_______________________________________________________________________________________
Address
delivered on the 101st Birthday Celebration
held on the 18th January 1943
in
First Published: 1943 Reprinted from the first
edition of 1943
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Contents
The Deccan Sabha
of Poona
invited me to deliver an
address on the 101st birthday of the late
Justice Mahadev
Govind
Ranade
which it proposed to
celebrate and which
fell on the
18th January
1940. I was not very willing to accept
the invitation. For I knew
that
my views
on social and political problems,
a discussion of vvhich
could
not be avoided
in a discourse on Ranade,
would not very pleasing
to the audience
and even perhaps to
the members of
the Deccan Sabha.
in the end
I accepted their invitation. At the
time when I delivered the address I had no
intention of publishing
it. Addresses delivered on anniversaries of
great men are generally
occasional pieces.
They do not
have
much permanent
value.
I did not think that my address was an exception to this.
But I have
some troublesome friends who have been keen on seeing the whole of it in
print and have been
insisting upon it. I am indifferent to the idea. I am quite
content with the publicity it has receiver
and I have no desire to seek
more.
At the same time if there are people who think that it is
worthy of being rescued from falling into
oblivion. I do not see any reason for disappointing them.
The address
as printed differs from
the address
as delivered
in two respects. Section
X of the address was omitted from the
address as delivered to prevent the performance going beyond reasonable time.
Even without it, it took
one hour and a half so
deliver the address. This is
one difference.
The other difference lies
in the
omission of a large portion of Section VIII which was devoted
to a comparison
of Ranade
with Phule.
For the omission,
there are two reasons. In the first
place, the comparison was not sufficiently full and detailed to do justice to
the two men; in the second place, when the difficulties of finding enough paper
compelled me to sacrifice some portion of the address this appeared to be best
offering.
The publication of the address is taking place under peculiar
circumstances. Ordinarily reviews follow publication. In this case the
situation is reversed. What is worse is that the reviews have condemned the
address in scathing terms. This is a matter primarily for the publishers to
worry about. I am happy that the publisher knows the risk and he takes it.
Nothing more need be said about it except that it supports the view taken by my
friends that the address contains matter which is of more than ephemeral value.
As for myself I am not in the least perturbed by the condemnation of this
address by the Press. What is the ground for its condemnation ? And who has come forward to condemn
it ?
I am condemned
because I criticized Mr. Gandhi
and Mr. Jinnah for
the mess they have made of Indian politics, and that in doing so I am alleged
to have shown towards them hatred and
disrespect. In reply to this charge what I have to say is that I have been a
critic and I must continue to be such. It may be I am making mistakes but I
have always felt that it is better to make mistakes than to accept guidance and
direction from others or to sit silent and allow things to deteriorate. Those
who have accused me of having been actuated by feelings of hatred forget two
things. In the first place this alleged hatred is not born of anything that can
be called personal. If I am against them
it is because I want a settlement. I want a settlement of some sort and I am
not prepared to wait for an ideal settlement. Nor can I tolerate anyone on
whose will and consent settlement depends
to stand on dignity and play the Grand Moghul.
In the second place, no one can hope to make any effective mark upon his time
and bring the aid that is worth bringing to great principles and struggling
causes if he is not strong in his love and his hatred. I hate injustice,
tyranny, pompousness and humbug, and my hatred embraces all those who are guilty of them. I
want to tell my critics that I regard my feelings of hatred as a real force.
They are only the reflex
of the love I bear for the causes I believe in and I am in no wise ashamed of
it. For these reasons I tender no apology for my criticism of Mr. Gandhi
and Mr. Jinnah,
the two men who have brought India's political progress to a standstill.
The condemnation is by the Congress Press. I know the Congress Press well. I attach no value to
its criticism. It has never refuted my arguments. It knows only to criticise,
rebuke and revile me for everything I do and to misreport, misrepresent and
pervert everything I say. Nothing, that I do, pleases the Congress Press. This
animosity of the Congress Press towards me can to my mind not unfairly, be
explained as a reflex of the hatred of the Hindus for
the Untouchables. That their animosity has become personal is clear from the
fact that the Congress Press feels offended
for my having criticised Mr. Jinnah who has been the butt and the target of the
Congress for the last several years.
However strong and however filthy be the abuses which the Congress Press
chooses to shower on me I must do my duty. I am no worshipper of idols. I believe in breaking them. I insist
that if I hate Mr. Gandhi and Mr. Jinnah—1 dislike them, I do not hate them—it
is because I love India more. That is the true faith of a nationalist. I have
hopes that my countrymen, will some day learn that the country is greater than
the men, that the worship of Mr. Gandhi or Mr. Jinnah and service to India are
two very different things and may even be contradictory of each other.
15th March 1943
I must tell you that
I am not very happy
over this invitation.
My fear is that I may not be able
to do justice to the occasion. When
a year ago the Centenary of Ranade's Birthday was celebrated in Bombay the Rt. Hon'ble
Srinivas Shastri
was chosen
to speak. For very
many reasons he was well qualified for performing the duty. He can claimed to
be a contemporary of
Ranade for a part of his life. He had seen him
at close range and was an eye
witness of the work to which Ranade
devoted
his life. He had opportunity lo judge him
and compare him with his co-workers. He could
therefore,
expound his views
about Ranade
with a sense of
confidence
and. with intimacy born
out of personal touch. He could cite
an anecdote and illuminate the figure of Ranade
before his audience. None of these qualifications are available to me. My connection
with Ranade
is of the thinnest. I had not even seen him.
There are only two incidents about Ranade
which I can recall. First relates
to his death.
I was a student in the first standard
in the
Satara
High School. On the 16th January
1901 the High School was closed and we boys had a holiday. We
asked why it was dosed and we were told
that because Ranade
was dead. I was then about 9 years
old. I knew nothing about
Ranade, who he was, what he had done ;
like other boys I was happy over the
holiday and did not care to know who died. The second incident which reminds me
of Ranade is dated much later
than the first. Once I was examining some bundles of old papers belonging to my father when I found in
them a paper which purported to be a petition sent by the Commissioned and non-Commissioned
officers of the Mahar
Community to the Government of India against the orders issued in 1892 banning
the recruitment of the
Mahars in the Army. On inquiry I was told
that this was a copy of a petition which was drafted by Ranade to help the
aggrieved Mahars to obtain
redress. Beyond these two incidents
I have nothing to recall of Ranade. My knowledge about him is wholly
impersonal. It is derived from what I have read about his work and what others have said about him. You must not expect me to say anything of a
personal character which will either interest you or instruct you. I propose to
say what I think of him as a public-man in his days and his place in Indian
politics today.
g
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