Yours wistfully

Surfing aimlessly across the internet yesterday, I stumbled across a collection of official correspondence of Dr Rajendra Prasad, the first President of India…Most of the letters in the collection dated to 1959 and as I have heard of a 50-year archiving rule before they become public I think the letters must have just been released…

Rajen Babu as he was known, was, to begin with, a brilliant lawyer having topped several Calcutta (?) University exams before going on to get his Doctor of Laws…he subsequently became quite a renowned lawyer in Bhagalpur…till his skill at writing petitions on behalf of the indigo workers of Champaran brought him to the attention of Gandhi…and the rest, as they say, is history…

His official correspondence as President of India gives us a wonderful whiff at the simple and at the same time brilliant mind of this very great man…all the values of the Gandhian freedom fighters come through, and, the also the first hints of transition away…for example, there is a very interesting piece of correspondence between him and Nehru (hereinafter referred to as Panditji) about the size of the delegation, consisting of largely family members, that Rajen Babu took on a state visit to Ceylon…Nehru starts off by saying that we need to be sensitive to the strain these state visits put on the host country…and Rajen Babu, in the end, acknowledging that he would definitely keep this in mind for the future…

In the correspondence that I read, Sri Prakasa, then the Governor of Bombay, and, Govind Ballabh Pant, the then Home Minister come through as his closest friends…Sri Prakasa and he have exchanged letters on how Rajen Babu felt that Sri Prakasa should not take the Night Air Mail flight to Delhi (remember that institution of the ‘50s/ ‘60s, the planes coming from Bombay, Delhi, Madras and Calcutta to Nagpur, and, going back with the mail) because it would tire him…and Sri Prakasa saying how it would save money…catch any Governor of today caring for such things…

The gentle humanness of Rajen Babu is so transparent…Padmaja Naidu, the then Governor of West Bengal and Sarojini Naidu’s daughter is ill with a temperature and heading to Delhi for a Governors’ conference…Rajen Babu tells her, “Come and stay at Rashtrapati Bhavan so that I can have you properly looked after…”

The Gandhian in him comes through clearly in the numerous letters where he refuses invitations to serve on Committees or recommend friends from the past to jobs…”it would not be appropriate for me in my present role to do so. I hope you will understand…” he says time and again to friends he spent time in British jails with. The only occasion I see him express an interest is when the veteran Gandhian, G. Ramachandran asks him to join the Trust of the institution he is setting up in Gandhigram, near Madurai…”Let me talk to the Prime Minister about this,” Rajen Babu says…

The camaraderie of the freedom fighters is evident in every affectionate letter that he writes…whether it be on the death of a family member…a marriage he cannot attend…or just inquiring about their health…”Keep me informed of how you are recovering” he tells so many of his former jail mates and they do…and his affectionate notes to the families as his colleagues pass away…”It is inevitable, but that does not reduce the pain. I am with you…” is his constant refrain...

Some of the letters also very deeply reflect the strong chasm that existed between Rajen Babu and Panditji…Rajen Babu was definitely old school Gandhian…Panditji talked of the hydro electric dams being the temples of modern India…there is a twelve page letter he has written to Panditji on what he feels needs to be done to help the country…which includes introducing Gandhiji’s “Nayi Talim”, basic education, making Hindi the official language and providing incentives for Khandsari (home made jaggery) projects…wish I were a fly on the wall to see and hear Panditji’s responses to his suggestions…

Rajen Babu was not Panditji’s choice for President of India…Panditji would have preferred Rajaji…and that comes through in their world view…in one letter Panditji tells him that it would be preferable if he called him to discuss these different views rather than write about them…this is one place where Rajen Babu tells Panditji to go fly a kite…he feels it is his constitutional obligation to communicate his thoughts and he intends to do so the way he choses…

I would have loved to read the correspondence that must have been exchanged in 1955 between Panditji and Rajen Babu over the Hindu Code Bill…At one stage Rajen Babu who was opposed to the Bill had told Panditji that he would not sign it…Nehru bluntly told him that the President was a ceremonial role and that he had no option but to sign it…

Somewhat prophetic is also his letter to Panditji asking him to ensure that the coming budget (1960) provided enough money to defend the border with China…

Despite their differences they were old colleagues and there is an affectionate letter from Nehru inviting Rajen Babu to join him and the Cabinet for lunch on December 3, 1959, which was Rajen Babu’s seventy fifth birthday…and Rajen Babu’s acknowledgement of the invitation is equally touching…

There is an old world wistfulness that I experienced as I read these letters…a world where even politics was gentlemanly…it reminded me of the walk I took in Besant Nagar during this holiday one Saturday morning…after a few minutes it struck me that there was no fragrance of idlis and sambar cooking any more and no one played MS’ Suprabatham anymore, like they used to in the ‘70s…they are gone, and, so is the spirit of Rajen Babu and his letters…gone…

And then the realization...”Change,” they say is the only, “permanent thing…”