CHAPTER: TWO
The Public Self: An Overview of
Indian Upper Caste Men's Autobiographies
The Western world discovered in Saint Augustine's Confessions the genre of
autobiography, which was written as early as the fourth century A.D. In contrast to the West,
the tradition of writing autobiography came to exist in India quite late. To be more specific,
Banarasidas' Ardhakathanaka (1641) is considered to be the first Indian autobiography,
written in Hindi verse in the early part of the seventeenth century. There have been a number
of autobiographies written after Banarasidas' Ardhakathanaka. Indian autobiographies are
written by persons coming from different and divergent fields of activities. Among them are
authors, journalists, artists, academicians, politicians, social workers, philosophers, civil
servants, public figures and others. While the autobiographies written by men outnumbered
women's autobiographies, nevertheless Indian women had distinctions to narrate their
personal life-stories as early as second part of the nineteenth century. Earlier free education
was not available to them. Dalits, on the other hand, have started narrating their life-stories
only after independence because education was denied to them for quite longtime. It is the
newly independent nation-state that made provisions for their free and compulsory education
through the enactment of constitution, which helped Dalits to articulate themselves. Thus the
emergence of Dalit autobiography is distinct genre by itself. Indian autobiographical tradition
is diverse and therefore while studying it one has to bear in mind the issues centering on
caste, class, culture, religion, gender, etc. This makes reading of Indian autobiography
complex.
In the present Chapter I shall attempt to critically review some of the famous Indian
autobiographies written by upper caste men. In view of the innumerable autobiographies
available at my hand, I shall be very much selective in analysing these works produced by
some of the finest minds of this country choosing mainly from what was written in English.
· Some of the autobiographies which will be discussed partially or fully in this chapter are: Lal
Behari Day's Recollections of My School Days (1873-76), Lajpat Rai's The Story of My
Deportation (1908), Surendranath Banerjea's A Nation in Making (1925), Jawaharlal Nehru's
An Autobiography (1936), Mulk Raj Anand's Apology for Heroism (1946), Nirad Chandra
Chaudhuri's The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian (1951). Exception, however, will be
39
made in the case of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi whose famous autobiography titled An
Autobiography or My Experiments with Truth (1927) was originally written in Gujarati.
Before analysing these works critically I shall make an attempt to review Banarasidas'
Ardhakathanaka (Hindi) and Babur's Tuzuk-i-Babur (Turki) 1 to see their contributions to the
Indian autobiographical tradition. Since Ardhakathanaka is considered to be the first Indian
autobiography, I shall enquire in this chapter, why is it that autobiography as a genre came to
exist in India only during the seventeenth century and not before? Does writing autobiography
require some specific cultural space, which were not then available to Indians before? How is
it that Indian autobiographies are dominating in the literary scene now? The following
sections will try to seek some explanations to the questions raised above.
II
Autobiographical Tradition in Traditional Hindu Society
There are certain preconditions, which enable one to write one's autobiography. The
first and foremost is the act of situating one's individual 'self vis-a-vis the communal self.
This is possible only when the 'individual identity' of a member of a community or country is
valued and respected. Bhikhu Parekh articulates this precondition very clearly:
First, as the story of a unique self, autobiography presupposes a culture in which
individuality is valued and cultivated. Unless a culture encourages men and women
to make their own choices, form their own views, take risks, look upon life as a
journey and, in general to fashion their lives as they please, one man's life is no
different from another's .... the autobiography is only possible in a society with a
well-developed historical manner ofthinking. 2
It has been generally believed that the traditional Hindu world-view is hostile to the
autobiographical mode because it does not recognise the existence of individual self/soul.
Instead, it believes that every individual self/soul is a part of the universal soul personified by
God, supposed to be the creator of this universe. And hence the individual ego merges in the
communal super-ego loosing its distinct individuality. As Albert Scheweitzar, a western critic
observes,
According to the teaching of the Brahmins, all individual souls after their existence
in the world of the senses are without further ado reabsorbed into the Universal
Soul. Every cessation of bodily existence is equivalent to a final return of the soul
concerned into the Universal Soul, just as every beginning of bodily existence is
conceived as a new manifestation of soul in the worlds of the senses. The Brahmins
40
assume, then, that there is continuous influx of soul-stuff into the material world
and a continuous return-flow out of it. The metaphor used in the Upanishads of the
fire from which new sparks are constantly mounting into the air and falling back
into it again is characteristic of their views. 3
Not only this. The Hindu philosophers also have tendencies to mystify the whole
process of living, and more so, when it comes to the nature of the spiritual union of man with
infinite being. This makes the matter further complicated. The Hindu philosophers believe
that the soul, i.e. atman alone is real and identical in all women and men and not the body or
mind which is subject to change and dissolution. They argue that it is futile to trace the origin
of consciousness to the heart or the brain. Nor does consciousness originate in the mind.
Consciousness, as they believe, is the being of atman, the knower per se, which is unborn. It
is self-existent. Being composed of the purest type of matter, the mind has the capacity to
transit consciousness that belongs to atman.
They also believe that the self is eternal. As the self is changeless, contrary to matter,
it is self-shining, self-existent, immutable, free, pure, and blissful. "The body cannot hold it,
nor can the mind. It must be one with the Supreme Being," as Swami Satprakashananda puts
it. 4 That is the reason why the Hindu philosophers argue that the quotidian accounts of
temporal lives are ephemeral and what is important is timeless, as the following passage
makes this point clearer:
The reason why the Hindus lay so much emphasis on the desirability of freeing the
self from the domination of sensibility is thus obvious: It eclipses and obstructs the
consciousness of this unity. This explains the reason why almost all the Hindu texts
and schools declare the consciousness of this unity to be the remote end of all
human activity variously called jnana, viveka, vidya, etc. Every activity determined
by a sensuous desire threatens to disrupt this unity and brings about soul's bondage.
If, on the one hand, the activity of the rational self is characterized by an
unconditional and universal motive, that of the sensuous self, on the other, tends to
be particular and ego-centred. 5
Autobiography as a genre cannot flourish in this ethos. Ananda Coomaraswamy puts
this argument more strongly when he writes,
Hinduism justifies no cult of ego-expression, but aims consistently at spiritual
freedom. Those who are conscious of a sufficient inner life become the more
indifferent to outward expression of their own or any changing personality. The
ultimate purposes of Hindu social discipline are that men should unify their
individuality with a wider and deeper [sic] than individual life, should fulfil
41
appointed tasks regardless of failure or success, distinguish the timeless from its
shifting forms, and escape the all-too-narrow prison of the 'I and mine'.
Anonymity is thus in accordance with the truth; and it is one of the proudest
distinctions of the Hindu culture. The names of the 'authors' of the epics are but
shadows, and in later ages it was a constant practice of writers to suppress their own
names and ascribe their work to a mythical or famous poet, thereby to gain a better
attention for the truth that they would rather claim to have 'heard' than to have
'made'. Similarly, scarcely a single Hindu painter or sculptor is known by name;
and the entire range of Sanskrit literature cannot exhibit a single autobiography and
but little history. 6
Like the dominant Hindu metaphysic, Hindu social structure too places little value on
individuality. The socially prescribed varnashrama dharma lays down the duties of each
individual at four stages of life. Though different castes and ethnic groups follow different
life styles, there is little diversity within each other: everybody believes in Karma theory and
rebirth and does one's work, accordingly. Thus, conformity to a given social code and not
individual action is perceived as the central feature of Hindu society. The sheltering of self in
community rather than having a distinct individual identity so that it can express its own
agony and joy characteristically was, perhaps, the reason why the tradition ·of writing
autobiography was absent in India for so long.
III
Indian Biographical Tradition
Unlike the autobiography, it seems that the tradition of writing biography was
common in India from the very ancient time. Though they lacked proper formats, some of the
biographical pieces could be dated back to the Vedas. 7 In the post-Vedic period the
biographical pieces were found describing the lives of Mahavir and Gautam Buddha. In their
forms and contents these biographical pieces appear to be quasi-historical writings because
the writers twisted these historical personalities giving a divine touch.
There were also kings like Ashoka who had inscriptions recorded on rocks and stone
pillars about the events of their reigns. These inscriptions trace the story of many events of
king's life and his reign, his achievements etc., which are available, even today in many parts
oflndia. For example, the Ashokan inscriptions reveal a major portion of Ashoka's life and
42
reign, especially his religious conversion to Buddhism and its propagation. 8 Because these
inscriptions have been written in the first person singular number some scholars tend to term
these pieces as autobiographical writings.
Later, there emerged the Charita literature introduced by the Sanskrit poets and the
playwrights. It is interesting to note that the ancient playwrights in Sanskrit used to give their
life-sketches in the prologue to the play. 9 Some of them chose to furnish information about
their lives through the medium of 'Sutradhara'. Though, such life-sketches were not
mentioned in great details, they provided biographical background of the authors including
other members of their families, occupations, achievements, etc. Important among such
writings are Asvaghosa's Buddha-Charita (1st Century A. D.), 10 Bana Bhatta's HarsaCharita (7th Century A. D.)
11
and Kalhana's Rajatarangini (1150 A. D.).
12
These works
need to be analysed briefly for the influence they have exerted on the biographical tradition in
India.
Asvaghosa, a contemporary of Kaniska flourished as a playwright during the first
century A. D. Like his contemporary writers, Asvaghosa also adopted Sanskrit language for
his works. However, he did not blindly follow the style of 'Lokottara' element used almost by
his contemporaries. Instead, Asvaghosa adopted an interesting Kavya style to preach the
difficult Buddhist philosophy, a method non-existent during his time. The most prominent
works of Asvaghosa are: Buddha-Charita, Saundarnanda, Sraddhotpada Sastra, Vajrasuci,
Sariputra Prakarana and Sutralamkara.
In Buddha-Charita Asvaghosa depicts Buddha's life from childhood to his nirvana at
Kusinagara, under the sal tree and the distribution of his mortal remains amongst the different
claimants. The main features of Buddha-Charita are: Buddha bhakti and deification of
Buddha; the poet's use of miraculous element; the refutation of Brahmanical practices by
Buddha and his followers; the conquest of Mara; and the gradual development of Mahayana
sect. All these features are woven around the life-history of Buddha. In order to make
Buddha-Charita a real ornate kavya Asvaghosa has inserted a colourful night scene of love.
He has also brilliantly composed the battle with Mara's army. In order to authenticate his
standpoint, the poet has incorporated a large number of historical as well as legendary figures.
43
While going through Buddha-Charita we also get a brief life-sketch of the poet. The
poet informs us that his mother's name was Suvamaki and his hometown was Saketa. He also
mentions that due to his literary contributions he was awarded the title of 'Acharya'. Thus,
started a tradition of writing biography, which influenced many other authors in the next
centuries.
The next biography is Bana Bhatta's Harsa-Charita. It is a historical document based
on the life and career of Harsavardhana, the king of Thaneswar and Kanauj, who ruled these
kingdoms in the first half of seventh century A. D. Besides documenting the failures and
achievements of the king, the author has also carved out a niche for himself writing about his
own life. In the first three chapters Bana Bhatta gives an elaborate description of his own lifestory. Writing in the third person he tells us that he belonged to the Vatsyayana clan of
Brahmins. The name of his great grandfather was Pashupati and his grandfather was
Arthapati. His father Chitrabhanu was one of the eleven sons of Arthapati. His mother
Rajyadevi died young and he was brought up by his father with great care. When he was
fourteen his father also died. He was so much overwhelmed with grief on his death that he
confined himself to his house for many days. He broke loose from all restraints and fell into a
dubious company of friends. He indulged in youthful follies acquiring ill repute in abundance.
He writes with profound regret about the irresponsible and aimless life, which he led during
the hey-day of his mis-spent youth.
It is interesting to observe that Bana Bhatta did not have any pretension to hide his
personal weaknesses and foibles. Rather, he confessed them all on the open in his book and
emerged as a man of high caliber, authenticity and self-confidence. It is in this sense that
Harsa-Charita is an important milestone in the history of confessional literature in India.
After Bana Bhatta's Harsa-Charita a few more Charitas appeared in the literary scene
m Sanskrit. Some of them were Bhavabhuti's (735 A. D.) Mahavira-Charita and
Uttararama-Charita and Bilhana's (11th C. A. D.) Vikramankadeva-Charita. But the most
important piece of work, later, had to come from Kalhana. Kalhana's Rajatarangini or The
Rivers of Kings (1150 A. D.) is supposed to be an attempt to write history. Though
Rajatarangini is basically a kavya in its form and conception, it differs widely in its objective
and scope from that of the Charitas. Kalhana's main purpose in the kavya is to offer a
connected narrative of the various dynasties, which ruled Kashmir from the earliest period
down to his time. He includes the legends in the very beginning, which represent the popular
traditions of the country regarding its earliest history. These he follows up by a narrative of
subsequent reigns taken from older written records and arranged in a strictly chronological
order. The final portion of the work, considerable both in extent and historical interest, is
devoted to an account of the events, which the author knew by his personal experience or
from the relations and friends as witnesses to the events. These events are narrated from the
point of view of an independent chronicler and by no means with the purely panegerical
object of the court poet, which reigns supreme in the Charitas.
Kalhana, while writing the history of Kashmir also puts side by side the history of his
own family. In colophons at the end of each taranga, Kalhana says that he was the son of the
great Kashmir minister, the illustrious Lord Champak. His father was the 'lord of marches' of
the king Harsadeva (1089-1107 A. D.) and his uncle Kanaka was a singer of great repute in
the king's court.
In spite of these personal details Rajatarangini seems to be a perfect
historical document. In fact, it is the first ever book written by an Indian bearing the
chronicle. For this act of Kalhana, R.C.P. Sinha considers him as "the first great Hindu
historian." 13
IV
Islamic Autobiographical Tradition in India: Baburnama Reconsidered
Islam came to India through Persia and brought with it the Persian penchant for
historical details. It encouraged a tradition of writing history, memoirs, diaries and records of
royal achievements. Sultan Firoz Shah who came to the throne of Delhi in 1351 A. D. and
died in 1388 A. D. was supposed to be the first Muslim ruler in India to write his
autobiography. Firoz Shah's autobiography, Futuhat-1-Firoz Shahi, a work of only thirty-two
pages in Persian contains a short account of his reign, is now not traceable. About one
hundred and fifty years after Firoz Shah came Babur's (1483-1530 A. D.) autobiography
named Tuzuk-i-Baburi or Baburnama written in Chagtai Turki. Babur ruled India as an
outsider and hence his autobiography is considered to be a non-Indian autobiography. But the
fact that.a trend was set in to narrate one's life-story as early as sixteenth century demands our
critical attention.
45
Structurally, Baburnama seems to be an unfinished autobiographical memoir.
According to its content it can be divided into three parts. The first part begins with the event
ofBabur's accession to the throne ofFarghana to the time when he was at last pushed out of
his native land by the Uzbeks. The second part covers his years at Kabul; and in the third part
he speaks of his Indian years. But structurally it may be divided into two parts - the one being
a regular narrative and the other mainly diary-entries. The diary-entries begin from January 3,
1519 and continue upto September 7, 1529, and then the account abruptly breaks off. The
Baburnama as it is available today is not complete. It has several chinks and gaps. The very
fact that it begins with Babur's accession to the throne ofFarghana in his twelfth year without
any mention of even the date and place of his birth makes one suspect that the early portion
has been irretrievably lost. The other major gaps are: from 1503 to 1504, 1508 to 1519 and
1520 to 1525. Of the forty-seven years and ten months of Babur's life the account of only
eighteen years is available in the memoir.
In spite of all these gaps, Baburnama emerges to be an important autobiography
mainly for its content and style. While dealing with every event Babur conveys a sense ofhis
human qualities in a manner that is scarcely encountered in Islamic or Indian literature and
only rarely in that of Europe in the early modem period. The best portions of the
autobiography are those describing his indecision, regret, fear of death, etc. The sense of
psychological uncertainty and at times ambiguity in Babur's mind make Baburnama an
interesting text for us. Roy Pascal, one of the founders of modem autobiographical studies
writes, "the Baburnama would occupy a significant place in the history of autobiography had
it belonged to Europe." 14 This is a Eurocentric point of view. But Indian scholars have also
remarked on Babur's frankness in writing about his defeats, mistakes, wine bouts, escapades
and adventures. Krishanachandra Jena writes in I 978:
Babur is one of the great characters of Asiatic history. His autobiography,
Baburnama is a magnificent contribution to the field of literature. If Babur offers an
interesting story of building an empire, the Baburnama is a transparent narration of
blooming of a human character. There are example of greatness and deep emotional
outbursts which make Baburnama a story of all times, wherever, the study of
human character is concerned. Baburnama is a frank admission of Babur's sin
committed, victories gained, feelings painted, hopes and disappointments thought
of, and observation ofhuman nature, study of mundane problems, convictions ofthe
world beyond this world and above, a simple story of an inspired soul. It is, in this
dimension, Baburnama is both exceptional and beautiful. 15
46
The greatest virtue of Babur's narrative is its sincerity. He has neither spared himself
nor others. For instance, writing of his father he reveals not merely his strength but also his
weaknesses. On several occasions Babur pulls up his beloved son Humayun for his lapses and
mistakes. When he speaks of his relation with his first wife becoming cold or of discovering
in himself a strange inclination for a boy named Baburi or when he recounts his inability to
carve a goose that was put before him, the reader feels that Babur is utterly honest and
unassuming.
For his unpretentious narration Babur wins the reader's heart easily, and particularly
when he describes his defeats and headlong flights, failings and weaknesses with intimate
details. For example, he does not slur over the fact that his sister, Khan-Zada Begum, fell into
the hands of Shaibani Khan during his defeat and subsequent flight from Samarkand. In plain
but moving words he talks of his abject poverty and humiliation after one of his defeats
stating that uncertainty and want of house and home drove him at last to despair. In another
incident Babur's character, as a man of innate kindness to his co-workers is revealed. It was
during a march of his army across the mountains in winter that his followers were caught in
the snow and could not move forward for the escape. In the amazing blizzard of a cutting
wind that night Babur preferred to sit in the dugout near the mouth of a cave in which some of
his soldiers had taken shelter. His soldiers urged him repeatedly to come inside but he refused
saying he could not sleep comfortably when his comrades were in danger.
One of the most interesting passages in Baburnama is the letter Babur wrote to
Humayun on November 27, 1528. In this letter he advised his son to take counsel with the
wise and experienced Begs and to be active and alert in matters of administration. He says:
"Thank God! Now is your time to risk life and slash swords. Neglect not the work chance has
brought! Slothful life in retirement believes not sovereign rule". (p. 625). In another letter he
admonished his son to write in an affected style:
Thou hast written me a letter, as I ordered thee to do; but why not have read it over?
If thou had thought of reading it, thou could not have done it, and, unable thyself to
read it, wouldst certainly have made alteration in it. Though by taking trouble it can
be read, it is very puzzling, and whoever saw an enigma in prose? Thy spelling,
though not bad, is not quite correct; thou writest 'iltafat' with ta (iltafat) and 'qulinj'
with ya (qilinj?). Although thy letter can be read if every sort of pains be taken, yet
it cannot be quite understood because of that obscure wording of thine. Thy
47
remissness in letter writing seems to be due to the thing, which makes thee obscure,
that is to say, to elaboration. In future write without elaboration; use plain, clear
words. So will thy trouble and thy reader's be less. (pp. 626-627)
An excellent example of wit and sarcasm, the above mentioned passage provides not
merely the secret of good style but also a measure of Babur's own achievement as a prose
writer. His prose as plain, clear and direct as suits his blunt and open nature as conveyed
through the autobiography. 16 With simple but effective language Baburnama is excellent
while portraying social reality. Stephen F. Dale while appreciating Babur's stylistic details
writes how his portrayal of individuals brings autobiographical truth in his narrative,
Apart from its obvious autobiographical elements, Bubur's text is famous for two
stylistic qualities that help to convey a sense of social reality or narrative truth: its
direct, simple language and precise, remarkably detailed social and geographical
descriptions. Babur wrote in a direct, unadorned prose, a marked contrast to
prevailing literary norms of Timurid and Iranian historical writing in Persian or
Turki that valued elaborate rhetorical embellishment. His choice of style may reflect
one or several influences: his own attenuated education, the lack of a voluminous
Turki historical literature written in the complex, elaborate Persian tradition, or the
preference of a man of affairs for clarity. As for Babur's descriptions, they are not
only detailed but are known to be exceptionally precise where their accuracy can be
measured, as in his many careful accounts of natural phenomena. When he portrays
individuals, this quality gives his work the particularity that has been said to be
"vital to the success- that is, the truth of an autobiography." 17
The practice of writing autobiography as initiated by Babur virtually became a part of
his family culture. Babur's daughter Gul-Badan Begum (1523-1603) followed her father's
footstep and wrote her reminiscences titled Humayun-nama. 18 Written in Persian Humayunnama is, perhaps, the first such book written by an Indian woman. In these reminiscences,
though she wrote mainly of her father Babur and brother Humayun, she also provided a
glimpse into aspects of her own personality. The next person in this line was Jahangir (15691627), Babur's great-grandson who wrote Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri, 19 his memoirs. The purpose of
writing this memoirs, as Jahangir put in, was to present a code of rules and regulations for the
guidance of his servants as well as his subjects. As a result the text has become an exhaustive
report on appointments, promotions, dismissal of officials he made and also the titles and
awards he gave way to his servants. The memoirs also bore the details of wars and conquests,
riots and rebellions held during his ruling period. Thus, the information Jahangir provided in
his memoirs, may be of great historical importance, but in the process his personality ~ot
marginalised. 20
48
v
Banarasidas' Ardhakathanaka: The First Indian Autobiography
It would seem that the Muslim tradition had only a limited influence on Hindu India,
for there are only a few instances of autobiographical writings by Hindu kings and eminent
personages. Important, however, is of Banarasidas' Ardhakathanaka (1641) which is
considered to be the first Indian autobiography. Banarasidas, a Jain poet, wrote his
autobiography in Hindi verse and gave its title Ardhakathanaka because it covered a period of
fifty-five years of his life, which was exactly half the ideal life span as believed by the Hindus
ofhis time. The autobiography is an interesting life-story of a man whose narrative proves to
be a trendsetter for many future autobiographers in Indian languages.
Banarasidas was born at Jaunpur, a town on the river Gomti, about seventy miles from
Banaras in a jeweller's family in 1586. He belonged to the Srimal clan ofthe Jain community.
Being born in a business family was Banarasi 's greater disadvantage because he found his
work atmosphere uncongenial to his sensitive pursuits. From the very early age his passion
was poetry, which was considered to be an aberration in a trading family. Instead of spending
time on poetry Banarasi was expected by his family members to devote his full time to
business. His second passion was love and his amorous activities gave his community people
yet another cause for disapproval. Thus, living between the two worlds, personal choice and
community's imposition, Banarasidas had to, at times, make compromises, and sometimes
rebel against the community. He, however, could not fully rebel because he lived in a closeknit community, which surrounded him like a protective enclosure, acting as a buffer between
him/and the outside world.
Banarasi, at certain points of time, realized his fault and started reforming himself.
Earlier a devout worshipper of Shiva, he started doubting his religious practices. Meanwhile,
a sannyasi promised him that he could get gold coins if he chanted a certain mantra for one
year. Having being failed in his pursuit, he turned his searching gaze inward and subjected
himself to a severe scrutiny. One day while reading his own poems before his friends on the
bridge across the Gomti river he had a sudden realization of his sinful acts. He threw all the
amorous poems he had composed till then into the fast flowing river and came home a
changed man. It may be noted here that the change that came through him was not due to a
49
sudden spiritual illumination. It came as a climax to a long and painful inner struggle.
Moreover, the change was not spiritual, but was brought about by Banarasi's understanding of
some ethical values. He underlined in his autobiography that after realizing his follies he
wanted to reform himself and that came from within as a conscious being.
After this he pursued business but failed, thus proving the popular dictum that a poet
could never be a good businessman. This brought further tension in his family the
consequence of which was that his wife left him and went to her mother's place. To pass his
troublesome time he sought solace in literary activities, but without any peace of mind. The
real and lasting peace came to him only when he met a Jain Sadhu and sought his blessing.
In the concluding part of his autobiography Banarasi tries relating his past life in the
light of his present contentment. He confesses that although he failed several times in
business, his greed for riches was enormous and that he felt no urge for charity. This is
evident when he appends a list of his vices and virtues. At the end of his life, having lost all
his nine children, he compares himself to a leafless stunted tree. However, the only
consolation left for him was the pursuit of knowledge that he began in childhood. He ends his
autobiography by saying:
My story is now complete. I am fifty-five years of age, and I live in Agra with my
wife in reasonably comfortable circumstances. I married thrice, and had two
daughters and seven sons. But all my children died. And now my wife and I are
alone like winter trees that have shed all their greenery, standing bare and denuded.
Looking at it in the light of the absolute vision, you may declare that as a man takes
into himself, so he sheds. But can any man rooted in this world ever see things in
such a light? A man feels enriched when he takes something unto himself and
utterly lost when he is deprived of even a trifle. (pp. 93-94)
After reading Banarasi's Ardhakathanaka one wonders why did he attempt to write
his life-story? Banarasi has made it clear at the beginning of his narrative that he wanted to
make the story of his life public. At the end of the book he further remarks that he has given
the reader only a few details about his life, details he could best remember, adding pointedly
that he has spoken mostly of his 'outward' deeds. It means that many interesting and sensitive
chapters of his life remain untouched, which, otherwise, would have given us more insights
into his personal life. Are the omissions deliberate? Mukund Lath, the English translator of
Ardhakathanaka has the following explanation:
50
The truth, perhaps, is that he was not consciously trying to justify himself, and we
on our part cannot assert a firm grasp of his motive with any great assurance. Unlike
Gandhi, Banarasi does not avowedly set out to reveal a persistent spiritual aspiration
as the moving force of his life. And even if he did wish to do so, this was hardly
reason enough for him to write an autobiography. For if his purpose in writing it
was to make his friends see his waywardness in the right perspective and awaken in
them a genuine understanding of himself, he could have done this with greater
eloquence and effect in personal conversations. And this, we can wen imagine, he
must have done. His need for self-justification or self-revelation did not reany can
for an autobiography, especially one of the scope of which extends far beyond the
purposes of vindicating past fonies. Certainly, people have for centuries, even in
India, tried to win sympathy of their friends for their actions without having to write
an autobiography. The motive of arousing a better understanding of oneself need
hardly have been a compelling reason for Banarasi to set his life-story down on
paper. The fact that he chose to address his friends through a written autobiography
remains, in the last analysis, a contingent event: it is difficult to securely connect it
with either a tractable personal motive or a tangible cultural tradition. (p. xxxiv)
Whatever may be the reason for Banarasi to write his autobiography, he certainly
needs to be praised for the foundation he made which was later fonowed by many
compatriots. Importantly, Banarasi by writing his autobiography in Hindi verse and not in
Sanskrit or Persian, the aristocratic languages of his time, seems to have taken the first step
towards the popularization of the genre in India. He was not interested to discuss in his
autobiography the day-to-day affairs of the state; but was primarily engaged in tracing the
development of an individual self, which is an important aspect of modern autobiography.
Banarasi's Ardhakathanaka did not immediately begin a tradition of writing personal
narratives in India. Autobiography had to wait the advent of the British to be established as a
regular literary genre.
VI
British Rule and Indian Autobiographical Tradition
Under British rule many new things happened in India: new educational opportunities,
new improved communication, a new legal system, an alien new system of property rights
and relations and fresh ideas brought in new opportunities and new modes of mobility. Also
new literary genres like the novel and the autobiography were introduced. Both these genres
were predicated upon the recognition of each individual as unique regardless of caste, class or
professions. Education made social mobility possible and the need to define one's identity
51
outside caste and family parameters began to arise. This led many to think of themselves as
isolated individuals who then wrote their narrative as the record of their development of
individuality. The consciousness of this new individuality and loosening of the community
bond gave rise to subjectivity necessary in autobiographies. This changing nature of
individual self in Indian society has very aptly been described by Bhikhu Parekh:
British rule also introduced modern individualism and rationalism. Indians began to
question traditional values and practices and to experiment with new forms of life
and thought. Unwilling to fully embrace the new and unable to break with the
tradition, they became puzzle to themselves. This heightened their selfconsciousness and stimulated self-reflection. They were anxious to share with
others the excitement of their newly found freedom and the problems it had brought
in its train. Since Hindu society was generally hostile to them, they sought each
other's approval and good opinion. For these and other reasons, there grew up a new
subcultUre conducive to autobiographical writing. A group of people were [sic]
anxious to write about themselves; a well-developed constituency was interested in
reading them; and the newly acquired access to Western literature offered the
necessary intellectual tools for writing autobiographies. 21
By the late nineteenth century a good number of autobiographies written by Indian
writers in different regional languages began to appear in Indian literary scene. Most of these
authors were social reformers and public figures. Prominent among them are Narmada
Shankar's Mari-Hakikat (Gujarati; My Life or Statement); Narayan Hemchandra's Hoon Pate
(Gujarati; I Myself); Rajnarayan Basu's Atmajivani (Bengali; My Life); Dadoba Pandurang's
Atmacharitra (Marathi; My Life); and Debendranath Tagore's Autobiography.
22
The novelty
of the genre was evident in the fact that the title of these autobiographies showed little
variety. Interestingly most of these authors also said in the preface of their autobiographies
that they wanted to popularise this 'useful' and 'instructive' genre. However, there was
resistance against this new genre. Because autobiographers had to violate the code of Hindu
ethics by publicising their self, initially they had to face the wrath of their community
members. Thus, the tension was inbuilt in the genre itself. This tension makes the study of
Indian autobiographies quite interesting. But, because our concern is to study Indian
autobiographies written only in English or in English translation a general review of few
autobiographies is essential at this juncture before selecting some particular texts for their
critical appreciation.
The first Indian to write his full-length autobiography in English, it seems, was
Lutfullah under the title Autobiography of Lutfullah (1854) which got published in 1857.
52
Though Lutfullah did not mention the motive of writing his autobiography, it appears that he
wrote it to share his experiences with English-speaking people. He presented a fairly readable
picture of the Indian society of mid-nineteenth century, which was undergoing a churning due
to the process of modernization and reformation. Lutfullah was critical of the evil customs
prevalent in the Indian society of his time. For example, he attacked the system of sati among
the Hindus and circumcision among the Muslims. Thus, Lutfullah in his autobiography
emerged to be a very upright man with straightforward opinions.
Lal Behari Day's Recollections ofMy School Days is another important autobiography
written in English between 1873 and 1876. The Recollections appeared in regular instalments
in the Bengal Magazine, of which Day was the editor from February 1873 to May 1876. As
the title of the book suggests, his motive was to tell the story of his education and the book
covered only his school days. Day giving his own example tries to prove that the newly
introduced English education system was superior to that of the old system prevalent in India.
It was mainly because of the impact of the English education that he later embraced
Christianity.
The advent of the twentieth century saw the dawn of an era, which presented a fertile
ground for autobiographical writings. The new political awakening and upheaval in India
brought forth new political leaders on the horizon. As a result the old religious and social
institutions received jolt in the process. With a new age came awakening to write one's
autobiography and thus the century witnessed an unprecedented spurt in autobiographical
writings.
A. Balkrishan Mudaliyar's The Reminiscences of a Retired Hindu Official (1905) is
considered to be the first Indian autobiography in English in the twentieth century.
Mudaliyar's book talks more of Hindu philosophy than of his life and times. It was Lala
Lajpat Rai, who was having distinction to be the first Indian politician of twentieth century to
write about himself. In his first autobiography, The Story ofMy Deportation (1908) Rai wrote
about his life in exile from the 9th of May 1907 to the 18th of November 1907. The Story
reveals most poignantly the human side of the great leader, who with Bal Gangadhar Tilak
and Bipin Chandra Pal formed the trinity of militant movement during the anti-partition
agitation in Bengal and later known as extremist in Indian politics. Rai's other two
53
autobiographical fragments are: The Story of My Life (Urdu:
1914) and Indian
Revolutionaries in the United States and Japan (English: 1919). While the former deals with
his early involvement in the Arya Samaj Movement, the latter is an account of his sojourn in
America and Japan for nearly five years from 1914 to 1919. Shyam Sundar Chakraverty, who,
along with Lala Lajpat Rai and others was deported in i 907 by the British Government,
dwells chiefly upon his prison experiences in Through Solitude and Sorrows (1910). Many
more autobiographies followed thereafter.
Most of the male autobiographies in India since the nineteenth century are written by
public figures who write either to set the record straight or to offer a narrative of their role in
shaping public events. Surendranath Banerjea's autobiography, A Nation in Making (1925)
falls under this category. Banerjea was a top Congress leader who later headed moderate
group. He wrote his autobiography at the age of seventy-five when he was already out of
active political life. After the emergence of Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Mohandas Karamchand
Gandhi on the national scene, the moderates and their policy of cooperation with the British
became outmoded. They were looked upon with suspicious and their bona fides as patriots
were in doubt. Banerjea's real motive in writing the autobiography was to impress upon the
reader the idea that the leaders of his generations, particularly the moderates and himself
included, were sincere in their efforts to serve the country and in no case was the honesty of
their patriotic feelings to be questioned.
Keeping such an agenda at the backdrop, Banerjea wrote more about the political
history of modem India than about his personal history. The autobiography is full of
illustrations about Indian National Congress, its meetings, demonstrations, etc. Even the
speeches Banerjea made during different occasions are included in the text. On the other hand
there is hardly any mention ofBanerjea's socio-cultural and family background, which might
have shaped his childhood and youthhood.
Thus Surendranath Banerjea's autobiography reads like a sub-genre of history and
does not seem to be a serious work of art to be considered for evaluation. Many such
autobiographies written in the twentieth century by men in politics and public life also have
the same perspective. These include Mirza Ismail's My Public Life (1954), M. R. Jaykar's
The Story of My Life (1958), N.G. Ranga's Fight for Freedom (1959), Morarji Desai's The
54
Story of My Life (Vols I-III, 1974-79), M. C. Chagla's Roses in December (1973), C. D.
Deshmukh's The Source of My Life (1975), Mir Qasim's My Life and Times (1992),
R.Venkatraman's My Presidential Years (1994), Giani Zail Singh's Memoirs of Giani Zail
Singh ( 1997) and many others.
However, the autobiographies of M. K. Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, An
Autobiography or My Experiments with Truth
(1927) and An Autobiography (1936),
respectively are a class apart because they go beyond recording public events to introspect
and reflect upon personal dilemmas and crises. Nirad C. Chaudhuri's The Autobiography of
an Unknown Indian (1957) strikes a fine balance between personal narrative and social
history,
between
private
agency and
public
achievements.
Unfortunately Indian
autobiographies for a long time were not subjected to serious critical evaluation. The
rehabilitation of this genre as a site for study is a fairly recent phenomenon. Also, reading of
Indian autobiographies will require lots of socio-philosophical and historical considerations
so as not to miss the crucial statements and configurations of events that these books
highlight.
VII
Gandhi's Experiments with Truth
Gandhi's Autobiography is a complex text, not easy to interpret. As the very sub-title
suggests it is not just an autobiography, but it is a document full of experiments with truth.
When Gandhi decided to write his autobiography there were protests against his decision to
adopt a western practice of writing about one's life. Many of his Hindu friends tried to pursue
him not to write his autobiography arguing that this genre encouraged glorification of one's
individual self. And, one of his friends went farther to put Gandhi in dilemma by asking
several questions,
'What has set you on this adventure?' he asked. 'Writing an autobiography is a
practice peculiar to the West. I know of nobody in the East having written one,
except amongst those who have come under Western influence. And what will you
write? Supposing you reject tomorrow the things you hold as principles today, or
supposing you revise in the future your plans of today, is it not likely that the men
who shape their conduct on the authority of your word, spoken or written, may be
misled? Don't you think it would be better not to write anything like an
autobiography, at any rate just yet? (p. ix)
55
This argument had some effect on Gandhi. By that time Gandhi had already won the
title of Mahatma and it was futile for him to write in self-praise. Thus he devised his plan and
decided to write about his soul, the seeker of truth. Gandhi also believed that since all his
experiments were purely spiritual, there was no room for self-praise. Rather writing about
them would bring humility in him. But, the excuse Gandhi offered for the act of writing his
autobiography was merely a formality because he had already written a major portion of his
experiments with truth by then. Gandhi might not have realised that his experiments with
truth was also experiments with his self. Thus, his narrative with all seriousness tries to
search for the autobiographical truth.
Gandhi's autobiography was originally written in Gujarati between 1925 and 1929.
His writing was serialized and a chapter regularly came out in Navajivan, a Gujurati weekly
founded by Gandhi in 1919. The English translation appeared simultaneously in Young India.
The English translation was mostly rendered by Mahadev Desai, Gandhi's devoted Private
Secretary, except chapters XXXIX-XLIII of part V, which were translated by Pyarelal. The
translation had, it may be mentioned here, the benefit of Gandhi's revision. There are 167
chapters, which are arbitrarily arranged in five parts. The serialization continued for over
three years and the autobiography in book form was published in two volumes in 1927 and
1929, respectively.
Gandhi's life-story begins with an account of his early years, which played a vital part
in shaping his mind and character. Interestingly Gandhi selected only those incidents, which
threw light upon his moral development. He describes how his parents were people of strong
moral convictions. For example, his father was devoted to his clan, truthful, brave and
generous. He was "incorruptible and had earned a name for strict impartiality in his family as
well as outside"(p.3). His mother was an intensely religious lady who would sometimes take
difficult vows and keep those for religious reasons. Gandhi inherited keeping vows from his
mother. Later on, he perfected fasting into one of the most powerful weapons to resolve
various moral and political ideas.
A few incidents of his early years bring out the trend of Gandhi's character admirably.
The first took place during his first year at High School. The Educational Inspector, Giles,
56
came on a visit and asked the boys to write five words as a spelling exercise. Gandhi
misspelled the word 'Kettle'. When his class teacher prompted him with the point of his boot
to copy the correct spelling from his neighbour's slate, Gandhi would not do so. Later he
confesses: "I never could learn the art of copying" (p.6). He next describes his experience of
watching a play based on the life of king Harishchandra who had renounced everything for
the sake oftruth. The ideal of the story inspired Gandhi a lot throughout his life.
Like Augustine, Gandhi was severely selective and described the incidents without
over-elaboration. But Gandhi was also committed to truth; so however bitter and painful
might his experiences be he would narrate those for upholding truth. Take for example the
incidence relating to his child marriage which he roundly denounced but confessed at the
same time that he immensely enjoyed his own at the age of thirteen. He began, however, to
discover in himself a lustful attachment to his wife, Kasturaba. The result was that he had to
remain one more year at school because he failed in the exam. But his deepest regret arose
from his failure to serve his dying father while he was busy with his lustful act. Gandhi also
narrated some of his supposed sins for which he always felt guilty: his eating of goat meat,
visiting a brothel, stealing money from his father's pocket and smoking cigarettes. Every time
Gandhi did these misdeeds he had to confess his sin. The act of confession thus, became an
integral part of his personality and a means to arrive at the truth; this obsession 'with matters
of guilt and purity' ran through out his life.
While studying law at London Gandhi's morality had to be further tested. Gandhi
selected and narrated some of the incidents. An old lady encouraged him to be familiar with a
particular young woman with a view to getting them married. He discovered her game and
wrote a letter to the old lady explaining that he was already married; so he could not think of
getting married again. Here also the old method, Gandhi's confession worked well. Then
there was another story of his narrow escape from a woman of 'ill-fame' at Portsmouth. His
interest in religion deepened during the later part of his stay in England. He was greatly
impressed by the New Testament, especially the Sermon on.the Mount which "went straight
to my heart (p.58). Carlyle's book Heroes and Hero-worship led him to appreciate the
greatness of the prophet Muhammad. He got acquainted with theosophy and read quite a few
books on Buddhism as well as atheism. He also attended the funeral of Bradlaugh, a noted
atheist and Parliamentarian with whom Gandhi had a likeness.
57
It is significant that while staying at London for years together Gandhi hardly wrote
about the English people, their society and their environment. Rather his focu~ was
unswervingly on himself. More interestingly, during his stay there his mind was very much
occupied with the problems of food and sex. It was characteristic of him that the only
opportunity Gandhi got to know the English was through the Vegetarian Society. Then
followed his numerous experiments in diets with which he was preoccupied in England and
subsequently in South Africa. At times he failed in his experiments but he never stopped from
experimenting further till he was convinced himself that he was right in his endeavour. Take
for instance Gandhi's views about a diet-pattern which he prescribed for all mankind. He was
convinced that man need not take milk at all except as a baby. His diet should consist of
nothing but baked fruits and nuts, which would help him to restrain sexual and other passions.
While prescribing such food-habit Gandhi would, however, never consider the economic and
cultural factors, which solely determine people's preference to certain food items.
But, sometimes Gandhi had to make compromises between his practice and his vows.
For example, when Gandhi was seriously ill doctor advised him to drink goat's milk. Gandhi
had no other option but to accept this suggestion, which he followed throughout his life. For
this exception Gandhi attempted to give an explanation by saying that his intense eagerness to
take up the Satyagraha fight had created in him a strong desire to live; therefore he took the
vow of taking goat's milk but not cow's milk. He, however, felt remorse about following
such practice.
Gandhi is frank in admitting that because of his strong appetite he chose fasting as
very useful method to control his food habit. Later Gandhi used fasting as a method of
protesting for various national as well as personal causes. It is better if we put Gandhi's own
views where he explains why fasting, as a method had become important part of his life:
Fasting and restriction jn diet now played a more important part in my life. Passion
in man is generally co-existent with a hankering after the pleasures of the palate.
And so it was with me. I have encountered many difficulties in trying to control
passion as well as taste, and I cannot claim even now to have brought them under
complete subjection. I have considered myself to be a heavy eater. What friends
have thought to be my restraint has never appeared to me in that light. If I had failed
to develop restraint to the extent that I have, I should have desc;:ended lower than the
beasts and met my doom long ago. However, as I had adequately realized my
58
shortcomings, I made great efforts to get rid of them, and thanks to this endeavour I
have all these years pulled on with my body and put in with it my share of work.
(p.267)
Gandhi brings his life-story up to the Nagpur session of the Congress, which was held
in 1925. Gandhi apologises for closing his narrative at that point. The reason he gives that his
life has become so much public that "there is hardly anything about it that people do not
know." (p. 419) But, before taking leave from the reader Gandhi further re-asserts his stand
on truth and believes that the reader will also follow his path. He concludes his
autobiography, thus, with an optimistic note.
Gandhi must be praised for his openness, making his private life public.2 3 Before
Gandhi no politician has revealed so much of his private life as Gandhi has done in his
autobiography. This is because, as Roy Pascal would argue, "his political achievements had
meaning for him only in relation to the spiritual source from which they sprang. " 24
It is interesting to note that in his autobiography Gandhi's primary concern was not
political but moral and spiritual. That's the only reason why he permitted us to peep into the
privacy of his soul, into his mental conflicts and spiritual crises as only a man of religion can.
It is in this context that Gandhi's Autobiography can be compared with Augustine's
Confessions. The similarity between these two is that they conceal nothing. Even their small
sins and petty lapses acquire a greater dimension in retrospect. As Gerhard Stilz writes about
Gandhi,
... Gandhi's honesty in making metaphysical truth in his wide sense is an allembracing principle, which can easily accommodate past failures and conflicting
aims of an individual, without rationalising or controlling the ways and methods of
acting. As long as the ideal of absolute "truth" has not been attained, there is still
scope for autobiography. The confusion of the different truths is even productive for
the awareness of a resisting self. But once - Gandhi anticipates - the self bows down
completely to this mystified ideal, it reduces itself "to zero", and it will thereby
dissolve as an autobiographical subject. The accomplishment of religious life for
Gandhi, as for Augustine before, appeases the vital sting ofautobiography. 25
But there are also critics who do not see much worth in Gandhi's autobiography.
George Orwell is one such person who argues that Gandhi has 'not much to confess' in his
autobiography. Orwell further writes,
59
As a frontispiece to the book there is a photograph of Gandhi's possessions at the
time of his death. The whole outfit could be purchased for about 5 pound, and
Gandhi's sins, at least his fleshy sins, would make the same sort of appearance if
placed all in one heap. A few cigarettes, a few mouthfuls of meat, a few annas
pilfered in childhood from the maid-servant, two visits to brothel (on each occasion
he got away without 'doing anything'), one narrowly escaped lapse with his
landlady in Plymouth [it was Portsmouth], one out-burst of temper - that is about
whole collection? 6
One more critic is V. S. Naipaul who brings criticism on Gandhi's Autobiography in
the same vein as Orwell has done just above. Naipaul writes,
For its first half Gandhi's autobiography reads like a fairy-tale. He is dealing with
the acknowledged marvels of his early life; and his dry, compressed method,
reducing people to their functions and simplified characteristics, reducing places to
names and action to few lines of narrative, turns every thing to legend. When the
action becomes more complex and political, the method fails; and the book declines
more obviously into what it always was: an obsession with vows, food experiments,
recurring illness, an obsession with the sex? 7
The problem with both Orwell and Naipaul is that being outsiders, they can only judge
Gandhi from outside without bothering about placing Gandhi in proper socio-cultural context.
Gandhi with his experiments with truth might sound like an ancient sage, but one cannot deny
the fact that he was one of the tallest leaders of the masses in modem time. His several
experiments moulded him to be a simpler and gentler heart and that was why, perhaps, the
common men and women had tremendous faith on him and his ideologies. Moreover, his
concern towards the poor and the downtrodden cannot simply be ignored, for he brought new
hopes amidst them. His advocacy for a Ramrajya was primarily to create a new world where
the common women and men could also have their equal share of everything. Considering all
these into account Gandhi's autobiography seems to be quite significant. Bhikhu Parekh, an
insider, is far more positive about the book on the whole, but problematises the representation
of self by Gandhi in his autobiography,
Given his conception of a morally innocent autobiography, it is hardly surprising
that Gandhi's autobiography should be intensely moralistic and display an unusual
structure. As we saw elsewhere, he conducted different types of experiments in his
personal, social, professional and political life. After a prolonged moral struggle, he
succeeded in becoming a noble soul, a Mahatma. As he himself said, it was these
experiments and what he gained from them that earned him that title. His
autobiography is thus really a story of how he evolved into a Mahatma. With serene
detachment, the Mahatma narrates the way Mohandas Gandhi had tried to live his
life according to certain principles. He describes Gandhi's moments of achievement
and failure and how he had felt about these at the time. The Mahatma then reflects
60
on Gandhi's reflections, and the hero and the narrator, the subject and the object,
become one. The Mahatma finds Mohandas Gandhi both familiar and unfamiliar.
He recognises himself in him, for the moral struggle is not yet over and the
experiments with the soul are not yet complete. The Mahatma has also, however,
overcome many of Gandhi's limitations and even outgrown him and retains only a
non-emotive memory of him. Being a story of the fascinating and extremely
complex encounter between Gandhi and the Mahatma, Gandhi's Autobiography
does not remain an autobiography in the Western sense. It is basically a biography
of Gandhi written by the Mahatma. As an intriguing combination of the related but
logically distinct biographical and autobiographical genres of writing, it should
perhaps be called an autobiographical biography. 28
Critics will continue to interpret the text differently, but Gandhi's autobiography will
always remain a text worth going back to.
VIII
Nehru's Autobiography: Discovery of a National Self?
Nehru's Autobiography is unusually big; it runs into more than 600 printed pages. The
entire book
.... ., was written in prison, from June 1934 to February 1935, when Nehru was just
~.,
about 45 years old. Nehru spells out his objective in the preface to the first edition, thus,
The primary object in writing these pages was to occupy myself with a definite task,
so necessary in the long solitudes of gaol life, as well as to review past events in
India, with which I had been connected, to enable myself to think clearly about
them. I began the task in a mood of self-questioning and, to a large extent, this
persisted throughout. I was not writing deliberately for an audience, but if I thought
of an audience, it was one of my own countrymen and countrywomen. For foreign
readers I would have probably written differently, or with a different emphasis,
stressing certain aspects which have been slurred over in the narrative and passing
over lightly certain other aspects, which I have treated at some length. (p.xv)
Ironically Nehru's autobiography first got published at Badenweiler, London in 1936.
Contrary to his expectations the first audience to his autobiography were the British readers
and not his English-knowing countrymen and countrywomen who formed a small percentage
of Indian population. Structurally also the autobiography seems to be lopsided. Out of more
than 600 pages Nehru gave no more than 16 pages to his ancestry and childhood though he
covered a long period, from 1857 to 1905 for this. He wrote only 24 pages about his school
and college life in Harrow and Cambridge. He then returned home, joined in Allahabad High
Court and got married to Kamala. To Gandhi's leadership in Congress for national movement
61
from 1919 to 193 2 Nehru devoted 350 pages. The remaining 200 pages of the book brought
more stories of national movement with Nehru in its epicenter. Thus the personal element in
the narrative is disproportionately small. This makes B.R. Nanda to comment that the book is
"more a chronicle of the struggle against the Raj than an autobiography, as it is commonly
understood. " 29
Nehru did not narrate any of his childhood experiences barring one or two incidents.
He began his autobiography by writing, "An only son of prosperous parents is apt to be spoilt,
especially so in India". (p.l) Left to himself to weave his private fancies and imagination in
his solitary games for the first eleven years of his life, loneliness became Nehru's companion
forever. Even in later life Nehru was sent to jail off and on and hence, solitude became his
way of life. Nehru would spend most of his time in jail brooding, devising his action-plan,
and at times, enjoying the beauty of nature.
From his early life Nehru came in contact with English people and their manners and
values. Most of his tutors and governesses were white men and women. It was F.T ...Brooks,
an Irishman and Nehru's tutor, who instilled in him the love of books and initiated him into
the mysteries of science. Brooks was also responsible for introducing Nehru to the ideas of
religion, particularly theosophy. Nehru, at the age of thirteen became a member of the
Theosophical Society and attended their meetings regularly.
Nehru's going to Harrow and Cambridge for his study brought further contact with
English men and women. Nehru gives a fairly clear account of his intellectual development
while studying in England. His English years helped him develop a political outlook. The
suffragette movement was in full swing and it had its impact on Nehru's mind. Bernard Shaw
and the Fabian Society made socialism fashionable and kept Nehru's mind in ferment. His
visit to Greenland in 1910 brought him under the spell of the Irish patriotic movement and the
early beginnings of Sinn Fein. He also listened to some of the noted Indian politicians of the
day who visited England and talked about the political unrest in India. However, one wishes
that Nehru had given a more comprehensive account of these formative years, but he seems to
be in a hurry to narrate the period of his political activities.
62
After returning from England Nehru joined the Allahabad High Court as a lawyer but
did not find it interesting. He got attracted towards national movement, especially Gandhi's
call of Civil Disobedience against the Rowlatt Act. But the idea of joining the movement
precipitated trouble between the father Motilal Nehru and the son. Motilal, in his part could
never imagine that his son would be able to suffer as a Satyagrahi by frequently going to jail
and leading a simple life. Nehru finally convinced his father and joined in the freedom
struggle. This shift in Nehru's life was important because the Nehrus were always known to
be aristocrats. Nehru by adopting a simple life-style broke the myth and later emerged as a
leader of the masses.
When Nehru joined the non-cooperation movement, he felt that he had finally got
something immensely meaningful to work for and he threw himself into it heart and soul,
forgetting his friends, family members and everything else. Nehru writes of his growing
acquaintance with the masses and his popularity among them. The mind of the populace had
invested him with glamour. Fantastic legends were current about his family. Rumour was that
the Nehrus sent their linen weekly to Paris to be laundered. Back from England with a
Cambridge degree his decision to serve the people in the wake of Gandhi had enhanced that
glamour. He confesses that his great popularity went to his head and almost intoxicated him,
but it also gave him strength and confidence. In one of his visits to the rural populace we see
that his mind and heart were with people,
They showered their affection on us and looked on us with loving and hopeful eyes,
as if we were the bearers of good tidings, the guides who were to lead them to the
promised land. Looking at them and their misery and overflowing gratitude, I was
filled with shame and sorrow, shame at my own easy-going and comfortable life and
our petty politics of the city, which ignored this vast multitude of semi-naked sons
and daughters of India, sorrow at the degradation and overwhelming poverty of
India. A new picture of India seemed to rise before me, naked, starving, crushed,
and utterly miserable. And their faith in us, casual visitors from the distant city,
embarrassed me and filled me with a new responsibility that frightened me. (p. 52)
Nehru frankly admits that he was a bourgeois by living and says that he was "brought
up in bourgeois surroundings, with all the early prejudices that this training has given me."
(p.529) Nehru's ideological practice was partly rooted in the nineteenth century and his
formative years at Cambridge coincided with the efflorescence of Liberalism in England.
Between Fascism and Communism his sympathies were clearly with the latter and though he
never took Marx's writings as revealed scriptures, he inclined more and more towards a
63
socialist philosophy. But if necessary, he criticised the communists in unrestrained terms. For
example, in one place of his autobiography he writes that communists often irritated him
because of their dictatorial ways, their aggressive and rather vulgar methods, their habit of
denouncing everybody who did not agree with them. This shows Nehru's open-mindedness.
Nehru was one of the important organisers of the Congress. He worked day and night
to strengthen this body so that India would achieve its goal, attaining freedom. But Nehru
would not believe that all Congressmen were committed to the cause; some of them were
engaged in petty narrow-minded politics, as he observed and when he came across them he
criticised them in irreverent words. Thus for his straight forwardness and devotion to duty he
commanded respect in the Congress Party and emerged as the tallest leader.
During the freedom movements it became clear that Nehru was virtually a political
heir of Gandhi. Both of them worked hand in hand to get India's freedom, though sometimes
they would never agree one another on certain principles. However, Nehru admired Gandhi so
much so that he praised Gandhi, perhaps, next to none. The most eloquent sketch in Nehru's
autobiography is, perhaps, of Gandhi,
... this little man of poor physique had something of steel in him, something rocklike which did not yield to physical powers, however great they might be. And in
spite of his unimpressive features, his loin-cloth and bare body, there was a royalty
and a kingliness in him which compelled a willing obeisance from others.
Consciously and deliberately meek and humble, yet he was full of power and
authority, and he knew it, and at times he was imperious enough, issuing commands
which had to be obeyed. His calm, deep eyes would hold one and gently probe into
the depths; his voice, clear and limpid, would purr its way into the heart and evoke
an emotional response. Whether his audience consisted of one person or a thousand,
the charm and magnetism of the man passed on to it, and each one had a feeling of
communion with the speaker. (p. 129)
Nehru is at his best while writing about his jail experience. He spent several years of
his life behind prison bars and the fact that he wrote his autobiography in jail has set the tone_,
of the book, contemplative and analytical. 30 Boredom was an inevitable experience in the
solitude of a jail but Nehru kept himself occupied in reading and writing; yet he would long
for a thousand and one small things of life beyond the prison-walls. One feels the absence of
many things in prison, but the absence of women's voice and children's laughter, as Nehru
writes, was felt most acutely. Once in Lucknow District jail, he suddenly realized that he had
64
not heard the bark of dogs for many months. He becomes lyrical when describing certain
outside scenes which he chanced to see from inside the jail, such as, the clouds scudding
across the sky or a distant view of the Himalayas from the Debra Dun jail. Nothing inside the
jail could escape his observant eyes, whether it was a large peepul tree or a tiny wasp. The
most keenly awaited days, however, were the interview days - red-letter days in jail - and
Nehru writes "how one longed for them and waited for them and counted the days!" (p. 348)
But after the interviews "there was the inevitable reaction in a sense of emptiness .and
loneliness." (ibid) However, a release from jail always brought him a sense of relief and joy.
The paradox about Nehru's autobiography is that it is a partial account ofNehru's life.
Nehru lived many years after his autobiography came out but he never attempted to write
about the rest of his life. As we have mentioned it earlier, the same thing happened in the
case of Gandhi also. Though in many differences exit between Nehru and Gandhi's
autobiographies one can still attempt to compare them. While both of them try to understand
their growing self from their personal experiences the methodologies they adopt in their
autobiographical projects seem to be quite different from each other. For example, Gandhi
had an intense and introspective self-analysis through several of his experiments with truth
and seems to be a yogi. Nehru, on the other hand, had to entirely depend on the social and
political conditions of his time and act accordingly. His personal accounts, therefore, read
more as a secular text than that of Gandhi's whose spiritual journey through his
autobiography is well known. This is, perhaps, the reason why Bhiku Parekh writes that
Gandhi's autobiography was introspective whereas Nehru's was reflective. 31
A close reading of Gandhi's and Nehru's autobiographies also suggests that they go
beyond the limit of 'self-understanding'. Both of them were belonged to the upper caste/class
families and they had never faced any social problem concerning their social identities like
the poor and the downtrodden have to face in India in their day-to-day life. But both of them
were committed to the social causes. With their empathetic mind and sympathetic heart both
of them in their own ways tried to understand what it meant to be an underprivileged.
Gandhi's concern for the peasants 32 and Nehru's attempt to understand the rural masses
drives the point clearly.
65
The interesting point about Nehru's Autobiography is that instead of depicting
Nehru's personal life in great detail it gives a comprehensive picture of the political life of
India, as an emerging nation. It may be because Nehru's personal life was so intimately
blended with the life of the nation that it was impossible to distinguish them as disparate.
Given this background, it is inevitable to be stated here that Nehru's autobiography is all
about an emergence of a national self, rather than a personalised self of an individual. Such a
reading is not new though- earlier we have seen similar thing in Franklin's autobiographythis brings complexity to the reading of autobiography as a literally genre. 33
IX
Nirad C. Chaudhuri's Autobiography: A Social History?
Unlike Gandhi's and Nehru's autobiographies, Nirad C. .Chaudhuri's The
Autobiography of an Unknown Indian (1951) strikes a balance between personal narrative
and social history, between private concerns and public achievements. The title of the book
suggests that the narrative is all about "the self-effacement of an inconspicuous man-in-the
street;"34 that was Chaudhuri himself. At the time when his book came out he was not so
famous but he was "a brilliant, provocative and exceptional individual whose aim [was] to
shock the famous leaders of his day out of their self-complacency."35 It is clear that
Chaudhuri naturally has a gun at hand and he would use his erudition to silence his critics:
I don't think that any apologies are expected from me for the autobiographical form
of the book or for the presence in it of a good deal of egoistic matter. A man
persuades himself best, and best convinces others, by means of his own experiences.
Also, the reader is entitled to information about the character and idiosyncrasies of a
man who offers him unfamiliar points of view and interpretations, so that
knowledge being relative he can make allowance for what is called the personal
equation .... These collections of mine are in no sense des memories d'outretombe. If anyone so chooses he may call them m'emories d'outre-Manche in a
figurative sense, in the sense that, retreating before the panzers of the enemy who
has seized my past life, I have decided to put between him and me, between
apparent defeat and acceptance of defeat, a narrow but uncrossable strip of salt
water. The battle is not given up. (p. ix)
Earlier, Chaudhuri setting the agenda of his autobiography wrote that his book was
record of struggle of an individual, that was himself whose story had also a parallel narratives
line with the struggle of a nation, that was India under British rule. This is where the personal
history of Chaudhuri found a blending match in national history oflndia. 36 .
66
nmediate motive that impelled Chaudhuri to embark upon the
:nture seems to emanate from some personal complain. He says that he
n of faith for himself, because after passing the age of fifty he was faced
ite off the years he had lived so far and began life anew. This compulsion
n an acute awareness of being a failure in life, a fact he mentions but
.e breath. This sense of failure is at the root of his autobiography, which
>th its tone and texture, and the book seems to be what R. C. P. Sinha calls
~venge." 37
the autobiography is divided into four books. Out of these four, three are
ille last book contains essays on political, historical and sociological
5
somewhat incoherent. But he has his own reason to put it along with his
the Prefatory note to the fourth book he writes, "the story of my
fe has been told. I have now to describe my entry into the world. Even in
1mstances we modem Indians could not expect this event to be
3)
; first book is entitled, 'Early Environment.' In this section he speaks of
influenced him in early life. The first three places are his birth place,
:estral village, Banagram, his mother's village, Kalikachchna or Kalikutch
ived as a boy; but the fourth one is England which he had not visited when
:.
38
Chaudhuri while writing about these places also describes the geo-
al traits which he had imbibed from these regions. Take for example,
ption of social life at Kishorganj,
1dy of citizens there was a remarkable feeling of equality. Being Hindu
igh caste or low caste, Brahmin or non-Brahmin made no difference.
r comparatively poor make some, but not such as would make the
eel invidiously treated. It was somewhat of a surprise to see a society
r over to the business of making money showing such good taste in
ferences of wealth. Perhaps the approximate equality of the means of
amilies has something to do with it. But over against the explanation
the fact that we were not snobbish to inferiors either, not even to the
menials. There was nothing which was looked upon and judged with
proval than the parading of wealth and expectation of flattery or
ss from men of lower position. (p. 46)
67
Chaudhuri was a keen observer of every social event of his milieu and thus nothing
evaded his eyes. He also had a human intelligence to either support the situation or
vociferously oppose it. In his characteristic style he would philosophically throw out a
comment or two, general ising most of the events even when the situation does not warrant it.
It seems that England had been a major influence in his early life chiefly because a
precociously early interest in English poetry had opened a realm of enchantment to him.
Chaudhuri's list of his English celebrities include among many, Queen Victoria, Prince
Albert, and Shakespeare. But English rulers in India were different from English men in
England. The white men ruled in India were seen through queer susceptive. Once he heard
from his schoolteacher that the English race was born from a she-monkey by a demon, and
like monkeys, they were very fond of bananas. Because of this notion Chaudhuri and his
brother once hid themselves in a roadside ditch to save their bananas from an English man
coming up the road from the opposite direction. But later he would correct this wrong notion.
He confesses, "I am thankful to my parents that they inculcated a saner outlook in their
children and taught them, Indian gentlemen to be, to treat Englishmen as English gentlemen,
no less, no more." (p. 137)
In the second book Chaudhuri talks about his birth, parental cares and the first twelve
years of his childhood. He gives credit to his father for his liberal stand on education and
other matters. It was from his father that Chaudhuri learnt to use English words with care. His
father never advised them to learn formal grammar and discouraged the method of translation.
This helped Chaudhuri to read the original always with care that would, later, make him one
of the best English writers of the twentieth century. His view of educational system during the
British rule in India is, however, not uncritical, even though many critics accuse him of being
an 'anglophile'. In his characteristic style Chaudhuri tries to examine the merits and demerits
of English education in the following,
The educational system of British India has been accused of being only a machine
for turning out clerks and officials. That certainly is true if we test the system by the
use which was made of it in average instances and judge it by its average product.
But it is not true if we take into account the intention of those who created the
system. Their first mistake, however, was that they reproduced the outward forms of
an educational system which existed in another country without enquiring whether
the assumptions on which it rested there and the spirit by which it was animated in
68
the country of its origin existed also in India. Their second mistake was that they
introduced the system without making adequate, and for that matter any, provision
for the conscious and continuous propagation of the assumptions, since they did not
exist in India. Thus it happened that although there always were a select few who
could supply the missing spark of animation from their private insight, some
unusual and exceptional trait in the family tradition, or gift of grace, many passed
through the system quite mechanically or investing it with only that meaning which
was most obvious to them. They used the system as a man who does not understand
the nature and use of live ammunition uses a gun even when he has cartridges, that
is to say, only as a cudgel. Although it is not fair to blame them for this, it is not fair
either to blame a system or an instrument if one does not put it to its fullest possible
use. (pp.168-169)
Education started by the British, as Chaudhuri suggests had all positive qualities
except that the majority of the Indians could not take advantage of it. Chaudhuri then gives in
the next two chapters an account of how the current events had influenced his mind and there
he analysed the different social, political and religious movements of his time. Referring to
some of the religious practices Chaudhuri observes that the urban Indians seemed to be
irreligious and one could not expect any morality from them. He was critical of the modern
way of life by saying that without becoming atheistic or agnostic or ceasing to be
superstitious, modern Indians had been too much indulged in religious and ethical problems.
As a result religion in India had become paganism.
Chaudhuri stresses out such unhealthy religious practices of Indians from the
beginning of the nationalist movement when India underwent several changes in its sociocultural spheres of life. He found out that most of the leaders during that time tried to mix up
religion with politics. The result was that the old dynamics of Hinduism became dimmed and
started declining. Chaudhuri, however, was optimist. He believed that Hinduism would never
die; it would survive and be more glorious in future. Chaudhuri would have been sorry to see
the present Hindu fundamentalist forces unleashing the terror on the name of Hindu
nationalism.
In the third book Chaudhuri recounts his school and college days in Calcutta. His stay
in Calcutta from 1910 to 1942 played a decisive role in moulding his scholarly temperament.
The process of detachment from natural environment began with his arrival in Calcutta and it
obviously sharpened his power of perception. He made no secret of the fact that he learnt
much from libraries, museums and even the shabby buildings of Calcutta, but remained
69
wholly unaffected by the surge of its daily life. The greatest event of his school career, he
recollects, to be his acquaintance with the Encyclopeadia Britannica, and curiously enough,
the first article to attract him was on dogs. The articles on artille~, ships and shipbuilding
etc., however, charmed him most. He also began to take unusual interest in military history
and military tactics. The First World War further deepened his interest in these subjects.
Apart from his academic pursuit, more interesting was his observation of the mundane details
of the daily life of the Calcutta people. He recollects how people, especially women took
great care to appear at their best in the evenings which was very striking and pleasing contrast
to the generally untidy and scraggy persons from East Bengal, where he once belonged to.
Chaudhuri's career at college was marked by his over-ambitious scheme of study.
About his passion for scholarship he says that though he never became a scholar, he
experienced "the emotion of scholarship." From the very beginning of his college career he
was drawn irresistibly towards history and offered history as the main subject of study in his
B. A. course. He did very well in the examination, topping the list of successful candidates.
During his M. A., however, he began a much wider study of history and failed to pass the
examination. Analysing the causes of his failure he says that it was perhaps partly due to his
lack of vitality and will power and partly to an extensive reading that was rather diffuse and
haphazard.
As mentioned earlier the fourth book is a collection of essays written during different
time on different socio-cultural and political topics. Though not autobiographical, the
opinions and explanations made in these essays by Chaudhuri seem to be an extension of his
autobiographical ideas. That's perhaps the reason why he included those in his autobiography.
Take for example the essay under title, "New politics". Here Chaudhuri talked about Indian
nationalism which he divided into three categories: liberal, Hindu and Gandhian. In his
analysis, while liberal and Hindu nationalisms failed to create conditions in which people had
faiths on them, it was Gandhian nationalism, which had easy acceptance cutting across
political ideologies. He gave credit to Gandhi for he simplified the concept of nationalism and
was able to convert it into a mass movement.
Chaudhuri, however, was not very happy about Gandhism and its doctrines because of
some inherent weaknesses, which were responsible for its fast decline. He believed that the
70
over-simplification of moral principles, the morality of the servus and the "descent towards
the old rancorous and atavistic form of Indian nationalism" (p. 517) brought about the
degeneration of Gandhism. In a forthright condemnation of the common people's attitude to
Gandhism Chaudhuri writes:
In the end Gandhism in politics and in practice came to stand for every little else but
a congealed mass of atavistic aspirations and prejudices. I would not have recorded
.this opinion so categorically had it not been forced on me by more than twenty-five
years of observation. In truth, in the sphere of politics, the people of India, taken in
the mass and including the intelligentsia, never accepted Gandhism as Mahatma
Gandhi understood it: they accepted only their own version of Gandhism and made
it serve their own ends. When it went against their inclinations and interests, which
always were retrograde, they rejected it - their own basic morality - as completely as
they rejected the civilization of the West and of ancient India. Towards the end of
his life Mahatma Gandhi seemed to have become suddenly aware of this fact, of the
repudiation by his countrymen of the only thing for which he cared - his vision of
truth and right. That disillusionment made him wish for death, which came with
merciful swiftness from the pistol - the sacred weapon of Indian nationalism - of a
Hindu fanatic. I speak of merciful swiftness because if he had lived he would have
suffered tortures infinitely more cruel and excruciating than death. For the real
assassin at large was not a single individual, nor a group of conspirators, nor even a
reactionary minority of his people, it was an entire geographical environment, a
society, a tradition acting in unison, and arrayed as a colossal, nescient murderous
force against his principles and teachings. (pp.517 -518)
Till date Chaudhuri's autobiography is considered to be one ofthe most controversial
yet critical books on Indian culture and politics. Chaudhuri's critical comments have brought
a lot of criticism from scholars both from India and outside. Take for example a view
forwarded by M. K. Naik. Naik while comparing Nehru's Autobiography with Chaudhuri's
Autobiography has the following comments to make,
Nehru's Autobiography ... impresses one as both the revelation of a remarkable
personality and a valuable record of an eventful age; The Autobiography of an
Unknown Indian remains a monument to egotism; it offers the spectacle of an
unusual man who could not or even refused to understand properly the denouement
of the great national drama of which he was a spectator, simply because the
spotlight was not trained on him, and who also liked to believe that if he was not
'Prince Hamlet', the fault was perhaps that of the stage. 39
Naik's scathing attack on Chaudhuri seems more to do with his personal life rather
than the 'autobiographical truth' he attempted to present in his Autobiography. But there are
also critics who appreciate Chaudhuri's matter-of-fact representation of his life and Indian
society. One such critics is Gerhard Stilz, who observes that in spite of too much historical
71
events evidenced in Chaudhuri's autobiography, the fact that the author's 'individual self
reigns supreme, is a good characteristic of an autobiography. Stilz, thus, praises Chaudhuri's
struggle to construct his own self amidst a decadent world,
The Autobiography of An Unknown Indian, which sets out to be the history of a
decadent outside world, thus essentil:!-llY remains an affirmation of the author's
individual self, in spite of its main intention and in opposition to the cosmic system
of "objective" change and cyclic inevitability which it puts forth. Chaudhuri saves
and extricates his own self rather mysteriously from the world he describes, but he
does so quite convincingly through the act of describing it. 40
The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian covers the first twenty-two years of
author's life, i.e., from 1897 to 1920. Chaudhuri in his second autobiography titled Thy Hand,
Great Anarch (1987) deals with another phase of his life, from 1921 to 1952. Thy Hand,
which has nearly about one thousand pages, is yet another fine example of Chaudhuri's
narrating his personal life blending it with national history. He himself defends this stand of
mixing personal life with national history by explaining that in any age a person's life is a
creation of history. Giving examples of how St. Augustine is a product of the Graceo-Roman
world of the fifth century A. D. Chaudhuri thus justifies his stand by arguing that his personal
life has a relevance to the general human situation today because he was created by history
and history is relevant for all time to come.
The true scope of Thy Hand is really much wider and deeper. Here the author touches
wide range of topics, such as, Indian politics and culture, the decline of British power, the
decay of the West, etc. All these topics need thorough discussion. For the limited space of this
thesis, however, it is not just possible to do so. There are also other interesting
autobiographies such as Mulk Raj Anand's Apology for Heroism (1946), Dom Moraes' My
Son's Father (1971), R. K. Narayan's My Days: A Memoir (1975), C. D. Narasimhaiah's N
for Nobody: Autobiography of an English Teacher (1991) etc., which should have gone well
along with Chaudhuri's The Autobiography to compare and contrast with. Mulk Raj Anand's
Apology, however, is a class apart which demands our attention in view of the distinct
presentation of self.
72
X
Mulk Raj Anand's Autobiography: An Apology for the Oppressed Classes?
There are eleven chapters in Apology. Anand chronologically describes a number of
selected events, which form an important part of his life. There is a subtle design narrating the
selected events: Anand stresses the development of his self. As a creative writer Anand is
known for his concern towards the poor and downtrodden of our society. His sympathetic
attitude towards the oppressed classes knows no bound and its proof is some of his finest
novels written and published over years such as, Untouchable (1935), Coolie (1936), The Big
Heart (1945), The Road (1961) and others. In his autobiography he meticulously tries to read
each and every event of his life and relates it to the people who are less privileged than
himself. In the process he realises that his self is remarkably different from others'. The
realisation that he is different from others forces Anand to rethink his social position in
comparison with several underprivileged people irrespective of their caste, class, gender, race
or religion. Anand in the process further realises that every human being whether rich or poor,
literate or illiterate needs freedom for self-actualisation. The freedom Anand philosophies in
his autobiography, is to "expand freedom to others, to sustain the ever-expanding areas of
consciousness, to make man truly human"(p.25). Anand, thus, clarifies his proposition as an
autobiographer whose sole duty, as he states, is to seek freedom for human happiness.
Anand has been always a vigilant writer. He is basically a critic of that civilization
which pushes the poor and downtrodden aside for its onward march making the rich, richer
and the poor, poorer. All through his writings Anand has been voicing the plights of these
voiceless millions for their rightful places in the society. In Apology also he strongly
advocates the policy of equal opportunities irrespective of caste and class so that social justice
prevails. But he is also skeptic about the role of the upper strata who will not let go power
from their hand to the last man, lest their position will diminish. Anand does not spare them
but criticises using unequivocal terms.
The most important passage in Apology is Anand's confession of his social position.
He tells us that being born in upper caste and class family in India he is privileged to enjoy
certain freedom, which the people from the lower caste and class cannot think of. He
emphasises the point that it is the social position of a person that always predetermines the
degree of his/her vulnerability. Anand apologises for his secured social position and regrets
73
that he cannot exactly experience the suffering life of the poor and downtrodden. But
certainly he can sympathise with them. He writes,
I could not, of course, sense the suffering of the poor directly because I had always
been comparatively better off. No, mine was a secondary humiliation, the
humiliation of seeing other people suffer. I do not know to what extent envy of the
rich on my part was disguising itself as the hunger for social justice. Perhaps there
was an element of this. Also the inadequacies of our life in India may have
contributed something to my preoccupation. But I do not apologize for this, because
it is not easy in the face of such wretchedness and misery as I had seen in India to
believe that material happiness and well-being had no connection with real
happiness and the desire for beauty. So I sought to recreate my life through my
memories of the India in which I grew up, with a view to rediscovering the vanities,
the vapidities, the conceits and the perplexities through which I had grown up
indifferent to the lives of the people around me. I felt guilty, for needless suffering
was no matter of complacent pride or gratitude. And self-assurance was bourgeois
virtue out of place even in Bloomsbury circles. (pp.116-117)
It is due to humble submission of his self that Anand's Apology seems to be a
confessional autobiography like Augustine's and Rousseau's Confessions. 41 But, comparing it
with the autobiographies of Gandhi, Nehru and Chaudhuri whether in terms of themes or
forms, Anand's autobiography stands as distinct. The reasons are several. As we have already
seen that Gandhi's experiments with truth makes his autobiography more individualistic than
socially relevant. Nehru's representation of national self rather than his agonised individual
self makes his autobiography further far reaching than a reality of life. Chaudhuri's blending
of personal story with national history does have social effects, but temporarily. On the other
hand Anand's seeking of social justice for the poor and downtrodden has more relevance than
one would expect from anything in a literally genre such as autobiography. Structurally also,
while Gandhi, Nehru and Chaudhuri fall under the trap of writing very conventional
autobiographies which are either personal or historical or both, Anand makes it different.
Anand, in a true sense, is methodically experimenting his 'self with an open mind giving
space as well as importance to others as well. This brings tension in his autobiography.
Gerhard Stilz who compares the autobiographies of Gandhi, Nehru, Chaudhuri with Anand's
comes to the conclusion that while all these autobiographers inevitably run the risk of
ultimately sacrificing their vital self to their various world-views, ideals, metaphysical truths,
political activities, historical position, etc. Anand so far seems to get away by keeping the
horizon open for the autobiography of the creative, ever-changing individuallife. 42 It is in this
sense Anand's autobiography reads as a dynamic text. Finally, it can be said that the
representation of a tension-ridden individual self vis-a-vis the self of the community or
society is an important pre-requisite for writing one's autobiography.
Notes and References
1. There are two translated texts made available on Babur's Tuzuk-i-Babur. One is
Babur-Nama (Memoirs of Babur) by Annettle Susannah Beveridge, volume I and II,
Orient Reprint, New Delhi, 1970. Another title is, The Life of Baber: Emperor of
Hindostan by R.M. Caldecott and James Darling, Clerical Library, London, 1844. I
have used the former text for its meticulous notes and references.
2. See Bhikhu Parekh, Colonialism, Tradition and Reform: An Analysis of Gandhi's
Political Discourse, Sage Publications, New Delhi, 1989, p. 250.
3. Albert Scheweitzer, Indian Thought and Its Development, Translated by Charles E.B.
Russell, Hodder and Stoughton Limited, London, 1936, pp. 49-50.
4. Swami Satprakashananda, The Goal and the Way: The Vedantic Approach to Life's
Problems, Sri Ramakrishna Math, Madras, 1974, p. 23.
5. Balbir Singh, Foundations of Indian Philosophy, Orient Longman, New Delhi, 1971,
p. 38.
6. Anand Coomaraswamy, The Dance of Shiva: Fourteen Indian Essays, Asia
Publishing House, Bombay, 1948, p. 119.
7. See for example, The Rigveda Samhita, Translated By M.N. Dutt, Society for
Resuscitation of Indian Literature, Calcutta, 1906.
8. Ashok's writings on Rock Pillar Edicts have been translated and edited by D.C. Sircar
giving the title, Inscriptions of Ashoka, published by the Publications Division,
Government of India, Delhi, 1967.
9. For more details in this regard see A.K. Warder's Indian Kavya Literature: Literary
Criticism, Vol. I, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1992.
10.See Sarla Khosla's Asvaghosa and His Times, Intellectual Publishing House, New
Delhi, 1986.
11. The Harsa-Carita of Bana, Translated by E.B. Cowell and F.W. Thomas, Motilal
Banarsidass, Delhi, 1961.
12. Kalhana 's Rajatarangini: A Chronicle of the Kings of Kashmir, Translated by M.A.
Stein, Volumes I and II, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1961.
75
13. Refer R.C.P. Sinha, The Indian Autobiographies in English, S. Chand and Company,
New Delhi, 1978, p. 26.
14. Roy Pascal, Design and Truth in Autobiography, op.cit., p. 22.
15. See Krisnachandra Jena, Baburnama and Babur, Sundeep Prakashan, Delhi, 1978, p.
ix.
16. S.M. Edwardes praises Babur's style of writing thus: "The flowery phraseology and
hyperbole, so common, in Eastern literature, find no place in his (Babur's)
autobiography, which is written clear, simple, terse language, vold of superfluous
words". Refer his book Babur: Diarist and Despot, A.M. Phipot, London, (Year of
Publication not mentioned), p. 108.
17. Stephen F. Dale, "The Poetry and Autobiography of the Babur-nama" in The Journal
ofAsian Studies, Vol. 55, No.3, August 1999, p. 639.
18. Gul-Badan Begum's Humayun-nama has been translated into English by A.S.
Beveridge, Royal Asiatic Society, London, 1902.
19. J ahangir' s Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri is available in English translation in two different
versions. One is translated by Alexander Rogers and edited by Henry Beveridge with a
title The Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri, Munshiram Manoharlal, Delhi, 1968. Another is Memoirs
of the Emperor Jahangir (1928), Translated by Major David Price, Mittal
Publications, New Delhi, 1985.
20. There is an autobiographical memoir of the Emperor Timur, written in the Chaghatai
Turki language and has been translated into Persian by Abu Talib Husaini with a title
Malfuzat-1-Timuri or Tuzak-1-Timuri. This memoir has been dedicated to the Emperor
Shah Jhan, who began to reign in 1628 A.D. This has been translated and edited in
English by John Dawson with a title The Autobiography of Timur and published by
Susil Gupta(India), Calcutta, 1871. I found its second edition published in 1952.
21. Bhiku Parekh, Colonialism, Tradition and Reform, op.cit pp.254-55.
22. The publication details of the mentioned autobiographies are not traceable.
23. Gandhi's frankness in his autobiography has certain caste characteristic, believes
some scholars. One of such criticisms comes from Antony Copley when he
~rites,
"Gandhi's frank exposure of the way he sought to overcome his own weaknesses, his
shyness, his inarticulateness, by such means as experiments in diet, his vow of
strength. In this view Gandhi is seen as trying to rearticulate a kshatriya warrior ethic.
It is an intriguing theory, although it may exaggerate the extent of Gandhi's concern
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with the rhetoric of the Raj." See Antony Copley, Gandhi Against the Tide, Oxford
University Press, Calcutta, 1987, p.36.
24. Roy Pascal, Design and Truth in Autobiography, op.cit, p. 7.
25. Gerhard Stilz, "Experiments in Squaring the Ellipsis: A Critical Reading of the
Autobiographies of Gandhi, Nehru, Chaudhuri and Anand" in New Perspective in
Indian Literature in English: Essays in Honour of M.K. Naik, Edited by C.R.
Yaravintelimath, et.al. Sterling Publishers, New Delhi, 1995, p. 167.
26. In The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, Vol.N, Edited by
Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus, London, 1968, p. 465.
27. V.S. Naipaul, The Overcrowded Barracoon (1972), Penguin, England, 1984, pp. 6162.
28 .. Bhiku Parekh, Colonialism, Tradition and Reform, op.cit, p. 262.
29. B.R. Nanda, Jawaharlal Nehru: Rebel and Statesman, Oxford University Press, Delhi,
1995, p. 276.
30. M.K. Naik praises Nehru's prose-style thus: "His prose is a just reflection of the mansincere and idealistic, urbane and cultured, vigorous yet graceful - a man endowed
with a clear and sharp (though perhaps not an original) mind, strong emotions, a
feeling for beauty and a keen comic sense. And, as his subject demands, Nehru is in
tum analytical, eloquent, sarcastic and lyrical. His style is utterly free from the
periodic ponderousness of some of the nineteenth century Indians. His prose steers
clear of their heavy latinized diction, their deliberately balanced and complex
sentence-structure, and their overt rhetorical opulence. His diction is, by and large,
simple, but he has a sure feeling for the apt word and the incisive phrase which endow
his prose with a remarkable trenchancy of expression". See M.K. Naik, Dimensions of
Indian English Literature, Sterling Publishers, New Delhi, 1984, pp.82-83.
31. Bhiku Parekh, Colonialism, Tradition and Reform, op.cit, p. 266.
32. Gandhi's love for the poor has been lucidly put by Louis Fischer in the following
passage, "Gandhi's politics grew out of the practical problems of the distressed
millions. His was a loyalty not to abstractions but to human beings in their day-to-day
living. He did not think out of ideas, he worked them out." See Louis Fischer,
Gandhi: His Life and Message for the World (1954), Penguin Books, U.S. A., 1982,
p.59.
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33. Commenting on Nehru's development of personality as reflected in his autobiography
R.K. Thakur thus writes: "Nehru finds a release from the non-manifest struggle of the
heart in the manifest struggle of the freedom movement. Action brings about a
harmony between his inner and outer self, between the individual and the community,
between the man and the nation, and Nehru emerges out as a hero in the great human
drama presented on the vast stage of India with millions of actors playing their
destined role. He achieves an integration of sensibility, develops a balanced
personality in which the introvert and the extrovert co-operate to create that synthesis
which Nehru calls "an organic view oflife." See R.K. Thakur, Jawaharlal Nehru: The
Man and the Writer, Bahri Publications, New Delhi, 1989, p.l09.
34. Gerhard Stilz, "Experiments in Squaring the Elipsis," op.cit., p.170.
35. Ibid.
36. But C. Paul Verghese observes that Chaudhuri's interpretation of Indian history is far
from objective. Verghese compares Nehru's and Gandhi's interpretation of Indian
history in their respective autobiographies with that of Chaudhuri and thus comments,
" .... while Nehru's innate urbanity and Gandhi's dedication to the quest after Truth
prevent them from unnecessarily cluttering the pages of their autobiographies with
petty personal details and lead them to examine their inner lives against the
background of the causes espoused by them, Chaudhuri relates personal details,
especially in the first half of the book, with a dreary insistence and fails to achieve a
spontaneous integration of personal life with the national life .... This is not, however,
to suggest that these descriptions are not readable; they have their place, taken
independently as descriptions. But the point is that they detract from the spontaneity
of the autobiography." Refer C. Paul Verghese, Nirad C. Chaudhuri, AmoldHeinemann India, New Delhi, 1973, p.18.
37. R.C.P. Sinha, The Indian Autobiographies in English, op.cit, p. 166.
38. Chaudhuri visited England for the first time in 1955 at the age of fifty-seven and
wrote a provocative book titled, A Passage to England, Macmillan, London, 1959, on
his visit.
39. M.K. Naik, Dimensions ofIndian English Literature, op.cit., p. 98.
40. Gerhard Stilz, "Experiments in Squaring the Ellipsis," op.cit, p. 172.
41. Stephen Spender's definition of confession very much fits into Anand's idea of
apology. Spender, for example, observes, "All confessions are from subject to object,
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from the individual to the community or creed. Even the most shamelessly revealed
inner life pleads its cause before the moral system of an outer, objective life. One of
the things that the most abysmal confessions prove is the incapacity of even the most
outcast creature to be alone. Indeed, the essence of the confession is that the one who
feels outcast pleads with humanity to relate his isolation to its wholeness. He pleads to
be forgiven, condoned, even condemned, so long as he is brought back into the
wholeness of people and of things." For details, see Stephen Spender, "Confessions
and Autobiography" in James Olney, Autobiography: Essays Theoretical and
Critical( ed), op.cit., p.120.
42. Gerhard Stilz, "Experiments in Squaring in Ellipsis," op.cit., p. 175.
79