Sunday, July 13, 2003		Books

Short takes
The 32 years that left a stamp for centuries
Jaswant Singh

Adi Sankaracharya: The Voice of Vedanta
by Sridevi Rao. Rupa, New Delhi. Pages 63. Rs 195.

THIS book tells the story of an extraordinary personality, a young sanyasi who in his short life of 32 years became a leading exponent of Advaita Vedanta or non-dualist Vedanta, which to this day remains the bedrock of Hindu philosophical thought and the dominant content of the Hindu outlook.

This young man of amazing energy and vitality is known to the world as Sankaracharya. He travelled all over India, meeting kindred souls, debating, reasoning with people and infusing in them his own passion and vitality. India of his day was beset with various interpretations of the Vedas and Upanishads, given by sadhus and gurus of different sects and cults who all claimed allegiance to the Vedas but preached divergent philosophies and practices.

He strove to synthesise these diverse currents and build out of them a unity of outlook. He was a unusual mixture of philosopher, scholar, reformer and an able organiser. He established four maths (monasteries), almost at the four "corners" of India, at Sringeri in Mysore, Puri on the east coast, Dwarka on the west coast and at Badrinath in the Himalayas. He brought about a unity of thought all over the country, destroyed dogmas and added to the sense of national unity and common consciousness. His maths have encouraged the concept of a culturally united India.

Sankaracharya rose on the philosophical horizon of India in the eighth century, when Hinduism and Buddhism were both on the decline—Hinduism because of certain degrading practices that had crept into it, and Buddhism because of its other-worldly approach. Sankara’s campaign infused new life into Hinduism and put an end to Buddhism as a religion of the masses. Soon Hinduism was to absorb it in its fold.

This man of remarkable energy was born in Kerala and travelled incessantly all over the country. He died at Kedarnath in the snow-covered reaches of the Himalayas. The book tells in brief about his life, his philosophy, travels, reform movement and the way he re-established the Hindu identity. In a brief life of 32 years he did the work of many long lives and the influence that his personality has left is evident even today.

Kazi Nazrul Islam: Freedom’s Poet
by Sumanta Sen. Rupa, New Delhi. Pages 72. Rs 195.

This is the story of a Bengali poet whose popularity and general acceptance come next only to Tagore’s. While Tagore’s poetry has a romantic tinge laced with appreciation of nature, Nazrul became popular as a poet of the people who raised his voice on behalf of the deprived masses. No wonder, he had to face persecution, even imprisonment.

Even at the peak of his popularity, this poet of the people had to face want and indigence, which remained part of his life right from his childhood. His father died a pauper when he was a child and he had to fend for himself at an early age. In and out of school through the kindness of different people, young Nazrul joined the Army at the age of 18. As a Havildar, he wrote his first published poem, Mukti, which appeared in a Bengali journal of Calcutta (now Kolkata). At the end of World War I, the Bengal Regiment, which he had joined, was disbanded. When he started his own journal, Dhumketu, Tagore, realising Nazrul’s power to influence the masses, sent a message urging the publication to "shock those into awakening who are still unconscious". But it was as the editor of Nabajug (New Age), a publication started with help from A.K. Fazlul Huq, who later became Chief Minister of Bengal, that Nazrul voiced the plight of the workers and peasants. The paper was banned. After that he did a fair amount of creative writing, which earned him fame but not fortune. It was in this period that he launched Dhumketu and for the first time raised the demand for ‘full freedom’. He was sent to jail for a year, charged with sedition.

His marriage to a Hindu girl with the consent of her mother caused uproar among the Hindus as well as Muslims. In the late twenties of the last century Nazrul was attracted to the world of music. He sang his own songs, with music set by him. He set to music more than 3,000 of his songs, many of which still remain popular in Bengal as Nazrulgeeti. On July 9, 1942, in a radio programme, his tongue twisted and he lost his voice, never to regain it. In 1972, he was sent to Bangladesh on the request of the Bangladesh Government. On August 29, 1996, this poet of the people died in a Dhaka hospital and was given a burial with military honours. While giving a gripping account of the poet’s life, the author regrets that not much is being done in India to keep alive the memory of this remarkable man, whose poetry remains a powerful element of Bengali literature.