The Pen as My Sword

Title: The Pen as My Sword – Memoirs of a Journalist

Author: K Rama Rao

Publisher: Anamika Publishers, 2015 (First published 1965)

ISBN: 9788179756447

Pages: 424

We have seen many accounts of India's freedom struggle. Politicians are the most ideal to pen down their thoughts and feelings while actually steering the course of events. Administrators and writers too come out with their own versions of the story. A journalistic perspective of things would be different, but it has the potential to bring out the true story since they are forced by profession to watch the events as they unfold. Kotamaraju Rama Rao was an eminent Indian journalist who hailed from present day Andhra Pradesh and worked in many big and small newspapers in British India. His stint in Nehru’s National Herald is noted for his close association with India's first prime minister and to the Indian National Congress. He was briefly incarcerated on a suit of libel. He was appointed to the Rajya Sabha after independence and later joined the government as the in-charge of Five-Year Plan publicity. Rao is associated by kinship and profession to very eminent personalities. Pattabhi Sitaramayya was his uncle. Swami Chinmayananda once worked as a sub editor under him and the former Prime Minister of Nepal, Girija Prasad Koirala, reported to him. This book is the narrative of Rao’s heroic struggles against British authoritarianism and the redeeming of national pride.

Even though there are instances of arbitrariness, Britain allowed press freedom to a large extent in its colonies, which was a replica of the liberties in its homeland. This came in handy when Sir John Simon threatened to punish the Indian newspapers for revealing the secrets of the Commission’s work as it was going around India. A royal commission was indeed bestowed with such powers. But the unperturbed Indian papers casually retorted, citing the example of British newspapers which everyday reveal the secrets of the Cabinet, a much more important body than Simon’s itinerant circus. Except in times of national turmoil, the newspapers were by and large free from the frowns and favours of a foreign power. Things usually took a turn for the worse when protestors resorted to violence, for which no quarter was ceded. Violence provided a perceptible streak in the trajectory of freedom fighting, whatever be the vociferous protestations of ahimsa. Even the author, who is a diehard follower of the official line of the Congress, heaps tribute on the violent protests and goes so far as to remark that it was only the moral or the physical coward who withheld approval of these acts and admiration of the courage of those who perpetrated it.

Reading between the lines, we get a glimpse of the privileged position Congress and its organs enjoyed from the British. This is seen in the case of National Herald founded by Jawaharlal Nehru with public funds as an unofficial mouthpiece of himself and the Congress. Gandhi announced the Quit India Movement in August 1942 and exhorted the people to ‘Do or Die’. That is, either they should expel the British from the country or otherwise die in that effort. He also declared that violence is not taboo when performed in self-defence. The nation erupted into an orgy of violence immediately after the call. The Congress leaders – all of them – were summarily packed off to jails, but the party had not made any provision to maintain a chain of command to guide the agitation from underground. The leaderless masses turned into deadly mobs and indulged in widespread violence like cutting off telephone lines, wrecking railroads, attacks on government buildings and individuals. Memories of the 1857 Mutiny were conveniently re-lived by the regime in administering a brutal clampdown on the populace. Even in the midst of such mayhem, the author’s National Herald continued its circulation with an occasional brush with the authorities who took a lenient view of the whole matter. While other papers in a similar predicament had to close down, National Herald was allowed to function by paying a higher security deposit. The paper could easily do this by inviting contributions from its well-wishers who made money flow like water. Rama Rao mentions that often the collected amount was so many times more than the required figure that the paper could meet its other expenses with the surplus. Even in 1942, when the paper in fact downed its shutters, it was the decision of the management to go into hibernation for a while as Nehru was in jail and Rama Rao was convicted in a libel suit for six months. The paper received wholehearted help and insider information from sympathetic government officials all the time.

Gandhi was well known for the poverty in which he supposedly lived. Sarojini Naidu once wondered at the huge cost incurred by the Congress Party for keeping Gandhi in outward appearances of poverty. But the strange fact was that beneath the veneer of indigence, he commanded immense riches and the most influential people at his beck and call. This book presents two such incidents. Gandhi visited London to attend the Second Round Table Conference and noted thinker George Bernard Shaw called upon him. After the interview, Shaw was driven back home in the private car of an Indian Prince. When he reached home, he was about to show the customary appreciation of a tip to the driver. This was declined by the driver, who was no chauffeur, but the king of a Kathiawar state! Such was Gandhi’s power to summon people from the highest circles of society. Another incident is from 1944 after he was released from prison. It was the 75th birth anniversary and a grand function was organised at Wardha, in which a birthday present of Rs. 75 crores was gifted to him by the disciples, at the rate of one crore rupee for each year. Now, if you convert 75 crores in 1944 to today's money, even the most conservative estimates would indicate Rs. 6000 crores! And such a man always made a fuss of travelling in third class on train journeys.

Rao changed jobs many, many times that his tenure in a paper were sometimes as short as a few weeks. He worked in about 25 journals throughout his career. Even with this wealth of varied experience, his prediction on the future of English dailies was wide off the mark. Rao thinks that except in the port towns and in Delhi there will not be any English newspaper after twenty years of independence. The author did not pick up Hindi even after residing in various towns of the north for about 25 years. This is inconceivable in a person who is in harmony with his surroundings and neighbours. The book sports a foreword by Nehru penned in his final days of earthly life. It also contains a rich reminiscence by the author’s son who was also his private secretary in the early days.

Rao follows a deferential line towards Nehru and exhibits an adoration of Gandhi akin to divinity. Most of the book is the hagiography of these two. Not a trace of scepticism or criticism can be seen in this book. This is understandable as the author could obtain a seat in Parliament and a sinecure in government based on his good relations with Nehru, who in fact seems to have hypnotized our other. Nehru made his first American visit as prime minister in 1949. The Americans soon cut Nehru down to size, but Rao is amazed of their inability to see the truth in foreign policy. Showing off his socialist bent of mind, he declared that the Americans are dangerously immature politically, almost adolescent. This intellectual servitude limits the purpose of the book. The author is not forthcoming and in some areas it looks as if written by a civil servant having a vow of secrecy to honour. The structure of the book is like a journal with a disappointing focus on short-term events. Most parts of the book were orally dictated on the spur of the moment. This leads to shortage of valuable reference links. It has also included a few tips and tricks of the trade for journalists.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 3 Star