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| Legends from the South |
| V S Srinivasa Sastri |
| India’s struggle for freedom took many
forms before it came to be dominated by the Mahatma Gandhi-led
school of thought based on civil disobedience and non-cooperation
with the ruling British. |
| In the early years of the Indian National
Congress, there were two distinct shades of political opinion
– one voiced by the so-called extremists and the other
by the moderates who followed Gopalakrishna Gokhale’s conciliatory
approach towards the British. It stressed cooperation rather
than confrontation to achieve self rule for India. |
| The Rt. Honourable V S Srinivasa Sastri was
a disciple of Gokhale and he followed his guru’s moderate
path in India’s politics. Sastri was arguably the greatest
Indian speaker of the English language whose ‘silver-tongued
oratory’ even the British respected. |
| Born into a poor brahmin family on September
22, 1869 at Valangaiman, a small village eight miles from Kumbakonam,
in Tamil Nadu, he began his career as a school teacher. His
interest in public causes and his powers of oratory soon combined
to bring him accolades from throughout the country. |
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| V S Srinivasa Sastri |
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| Early years |
| Sastri was poor, but grew up on a rich intellectual
diet of traditional and mythological lore provided by his mother.
The Ramayana made a profound impact on him. At the same time, Shakespeare,
Wordsworth, Tennyson, Browning, and the novels of Sir Walter Scott
and George Eliot cast a spell on him. |
| Sastri studied at the Kumbakonam Town High School
till class XI. He had the good fortune of being a student of Appu
Sastri, the Headmaster, who initiated his wards into reading serious
news reportage in the English dailies. By 1887, Sastri was a graduate
and soon after, he became a teacher in the Municipal High School,
Mayavaram. After working in a college at Salem and Pachaiyappa’s
High School, Madras, Sastri became the Headmaster of the Hindu High
School. He was there for eight years before joining the Servants of
India Society founded by Gokhale. |
| Sastri the teacher |
| Sastri who taught English and Sanskrit won great
fame as a teacher. He was both a scholar and an able teacher in these
two languages. His faultless pronunciation of English words, his clarity
of thought, felicity of expression and his impressive teaching enabled
the pupils to attain high proficiency in the English language; his
brotherly love and affection for his pupils was reciprocated by them.
His arresting personality evoked their respect and admiration. |
| Sastri was instrumental in forming the Madras Teachers’
Guild. Love of teaching made him accept the Vice Chancellorship of
the Annamalai University at 65. He taught English idioms and phrases
to students almost daily. The classes were so interesting that professors
competed with the students to occupy the front seats. His weekend
lectures on a variety of topics and the training and encouragement
he gave in recitation and elocution produced many student orators
who later occupied high positions in life. |
| Sastri in the political arena |
| In 1905, a chance reading of a pamphlet changed
Sastri’s life. It carried the prospectus and rules of the Servants
of India Society, which had just been started by Gokhale. The language
and sentiments no less than the ideals set forth in it, made a special
appeal to him, and he wrote to Gopalakrishna Gokhale applying for
membership. He was 37 then. Admitted into the Society on 15 January,
1907, he moved from his familiar Madras milieu to the strange coffee-less
environs of Pune and a heavier schedule of work, his income halved.
But he never regretted his decision. |
| Those were the days of cruel repression by the British
authorities. Caught between extremist eloquence and daredevilry on
the one hand, and the extreme suspicion of the local administration
on the other, the going was tough for the moderates. But Sastri managed
the superhuman task and as a trusted lieutenant of Justice V Krishnaswamy
Iyer, was responsible for organising the 1908 session of the Indian
National Congress at Madras. By 1915, he was able to unite the Congress
party. Later, he did good work in the Madras Legislative Council and
the Imperial Legislative Council. He made a famous speech opposing
the draconian Rowlatt Bill in the Imperial Legislative Council on
February 7, 1919. |
| From his admission into the Society, for forty years,
Sastri played a distinguished part in the public life of India. After
serving under his master Gokhale, he succeeded him to the Presidentship
of the Society, which office he held till his death with singular
devotion, winning the esteem and approbation of Indians and Britishers
alike. Sastri symbolised the golden mean in Indian politics. |
| Sastri had to his credit a string of achievements
as a delegate to the Imperial Conference in London and as an Agent-General
of the Government of India in South Africa. He used his eloquence
to present India’s case for self-government in the Councils of
Europe. His speeches made the British Dominions sit up and take notice
of India’s greatness. Sastri collected Rs.3 lakh for starting
a college for South African Indian children. The college still prospers
as “Sastri College” in Durban. |
| South Africa was Sastri’s greatest challenge.
In 1919, Gen. J C Smuts, the Prime Minister of South Africa, declined
to accord Sastri equality of status with Sir Benjamin Robertson, when
the British Viceroy of India planned to send them both as a delegation
to help Indians in South Africa. The same Gen. Smuts admitted in 1928,
that Sastri, the First Agent of the Government of India in South Africa,
was the most honoured man in South Africa. |
| Sastri the orator |
| Sastri’s lectures on Ramayana were described
as an “adventure in the voyage of intellectual discovery.”
An excellent teacher, he was able to transmit to his audience his
great love for and appreciation of the classic. |
| Sastri’s oratorical skill was matched by the
force with which he wielded the pen. In the words of K R Srinivasa
Iyengar: “We see history unfolding itself in the sequence of
his letters, we find them flavoured with philosophy. We find in them
the material for other men’s biographies, and we recognise in
them the charm, candour and clarity of the writing, the man himself,
the whole man.” |
| Last days |
| A few months before Sastri died in 1946, Gandhiji
who admired him, visited him twice in the hospital. It is recorded
that Sastri quoted a sloka from the Ramayana substituting the word
Gandhi for the word Rama. The sloka means: “He who has not seen
Rama and whom Rama has not seen is worthy of censure by his people;
even his soul will find fault with him.” Srinivasa Sastri passed
away on April 17, 1946. |
| Tributes to the Master |
| “An artist in words” was Lady Lytton’s compliment
to Sastri. A H Smith, Master of Balliol, Oxford, observed that
he did not realize the beauty of the English language till he
heard Sastri. Prof. Max Gluckman (a British social anthropologist
of South African origin) remarked that, the best English he
had “ever heard spoken was by an Indian, Srinivasa Sastri.”
Lord Erskine, Governor of Madras Presidency, while delivering
his address at the annual convocation of the Annamalai University
in 1938 turned towards Sastri and said, “Sir, it is with some
trepidation that I begin my speech in English, my mother tongue,
because of the inescapable feeling that neither in English pronunciation
nor in the mellifluousness of your intonation can I match the
excellence of your attainment in both the spheres. I am humble
enough to acknowledge my limitations in both, before this august
gathering.” |
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