Beyond the Lines: An Autobiography

by Kuldip Nayar

  I had a bitter experience of both the training academies at Mussorie and Hyderabad, the former for the IAS and the latter for the IPS. The Mussorie academy invited me for a talk. My friend, Rajeshwar Prasad, Shastri’s former secretary, was the director. During my speech, I mentioned how Muslims had been treated as second-class citizens after the Partition. Some members of the audience objected to my remark, which was natural, but I was never invited to the academy again. At Hyderabad, it was even worse. When I told the senior police officers I was addressing that none of them had stood up to object to the excesses during the Emergency, not even against illegal arrests, they were sullen. None of them spoke to me even during the tea break. The academy has never invited me since.

  I had an almost similar experience at the Staff College in Delhi. There was a discussion on India–Pakistan relations. While the entire panel was vehemently critical of Pakistan, I pointed out certain examples of India having rubbed Pakistan the wrong way. That college too never invited me again.

  Over the years I have felt that both the IAS and IPS have developed a kind of feudal class consciousness that does not go well with the service to the people that India needs. Their initial idealism begins to diminish within a few years of service and they gradually become part of the furniture.

  Once I asked a young IAS officer attached to me at Raipur, on tour of some projects, why the high principles infused in them when they entered the service wore thin within a few years. He said that the day the commissioner rang you up to tell you to collect money to be sent ‘above’ was the day when the disillusionment set in. He said his first place of call to collect money was the fair price ration shop. That officer became the resident commissioner in Delhi. He had superseded some officers to get the appointment, and from this I inferred he had mastered the art of rising rapidly up the ladder.

  Pant had another ticklish question to settle: the Language Commission’s official report. Whether he came out well from the ordeal of the States Reorganization Commission was a moot point although Nehru congratulated him for ‘the miracle’ he had achieved. However, producing a unanimous report on the vexed language question was a miracle indeed.

  As set out in the constitution, a language commission was appointed in 1955, five years after the republic came into being, to assess whether Hindi had developed sufficiently and spread to the degree necessary to replace English as the union language. The switch over date was 26 January 1965 – 15 years after the adoption of the constitution. The commission reiterated the constitutional obligation to switch over to Hindi from English on 26 January 1965 but it left the decision to the government in terms of the preparations it had made. The commission recommended that every student should be taught Hindi till the age of fourteen and that the teaching of Hindi should be made ‘necessary’ up to the middle level throughout the country.

  The commission did not approve a suggestion that knowledge of any other south Indian language should be made compulsory for students from Hindi-speaking areas. It sought to make it mandatory that court judgements should be delivered ‘in the language of the country’ but that a translation in the regional language should be attached to all proceedings and records, decisions, and orders of the Supreme Court and the high courts.

  There were two important dissenting notes by Dr P. Subbarayan from Madras and Dr Suniti Kumar Chatterji. They observed in their respective notes, occasionally the words used were identical, that Hindi had been adopted by the constituent assembly and not by a parliament consisting of directly elected representatives of the people.

  To scrutinize the commission’s recommendations, a constitutional obligation, a parliamentary committee was appointed. It met for the first time in 1957 and Pant was elected as the chairman.

  The very first meeting of the committee seemed to indicate that it would be the last. Both the Hindi chauvinists and representatives from the non-Hindi speaking areas jumped at each other’s throats and threw cold water on the prospect of a compromise. As the home minister’s information officer, I was deputed to brief the press, but no one was interested in my briefing because the members held their own press conferences and gave out their own versions of the meeting.

  Pant was horrified by the press reports on the meeting, fearing that the entire language question would be reopened, particularly the constitutional provision that Hindi would replace English.

  The first governor general of India, C. Rajagopalachari, who was from the south, began a crusade against Hindi even though he had once supported it. Pant gave me a copy of Rajaji’s foreword in a Hindi primer, which pleaded that the southern states should learn Hindi. The foreword was written many years earlier when Gandhi had begun a movement in the south to popularize Hindi.

  At my instance the foreword was reproduced by the Hindustan Times, ironically the daily edited by Rajaji’s son-in-law and Mahatma Gandhi’s son Devdas Gandhi. Rajaji reacted adversely to the reproduction and criticized the government for adopting unfair methods. The foreword did not, however, have any impact on the committee members. Pant was particularly concerned about the press carrying the committee’s acrimonious discussions. My request to editors, on his behalf, not to publish any report on the committee’s deliberations met with no success. No one was willing to black out a crucial discussion concerning the language question and members of the committee refused to end their press briefings despite Pant’s request.

  I came up with an idea which worked. I told the correspondents that the committee’s discussions were privileged and not one of them had checked whether that was indeed the case. It was a committee of members of parliament discussing a report and not a house committee entitled to the privilege of secrecy, but the pressmen in their indolence failed to check the actual position. They stopped reporting on the committee meetings, even though members told them that I was bluffing about the violation of privilege. My warning therefore paid off and nothing appeared until the report was out.

  While distributing copies of the final report to the correspondents, I offered my apologies and explained to them the difference between a parliamentary committee and a committee constituted by the House. The correspondents cursed me but by then it was all over. Was my act unethical? Probably, it was. But I saved the nation from an acrimonious debate which might have reopened the settled issue of a switch over to Hindi.

  The first few meetings of the committee were uneventful, confined to formalities. Very soon, however, there was a cleavage between those who wanted to do away with English straightaway and those wishing to retain it indefinitely along with Hindi. Some members even questioned the propriety of having Hindi as the Indian union’s language. Pant intervened to say categorically that they were not writing on a blank slate and that the constitution had already provided for Hindi as India’s union language.

  Purushottam Das Tandon, once the UP Speaker, led the Hindi protagonists. They wanted the transition from English to Hindi on 26 January 1955 itself and were not willing to wait until 1965 as provided for in the constitution.

  The opposing point of view, shared by virtually all the members of the non-Hindi speaking states, was voiced by Lakshmanaswamy Mudaliar from Madras. He accepted the constitutional obligation to use Hindi as the official language but wanted the date of transition to be postponed indefinitely. He argued that a prolonged period of bilingualism would eradicate fears from the minds of non-Hindi speaking people. They thought that Hindi was being thrust on them before they had time to learn it. Frank Anthony, an Anglo-Indian member and Pramatha Nath Banerjee, a communist member from West Bengal, were the only two in the 26-member committee to completely oppose the switch over from English.

  Realizing that the switch over was the most crucial issue, Pant left it to be taken up at the end of the deliberations on the report. It was like starting from the wrong end but it at least saved him from facing the ceaseless debate on the transition. His approach was that the switch over from English to Hindi should be endorsed by the committee and did not min
d as many steps as possible to facilitate transition. Pant frequently said that the date mentioned in the constitution was not mandatory. Mudaliar, to Pant’s relief, was not opposed to Hindi, seeking only an indefinite period for preparations. This irked the pro-Hindi members who wanted a firm date.

  The battle royal began when the committee discussed the recommendation that government servants should be required to learn Hindi and qualify in an examination within a reasonable period of time. Mudaliar expressed the fear that the non-Hindi speaking population would be handicapped in finding jobs. The proponents of Hindi were so eager for an immediate switch over that they were even willing to agree to a quota in the services for the Hindi and non-Hindi speaking populations. Pant was horrified at the suggestion. He said that such a step might one day lead to the pernicious pre-Partition arrangement of separate electorates.

  A quiet, lacklustre P.T. Thanu Pillai from Kerala saved the situation. He spoke passionately against the quota system, warning that the principle, once accepted would be applied in all fields, not the services alone. This would be a great disservice to the unity of the country and that future generations would never forgive them. There was applause after his speech, a rare gesture on the part of the committee. Even the Hindi-speaking members found it difficult to press the suggestion. Tandon realized his error and withdrew the proposal.

  Pant’s forte was patience. He never lost his temper. Even when Tandon told him to his face that ‘you are a traitor’ to the cause of Hindi at the concluding meeting, Pant did not retaliate. He merely said: ‘I place India’s unity above Hindi and I am sorry if I have not come up to the standard of Tandonji.’

  Pant, who had accomplished the miracle of having achieved unanimity on Hindi, did not want to spoil things by rushing through the last phase. He allowed members take their time to express themselves, and said he did not want to pressurize anyone. The strategy worked and it was left to Pant to write the report.

  The recommendation of the committee, with the exception of Frank Anthony, was unanimous. It said that Hindi should be the principal language from 26 January 1965, and English a subsidiary one, with no target date for the switch over. It was truly a feather in Pant’s cap.

  Before the report was finalized, Pant sent the draft to Nehru for his comments. The use of the word ‘subsidiary’ for English infuriated Nehru, who argued that the word, subsidiary, meant English was the language of ‘vassals’. Pant backed up his preference for the word by sending Nehru various equivalents of ‘subsidiary’ in English. That day I ransacked every library in Delhi to collect as many dictionaries as possible. Some of them said that the word ‘subsidiary’ also meant ‘additional’.

  Pant tried to argue with Nehru that the two words meant more or less the same thing. He also pointed out that the Madras government’s report had itself used the word ‘subsidiary’ for English. It was possible by 1965 to promote Hindi to the status of the principal official language of the union if a provision was made for the continuance of English as a subsidiary official language thereafter. Nehru disagreed with Pant and worse, he was quite indignant and reportedly made some harsh comments. Finally, the word subsidiary was substituted by additional. Pant told me, ‘Mark my words, Hindi will not come to the country’. He was dejected. That very evening, Pant had his first heart attack.

  Once the report was out of the way, Pant decided not to have any further commissions or committees on the official language. Article 344 (1) of the constitution stated that ‘the President shall at the expiration of five years from the commencement of the Constitution, and thereafter at the expiration of ten years from such commencement, by order constitute a Commission’. Both the home and law ministries concluded that the word ‘shall’ could be interpreted as ‘may’. Therefore, the president was not bound to appoint a commission after ten years. Another commission, which should have been constituted in 1960, was not appointed, and none has been since.

  Meanwhile, in the Lok Sabha, on 6 August 1959, Nehru gave an assurance that there would be no time limit and that the non-Hindi-speaking areas would themselves decide the date when the switch over from English to Hindi should take place. For the non-Hindi-speaking people, the assurance was like a safety belt in the swirling waters of language chauvinism. There was genuine fear amongst the non-Hindi-speaking population that they would be excluded from government jobs.

  The states began to switch over to regional languages because they felt more at home with their own language than either English or Hindi. The link between the different linguistic regions was weakened, but even so English remained the only language linking together the north and south, east and west.

  There was, however, a growing feeling that a democratic government could not function indefinitely in a language which was understood only by a small fraction of the population. The Hindi-speaking states made it clear that they would not indefinitely continue to communicate with the Centre in a foreign medium.

  Regional languages began taking the place that rightly belonged to Hindi. No one realized that if and when Hindi became the only official language of the union it would not be able to push out regional languages from the position they had occupied, which rightly was the prerogative of the union language. The protagonists of Hindi viewed the growing use of regional languages as an indirect support to their cause, rather than as a threat.

  Soon after Hindi was declared as the principal language of the union in 1965, a candidate in the UPSC (Union Public Service Commission) examination for the All India and Central Services answered his question papers in Hindi and prefaced his answers with the slogan: ‘Hindi mata ki jai’. The UPSC was not moved by this emotional outburst and awarded him zero.

  Although the law ministry justified the UPSC marking, arguing that it was like a club framing its own rules of entrance, the home ministry was afraid that the aggrieved student might go to the Supreme Court. Realizing the danger, the cabinet decided to permit all the languages, as many as fifteen mentioned in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution, to be used as a medium of expression in examinations. English, which was not listed in the Eighth Schedule, was also to continue as an alternative medium.

  Pant had hardly met the demand of the student for the use of Hindi when another complained to him that he had failed in the UPSC competitive examination because he had not passed the personality test even though he had secured nearly 90 per cent marks in the written examination. Pant felt it was unfair to fail a person solely on the basis of the personality test and ordered that the viva-voce would be considered another subject but not an essential one. Marks of the personality test would be added to the total but would not disqualify the candidate if he or she had failed in it.

  Nehru watered down the police clearance which every candidate was required to have. The purpose of this was to ascertain whether the candidate had a communist background. The cases of three probationers were sent to Nehru because their antecedents showed their Left inclinations. He overruled the police report and allowed the probationers to complete their training. They were subsequently absorbed in the Indian Administrative Service. This notwithstanding, the verification of the antecedents of candidates by the intelligence bureau to ascertain a leftist background continues.

  Giving awards – the Padma Sri, Padma Bhushan, Padma Vibhushan, and the Bharat Ratna – was Nehru’s idea, but was implemented by the home ministry in 1954. Although the constitution barred any titles being conferred on individuals, the distinction made was that these were awards and not titles like Rai Bahadur or Khan Sahib, which the British doled out to toadies. I saw the exercise from close quarters when I was the information officer in the home ministry for six years till 1964. The ministry would receive names from individuals or organizations who were close to the Congress party. Central and state ministers also sent the names of their favourites.

  A deputy secretary in the home ministry and I would prepare the list of names alphabetically and summarize their biodata. It was a clerical job and the enti
re exercise was arbitrary. There were no rules to guide the exercise or any norms to follow. Both of us would drop names that sounded odd to us. The list was sent to the home secretary who whetted it and then forwarded it to the home minister.

  It was left to me to prepare the citation. I used to place before me a dictionary and Roget’s Thesaurus to avoid repeating the same adjectives. It was a piquant situation when Pant was awarded the Bharat Ratna. I prepared the citation which went to the home minister but he did not like it. Then the home secretary tried his hand but even his version was not to Pant’s liking. Then the entire staff of the home ministry sat down to prepare a new one but Pant rejected that too. We were all downhearted till I convinced Pant that the Bharat Ratna was beyond description. All the words used to praise him fell short of his achievements and therefore there should be no citation for the Bharat Ratna. That year the brochure’s page for the citation for the Bharat Ratna awardee, Pant, was blank.

  The prime minister and the home minister jointly decided on the final list. The president, who authorized the gazette notification, rarely amended the list.

  However, Dr Rajendra Prasad, the then president made an exception on one occasion. He added ‘Miss Lazarus from the south’ in his own hand to the list. We, in the ministry worked hard to find out who she was. There was an educationist by that name in Chennai and we informed her about the award of the Padma Shri. However, when the list went back to Dr Prasad, he wrote that she was a nurse and returned the list. His ADC informed us that she had treated him when he fell ill travelling by road from Vijaywada to Hyderabad. We were eventually able to locate her, and that year two ladies with the name Lazarus received the award.