The Calcutta Review/Series 3/Volume 16/Number 3/Apology of Ajax
THE APOLOGY OF “AJAX”
Babu Ramananda Chatterji is angry with me. I am not surprised. Nothing hurts so much as inconvenient and unpalatable truth; even a melancholy puritan brooding over the evils of the Calcutta University cannot be indifferent to it. “What is mere sport for immortal gods is sin for an ordinary mortal”, says a Bengali proverb. Babu Ramananda protests with becoming severity that he is not a superman, but evidently he claims the privileges of immortal gods, for he will have one law for himself and another law for others. He will not accept responsibility for the editorial notes published in the editorial columns signed by T. D. and A. C., but he holds Dr. Henry Stephen responsible for an article contributed by me, though Dr. Stephen deliberately excluded it from the editorial pages simply because I had the audacity, or the indiscretion, to use the first person plural in the heading, and in the body of the article. Mr. A. C. (Ashoke Chatterjee) has also committed the same indiscretion, but what is sin for me is evidently mere sport for Mr. Chatterjee. The Editor of the Modern Review cannot afford to have the same law for himself and his opponents. If a contradiction is sent to his magazine, he exercises his right of reply, and then abruptly closes the controversy, but when convenience demands he can give two replies in the Manashi and publish a third in his own columns.
“It is a common trick of controvertialists to put into the mouth of their antagonist things which he has not said and then controvert these quite easily.” Where in my writing did Babu Ramananda find trace of such trick? I challenge him to point out a single passage in which I have fathered on him opinions even of his most trusted paladin. I never wrote of the inconsistencies of Babu Ramananda but of the Modern Review. I cannot claim the wide and long journalistic experience of the Editor of Dasi, Pradip, Prabasi, Modern Review and Welfare, but even “tiros in journalism” know that every respectable and responsible journal has a well defined editorial policy, and though fairness demands that views in conflict with that policy should not be shut out, the editorial columns are reserved for the expression of the particular view or views advocated by the journal itself. My article was originally intended for the editorial columns of the Calcutta Review, but as the Board of Editors had no time to examine it, it was published as a contributed article. Lack of time did not permit any change in the heading or language of the article. Babu Ramananda boastfully declares : “As our contributors have not been dragooned into saying exactly what the editor desires there is naturally some diversity in their opinions” and further he pretends to believe that “even those who flatly contradict us may be wholly or at least partly right.” Babu Ramananda seems to have undergone a complete transformation for there was a time when those contradictions to which he had no reply to give were unceremoniously sent back, if legal convenience permitted it. One such contradiction was sent back to Dr. Surendranath Sen through Mr. Charu Bandopadhyaya. A spirited criticism of the Modern Review’s attitude towards the Calcutta University from the pen of such an impartial educationist as Dr. Nareshchandra Sengupta was published after considerable mutilation. But convenience now demands that he should explain away the lack of editorial policy from which the Modern Review suffers.
Babu Ramananda’s contempt for masked men is amusing indeed. He has long enjoyed the company and confidence of Viueve, Inside View, A. B. C., Apollonius Bengalensis and Kalapahar. He has helped these men with their masks and once he forced one upon an unfortunate victim. After a masked man had made an attack on M. K. G. son of J.C.G., the latter sent a signed contradiction for publication in the Modern Review. Mr. J. C. G. says that he gave his full name and address, but the pious and honest Editor of the Review forced a transparent mask upon him without consulting his wish or convenience. Masks do not necessarily hide sinister motives. If the highwayman wears a mask, a harmless Pierrot or a Columbine also finds it useful. My readers must have perceived that I am nothing but an innocent Pierrot out for a little fun and amusement which the frailty of some grey-headed and grey-bearded persons sometimes affords.
To persist in errors is a privilege of old age, but to clear the atmosphere of suspicion and gloom is equally the duty of youth. Babu Ramananda triumphantly demands—“May we also enquire why a few years ago a certain Englishman was appointed a professor of an oriental language and used to draw Rs. 500 a month without doing any lecturing or other work?” The Englishman in question was Col. Ranking who had translated a well-known and important Persian work into English, and served as a Lecturer in Persian at Oxford before he was employed by the Calcutta University on a salary of Rs. 500. It is an absolute lie to say that he did no lecture work. His lecture hours were not shown in the time-table because he did not stay in India during the summer months. “It is true that these questions were asked more than once in previous issues of the Modern Review without eliciting any reply.” The reason however is very simple. Babu Ramananda often refused to publish the contradictions sent to his journal, and there is no wonder that the defenders of the University did not care to waste their time in writing a contradiction which they feared would not be published. Moreover, they have their professional duties to perform. University scandal serve to fill up the gaps in his editorial pages which Babu Ramananda may otherwise find difficult to fill up, but Ajax finds it to his cost that a contradiction deprives him of his hard earned leisure.
As for the University Minutes, the analogies given by Babu Ramananda are not on all fours with the matter under discussion as he himself admits. Yet he gives them. The reason may be two-fold; either he knows that his case is hopelessly bad, or he wants to deprive his readers of two columns of good reading matter. I still repeat that Minutes are available in the market and had he been seriously desirous of getting them he could have secured them after the Senate Meeting by sending a reporter. But it was only a handle against the University, and not its Minutes that he sought. Babu Ramananda knows that the Statesman by its superior journalistic enterprise secured a copy of the Report before it was released by the Senate. Had the University favoured a friendly journal, common sense points out that it would not wait for publication of the Report in the Statesman. But it is futile to expect common sense in an uncommon man. Babu Ramananda was once a school master, and like his famous prototype though vanquished he will argue still. He forgets that the onus of proving a charge falls on the party bringing it. Can he place before the public an iota of evidence that any editor got this report from any body connected with the University before it was made public property? He says that no paper acknowledged its indebtedness to the Statesman. They were simply following the example of the Prabasi. An article on the tame gorilla, Jolin Dalton, was translated from the Literary Digest by a sub-editor of the Prabasi, and published in its columns without any acknowledgment. Such journalistic enterprise is not unknown to Calcutta. Babu Ramananda glibly talks of bringing to light official secrets forgetting that while the University is absolutely defenceless in such matters the State can adequately protect itself by suitable legislation.
Babu Ramananda gives an additional reason for an increase in the sale of University publications. I have no quarrel with him. The book-sellers have a well-organised Association and they are all of them shrewd men of business. If they find their transactions with the University unprofitable they would not wait for Babu Ramananda’s advice. What probably hurts him most is that the University, which has so long been on the brink of bankruptey, has not broken down as yet.
Babu Ramananda protests that he “never said that the Calcutta Review has not published any good article of academic value.” I am quoting below what he did say and let my readers judge whether I have done him any injustice. “A University is undoubtedly justified in spending something for an organ which publishes original papers of academic value and serves in addition the purpose of a bulletin. But there cannot be any justification for a University to throw away money on a magazine which makes the publication of serial stories and other kinds of light literature and commonplace popular illustrations some of its main features.” My knowledge of English is limited and may be defective, but I thought that there was in the above lines a clear implication which the venerable editor now denies. But he works in a wonderful place, away from his office and library where he can easily place his hand on the back numbers of the Calcutta Review, but where the back numbers of the Prabasi are not available. He triumphantly quotes from an announcement “that short stories, poems, portraits and cartoons besides articles of general interest, and fine Indian paintings will be a special attraction.” As a matter of fact only two cartoons and only one serial story were published in this Review, I may tell my readers here why the University found it necessary to have an organ of its own. A few years ago Babu Ramananda and some of his friends organised a campaign of lies and falsehood against the University. The University found it difficult to place its own case before the public, and it was decided to publish University News and Notes. This decision, if I remember correctly, for I am also writing away from any Library, met the approval of the Senate and even got the blessings of Babu Ramananda. But it was pointed out that mere Notes and News will have no customer, and the Calcutta Review was acquired to ventilate the views of the University and its defenders. Since then there has been a remarkable change in the public opinion. The University has a Journal for learned papers not likely to appeal to the general readers. Old age is proverbially oblivious and Babu Ramananda’s memory is conveniently short. The Calcutta Review (Nov. and December, 1923) complained about the desertion of three teachers—one of these was M. K. G. If Babu Ramananda turns over the pages of ‘the corresponding number of the Prabasi he will find the comment I have referred to. M. K. G. was not mentioned there by name, but so far as I remember a general comment was made and, as a clear reference was made to the remarks of the Calcutta Review, I am entitled to make the inference I have made. It is really amusing that Babu Ramananda claims credit for making known the achievements of the abler teachers of the University. Every shrewd Editor has to advertise the achievements of his reviewers and contributors particularly when they are not paid.
Finally, Babu Ramananda beats his splendid record by alleging that I admitted that the “University is controlled by vested interests and cliques.” All that I did was to express my agreement with a general principle that cliques should have no control over the University and I still adhere to it. Every democracy is ruled by a small executive with the support of the elected representatives of the people. If there is absolute unanimity in the Syndicate, the executive committee of the University, its critics attribute slave mentality to its members, if there is a difference of opinion, the majority is condemned as a clique! But an old man and a puritan is so fond of his own views, and so convinced of his own infallibility, that I cannot expect to convert him. A thief may repent on the cross but not a pedantic puritan.
Babu Ramananda “regrets very much that these trivialities have occupied so much of his space.” But I feel convinced that his contempt for a masked man is only assumed when these “trivialities” are given the place of honour in the editorial columns. I have brought some serious charges against Babu Ramananda and I believe that he has been guilty of wilfully defaming the fair name of the University and widely disseminating falsehoods. If I have done him any injustice I am prepared to render him full satisfaction. I shall tear off my mask, though it is one of harmless silk, as soon as he seeks legal redress. His solicitors will get my name and address if they apply to the Secretary, Calcutta Review. I again repeat he has made unfair attacks upon his alma mater, he has suppressed truths from what intentions he alone knows, and has done all that he could to prejudice the cause of higher education in Bengal.
“Ajax.”