Historian and writer Uma Maheswari shares selected excerpts of a speech delivered by Sir. C.P. Ramaswami Aiyer in 1942 about Sree Narayana Guru, his teachings, and caste reforms.
Uma Maheswari
The 94th day of remembrance of Sree Narayana Guru falls on 21st September 2021. Exactly 80 years ago, Sir C. P. Ramaswami Aiyer, the then Dewan of Travancore, delivered a speech on this great social reformer, emphasizing his contributions to the nation. The speech reveals the depth of reverence he had towards Gurudevan, and throws more light on Sir C. P.’s views on the caste and caste reform. These excerpts are taken from the September 1942 issue of Travancore Information:
“Which country in the world, which great faith can surpass; I do not wish to be understood to be making invidious comparison and I deliberately choose my phrases—which faith can surpass ours? There was a time of the Vedas when men awoke to a new consciousness of nature and natural forces. Which were deified and propitiated by sacrifice. Thereafter came the speculations of the Upanishads far reaching and daring. Then came the Buddha, going counter to many of the cherished beliefs of the people around him, working against the doctrine of sacrifice which was the main thing asserted, glorified, emblazoned in the Vedas, preaching a new doctrine of compassion and of Karma and deliverance and yet India hailed him as a Jagat Guru and an incarnation. Then again came the great Jaina teacher Vardhamana Mahavira who expounded the doctrine of Ahimsa to an almost over the accentuated extent, but who again was no respecter of past beliefs.”
“Let us recount the names of those daring men who throughout the history of India and of Indian religion have ever broken new ground, have ever ploughed up the old field and implanted new seeds which bore new, fresh and glorious crops? After the speculations of the Upanishads and after Buddha and Mahavira there came many faiths. Coming only to medieval times what do we find? We find Sankara, rigid in his logic, ascetic in his outlook, exacting and intellectual almost to the severity. Side by side with him were Ramanuja and the great Thenkalai Alwars, whose methods and approach were so different and who were also acclaimed great teachers. In Bengal, there was Chaithanya who trod the paths of mercy and loving kindness. Then came the faiths which sought to unite Hinduism with other cults, the outpourings of Kabir, the faith of the Sikhs, the Brahmo Samaj, the Arya Samaj and Sree Ramakrishna Paramahamsa.”
“You may turn whichever way you like, new men have arisen suited to the new times. They have preached new ideals, started new methods of enquiry and religious practice, new forms of thought, and belief and aspirations, but they were in the lineal descent of those great seers who saw and having seen produced what we delight to call the Sruthis and Smruthis.”
Sree Narayana Guru’s place
“Sree Narayana Guru was among those seers and teachers whom this country has never failed to produce when the society needed them. He came into the world at a time when there was that inevitable reaction which follows upon a crisis in the life of every nation and race. About the time he was born, India was passing through one of those sloughs or quagmires when life around was stagnant. He lived until he was 72. He was born near Thiruvananthapuram, and established his first Ashram a few miles from Thiruvananthapuram, and shifted to Varkala and Aluva. His influence was felt in many parts of the country. The lives of such saintly men, the life of all such reformers seem, to all outward appearances, lacking in events. They do not adopt hysterical moods or attitudes. They live apart from other men until the time comes when they extend their active and sympathetic help to all men. Such was the life of Sree Narayana Guru who realized himself and the needs of those around him. Of the two species of gospels, the gospel of withdrawal within oneself and the gospel of going out of oneself to help one’s fellow creatures, the latter gospel appealed to Sree Narayana Guru as it appealed to Buddha, Ramanuja, the great Alwars and the great Saivite Saints.”
One Religion, One Caste
“His main contribution was the affirmation of one religion and one caste. He was born at a time and in a country where, as Swami Vivekananda said, the manifestation of caste spirit had outrun all that could be tolerated and had become something which was difficult for the people to understand or to justify. Born in such a country and born in such environments he devoted himself to the task of breaking down those barriers and uniting the people around him.”
“His work was slow, imperceptible and sometimes conservative to his followers. When the Vaikkom Satyagraha was on, his followers urged him to take a formative and dynamic part in it. But he preferred to follow a path of stillness and quiescence thinking that the process of time would cure the ill. A message to this effect went from him. He was not a daring reformer in the outer sense. But his message went deep into the hearts of the people. And a religious message or a social message is judged by the fruits of its reaction on the people.”
“The community to which he belonged and the community for which he worked has realised his mission. It is one of the few communities which have really been more closely knit because a man like Sree Narayana Guru lived amongst them. They have come together, they have learned to live together and they have learned to act together. There have been backslidings and there have been difficulties. But I hope that the community will never give up what it has learnt from the message and life of Sree Narayana Guru. Not only that community but other communities may take a lesson and make themselves coherent and vital, uniting, assimilating and absorbing all that is good and acting in union, for in union is strength”.
Quoting the French scholar and Nobel Laureate Romain Rolland on Sree Narayana Guru in his Life of Ramakrishna, Sir C. P. said thus: “It might be said that he was a Gnani in action, a great religious man who nevertheless based his religion on intellect and who had very vivid sense of the requirements of the people and their social necessities. He has contributed a great deal to the uplift of the depressed classes in South India.”
A Builder of the Temple
“To have earned that praise, to have earned it so totally, so completely as Sree Narayana Guru did is to have achieved for himself a niche in that great temple which India has been building patiently, continuously, through the centuries, a temple which stands for tolerance, a temple which stands for the glorification of the things of the spirit over things material. That temple will never be completed. It will go on being built as long as humanity is evolving. That temple we shall have to add to, in our generation. We shall not allow it to fall into ruin, by neglect, by callousness or by inaction. Sree Narayana Guru was one of its great builders and his is an example not only to the people of the state, but to the people of India who cannot but realize that he belonged to the lineage of our authentic teachers and who should learn to appraise the value of all his message and translate it into practice.”
Vitality of Belief
“Throughout the history of this ancient land there has been a vitality of religious and social belief, and it is untrue to say that there has been stagnation, intellectual, social or moral, in the country. This country on the other hand has been alive and will continue to live, notwithstanding that many parallel civilizations have not been so fortunate as ours has been.”
Source:
- Travancore Information, October 1942.
About the Author: Uma Maheshwari S. retired from the Office of the University of Kerala, and is the official biographer of Uthradom Thirunal Marthanda Varma, Heir Apparent of the Travancore royal family in his time. She is a historian of Travancore who bases her studies on the cadjan records of Travancore housed in the State Archives. She is the author of 9 books. She can be contacted at umakeralam[at]gmail[dot]com.
