Two posts this week that I don't "like".
And,it is no accident that both the posts are by Vadrevu China Veerabhadrudu. The posts are on:
1. Champaran satyagraha,and
2."Sanskara" of Anantamurthy ,and the subject of Narrative and Discourse.
I will first look at the first. The post was prompted by Somayya garu, who gave him a copy of
a book on the Champaran satyagraha. If Veerabhadrudu has written just a synopsis of the articles in the book,it would still be a marvel.But, no. It is not a synopsis. The text is only a pretext. The post is a passionate reflection on the journey of India during the century and a half,and where the journey, which began on the platform of a railway station in South Africa, has landed us today.
History is not dates.Every date is a date with destiny, of a nation, and of a man. A date has many faces,social,political, economic and cultural. And a date means an important stage in the making of a leader. Veerabhadrudu's post reveals the total picture by enhancing the particular with its many faces, weighing each for its relative significance in the whole.
I am tempted to write a synopsis of the article.
Two important dates in the life of Gandhi, and the history of mankind.
1.1893,June 7.
-A black passenger was thrown out of a first class compartment, In South Africa.
This incident turned out to be a land mark in the history of the world, when all second class citizens,communities, and nations, were jolted into a new awareness.
-Mohandas became a Mahatma.
2. 1922,March 18.
- During his trial in a court of law in Ahmedabad, Gandhi said that if acquitted, he would commit the same crime again. That feeble voice of a frail convict was like a thunder heard all over the world.
- The freedom struggle till then confined to rich and the middle classes became a people's
struggle.
Between these two historic dates in Gandhi's life,there was a date more important:
1917,April 18.
If South Africa made Mohandas a Mahatma, Champaran made him the Father of the nation. Champaran was where the truth that "Truth alone triumphs"(satyameva jayate) was verified on the ground. It was man's first experiment with "truth ", as a political weapon,but a weapon with the patently absurd potentiality of non-injury to both the hurt and the hurting.
It has been exactly a century since Champaran happened, and today no one seems to be aware of it.We are lost in mindless media entertainment . Nor do we remember the other movement,Naxalbari, half-a-century ago,another landmark in Indian history,an armed uprising of the farmers against the landlords.
Neither of these two dates mean anything to us today.
For, our school textbooks have no significant space for them.And our writers haven't found them fertile subjects for creative writing.
Veerabhadrudu's article is a piece of creative writing, a model for writers. It has details. It gives the totality. It is passionate. It moves.
He may have written it easily, and we "like" it more easily, and move on. It is a piece to save,read again, and absorb.
(I will write about the other post another day.)
And,it is no accident that both the posts are by Vadrevu China Veerabhadrudu. The posts are on:
1. Champaran satyagraha,and
2."Sanskara" of Anantamurthy ,and the subject of Narrative and Discourse.
I will first look at the first. The post was prompted by Somayya garu, who gave him a copy of
a book on the Champaran satyagraha. If Veerabhadrudu has written just a synopsis of the articles in the book,it would still be a marvel.But, no. It is not a synopsis. The text is only a pretext. The post is a passionate reflection on the journey of India during the century and a half,and where the journey, which began on the platform of a railway station in South Africa, has landed us today.
History is not dates.Every date is a date with destiny, of a nation, and of a man. A date has many faces,social,political, economic and cultural. And a date means an important stage in the making of a leader. Veerabhadrudu's post reveals the total picture by enhancing the particular with its many faces, weighing each for its relative significance in the whole.
I am tempted to write a synopsis of the article.
Two important dates in the life of Gandhi, and the history of mankind.
1.1893,June 7.
-A black passenger was thrown out of a first class compartment, In South Africa.
This incident turned out to be a land mark in the history of the world, when all second class citizens,communities, and nations, were jolted into a new awareness.
-Mohandas became a Mahatma.
2. 1922,March 18.
- During his trial in a court of law in Ahmedabad, Gandhi said that if acquitted, he would commit the same crime again. That feeble voice of a frail convict was like a thunder heard all over the world.
- The freedom struggle till then confined to rich and the middle classes became a people's
struggle.
Between these two historic dates in Gandhi's life,there was a date more important:
1917,April 18.
If South Africa made Mohandas a Mahatma, Champaran made him the Father of the nation. Champaran was where the truth that "Truth alone triumphs"(satyameva jayate) was verified on the ground. It was man's first experiment with "truth ", as a political weapon,but a weapon with the patently absurd potentiality of non-injury to both the hurt and the hurting.
It has been exactly a century since Champaran happened, and today no one seems to be aware of it.We are lost in mindless media entertainment . Nor do we remember the other movement,Naxalbari, half-a-century ago,another landmark in Indian history,an armed uprising of the farmers against the landlords.
Neither of these two dates mean anything to us today.
For, our school textbooks have no significant space for them.And our writers haven't found them fertile subjects for creative writing.
Veerabhadrudu's article is a piece of creative writing, a model for writers. It has details. It gives the totality. It is passionate. It moves.
He may have written it easily, and we "like" it more easily, and move on. It is a piece to save,read again, and absorb.
(I will write about the other post another day.)
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