proceedings of the Constituent Assembly was a testimony both to his vigour of intellect and vitality of body,
He was a short, lean man, wearing black shell-rimmed spectacles.
Seated informally among his friends he puffed at his hookah and talked frankly and intimately about his long and varied experience of men and affairs.
His wit was sometimes devastating. '
THE DAWN OF POLITICAL INDEPENDENCE
From 1937 to 1944 he visited many large Christian centres all over India on behalf of the All-India Council of Indian Christians.
In the numerous places which he visited he came into contact with other Christians, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Parsis.
He stayed with all sorts and conditions of men, rich and poor, and saw for himself many of the problems which were agitating their minds.
Always a nationalist, he actually joined the Congress only the day after Gandhiji's death.
He confessed that when his only son was alive, he had no desire to give liberally.
But the death of his son made a profound change in his outlook and he decided to endow large sums of money for education, keeping for his own use only what was absolutely necessary for the elementary needs of life.
I was greatly impressed by the keenness of the Congress leaders to be on friendly terms with Christians when I called on Mrs Sarojini Naidu, the Governor of the United Provinces, a few
'months before her death.
I was in Lucknow on 15th August, 1948, when the first anniversary of Independence was celebrated.
The Evening Service in Christ Church was conducted as a thanksgiving service for Independence, and I was asked to preach the sermon.
Mrs Sarojini Naidu had been invited to attend the service.
There was a crowded congregation and many nonChristians who would not normally have attended a Christian service were present in the church, In the course of the sermon I pointed out that it was a matter of great rejoicing for Christians that Independence had come to our motherland. Many Christians were lukewarm or indifferent, and some were actually afraid of the future, because we were a minority community in the midst of a large Hindu population.
Our position in new India would depend upon the zeal and integrity with which we served her.
We had done excellent pioneering work in former years in such fields as education.
There were a great many more things for us to do now.
'The masses had to be educated.
Goodwill and harmony between the different communities had to be established.
These tremendous tasks of vast complexity were ahead of the nation.
As followers of Jesus Christ we must seek to spread light and love and peace.
If we really help in such nation-building activities there would be a genuine place of great value for us in the country.
A. J. APPASAMY
On the following day I called on Mrs Naidu.
Her name had been familiar to me for years, but I was a perfect stranger to her.
She was sitting on a sofa in one of the many beautifully furnished parlours in the Government House in Lucknow.
She must have been well over seventy, and her health had long been frail> but her. vigour of intellect seemed unimpaired.
To make conversation she asked me what true greatness was.
She said that the true greatness of a man did not consist in the multitudes of people whom he swayed by the magnetic power of his personality.
If it had been so, Hitler would have been a truly great man, for there were millions of people who were ready to do his bidding.
But true greatness consisted in absolute selflessness.
Among the people she knew there were only two whom she would be inclined to call truly great—Mahatma Gandhi and her own father.
She had known Mahatma Gandhi intimately for a great number of years and had been associated closely with him.
During the last few months of his life when, refusing all office in Independent India, Gandhiji worked in Bengal and Delhi where communal bitterness was at its worst, and at the constant risk of his life sought to bring about love and peace between Hindu and Muslim, he really grew in spiritual stature.
I asked her whether Rabindranath Tagore could be considered to have possessed true greatness and she quickly replied: 'A great poet, yes; but not a great man.'
I asked her whether she knew of Albert Schweitzer, who, when he was achieving a great reputation as a theologian and musician in Europe, gave it all up and buried himself on the edge of a primeval forest in Africa serving the poor as a doctor.
She had not heard the name, but agreed that there were no doubt truly great people like him in the world, now as at all times.
Her own special mission in life, she seemed to suggest, was to help in establishing communal unity.
Mahatma Gandhi had urged her to accept her appointment as Governor of Uttar Pradesh, as he was sure she would be able to help in bringing about communal peace and love.
As a result of the partition of India streams of refugees from the Punjab had poured into the neighbouring
Uttar Pradesh, and her hands had been quite full trying to serve them and help them to settle down to a useful way of life.
This interview convinced me that some of the top leaders in the Congress were genuinely anxious to establish harmonious