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        My master is Gandhi

        the servant of Ram

        My Guru is Ramana, the living

        presence of Siva

        Siva is the oneself, ekanma,

        Silence — Prof K Swaminathan

        On his return from Oxford, Professor K Swaminathan (K S) rejoined Shri Meenakshi College in Chidambaram which by now had become a part of the Annamalai University, as the Head of its Department of English. K S passionately involved himself in the task of organization of English Studies in the newly established Annamalai University. During this period, he delivered many brilliant University Lectures in Presidency College Madras which were marked by great learning, sound judgement and unsurpassed taste. Apart from being hailed as an outstanding Professor of English in Meenakshi College, K S also won the admiration of his Principal, K A Neelakanta Sastri (the eminent historian) who said: 'I know that his administrative capacity is equal to him eminence in scholarship. There is practically no department of college life which has not been galvanised into brisker activity and taken to higher level by his versatile talent and ubiquitous energy'.

        One of the most fortunate things that happened to K.S during the days of Chidambaram was his meeting with T K Chidambaranathamudaliar (T K C) who was a scholar, critic and connoisseur of all that was best in Tamil literature, music and dance. He had a tremendous cultural impact upon K.S and so much so that he became a great devotee of Tamil language and literature for a lifetime. As K S has stated: 'Originally I used to write only in English', I was afraid to write in Tamil. It was T K C who gave me the enthusiasm and confidence to study Tamil and to write in it. He was not only a friend but a great inspiration'.

        It was T K C who introduced K S to the verses of Guhai Namasivayam on Annamalai, the Holy Hill. M G Shanmukham , a student of K S, was the first to invite his attention about Sri Ramana Maharishi in 1927. However, K S had his first darshan of Sri Ramana Mahariahi at Thiruvannamalai only in 1940. S Guhan has rightly observed: 'The contradiction that K S perceived between the Maharishi and the Mahatma, between the pursuit of individual salvation and socio-political public action was to be a continuing concern. It was not something which could be put aside or passively contemplate: it had to be wrestled with and resolved. This process, as we shall see, was to underlie much of K.S's activities and writings in later years.

        A combination of fortuitous circumstances created by a handful of enlightened Englishmen, who were themselves Professors, enabled K.S to join Presidency College as Additional Professor of English in 1930. He became a legendary Professor of English in that institution during the next two decades. Even today, he lives in the lives and memories of his innumerable students, disciples, followers, admirers and friends as the one and only incomparable Prof. K.S. Indeed for all of them, he was a constant source of instruction, inspiration, practical solace and philosophical guidance at all times. As a teacher, K.S developed a personal relationship with all his students, attending to their individual academic advancement in the best tradition of the Oxford tutor which made one of his very distinguished students Professor Ramaswamy say 'Few of us regretted Madras was not Oxford in name. It was Oxford in fact'.

        All his students remember his impressive scholarship not only in English literature but also in Tamil and Sanskrit. Apart from the range, meticulousness and the loftiness of his scholarship, they recall with pride, nostalgia and affection the infective enthusiasm with which K.S. communicated the beauties of literature to them. K S loved his students and they in turn loved him. Prof.Swaminathan often used to say: 'I am an unabashed communalist. I am partial to my student community.'

        Prof S Ramaswamy was one of the most brilliant students of Prof.K.S. Later, Prof S Ramaswamy also entered the field of teaching and retired as Chief Professor of English, Presidency College, Chennai. He had paid this tribute to Prof K S: 'We enjoyed our classes and, most particularly, the discussions we were allowed to have with him in the classroom and oftener, outside it'. K S as a teacher taught not merely the values of literature but those basic things that matter to life - the values we ought to live by and which, one hopes, the majority of us at least try to live by'.

        Dr Lawrence Sundaram S J was a student of Prof K S and later became a very eminent Professor of English literature. He also served as Principal of Loyola College, Chennai. It is interesting to see what he has written: 'I remember, once, I went alone to K.S to ask him how we should understand and interpret Shelley's Ode to the West Wind. We sat together and read the poem aloud and, for the first time in my experience, he made me sensitive to the orchestrated music, the colour and imagery of this masterpiece of poetry. I had to teach the text of it to my B.A students and I hope they profited by what I conveyed to them. Actually I learnt more from personal encounters with K.S than from his class lectures'.

        In the middle 1930s, coming under the spell of T K C, K S became a well known writer in Tamil by contributing articles regularly to popular journals like Swadeshamitran, Anandhavikatan and later Kalki. He wrote a Tamil Opera titled 'Kattai Vandi' in 1934. It was modelled on Gilbert & Sullivan's 'Gondoliers'. This Opera was staged several times in different parts of India. Many do not know that it was K.S who was the first to recognise the genius of Barathidasan (Suppu Ratnam)— destined to become the Poet Laurate of the Dravidian movement. This happened when K.S referred to him in a talk broadcast over the All India Radio on Recent Trends in Tamil Literature in 1938. He referred to Bharathidasan in these words: 'His poetry is not without its faults: inconsistencies, a tendency to be propagandist, a certain parochialism, caste-consciousness, irreverence that can be an irritant and so on. But none of this should matter. His poems are like the rough kicks of a cow while being milked, or the bees' stings when golden honey is being collected'

        Right from 1920 under the magnetic influence of Mahatma Gandhi K.S became an ardent nationalist. He took to khadi for a lifetime because he thought it was a livery of freedom. During his days in Presidency College, he always used to wear a khadi suit with a khadi tie. One of his students N S Jagannathan has said that English literature in the hands of K S became an instrument of Gandhian subversion, leading the students along the perilous path of passionate nationalism. At the time of Quit India Movement in 1942, K.S organised a meeting of students in Presidency College and made them pass a resolution supporting the national cause. It redounds to the credit of K.S that he made Papworth, the Principal of the College at that time, to participate in that meeting. K.S was promoted and posted as Principal of Government Muhammadan College (as it was then called) in 1948 and he retired from there in 1953. It was during this period that K.S quietly changed the name of the institution to Government Arts College. If any non-Muslim Principal were to attempt the same thing today, many Chief Ministers (particularly from Jammu and Kashmir) would be too ready to issue death-threats to him, tacitly backed by the diplomatic might of the Government of India!

        After retiring from Government service in 1953, K.S worked as Assistant editor of Indian Express from 1953 to 1959. During this period, K.S produced two major translations into English - Vinoba's Talks on the Geetha and the other of Rajaji's Ramayana. It was Vinoba who recommended the name of K.S to Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru for appointment as CHIEF EDITOR of the Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi ( CWMG ) in 1959. K S took up this post in 1960 when he was 64 years old. At that time only three volumes had been published. K.S served as Chief Editor with unremitting toil for the next 25 years and by the time he left New Delhi in 1985, nearly 90 volumes were published. The 100th volume was released by Prime Minister Narasimha Rao in October 1994. K.S saw to it that his name was printed only in the final volume of the series along with the names of all those who had assisted him in the production of CWMG volumes. It was a supreme act of self-effacement by K S. He was honoured with Padma Bhushan in 1972. What Boswell was to Samuel Johnson, K S became to Mahatma Gandhi. The meticulousness with which the writings of Gandhiji have been collected, translated and published would have been impossible but for Professor Swaminathan's (K S) labours. In addition, He established the Ramana Kendra in New Delhi which has done outstanding work to spread the spiritual message of Ramana Maharishi. K S was to Ramana Maharishi what St Paul was to Jesus Christ.

        K S passed away peacefully in Chennai on 19 May 1994. The famous words in which Plato described Socrates - that of all the men of his time, he was the wisest and the justest and the best—seem applicable to him. I would like to conclude with the words which seem to me most appropriate to him - beautiful words which were written about a humble man by a great poet with a very great heart:

        'His virtues walked their ample round

        Nor made a pause, nor left a void,

        And sure the Eternal Master found

        His shining talents well employed'.

        (Concluded)

        (The writer is a retired IAS officer)

        e-mail the writer at

        vsundaram@newstodaynet.com