Rajaji Read online

  Her plaited tresses were tied at the end with a thin strip torn off a plantain tree. Her blouses sleeved to the wrist, she wore nine-yard silk saris, often in a mixture of red and yellow.

  Saturday was almsgiving day. Manga stored cereals for the purpose in tin vessels near the front door: rice for the Brahmins, and harder grain, ragi or kambu, for the others. And she enjoyed feeding her husband’s friends, at home and on journeys. ‘Mrs C.R. prepared and sent a basketful of sweets which all of us ate with relish,’ Venkatasubba Iyer wrote in his diary in June 1910.

  Narasimhan, the youngest of their sons, would recall another scene: ‘A tiny pebble was found in the rice. Father sent for the cook and in complete silence presented the pebble to him. That was his reprimand.’

  In 1911, when he was thirty-two, C.R. was elected to the Salem Municipal Council. A year earlier he had joined in the founding of the Salem Lodge of Freemasons where Indians fraternized with whites and members assisted the needy. ‘I would like to send you to England,’ C.R. said to Krishnaswami, when his oldest boy was ten. According to Krishna Iyer, C.R. was the first person to buy a car in Salem when in 1912 he acquired a French-built light-grey Darracq. Learning to drive it himself, C.R. also hired a Muslim chauffeur called Ghouse.

  Though Manga had been reared in strict orthodoxy — for her parents any food not cooked by themselves was taboo — she accepted her husband’s reformist ways, and was innovative herself. If C.R. was ill, she would not only send offerings to a Vaishnava temple but also give money to a sweeper for a Mariamman shrine and to Ghouse for a mosque.

  On special days she drew brightly-coloured kolams on the floor. For Navaratri, C.R. would set up rows of dolls in the early hours for Papa to see on waking; she was seven in 1913. Her sister Lakshmi arrived in 1912.

  The mother now of three sons and two girls, Manga was in poor health. So was C.R., troubled by asthma; even in his early thirties he was spoken of as an old man. The periods when husband and wife were both well were rare. C.R. would teach the children during such spells, Manga joining as a pupil. When she came as a young bride, she could only read Telugu. Her husband taught her to read and write Tamil. ‘Father asked us to write “Avvaiyar” in Tamil,’ Namagiri would remember. ‘Mother was the first to spell it correctly, and was delighted.’

  She was not, however, always the meek wife. Krishnaswami has recalled: ‘Father had returned late, as he at times did, from a marathon talking session with friends. Mother refused to let him in and shouted, “Go and sleep at Krishnan’s (Krishna Iyer’s) place.” ’

  His home, friends and the courtroom did not wholly absorb C.R.’s soul. His emotions were also intertwined — involuntarily, he could not help it — with India’s political condition. Pride and honour said that India had to be freed. But could it be? C.R. would recall before fellow-prisoners in 1930 that in his mid- twenties, when Japan was succeeding against Russia, he had day- dreamt about armed revolution but realized that it was ‘a hopeless task to overtake’ the Raj ‘in the art of armed warfare.’

  The cult of the bomb, practised in 1908-9, also held no promise. He could see that ‘even if 20 or 30 [British] people were killed there were more people to take their places, firm, determined and perhaps worse people.’14 As far as political change in India was concerned, C.R. was in despair.

  Something, however, was animating South Africa. From 1906 onwards, newspapers had published items about a Gujarati barrister called M.K. Gandhi, who was battling there for the rights of Indians.

  An Indian, deported from South Africa, called Asari had visited Salem in 1907, stayed awhile in C.R.’s home, and said, ‘Gandhi is small in size but his heart is bigger than the Shevaroys you see from Salem.’15 Then C.R. picked up, by chance, from the desk of a friend, Henry Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience. It seemed to supply the theory for what Gandhi was practising.

  Soon another book made an impact, Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj or ‘Indian Home Rule,’ sent by a friend C.R. had met in Kurnool in 1910, in which Gandhi, calling himself ‘Editor,’ debated violence and nonviolence with a militant who was termed ‘Reader.’ Perusing it ‘with very great avidity,’ C.R. was struck by Gandhi’s refusal to ‘recognize the English as superior.’ Writing the book’s first Indian review, C.R. said, ‘Naturally, “Editor” is the better debater.’

  The suggestion was that the case for violence had not been argued well enough. Not yet ‘quite convinced that the use of violence was wrong,’ C.R. thought that Gandhi might be induced to lead the revolutionaries.16

  Gandhi’s doings in South Africa may have had a part in a walkout that C.R. led when he found separate enclosures for whites and Indians at a sports meet in Salem convened by the British Superintendent of Police. C.R.’s mood during this period is conveyed by a conversation later recounted by him to Rama Rao. On a train journey, an Englishman sharing a first-class compartment with C.R. said, ‘It is a very hot afternoon.’

  ‘Not hot enough,’ C.R. replied. ‘Not hot enough? What do you mean?’ ‘Not hot enough,’ said C.R., smiling, ‘to keep you gentlemen out of India.’17

  However, the Raj’s confidence was dramatized by the Imperial Darbar held in Delhi in December 1911, with George V on the throne, and by the calm response a year later to the hurling of a bomb at Lord Hardinge, the new Viceroy, while he led a procession on elephant-back along Delhi’s Chandni Chowk.

  Soon C.R. learnt that ‘there was no hope of catching [Gandhi] into the movement of violence.’ Gandhi’s account of three prison terms served by him in South Africa, published in Calcutta’s Modern Review, left no room for doubt. Then a missionary in Salem lent him a book on Gandhi by Joseph Doke, a Presbyterian minister in South Africa; it conveyed the same conclusion.

  When in September 1913 C.R. heard that Gandhi’s wife and young sons had been arrested for peacefully opposing a racial tax, he felt he had to do something. He reprinted Mr Gandhi’s Jail Experiences with his own money and his own labour, treadling a press himself. C.R.’s introduction revealed the impact on him:

  Shall we sit happy in our homes, or shall we give only our tears? It is not given to all to exhibit the strength of M.K. Gandhi. He must be ranked with the avatars . . . Let us give up perhaps a few luxuries and support them . . .

  Collecting Rs 1500, C.R. sent the money via Gopal Krishna Gokhale in Poona, who was in touch with Gandhi.

  Rama Rao has left an account of a visit C.R. paid him in 1911:

  Then a sub-divisional officer in Shimoga district, I was camping in a village called Rajagonda Halli, miles off the main road, looking for refuge from a recent tragedy. I had run away from friends, whose expressions of consolation can often merely be a reminder of sorrow.

  ‘One day, while I was finishing the morning’s work, I saw someone approach my tent. Imagine my surprise and joy when I saw it was C.R.! He was covered with dust and sweat and looked dead tired, but his face was lit with that usual smile . . . He had pedalled his way there, doing forty miles in all that day. For four days he moved with me as I did the rounds of different villages . . .

  I had flown into a rage at one village, finding that my tent had not been set up. C.R. delivered a lecture to me: ‘The peasants pitching your tent and helping you in other ways are working out of custom and convention, not for wages.’18

  At the Salem courthouse, where in the hot months a servant raised a breeze by pulling a punkah, C.R.’s lot was to defend persons accused of murder, dacoity, forgery, or the like. Though, when he saw his father in action in the courtroom, the twelve- year-old Krishnaswami ‘did not think much of a job where you were on your feet all the time,’ C.R. was showing remarkable results. ‘He won,’ according to a lawyer who, for some years was a contemporary, ‘practically all his cases,’19 and a crack did the rounds that offences in Salem were growing because criminals had faith in C.R.’s skill.

  His voice mellow, his thoughts clear, his questions brief, precise in argument, deliberate in delivery and forceful in advocacy, the turbaned, black-coated C.R. b
rought life to a courtroom the moment he rose to speak. No transcripts of proceedings in Salem courts when C.R. practised are available, yet a picture of his style emerges from the impressions of lawyers who watched him perform.

  His cross-examination was sober rather than intimidating, but it was deadly. He would ask only a few questions, some appearing innocent or pointless. Yet ‘the picture presented with the answers would normally demolish the case of the prosecution.’20 Thus he obtained an admission from a forest officer, who had charged C.R.’s client with trespass, that ‘he was at home making himself merry in the company of his wife and children at the very hour when he was ostensibly . . . rounding up the culprit cutting wood in the forest range.’21 The method was equally effective in more important cases.

  Proud of a favourite son, Salem circles before long claimed that ‘even Nugent Grant could not come near C.R. in cross- examination.’22 Grant was the (British) Lord of the Madras Bar. In outclassing competitors, C.R. was helped by his skill with the English language. Other qualities observed in him included ‘a unique courtroom behaviour,’ ‘an intuitive power to attack the weakest points in his opponent’s case,’ and a strong memory.23

  A judge before whom he appeared in Coimbatore later related how, at the outset, C.R. filed scores of documents ‘giving their dates and details and explaining their relevancy.’ On the judge asking how C.R. could narrate all the data without ‘even a scrap of paper’ in his hands, C.R. ‘tapped his forehead with his forefinger and said, “My notes are here.” ’24

  A principle that C.R. advocated and evidently practised was that a lawyer ‘should not put the case at once to the judge but lead the judge little by little and let him feel that he has himself discovered the truth.’25 The magistrates, on occasion ‘sleepy’ and ‘irate,’ as C.R. would recall, clearly respected him, and a Salem lawyer thought that ‘the European judges liked [C.R.’s] short cross-examinations and to-the-point approach.’26

  Clients ‘generally felt that if C.R. handled a case it would surely end in success.’ ‘There was no sessions case or criminal appeal of any importance which was not handled by him,’ and vakils who lost in lower courts assumed that ‘once C.R. had taken on an appeal nothing more was needed.’27

  Joining C.R. as his junior, K. Narasimha Iyengar, later a leader himself of the Salem Bar, received the following advice from C.R.: ‘Fix your fee for a case in advance. Otherwise, even when the case is won, the client will think less about his success and more about the sum that he must pay.’28

  If his own fees, levied, as was his custom, for a case as a whole rather than for a day of hearing, were large, the number of cases C.R. accepted was small. Still, many guilty men were saved by C.R.’s skill. Such men were not always penitent. A client rescued from the gallows approached him one day and said, ‘Sir, I would like to have my knife back. It is an heirloom in my family.’ C.R. drove him away. He was angry at the man, and at himself and his profession.

  ‘I can understand,’ he is reported to have said at the time, ‘and even forgive, a harlot who sells her body for a price, but not a lawyer who prostitutes his intellect. I am looking forward to the day when I shall quit the profession.’29

  The sweeping attack on his vocation could not have been his considered opinion, but his conscience was raising questions. The time would come when, in a different context, he would quit law.

  The outbreak of the First World War saw the Moderate Congress cooperating with the Raj. They ‘expressed its profound devotion to the throne . . . and its resolve to stand by the Empire at all hazards and costs.’ The Congress had met in Madras. Extremists such as C.R. were still kept out. When Lord Pentland, the Governor, paid a visit, the deferential delegates cheered.

  Early in 1915, C.R. fell seriously ill. A chill had turned into severe asthma and pneumonia. On 14 February his condition was judged critical. Calling on C.R., Venkatasubba Iyer found his ‘friend explaining to his father how his assets should be distributed after his exit’ and ‘taking leave of his wife and children.’ As he wrote in his diary, Iyer felt that the doctor’s prognosis was ‘probably right.’30

  Dr Mathias, the district medical officer who had been a doctor and a friend to C.R. and his family, lost his self-control and began to weep. Namagiri would later recall that C.R. said, ‘Dr Mathias has lost his head. Send for Dr Narayana Iyer.’

  Manga herself had an alarming fever that night. However, resolved to pray suitably for her husband’s life, she tidied up her room, unlocked the box containing her valuables, took out her best jewels, and gave herself the thorough ‘head bath’ that was decreed by custom. Then she wore the ornaments and one of her finest saris, and supplicated Lord Venkateswara.

  If her husband recovered, she promised, she would offer the jewels to the Tirupati temple. That night C.R. slept well. The morning found him better. Manga’s petition seemed granted and recovery came before long.

  However, she was weakening herself and needed more air and space than the yellow house offered. Selling it for Rs 4,000, C.R. rented the ground floor of the Masonic Lodge at Sooramangalam, outside Salem town. The two-storey lodge stood on a slope in about an acre of arid ground, a lone tamarind tree emphasizing its barrenness.

  One of its two large rooms became Manga’s sick-room, the other C.R.’s study, where his desk, surrounded by law books, was lit at night by a kerosene lantern. Both rooms had punkahs. Chakravarti Iyengar, the children, Manga’s mother, helping to nurse her daughter, and visiting relatives occupied three other rooms as well as the passage that ran along the middle of the house. A kitchen (where firewood was the fuel) and a room for dining, where the family sat on the floor to eat and where at night the two cooks slept, completed the residence.

  Apart from the cooks and Ghouse the chauffeur, the staff at the Sooramangalam residence consisted of two men who drove a bullock-cart, looked after the bullock and three or four cows and washed the men’s clothes, a woman who cleaned and swept, and a scavenger.

  Daily, the bullock-cart was used to bring water from a well three houses away. If water was needed for the kitchen, only one of the Brahmin cooks could draw it, not a cartman. Employing a watchdog, C.R. also took in a pair of pups; a duty of the cartmen was to find meat for the dogs.

  There were wooden beds for Manga and Chakravarti Iyengar, the rest, including C.R., sleeping on mattresses on the floor. After dark, kerosene lamps, cleaned daily by a servant, spread the light they could in the different rooms.

  Loved as well as envied among the women in her circle, the twenty-six-year-old Manga, we can assume, fondly shared C.R.’s hopes. We can picture him showing to Manga, and translating for her, the Gandhi booklet that he had printed, and perhaps describing Kasturba’s prison-going. Did Manga know that destiny was pulling C.R.?

  She was declining. There were occasions when, unable to walk to the kitchen or the dining-room, she had to be carried in a wooden chair. Resigned to their mother’s long spells inside her room, the children would be delighted when she sat on the veranda, or talked to them. It was an event when she went with the others in the Darracq, Ghouse at the wheel, for little Lakshmi’s ear-pricking at a Rama temple.

  Virtually laying aside his practice, C.R. nursed her day and night. The Salem doctors having done all they could, he sent for a Bangalore physician, Dr Nanjappa, who advised placing steamed shawls on Manga’s stomach. Someone else recommended goat’s milk; a goat was brought to the house.

  Sleepless nights were now frequent for C.R. After one such night, he was driven by a client on a motor-cycle for a case in Namakkal. C.R. returned home exhausted but with a money- filled briefcase. He opened it before Manga, hoping that the contents would cheer her. She looked at the cash and gave a sad smile.

  On the afternoon of 22 August 1915, Manga asked Krishnaswami if he had eaten dal; it was what he liked. He said that he had, and Manga was happy. At six in the evening she asked Samachar to offer prayers at a temple in the town. By the time he returned she was very weak. ‘Look,’ sa
id C.R., ‘Chama has returned with prasadam.’ She opened her eyes, nodded, and closed them again.

  To comfort Manga, now in great pain, C.R. had taken her in his lap. After some time, his legs benumbed, he gently put her back on the bed. She said: ‘I am such a burden. How long can you bear me in your lap? There must be a limit.’ Ten minutes later, shortly after nine at night, she became still. ‘Manga!’ C.R. cried. ‘Manga!’ There was no response. She was dead.31

  2

  Hope

  1915-19

  C.R. was thirty-seven and could conceal his feelings. To thirteen-year-old Krishnaswami, the oldest of his children, he said, ‘I’ll have time for practice now.’ But he was not calm inside. Before Manga’s death, seeing her anguish and finding himself, as he said later, ‘unable to relieve or share it,’ he had ‘rebelled against God’s will.’1

  Before long he came to terms with it; but self-reproach at what he called his ‘breakdown ten minutes too early’2 lingered. However, one of C.R.’s friends, T. Vijiaraghavachariar, wrote to Krishna Iyer: ‘I have not come across in my life any man who nursed his wife with such care and loving attention and who tried to be such a source of courage and hope as C.R. during the last months of his wife’s illness.’3

  Now he had to be both father and mother to his offspring. It was a blessing that Manga’s mother could stay on at Sooramangalam — Narasimhan was only six and Lakshmi three. Also needing care was C.R.’s father.

  The Principal of the girls’ section of the Salem Municipal School, an Englishwoman, was engaged to give painting lessons at Sooramangalam to Papa. The girl, dressed for school in an ankle-length skirt, shirt and short coat, also received tuition in English in the home of the British Superintendent of Prisons, from his daughter.