V.S. Srinivasa Sastri
Mohan Ramanan
Sahitya Akademi, Rs 130

As the moderate politician and scholar Srinivasa Sastri lay terminally ill in hospital in 1946, his friend and political opponent Mahatma Gandhi visited him. The dying Sastri looked at the Mahatma, and recited a Sanskrit sloka, which meant that if somebody has not seen Rama, or been seen by Rama, he was open to all criticism. Except, for Rama, Sastri substituted Gandhi.

This anecdote gives an idea of the kind of man that Sastri was, and it also raises the question of why someone of his calibre has been so badly neglected by historians, and is remembered today only for his greatly-influential study of the Ramayana. Hyderabad University’s Mohan Ramanan has made great efforts to piece together all that is known of Sastri to create a portrait of a remarkable and multi-faceted personality.

Sastri was born in a poor family in Madras province, and through sheer brilliance and effort rose to become a headmaster and teacher of English. He came under the influence of Gopal Krishna Gokhale, the pre-eminent leader of the Congress. He joined Gokhale’s Servants of India Society, assisting him in all his public work. Upon Gokhale’s death, he became the president of the society, serving till his own death. Like his mentor, Sastri belonged to the moderate wing of the Congress, and broke with the party after it decided to boycott the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms. He provided evidence on responsible government in London, and privately helped Montagu also.

Ramanan sheds light on a now-forgotten aspect of Sastri’s life — the role he played in securing the rights of Indians in South Africa. Sastri was a member of the Indian delegation to the 1926 Conference with South Africa, which committed the South African government to improve the lot of Indians. He was persuaded by the Indian government and Gandhi to become the Indian agent in South Africa, a job he did with integrity and commitment. Sastri was elected both to the Madras Legislature and the Central Legislature. Sastri opposed the non-cooperation movement and attended the constitutional talks in London. Among all these activities, Sastri still found time to quietly edit Mahadev Desai’s translation of Gandhi’s autobiography, a fact the Mahatma was unaware of for a while.

... contd.