AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

        In these dastardly days of Quota Raj standards are dismissed as elitist, mediocrity is proclaimed from all public platforms as the sacred norm, vulgarity is publicly honoured by all political parties as true authenticity, physical intimidation is substituted for intellectual argument at the highest levels of Governance in New Delhi, and our non-descript Prime Minister finds himself impotent to prevent the continuous debasement of public discourse on all vital national issues of life and death. All the instruments of the STATE - I mean our criminally oriented EXECUTIVE, our debased and debauched JUDICIARY and above all our LEGISLATURE democratically filled with some of the greatest criminals in world history—have been totally paralyzed and sunk to a nadir of progressive helplessness to arrest the leap towards national death. The desolate abstraction of the levelling process will continue to proceed unrelieved by even the smallest elements. In order that everything should be reduced to the same level, it is first of all necessary to procure a phantom, a monstrous abstraction, an all-embracing something which is nothing- a mirage  and that platform is the public. This disastrous situation in India today can only be described appropriately in the words of Soren Kierkegaard: the public keeps a dog to amuse it if there is someone superior to the rest, perhaps even a great man, the dog is set on him and the fun begins. The dog goes for him, snapping and tearing his coat-tails, allowing itself every possible ill-mannered familiarity until the public tires, and says it may stop. The public is unrepentant, for it is not they who own the dog-they are only subscribers.

        When I was plagued by such dark and dismal thoughts about the present condition of India, I had the good fortune of coming across a recently published book called Raj Orators authored by Dr B G Tandon, formerly Professor and Head of the School of Studies in English, Vikram University, Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh. This book contains the speeches of eminent Indians during the Raj days starting from Raja Rammohan Roy (1772-1833) delivered in 1833 to Shyama Prasad Mookerjee (1905-1953) delivered in 1937. When bandicoots and armed dacoits are placed in the highest positions of authority today with the full benediction of legal authority, we have to turn to these pages of Tandon's book to escape from the emasculating political atmosphere of pseudo-secular mafia of quota raj. Tandon has rendered great national service by remembering and acting upon the immortal words of the great American poet Lowell:

        They are slaves who dare not be, In the RIGHT, With two or three Tandon in his short preface has stated as follows: English speeches of eminent Indians during the British Raj are a mine of hidden treasures containing history, political thought, biographical material, and above all golden literature. But ironically, they are sucking dust in the obscure recesses of libraries, old bookshops, archives, museums and in the newspaper stack-rooms. It is an exigency of the moment to dig them out of this unmerited obscurity and, as Hamlet would say, 'to report them aright to the world'. The present work is an attempt in that direction Tandon has gloriously succeeded in his sacred attempt.

        Tandon has considered and presented the speeches of 18 eminent predecessors of Mahatma Gandhi. They were all born nearly a generation before his birth in 1869. Historically speaking, they were born between the Battle of Plassey in 1757 and the uprising of 1857. Raja Rammohan Roy, the first to be included in this survey, was born fifteen years after the Battle of Plassey in 1872. Kasinath Trimbak Telang (1850-1993), the last to be considered among the predecessors of Mahatma Gandhi, was just 7 years old when the uprising of 1857 broke out. Apart from the speeches of Raja Rammohan Roy and Kasinath Trimbak Telang, the great orations of Dwarakanath Tagore (1794-1846), Ram Gopal Ghose (1815-1808), Michael Madhusudan Dutt (1824-1873), Rajendra Lal Mitra (1824-1891), Dadbhai Naoroji (1825-1917), Kristo Das Pal (1834-1889), Keshub Chunder Sen (1838-1884), Mahadev Govind Ranade (1842-1901), Womesh Chunder Bonnerjee (1844-1906), Budrudin Tyabji (1844-1906), Rash Behari Ghose (1845-1921), Pheroze Shah Mehta (1845-1915), Ananda Mohan Bose (1846-1906), Surendranath Banerjea (1848-1925), Romesh Chandra Dutt (1848-1909) and Lal Mohan Ghose (1849-1909) have been brilliantly presented with critical comments, each speaker being placed in his historic time and context.

        These 18 great predecessors of Mahatma Gandhi had learnt two lessons from the times in which they lived. The first was the futility of armed revolution. They had known it from the experience of their countrymen that a violent revolution against the British could not succeed. They were all in fact coerced into non-violent resistance.

        Later with Gandhi, this technique was perfected based on higher and sounder moral principles. The second lesson was the realisation that the fallen India needed Western rationalistic outlook for her national rejuvenation.

        In Tandon's opinion, the appellation of The Best, as far as the style of oratory in concern must go to Michael Madusudan Dutt (1824-1873), whose speeches were pure and powerful literature. He handled English Language as no Indian has ever done from the arrival of the Englishmen on the Indian soil till date, says Tandon.

        He calls Surendranath Banerjee a splendid orator. Surendranath Banerjee's eloquence recalled the sonorous thunders of William Pitt, the dialectical skill of Fox, the rich freshness of illustration of Edmund Burke and the keen wit of Sherina. Dr. Sachidananda Sinha (1871-1950) paying his tribute to the eloquence of Surendranath Banerjee, whom he knew very intimately, said: Dignity, elevation, lucid exposition of complicated facts, sustained and fiery declamations, impassioned apostrophes, the power to touch the emotions making the hearers laugh and weep as occasion may demand rallying battle-cries, and the thunderbolt of invective, and not merely meek-spirited, dull, prosy sermons. Such was the soaring eloquence of Surendranath Banerjee.

        Ram Gopal Ghose (1815-1868) was a man of versatile interests. His speeches covered social, economic, educational and political reforms. His most continuing obsession was female education. He spoke against the racial discrimination of the British Rulers in India and incurred the displeasure of Government. The speeches of Dadabhai Naoroji (1825-1917) were always focussed on the problem of British-Indian relationships. He believed in the British sense of justice, in the civilizing power of the English system of education, in the British contribution to the establishment of law and order in India and many other benefits that flowed from British rule.

        Mahadev Govind Ranade (1842- 1901) was a powerful orator and for many years was Secretary of the Indian Social Conference. He spoke on a wide variety of subjects social reform, religious reform, educational reform, political reform, history and culture. Womesh Chunder Bonnerjee (1844-1906) was the first President of the Indian National Congress in 1885. Tandon says that he could not hypnotise the audience by the witchery of his words or by the flow of his eloquence, but he could cast a spell on the intellect by the substance of his thought and the logic of his argument. Clarity, conviction and confidence were the virtues of Womesh Chunder Bonnerjee's oratory. He spoke like a successful advocate rather than an over-powering genius.

        Apart from Mahatma Gandhi, the speeches of all the other well-known freedom fighters like Bal Gangadar Tilak (1856-1920), Bipin Chandra Pal (1858-1932), Motilal Nehru (1861-1931), Madam Mohan Malaviya (1861-1946), Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902), Lala Lajpat Rai (1865-1928), Gopal Krishna Gokhale (1866-1915), Rt. Hon. Srinivasa Sastri (1869-1946), Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das (1870-1925), Sri Aurobindo Ghose (1872-1950), Bhula Bhai Desai (1877-1946), Sarojini Naidu (1879-1949), Chakravarthi Rajagopalachariar (1879-1972), Subash Chandra Bose (1897-1945), Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891-1956), Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964), Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888-1975) and Shyama Prasad Mukherjee (1905-1953) have been presented in an ordered manner making it very easy for easy consultation and reference.

        Here are a few flashes from the speeches of these great and forgotten sons of India: The millions of Indians are dumb. But the press gives them a tongue Kristo Das Pal (1838-1884).

        Again and again has India asked: 'which way lies salvation? In the dim past, it was the obstinate questioning of the individual soul. In the living present it is the tortured cry of the Soul of India Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das (1870-1925).

        'I advise you to be faithful to your party, but always put the nation above it' Rt. Hon. Srinivasa Sastry (1869-1946).

        'I have no doubt that after all the political scoundrels temporarily catapulted to positions of high authority in New Delhi and the States are dead and forgotten,' Tandon's book will continue to be read by coming generations with great interest. What the Government of India and the State Governments have failed to do in the last 59 years after independence, a private publisher in New Delhi called 'Ane Books India' has done it for the lasting benefit of the mute and helpless millions of India who are kept in a state of continued ignorance by our unscrupulous politicians.

        To conclude in the beautiful words of Mahadev Govind Ranade (1842-1901): With buoyant hope, with liberated manhood and with a faith that never shirks duty, with a justice that deals fairly to all, with unclouded intellect and with all her powers fully cultivated, renovated India will take her proper rank among the nations of the world and be the master of the situation and of her own destiny. This is the cherished home. This is the Promised Land. Happy are they who see it in distant vision, happier those who are permitted to work and to clear the way on to it and happiest those who live to see it with their own eyes and tread upon the holy soil once more.