Chandrasekaran Balakrishnan

PS Sivaswamy Aiyer: Forgotten Indian Liberal – Part II PS Sivaswamy Aiyer: Forgotten Indian Liberal – Part II From the very beginning of Gandhi’s Non-cooperation Movement, PS Sivaswamy Aiyer had been opposed to it but never attacked him personally. Aiyer was very much concerned about how passive resistance movements perused against the British government and Aiyer feared that these mentalities of passive resistances might not spare any governments in future. Chandrasekaran Balakrishnan February 25, 2020 Indian Liberals Editor’s Note: This is the second article in a two-part series paying homage to PS Sivaswamy Aiyer, the forgotten liberal intellectual of pre-independent India. Read the first part here. During the nineteenth century India, freedom movements produced many thought leaders and thinkers who fought for the country’s independence on varied battlegrounds. The common thread that cuts through these movements was British imperialism vs freedom, liberty and nationhood. However, from the beginning of the twentieth century, there were sharp differences of opinion among apex leaders of Indian National Congress on the methods to be pursued for political movements and principles of constitutional reforms to further the goal of complete freedom. The leaders were divided among the Montagu–Chelmsford Reforms announced in 1918-1919 by the British government to introduce self-governing institutions gradually in India.  The Liberals were known as Moderates who supported the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms opposed by extremists, direct actions and revolutionary. The liberalism was defined as “constitutionalism and gradualism” led by Mahadev Govinda Ranade and Gopala Krishna Gokhale. The “extremism, direct action and revolution” was led by Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal and Lala Lajpat Rai. Many are unaware that the grand champion of Independent India’s liberalism C Rajagopalachari or Rajaji was revolutionary during the freedom movements! Among others, VS Srinivasa Sastri and PS Sivaswamy Aiyer were real faces of Indian liberalism in pre-independence India.   PS Sivaswamy Aiyer on Indian Liberalism PS Sivaswamy Aiyer was a firm believer of liberalism and was influenced by the works of Ranade and Gokhale besides JS Mill, Herbert Spencer and Alexander Bain. According to K Chandrasekharan, “he was never drawn to the allurement of the ultimate ideal by ignoring the practicality of the immediate.” Aiyer was among top leaders of Madras Liberal League and spearheaded the liberalism of the early part of the twentieth century towards advancing the constitutional methods to attain freedom. In 1965, the noted historian KA Nilakanta Sastri (1892-1975) edited a volume on “A Great Liberal: Speeches and Writings of Sir PS Sivaswamy Aiyer” by classifying the speeches and writings of Aiyer into broad themes such as political, economic, military, social, educational, legal fields, etc. In 1919, in his Convocation address at Banaras Hindu University Aiyer remarked that “the spirit of rational investigation has always occupied a place in the history of Indian thought”. One could see the application of this profound thinking in all of his writings and speeches. Sivasamy Aiyer was president of National Liberal Federation of India (NLFI) or Liberal Party of India in 1919 and 1926. In his address at Calcutta in 1919, he openly criticised the Passive Resistance Movement called by Gandhi. Aiyer called Gandhi’s ‘constructive programme’ an impracticable and believed that an “unqualified doctrine of non-violence has never been carried out in practice.” From the very beginning of Gandhi’s Non-cooperation Movement, Aiyer had been opposed to it but never attacked him personally. Aiyer was very much concerned about how passive resistance movements perused against the British government and Aiyer feared that these mentalities of passive resistances might not spare any governments in future. There were some outbreaks of violence after Gandhi’s passive resistance movements which led Sivasamy Aiyer to harp on his apprehensions quite strongly. Aiyer remarked delivering Presidential address: “So long as he (Gandhiji) is the dictator of the non-cooperators and so long as he continues to be, if I may respectfully say so, intoxicated with the incense of adulation paid by his worshippers, and so long as he is anxious to maintain his reputation as a prophet by trying to hasten the event of Swaraj at lightning speed, so long as he maintains the attitude, the unyielding and uncompromising attitude which he does, I am afraid it will not be possible to come to any satisfactory results.” Further, Sivasamy Aiyer’s thoughts reminiscence to the current protests of students’ and few instigated groups which are breaking law and order in the name of the right to protests. Avowedly condemning the Gandhi’s Satyagraha movement Aiyer remarked “But though few believe in the specific articles of his faith, the Gandhi spirit or the mentality which he created has permeated large sections of the masses. The young have lost their respect for their parents and elders; students have lost their respect for their teachers, resent discipline and claim the right to strike work, respect for the laws of the land has sensibly diminished; and the people have become familiarised with the idea that it is right and even laudable to break laws which do not commend themselves to sectional public opinion.” The law-breaking mentality more than the civilised culture denouncement is more dangerous. Aiyer was someone who would educate the youth to fight with ethics and principles rather than encourage for street protests. In 1927, Sivasamy Aiyer delivered eight lectures in the University of Madras in the memory of his late childhood friend V Krishnaswami Aiyer who died prematurely. His lectures titled “Indian Constitutional Problems” were published in 1928. Aiyer emphasises on the systems of responsible government on attaining the independence on all significant aspects of government systems both at centre and state as well as at local body levels. Through these lectures, he had unequivocally dealt with a range of subjects like the role and structure of legislature, executives at the centre and state level, judicial systems, the party systems, the defence, the minorities, etc. As far as the backward classes were concerned, Aiyer was acutely aware of the fact that “the treatment of the backward classes has been in the past a slur upon the social system of India”. In 1913, he remarked, “that any form of Constitution in which the lowest classes are not represented must result in injustice and oppression.” He strongly advocated the decentralised government systems

PS Sivaswamy Aiyer: Forgotten Indian Liberal – Part I PS Sivaswamy Aiyer: Forgotten Indian Liberal – Part I PS Sivaswami Aiyer’s life and works are relevant to the contemporary public discourse but completely forgotten, even in his native state. Sivaswamy Aiyer was a prominent legal luminary, administrator, educationist, scholar, liberal thinker and statesman. He was liberal constitutionalist with a firm belief in constitutional rights, individual liberty and freedom. Chandrasekaran Balakrishnan February 17, 2020 Indian Liberals Editor’s Note: This is the first article in a two-part series paying homage to PS Sivaswamy Aiyer, the forgotten liberal intellectual of pre-independent India. Read the second part here. In a fierce debate of contemporary public policies, the better intended few thinkers try to reconnect the relevance of the history of Indian economic thoughts. Alas, often they are underestimated and ignored, the larger meaning of engaging with history to understand better both in logic and sound reasoning are ignored decisively. Recently, Sanjeev Sanyal, who is a Principal Economic Adviser in the Union Ministry of Finance, remarked while delivering the 14th Netaji Subhash Memorial Lecture that – “India needs to begin to revisit its own history. And, what better place to start than by starting with the story of India’s freedom struggle.” However, the retired bureaucrat Anil Swarup who ignored the context and deceptively criticised Sanyal’s argument by stating that – “The guy should focus on job at hand, reviving the economy and stop talking about what needs to be done to Indian history. How long will we hang on to the past? We should certainly learn from history but not get stuck in the past.” Though, Sanyal’s lecture focused on the forgotten revolutionaries of freedom struggles during the British rule and not equally forgotten classical liberals who courageously worked with British Governments and brought out many constitutional reforms without losing the voices for freedom struggles. This is how Indian history has been treated in the last half-century among the well-read and educated class, even after the decades of distorted narratives produced by historians. It is even sobering in south India – Tamil Nadu, the alleged Dravidian movements of last century against the dominance of the upper castes in social and political spheres which irreparably led to undermining the life and works of liberal thinkers who firmly stood for the welfare of all sections of the society through constitutional provisions of schemes. There were several liberal luminaries from Madras (now Chennai) whose works were ignored during the alleged movements of Justice Party and Dravidian polity which paid only lip service to masses in the name of upper castes through its dogmatic tactics. Indeed, these political movements did not produce any scientific, scholarly and civilised literature on the ideas and thoughts of both Tamil literature and Sanskrit. One such liberal thinker was PS Sivaswamy Aiyer whose life and works are relevant to the contemporary public discourse but completely forgotten even in his native state! Sivawsamy Aiyer was a prominent legal luminary, administrator, educationist, scholar, liberal thinker and statesman. He was liberal constitutionalist with a firm belief in constitutional rights, individual liberty and freedom. Indeed, he single-handedly fought for many constitutional reforms through his long association with the British government. His contribution in fields like education, defence and Indianisation of Army was enormous. He was representative of the Indian government to the third session of League of Nations which later became the United Nations. Life and Education of Sivaswamy Aiyer Pazhamaneri Sundaram Sivaswami Aiyer was born on the 7th of February, 1864 in Pazhamaneri village on the south bank of Cauvery River near Thanjavur in Madras Presidency (now Tamil Nadu). His father was Sanskrit Scholar, School Teacher, and Court Pleader. He had three younger brothers and two sisters. He attended SPG Fort Branch High School at Manambuchavadi for schooling. He completed his matriculation in 1878 and secured first class in FA Examination at Government Arts College, Kumbakonam. After a year there, he joined the Presidency College, Madras (now Chennai) and completed his BA in 1882 with major history, philosophy and psychology. In 1883, he joined Madras Law College which was also operated in the same campus of Presidency College, Madras. In 1885, he started the law practice by joining with advocate R Balaji Rao in Madras. Besides law practice, he also worked as an Assistant Professor at Madras Law College to support his family as the eldest son after his father’s death in 1893 and served till 1899.  Sivaswamy Aiyer had a keen interest in politics, economics, sociology, library science besides Sanskrit and English literature. He was a joint editor of Madras Law Journal from 1883 to 1907. He founded the Madras High Court Lawyers Association in 1889. He fervently advocated educating the youth towards constitutional methods to attain freedom from the British. The liberal thinker and better known as Silver Tongue of India VS Srinivasa Sastri (1869-1946) was a student of Sivaswamy Aiyer at Madras Law College. Aiyer wrote many articles in the Servants of India, a weekly magazine founded and edited by Srinivasa Sastri at Servant of India Society, Pune. In 1906, Sivaswamy Aiyer founded a school near to his home town at Thirukkattupalli which is nearby Thanjavur for promotion of school education of children. It is now named as Sir PS Sivaswamy Aiyer Higher Secondary School, but he never allowed for using his name till his death. This school was the co-educational school which was first of its kind in the Madras Presidency at that time. In 1930, he became President of National Girls High School at Mylapore, Madras and adopted the school to promote girls’ education. It now functions with his wife’s name as Lady Sivaswami Aiyer Girl’s Higher Secondary School, Mylapore, Chennai. He made generous contributions to these two schools besides several other institutions and organisations across the country including Vivekananda College, Chennai and Madras Sanskrit College. After his wife’s death in 1939, he had sold the house in which he was living for a long time and donated the entire amount to the above schools and stayed in a rented house. He was President

Centenary of Liberal Thinker Nani Palkhivala Centenary of Liberal Thinker Nani Palkhivala Nani Palkhivala was a firm believer in individual liberties, free enterprise, responsible government, economic freedom, constitutional morality, and private property rights. Chandrasekaran Balakrishnan January 20, 2020 Indian Liberals In the sensational waves of contemporary debates on the economy, constitution, and facets of liberal democracy, the common threads invariably cut through these fields are rarely packed with thoughts of eminent liberal thinkers like Nani Palkhivala who was one of the greatest sons of twentieth-century India. He was duly credited with many hats to his long and eventful public life with lasting immersions on the people and intellectuals of the country. His life and works have become one such rare embodiment which needs to be reminded for future generations. Alas, the regional media in India does not bother about the contributions of great thinkers like Nani.  Nani Palkhivala’s contributions to the issues of the Indian economy, constitutionalism, and liberal democracy were immensely obliging to the advancement of the Indian subcontinent in the last seventy years. In the second half of the last century, his legacy was unparalleled to none in the above fields. Moreover, his adherence to the ethical values and liberal principles were more than just guiding forces behind his most illustrated public life. He was deeply rooted and a believer in dharma which encompasses as vast as humanity. Nani Palkhivala was a firm believer in individual liberties, free enterprise, responsible government, economic freedom, constitutional morality, and private property rights. This year marks the 100th Birth Anniversary of Nani Ardeshir Palkhivala who was born on 16th January 1920 in Bombay (now Mumbai). He was called Nanabhoy by his parents and Nani Palkhivala or Nani by most others. His family was a humble working class. He completed his school and higher education in Bombay: School education was at Masters Tutorial High School, Masters Degree in English Literature was at St Xavier College in 1942 and a Law Degree in Government Law College was in 1943. He excelled in academic education despite suffering from a dreadful stammer.  Nani Palkhivala became a household name in India for many reasons. He was a prolific writer and orator on many subjects’ especially economic policies, the constitution of India, civil liberties, and fundamental rights of citizens. He also became a Statesman and Ambassador of the USA during the period 1977-79. Many legal luminaries termed him as a rare personality, the living legend, a revered authority of Law and Practice for several decades. He has written numerous books on Tax systems which were sought after even globally. Liberal scholar and Statesman C Rajagopalachari or Rajaji hailed highly that Nani Palkhivala was a country’s gifted liberal legal pundit who saved the Indian democracy from the government’s tyranny of absolute power to amend the constitution’s basic structure.  Nani Palkhivala’s areas of interest in professional public life varied from being a legal expert, academician, and practitioner of constitutional law, and economic policy, literature, poetry to a Statesman who fought for India’s historical cases, individual liberty, private property right, and civil liberties for the poorest of poor peoples’ interests. He is known for winning many legal battles in the interest of citizens’ fundamental rights and economic freedom for free enterprises. He was witness to the best and worst of the country’s odd events that happened soon after the independence and a Republic with the adoption of the Constitution of India.   What made him become a more vocal critic of the government policies and of the ideas behind those policies was the dogmatic thought process which prevailed at that time and was neither rooted in Indian traditions nor convincing with facts and truths of sound logic and reasoning. Hence, much before the political discourse on the economic reforms of the 1990s, Nani Palkhivala had strongly advocated since 1958 that the Indian economy which was wedded to the idea of socialist, command and control model ought to fail sooner or later.  Nani Palkhivala launched a forum to demystify the policies of the government to educate the citizens. He was termed as peoples’ Finance Minister without Portfolio in the Cabinet of India’s Republic! In 1958, he had initiated a public speech in a small hotel room in Bombay to demystify the jargon of Budget of Union Government to citizens in plain language with alternative sound policy solutions to the issues and challenges faced by the country. In the annual post-budget speech organised by Forum for Free Enterprises, Bombay, the audience rose from the tiny size in a hotel room to more than a lakh people in 1994 in open places in Bombay, Delhi, and Calcutta. His eloquent extempore post-budget speeches were much watch-out for the senses and nonsense of the budget announcements filled with humility and always delivered without a single piece of paper for a couple of hours. Among his writings and speeches, two books are widely known for its relevance for decades. The “We, the People” book was published in 1984, with some of his most important speeches and writings over three decades including some of his post-Union Budget analysis. Another book he published in 1994 was “We, the Nation”, which is a companion volume to “We, the People” also has some of his best speeches and writings on different issues and challenges faced by the Indian economy and society at large.    The following are some of his other works which are must-read for all those who wanted to understand the mainstream debate on the Republic of India and its economy and people in the decades prior to major economic reforms of 1990s: The Global Economy, a North-South Dialogue, 1984: Where the North Meets the South, Imperatives for Development in the Global Economy (1985), The People, the Only Keepers of Freedom (1979), The Constitution and the Common Man (1971), India’s Priceless Heritage (1980), Our Constitution Defaced and Defiled (1974), The Highest Taxed Nation (1965), Essential Unity of All Religions (1990) and his magnum opus, The Law and Practice of Income Tax (1950).  In the interest of promoting free-market

VS Srinivasa Sastri – Forgotten Liberal Intellectual – Part 1 VS Srinivasa Sastri – Forgotten Liberal Intellectual – Part 1 VS Srinivasa Sastri was an astute reader and writer who contributed immensely to the reform policies during the freedom movements of British India. He was an acclaimed intellectual who gave long extempore scholarly speeches, lectures and addresses across the British Empire. Chandrasekaran Balakrishnan January 7, 2020 Indian Liberals Editor’s Note: This is the first article in a two-part series paying homage to VS Srinivasa Sastri, the forgotten liberal intellectual of pre-independent India. Read the second part here. In India, the history of liberalism and constitutionalism of the first half of the twentieth century is barely studied. There is hardly any notable liberal economic historian in India either teaching or carrying out academic research on the history of Indian economic thoughts which has been quite dramatically distorted by Marxism and socialism throughout the twentieth century. Alas, the subject of the history of economic thoughts has been long discarded in the Indian mainstream academia as irrelevant. Many great liberal scholars who have contributed significantly to the freedom movements through constitutionalism for advancing the free and liberal society were ignored. It is absurd to observe, that the Indian economists, social and political scientists who persistently ignored the history of economic thoughts subject at a time when the western and other developed economies around the world have been continuously making efforts to revive their history of economic thoughts and building nexus in the contemporary public policy debates. The much talked about two schools of thought namely the right-wing vis-à-vis left-wing narratives of the contemporary debate were first begun exactly hundred years ago in 1919 after the furious differences of opinions among the top leaders of the Indian National Congress on the Montagu reform policies. These two schools of thought as it was evolved called liberalism, constitutionalists and moderates as right-wing and extremism, direct action and revolutionary as left-wing. The former followed classic liberalism of indigenous and some western conservative ideas and the later stood for Fabian socialism and communism. There is a very thin line between socialism and communism. Thus, after independence, the only school of thought which predominately dominated in the Indian academia, political rule and public policy discourse was communism and socialism by ignoring the views of liberal scholars.  Thus, the great liberals like VS Srinivasa Sastri who has contributed significantly to the freedom movements in British India during the first half of the twentieth century were completely ignored and forgotten in the second half of the twentieth century for no good reasons. This year marks 150th birth anniversary of VS Srinivasa Sastri who was contemporary of MG Ranade, GK Gokhale and Mahatma Gandhi among other makers of Modern India. Probably, Sastri was the only person who has traveled as a reputed Statesman and Ambassador for peacekeeping missions across the British Empires to embrace the pragmatic constitutional method for freedom movements and civil liberties. Professor Mohana Ramanan in his book titled “VS Srinivasa Sastri: A Study” (2007) noted that Sastri “made a mark in public life as a liberal, albeit with a conservative cast of mind….almost forgotten figure…Sastri does not come to mind in this context immediately and that is because he did his work largely in councils, legislatures, delegations, and conferences. This is unglamorous works but there has been grudging acceptance of Sastri’s preeminence in our national struggle.” There is no record why his constitutional strives to attain freedom was ignored in the last seven decades. P Kodanda Rao who worked with Sastri for a decade between 1922 to 1932 wrote: “Sastri was an eminent scholar as well as a statesman, he was one of the elects among the great builders of India and the pillars of the Commonwealth.” Rao has written an excellent elaborated political biography of Sastri in 1963 with enormous efforts to study the intellectual contributions spread over 76 years of tireless life of Sastri. Rao has done great justice by documenting the true patriotism of Sastri along with first-rank formidable thinkers of modern India with whom he was associated throughout his life. Though, C Rajagopalachari wrote a Foreword for the book mentioning as Sastri was his friend “but took different channels of political work”. Ray T. Smith who reviewed Rao’s book in the Journal of Asian Studies in 1964 had observed that Rao made “the first serious attempt to accord Sastri a proper place in the history of the Indian national movement.” Sastri was British India’s Rajaji and both were devoted students of the Ramayana with the scholarly critique of it for the pursuit of thoughts and deliberations. VS Srinivasa Sastri was an astute reader and writer who contributed immensely to the reform policies during the freedom movements of British India. He was an acclaimed intellectual who gave long extempore scholarly speeches, lectures and addresses across the British Empire. He was also a versatile and mesmerizing orator and his English skill was marvelously treated as Silver Tongue in British India. Sastri was rated as one of the five best orators in English in the twentieth century among other stalwarts. In 1915, Sastri succeeded Gopala Krishna Gokhale as a liberal intellectual in the Servants of India Society (SIS) which was founded by Gokhale after his demise. SIS played a vital role in freedom movements and constitutionalism method of attaining self-governance in India. Indeed, it was Mahatma Gandhi who aspired to become President of SIS succeeding Gokhale but Gandhi did not agree with all of the core principles of SIS with which Gokhale envisioned to fight for freedom movements in an orderly manner. Hence, Sastri was the natural choice to become President of SIS and remained for 12 years from 1915-1927. Despite their strong opposition in thoughts and political activism, Sastri and Gandhi were close friends throughout their life. VS Srinivasa Sastri’s Life and Education Valangaiman Sankaranarayana Srinivasa Sastri was born on 22nd September 1869 in a village called Valangaiman near Kumbakonam town, Tamil Nadu (then part of Madras Presidency). He was born as a fourth of seven children to his parents, three elder sisters and three younger brothers. His parents