Saints, revolutionaries and maniacs

FAMOUS FACES, FAMOUS SPEECHES: Compiled by Dupavali Debory; Vikas Publishing House (P) Ltd., 576, Masjid Road, Jangpura, New Delhi- 110014. Rs. 325.

THE 20TH century was momentous as it witnessed the horrors of two World Wars which changed the course of world events.

Some of the great thinkers, philosophers, politicians, dictators, saints and sinners had shaped a new world ushering in a new era of development. It has been a truly epochal century.

Men like Mahatma Gandhi, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, David Lloyd George, Woodrow Wilson, Vladimir Lenin, Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler, Franklin Delano Roosevelt were among them.

Madhuban Educational Books, a division of the VPH, has done well in bringing out this book for the benefit of the post-war and upcoming generation, ``to see the century through the eyes and words of a generation gone by'' as Vaijayanti Savant Toupe has put it in the foreword.

The contents are divided into four parts, each devoted to a quarter of the century.

In the first quarter the emergence of Swami Vivekananda as a religious leader, social reformer and a great patriot-saint helped India to take its spiritual message abroad.

His values are even more relevant to India today than a century ago when he delivered the lecture in Los Angeles in the U.S. on January 4, 1900. Long before the advent of Mahatma Gandhi, he had stressed that the means are as important as the ends in achieving our goals.

A quotation from Christopher Ishwerwood on the ``phenomenon'' of Sri Ramakrishna is a useful one.

The speeches of Bal Gangadhar Tilak on India's economic problems, of Gopal Krishna Gokhale on the Swadeshi movement, of Lajpat Rai on the ``Great crisis'', of Bipin Chandra Pal on ``Swadeshi and Swaraj'' and other leaders give a clear idea of how these great stalwarts viewed the problems faced by the country under the colonial rule.

They had set high standards in public life. This was the period when the struggle for political and social reforms had begun and the industrial domination by the British had received much less attention.

As Gokhale put it ``the main current of our public activity came to be directed towards the realisation of our political aspirations...''

``Lunacy'' as Lloyd George said, ``is always distressing''. There was no dearth of lunacy at the turn of the century. The German Chancellors, William Kaiser and Adolf Hitler, had proved that lunacy had its appeal, however disastrous it may be to the nations!

The speech of Roger Casement, the Irish leader, ``at the dock'' defending himself, is a forceful attack on the concept of loyalty propounded by the ruling class to perpetuate its interests.

Dr. Annie Besant's address to students at Nellore delivered on June 16, 1916, on ``preparation for citizenship'' dwelt on the ``responsibilities of power'' nearly four decades before India became free.

Vinayaka Damodarpant Savarkar's contribution to the freedom struggle receives scant attention these days. He had said: ``Whenever the natural process of national and political evolution is violently suppressed by the forces of wrong, then revolution must step in as a natural reaction and, therefore, ought to be welcomed as the only effective instrument to re- enthrone Truth and Right.''

Pandit Motilal Nehru, father of Jawaharlal Nehru, was born on May 6, 1865 and was only four years older than Mahatma Gandhi. He had a flourishing practice in the Allahabad High Court and was the president of the Congress sessions in Amritsar (1919) and Calcutta (1920) but was also the founder of the Swaraj Party (1923).

He sought dominion status for India after the Simon Commission visited the country, but faced opposition to his moderate views from the hardliners in the Congress. His presidential address to the Congress party in Amritsar deplored violence and political crime but he was unsparing in attacking the British for their repression and barbaric ways in suppressing the freedom struggle.

It is Mahatma Gandhi's speech at the Ahmedabad Court (on March 23, 1922) on his faith in non-violence that shows how different he was from ordinary mortals and leaders. As Albert Einstein said ``generations to come, it may be, will scarce believe that such a one as this (Gandhi) ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth.''

So much is written about the new millennium, but the younger generation will have to know how the 20th century was shaped by great leaders, political leaders and thinkers. This book will be a handy volume for the ``upcoming'' generations. The texts are not edited competently and the collection of speeches may not seem comprehensive covering the western and eastern worlds.

M. VINAYAK

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