Book Review
India’s socialist movement has produced towering personalities who dominated the national scene during the prime period of their career. Those who were elected to the Lok Sabha made a forceful impact on its proceedings and remained permanently in limelight thanks to their intellectual calibre, oratorical skills and commitment to the cause of socialism and democracy. Among those who were rated as outstanding parliamentarians were Ram Manohar Lohia, Madhu Limaye, Hari Vishnu Kamath, Hem Barua, Surendranath Dwivedi, Samar Guha, Ravi Rai, George Fernandes and Madhu Dandavate. Barrister Nath Pai was another gem of a parliamentarian who shot into eminence at a very young age and became a major voice from the opposition benches for three consecutive terms from 1957 to 1971. Expert Lok Sabha watchers believe that if one considers overall calibre and level of performance as yardsticks, then the third and the fourth Lok Sabha prove to be the best. The opposition in those days had stalwarts like Hiren Mukherjee, Indrajit Gupta, A.K. Gopalan, Acharya Kripalani, Minoo Masani, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Prakashveer Shastri and many others. Nath Pai rose to great heights as he sought to subject the treasury benches to gruelling scrutiny.
When he made his maiden speech in the Lok Sabha in 1957, the Speaker Sardar Hukam Singh rushed to congratulate him. The Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was so impressed that he invited him to his chamber and told him to use the platform of the Lok Sabha to give voice to the misery of the voiceless poor. It reveals the liberal side of Nehru’s personality which shaped the polity in the formative years after Independence. This incident has been specifically mentioned by Nath Pai’s grand niece Aditi Pai who has authored Nath Pai’s biography in English. Unfortuntely, it is the first book on him in English and it appears exactly 49 years after his sudden and premature death in 1971 when he was barely 48 years old. That such a towering national leader suffered such neglect is itself a tragedy of sorts. Nath Pai, with his brilliance and unparalleled eloquence had achieved such stature even during his first term in the Lok Sabha that Nehru often invited him for breakfast and discussed issues of national importance with the young parliamentarian.
Nath Pai was born in Vengurla and his childhood years were spent in Belgaon where he took his school and college education. His family faced extremely adverse circumstances but his mother Tapibai was a capable and self respecting person who brought up the children on her own. Nath Pai was drawn to the freedom movement and plunged into the Quit India struggle with his young comrades. They indulged in activities which resulted in disruption of communications. Ultimately he was arrested and faced police brutality with great courage.The police delivered kicks with boots on his chest which damaged his heart permanently and gave him angina pectoris at the age of 21.
Nath Pai, like George Fernandes, was a linguist. He had complete mastery over Marathi and English. He was well versed in Hindi, German as well as Sanskrit. He, together with his PSP colleague Prof G.P. Pradhan, would relish reciting soliloquies from Shakespeare’s plays. He was friends with writers like B.B. Borkar, P.L. Deshpande and poet Mangesh Padgaonkar. Deshpande had campaigned vigorously for him when he had first contested the Bombay Assembly elections from Belgaon. Nath Pai was suave and sophisticated in his personal life and believed in observing norms of decency in public life too. Editor and writer Prabhakar Padhye mentions a revealing incident in his tribute to Nath. Union Minister Jagjivan Ram’s daughter-in-law approached Nath Pai with some startling and potentially explosive material about the minister. Since it was of a highly personal nature, Nath gave her a sympathetic ear but politely declined to use the ammunition against Jagjivan Ram in the Lok Sabha. Aditi Pai recalls that when Nath first contested the Lok Sabha election from the Rajapur constituency, he was broad minded enough to praise the good work put in by his rival sitting Congress MP. This sounds straight from a fairy tale in today’s fiercely competitive times.
Nath Pai spent four years in London from 1948 to 1952. He got to witness the welfare regime of the Labour Party at close quarters and was sufficiently impressed by the compassion driven politics of the Labour party. His complete faith in parliamentary democracy too gathered strength during these years. Clement Atlee, the Labour Prime Minister who supervised the Transfer of Power to India in 1947, was fond of Nath and took him under his wings, giving him a role in the youth organization.
One wonders whether Nath though passionate and firm in his commitment was also a naive democratic socialist. In the historic Golaknath case, the Supreme Court had ruled that the basic structure of the Constitution was sacrosanct and therefore unalterable. It gave rise to the controversy regarding the alleged supremacy of the parliament over the judiciary. Nath vociferously argued in favour of the supremacy of the Parliament since it represented the will of the people. Aditi Pai has written a chapter on the famous debate at the Convocation Hall of the Bombay University in which Nath took on and locked horns with the eminent jurist and his fellow Barrister Nani Palkhiwala. Nath almost won the day and carried the audience with his sparkling eloquence. However, one must not forget that his fellow socialist Madhu Limaye, who too was an authority on the Constitution, was not only sceptical of the doctrine of the supremacy of the Parliament but unequivocally opposed it. For Limaye, neither Parliament nor the Judiciary was supreme. It was the Constitution which was supreme and therefore unalterable. This position is logical considering the constant threats posed to democracy and secularism by the state power. During the infamous Emergency, Indira Gandhi cleverly used this doctrine to consolidate her authoritarian regime. Today there is every danger that the present dispensation may subvert the secular provisions in the Constitution to establish a theocratic state with help of brute majority in the parliament.
Nath Pai’s admiration of V.D. Savarkar is surprisingy uncritical. Socialist leaders of Nath’s generation were not unaware of Savarkar’s apology letters to the British as well as his vocal opposition to the Quit India movement and cooperation with the British Government when the entire nation rose in rebellion against the colonial power. Savarkar’s role in the Gandhi murder case needs no further comment.
Yusuf Meherally, a leading light of the socialist movement, died prematurely at the age of 49. Nath Pai breathed his last at the age of 48. His pre-election speech at the Belgaon rally proved to be his swan song and his melodious voice was silenced forever. Aditi Pai deserves a pat for writing a readable biography of this great but largely forgotten son of India.
Nath Pai: Patriot, Visionary, Man of the People
Author: Aditi Pai
Publisher: Shailendra Pai
Available on Amazon; Price Rs 320; pp 181.
(Amarendra Dhaneshwar is a popular and versatile Hindustani classical singer and a social activist, apart from being a columnist for various newspapers.)
